Accentuating the Positive

The overwhelming congressional endorsement of President Eisenhower's historic message proved, among other things, that men of quite divergent attitudes found in it evidences to support their stoutly held positions. Senator Knowland could see a line drawn and a determination to stand firm in Asia. Premier Chou En-lai denounced it loudly as "a barefaced war cry" and a "brazen threat of agression." But to Britain's Sir Anthony Eden, who has made a fine art of picking out what he finds most useful in others' policies, the key Eisenhower phrases were: "We would welcome action by the United Nations which might...bring an end to the active hostilities in the area."

It was the kind of U.S. declaration Sir Anthony had been waiting for, and working for. To some State Department officials, the President's mention of a U.N.-sponsored cease-fire meant only that "you've got to show sympathy to the idea of stopping the shooting," and they confidently counted on Chou En-lai to reject it.

Inside the Wish. But Anthony Eden saw in it opportunity. By acting as if he were only carrying out U.S. wishes, he could push an idea which he had long quietly urged on reluctant and dubious U.S. officials. In the House of Commons Sir Anthony minimized as nothing new Eisenhower's declared intent to defend Formosa, while emphasizing the references to a ceasefire. "The first concern of Her Majesty's government has been, and is, to stop the fighting," Eden insisted. From the Labor benches burst shrill criticisms. The U.S. proposal is "intervention" in a civil war, snapped 71-year-old Opposition Leader Clement Attlee. If hostilities are to be stopped, "the right thing would be that China should occupy her proper position in the U.N." Another Laborite demanded, with a great show of emotion, that Eden "make it clear" to the U.S. that the British people would not support any move "which would involve us in war with China." * The problem, Eden retorted, is the offshore islands, not the status of Formosa, and he pleaded for patience while negotiations went on.

Mission to Moscow. Already Sir Anthony had moved briskly. At the first U.S. hint of interest in U.N. intervention, he had rushed to confer with the U.S. and New Zealand. As a temporary member of the Security Council, New Zealand was nominated to take the lead. Among them, they agreed that the cease-fire proposal should be limited to the outlying islands; if Chiang Kai-shek and Chou En-lai got to arguing about Formosa, there would be no hope of agreement on anything.

Next Eden sent British Ambassador Sir William Hayter to the Kremlin to see Molotov. Hayter asked Molotov to "urge the Chinese People's government most strongly that they will accept the invitation" to go before the U.N. Security Council, "and in the meantime" asked that the Soviet government "use its best offices and fullest facilities to urge restraint on the Chinese...to avoid any incident which might lead to general hostilities." After a routine tirade charging that the real cause of trouble was "the gross interference of the U.S. in the internal affairs of China," Molotov said he would consider it. (Molotov was more expansive later when visiting Publisher William Randolph Hearst Jr. asked if there might be a local cease-fire to permit the bloodless evacuation of the Tachens. "If Chiang Kai-shek should desire to withdraw his forces from any islands, hardly anyone would try to prevent him from doing so," said Molotov dryly.)

In Peking, British Charge d'Affaires Humphrey Trevelyan delivered a similar plea to China's Chou Enlai, who earlier in the week had said that Communist China "absolutely cannot agree to a so-called cease-fire." Now, Chou made no public reply.

Blue Water Between. At week's end, Sir Leslie Munro, New Zealand's delegate to the U.N., formally asked for a meeting of the Security Council to discuss the threat to peace in the Formosa Straits. And in his constituency at Warwick, Eden spelled out more of what he had in mind. The Communist Chinese "must not think that because they have been in conflict with the United Nations about Korea that the intention is to ask them to give up what they regard as their rights."

Their rights, Eden had made clear, definitely include in British eyes the offshore islands. Other Foreign Office spokesmen sketched in Eden's plan: to yield the offshore islands, including Quemoy, to the Communists in exchange for a promise to let Formosa alone. "What we want is 75 miles of blue water between the two contending parties," said one. Then, with boundaries tidied up and hostilities in abeyance, Chiang Kai-shek could be recognized as sovereign in Formosa, Mao Tse-tung in continental China, and both accorded recognition and eventual acceptance into the U.N. Assembly. This week, Russia announced guarded acceptance of a cease-fire but stated its own opening terms: the U.N. must order all U.S. forces out of the Formosa area. It was a familiar Communist gambit, and it conjured up a familiar djinn: India's Jawaharlal Nehru. Arriving in London for this week's Commonwealth conference, Nehru briskly proposed himself as mediator.

Eden would probably be agreeable. His hope is to project the Eisenhower thesis into a Two China policy--and to make it seem that all the time he was only carrying out U.S. intentions.

* Moving the London Economist to remark: "It is sadly characteristic of the present state of the British public opinion that, when the Americans take just the sort of step towards moderation that their allies have so often asked of them, the only audible response in this country should be a crabbed and jaundiced bickering on the left...If there is renewed war in the Far East, it will be because of Communist aggression and because of Communist aggression alone...To egg the Communists on, as Mr. Attlee is doing, is to work for war."

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