The Cool Man

Secretary of State Dean Acheson looked trim and cool in a grey tropical suit when he walked into Room 212 in the Senate Office Building last week and faced the Senate committees. For the past fortnight, he had spent every spare minute preparing his case. He read every line of the 1,050,000-word testimony of Douglas MacArthur and of the Administration's witnesses. State Department staffers had been working day & night digging out papers, preparing briefings; they even analyzed the questions of individual Senators for their attitude and special interests.

The Capitol corridors were charged with political tension. "Wait until we get Acheson," the more partisan-minded Republicans had crowed in every cloakroom, as the Administration paraded its military witnesses. Waiting for him in Room 212, Acheson had few defenders: almost to a man, the Democrats considered him a political albatross around their necks. Chairman Richard Russell, who had introduced each preceding witness with a resounding recitation of his achievements, contented himself with a brief comment that Acheson had been Secretary "during one of the most trying periods" in U.S. history.

But once the committee doors swung shut, Acheson's questioners, Republican as well as Democratic, settled into the attitude of grave decision that had dominated the investigation from the start. The Republican members, however noisy the blood cries of their colleagues outside, were courteous, dispassionate and earnestly in search of answers. Often, they avoided pressing partisan advantages.

Even Wisconsin's Joe McCarthy, who bobbed up as a spectator to watch his principal prey under fire, amiably introduced himself when he encountered Acheson in a Senate elevator. "I'm Joe McCarthy," he announced. "I'm Dean Acheson," replied the Secretary, and the two shook hands and had their pictures taken. Later, McCarthy could not resist a sly dig. "Neither of us turned his back on the other," he told reporters. More characteristic was Wisconsin's senior Senator Alexander Wiley, another sharp critic of Acheson, who greeted him jovially with: "Well, Mr. Secretary, you are looking young and handsome this morning."

"I Would Not Wish." For his part, Acheson answered questions in a polite but decisive way, was exceedingly careful not to be clever, apparently having learned that a debater's victory often costs more support than it wins. He had a lawyer's skilled command of himself and his case. He avoided any personal criticism of Douglas MacArthur, pointed out that there had been no differences between them in the administration of Japan,_and on the specific ground of his dismissal, carefully explained: "I would not wish you to think that I am in any way saying that I think General MacArthur would do something that he had been ordered not to do in a military field."

The sharpest interchanges, in a hearing where there were few, came right at the start. California's William F. Knowland, the best prepared questioner on the Republican side, demanded that the State Department release for publication a directive it had sent out in December 1949 declaring that "Formosa has no special military significance," and ordering its missions to combat "the mistaken popular conception of its strategic importance to the U.S. defense in the Pacific."

Acheson argued that it was nothing but "policy information paper" for the guidance of U.S. propaganda efforts and he cited the first paragraph, which read: "To formulate information policy which will minimize damage to United States prestige and others' morale by the possible fall of Formosa to the Chinese Communist forces." Acheson made no attempt to defend what the directive said as the truth: it was just propaganda, and therefore--at least in his interpretation-- permissible playing with the truth.

Chin Up. In the fall of 1949, said Acheson, "it was the clear, unequivocal recommendations of the military services that we could not employ any of our forces for the defense of Formosa [see box]. It was estimated that no amount of U.S. aid short of military occupation and control would insure Taiwan's indefinite survival as a non-Communist area . . . Without U.S. military occupation and control, Taiwan,* like the rest of China, probably would be under the Communist Chinese control by the end of 1950...

"The paper . . . was to minimize the fall which everyone had agreed was inevitable, rather than as an exposition of U.S. policy ... I don't know any other attitude which would be sounder to take than to say keep your chin up, it doesn't matter, this isn't important."

It was drawn up, he declared, on the suggestion of Lieut. General Albert Wedemeyer, author of the long-suppressed China report of 1947. At the time that the "public policy information" paper was issued, Wedemeyer was Assistant Chief of Staff and serving on a committee coordinating Voice of America propaganda with occupation information in Germany and Japan.

Acheson's plea to the joint committee was that the paper should not now be published because "the U.S.S.R. could use it to discredit the information program of the U.S."

Replied Knowland: "I place an entirely different aspect on this document ... I think it is a key document of the foreign policy of this country which led up to the statement of the President on Jan. 5 that the U.S. would give no further military aid to Formosa, and which . . . led up to the situation where the U.S. Government was prepared both to recognize the Communist regime of China and ultimately to turn Formosa over to them."

After four hours' wrangling, the committee decided, by 15-9, that no harm would be done by publishing the letter. Five Democrats, including Chairman Russell, joined the Republicans to make it public. They argued that most of it had been published in the nation's newspapers anyhow (an alert U.P. reporter in Tokyo had reported its content in January). Besides, men like Russell were determined that the committee not leave itself open to charges of suppression of evidence.

