"We Have Confidence"

Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek, durable ally of the U.S., last week began his second six-year term as President of Nationalist China. For his inaugural address in Taipei he wore a ceremonial long gown; a crowd of 50,000 cheered him and broke police lines. His hearers included some 160 members of the Taipei diplomatic corps.

In the context of the news from Geneva, Chiang hardly needed to describe the colossus that had grown up on the Chinese mainland since the Nationalist flight to Formosa 4 1/2 years ago. But the Gimo did remind the world that his own war with the Chinese Reds has never ended.* He called the existence and swelling power of Red China a "calamity of mankind." How to deal with it? Chiang's solution is also Formosa's obsession: "Recovery of the mainland." For this, he pleaded for arms and moral support from the free world. "We have confidence in our ability to retake the mainland and in the victory of our counterattack."

*Nationalists and Communists have recently fought air and sea skirmishes around the Nationalist-held Tachen islands off the coast of Chekiang, which provide Chiang's forces with a base for harassment of Communist shipping.

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