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- Parte de Dean Acheson Papers, Princeton Seminars Files
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OCR Page 1 of 207/23/53 - Wire 2 - P. 1
ARCHIVES& "NATIONAL RECORDS
ADMIN
C. I asked thether you were for-what your own perplexities and thoughts were in regard to
the S ituation of the American Governmentenif Formosa vent to the wes thinicing
not so much in regard to the belligeral or military defense situation as strategic import-
to the
ance of Formosa n.s legards/diplomatic question==what we vere going to do next in this
Q.
.dominent and unchallenged Communist regine in China.
DA. I have now independent recollections about our discussions at that time- recall Phil
Q. I remember a discussion which is pertinent to this which t ook place a little later-II
think it was either in February or March-wat that time it seemed to us that ?
what
the question thich had been put to the Joint Chiefs vas perhaps not direct question. The
question that was put to then in December, in October and December, had really been whether
they thought the strategic importance of Tormosa was sufficient to varrant the use of
military forces in its defense.
Q. What you were really asking him, in other words, was from their point of a
strictly military point of view-wif they wanted to use force.
DA. That's right. And so we went back to them, and we askred them a different question.
We said, just assume for a minute that from the political standpoint the loss of Formosa
would have such spreading repercussions around the World, that we from a political decision--
we make a political decision--that it is of the utnost importance to defend Formosa. Now,
not being asked to veigh the importance of Tornosa, all you are now being asked is to tell
us whether you can make the forces available to defend it. We went over and discussed
this matter with the Joint Strategic Survey Committee, I remember, one afternoon--I think
there exists a r ecord of this discussion in policy planning staff. They took the view
they finally change in the question==they took the view that even if we
were to come to a political decision that this was of the utnost importance and warranted
everything we could do to defend did not see how they could mokre the forces avail-
able without upsetting their general energency war plank-tho commitment of the
Q. It seems to ne the actual processes of defending the base in Formosa turned out in the
end to be not an overwhelmingly difficult task given the relative balance of nature forces,
just as tion a tactical matter--I don't want to discuss the wisdom of it--but as a military
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