There was one other flare-up, but it soon fizzled. Wisconsin's Alexander Wiley, who had got his fingers burned when he tried to compel General Omar Bradley to repeat confidential conversations with the President, edged back to the subject with long tongs in his hand. Acheson likewise refused. "I am under direct instructions of the President of the U.S. not to repeat what was said at these meetings at his office," he said.

WILEY: "Would you claim that what was said . . . would be against the public interest to disclose or against the President's interest to disclose?"

ACHESON : "I wouldn't say either ... I am not trying to analyze the matter, Senator."

Temper & Civility. As the committee got down to the cross-examining of Acheson, a calm seemed to settle over the hearing room. Not in years had an investigation in which feelings ran so high been conducted in so temperate and fair-minded a fashion. Both parties were duly sensitive to political nuances, but even more sensitive to the perilous complexities of the issues they discussed.

KNOWLAND: "At what time and by whom was the Department of State ever advised that [Formosa] was not of strategic importance to the U.S.?"

ACHESON : "The State Department was not advised by the Joint Chiefs of Staff or by anyone that Formosa was of no strategic importance ... I think this paragraph [in the propaganda directive] talks about mistaken conceptions of its strategic importance to the U.S. in defense of the Pacific. There had been a great deal of talk . . . that the loss of Formosa would be catastrophic ... indeed, there have been statements to the effect that if it were lost, the defense of the U.S. would be thrown back to our western coast. That, I think, is not a view which has been held within our Government."

KNOWLAND : "The Supreme Commander in the Far East, General MacArthur, felt rather strongly on that subject, did he not?"

ACHESON : "Yes, sir. When I said within the Government, I mean within the Washington branches of the Government."

The Stiffening. Asked Massachusetts' Leverett Saltonstall: "Has the policy of the State Department gradually stiffened with relation to preventing Formosa from falling into hostile hands?"

ACHESON : "One very important change took place ... On the 26th or 27th of June . . . the Seventh Fleet was put in there ... If that had not been done, I believe Formosa would have fallen . . ."

RUSSELL: "What is the official position of our Government ... on the admission of Red China into the United Nations?"

ACHESON : "We have opposed that . . . and opposed it very vigorously and very successfully . . . We cannot allow governments that want to get in the United Nations to shoot their way in. There are 46 organizations of the United Nations and its affiliated special agencies to which the Chinese might be admitted . . . The question has come up 77 times in these various 46 bodies. The vote has been against the admission 76 out of the 77 ... In regard to one case where the other case was taken, that was [later] reversed."

WILEY: "Does our policy in the Far East now mean we will not surrender Formosa to the Reds and will not stand for Communist China getting a seat in the U.N.?"

ACHESON : "The President has made our policy very clear on numerous occasions, that we are not going to allow it to be taken by force ... In regard to saying we will not stand for their getting a seat in the U.N., I just don't understand the words you use. I have told you that we have opposed the matter . . . that we will continue to oppose it, and that I believe ... we will continue to have the great majority of the nations with us."

WILEY: "Well, of course, out my way when we say we won't stand for a thing, we understand just what that means, sir."

Willing to Suffer. Did Acheson think any of the allies would desert if the U.S. took steps in Korea they opposed? inquired Texas' Lyndon Johnson. "I do not think that anybody would pull out and quit," said Acheson. "... I think they are quite willing, if war is forced upon all of us ... to take all the suffering that that brings on them. But they don't want that terrible catastrophe to fall on them unnecessarily . . ."

What about the allies' contributions to the fighting? "I feel badly," answered Acheson, "when I hear these discussions of the inadequate effort of our allies in Korea . . . The effort which the British are making in Malaya and the French are making in Indo-China if put together is roughly equivalent to the effort which we are making in Korea."

JOHNSON: "Has the State Department ever advised England, if it should recognize Communist China, that the United States would probably follow suit?"

ACHESON: "No sir, that is a complete misapprehension ... We had expressed our views and our views did not change. We were hopeful that they could find it possible to continue to recognize the Nationalist government."

New Jersey's Alexander Smith asked: "Can you explain what troubles many people, and that is the authority apparently we gave our representatives in the Assembly two or three months ago to agree to a cease-fire proposal which included the possible question of the seating of the Communist Chinese in the Security Council and also the question of Formosa?"

ACHESON : "I don't think it did include those, Senator . . . This was merely to say that 'if the people stop your defiance of the United Nations, then you will have the chance to discuss, as you had a chance before this defiance, these questions in which you are interested.' It didn't say that was part of the settlement."

BREWSTER: "Is it conceivable that we could recognize Communist China without admitting them to the United Nations?"

ACHESON : "We certainly could, but... we are not recognizing the Communist authorities in China. We are not contemplating doing it. We are opposed to it."

BREWSTER: "You have never contemplated it?"

ACHESON : "No, we are not contemplating it, haven't contemplated it; we have been against it."

*The Japanese-adopted name for Formosa. The "policy information paper" had instructed diplomats not to call it that.

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