Practical Matters

GENEVA Practical Matters With a combination of subtlety of timing and complete obtuseness to others' reactions, the Chinese Communists released the eleven captured U.S. airmen on the eve of the Geneva talks, as if to get the talks off to a good start. It was a clever trick, for the meeting in Geneva's Palais des Nations had only two points on the agenda: 1) the release of Americans held captive by the Red Chinese, and 2) "other practical matters at issue between the two sides." The Reds seemed not to realize, or to care, what effect Colonel Arnold's story of torture (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS) might have on U.S. public opinion.

The Geneva talks--in the same building where the Big Four conferred two weeks before--opened in the wake of a transpacific colloquy conducted between John Foster Dulles and Red China's Chou Enlai. The Secretary of State enunciated a principle by which the U.S. would judge Peking's professions of peace. The principle was "nonrecourse to force." Hours later Chou replied in a speech that for him was almost moderate: he called no one a bandit or warmonger. The old demands were reiterated--for U.N. membership and an end to the trade embargo--but alongside them was a hint that Peking might be ready to "enter into negotiations with the responsible local authorities in Formosa." There was no question of Formosan independence, Chou insisted. But "conditions permitting, [the Communists] are prepared to seek the liberation of Formosa by peaceful means." "Peaceful means" was a phrase which Adolf Hitler used when he grabbed Czechoslovakia in 1939, and in Peking's vocabulary, it seems to mean the same thing.

Chou was merely inviting the Chinese Nationalist government to surrender without a fight. Yet Washington decided to put the best face on Chou's remarks. Said Dulles at his news conference: "Chou En-lai's speech went further in the renunciation of force than anything he had said before." Dulles, who had not yet heard Colonel Arnold's story, added hopefully that there was some evidence that the Chinese Communists had"laid their pistol down," and that "it might be possible to clear up now some of these practical matters between us." Knock on the U.N. Door. The man sent to investigate was Kansas-born U. (for Ural) Alexis Johnson, 46, an old Far Eastern hand now serving as U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia. A husky six-footer, Johnson spent half a year in a Japanese internment camp in Manchuria and last year, at the Indo-China peace conference in Geneva, opened the first round of negotiations for the return of U.S. prisoners. Last week in Geneva Johnson faced an old antagonist: Red China's Wang Ping-nan, 47, Ambassador to Communist Poland and a close friend of Chou Enlai.

A solemn little man with hair like an upturned scrub brush, Wang went through the new-style amiability routine on his arrival in Geneva. Smiling and nodding, he posed for photographers, holding a red geranium. He was under orders to whoop up his talks with Johnson into a full-scale conference that, in the words of a Western official, "would make China's knocking on the U.N. door audible throughout the world." Johnson, by contrast, moved in quietly, emphasizing to reporters the official U.S. view: "Remember fellows, this is not a conference, just talks between ambassadors." Preposterous Proposal. Johnson's brief was limited: he was to try to confine the talks to negotiations for the release of American captives held in Chinese jails.

By releasing the eleven tortured airmen the day before the talks began, the Communists momentarily flabbergasted Johnson, but when the talks got under way, Mr. Wang found the Kansan a tough opponent.

At their first session, Johnson insisted that the U.S. must be satisfied on the return of all U.S. civilian prisoners before agreeing to move on to "other practical matters." At Session Two, he produced a list of 40 Americans and demanded their release from Red China's jails. Wang replied with a demand that the U.S. "release" a group of Chinese students detained in the U.S. during the Korean war on the ground that their technical skills (acquired in U.S. universities) might be of use to the enemy. Wang seemed to suggest that the case of the Chinese students was identical--in law and morality--with that of the tortured flyers.

In fact, only 124 Chinese students--out of a total of more than 4,000 in the U.S.--ever were prohibited from leaving the country. Of these, only 76 have shown willingness to return to the Chinese mainland, and 35 of them have already gone.

The remaining 41, says the State Department, are now free to go.

To ensure the students' "release," Wang suggested that a "third power"--possibly India--be appointed as referee. It was a deft piece of effrontery, for by admitting third power inspectors as Peking's private eye, the U.S. would in effect repudiate the authority of Nationalist China's consulates and accept Red China's claim of jurisdiction over all 117,000 Chinese in the U.S.

Up to Peking. At his third meeting with Wang, Ambassador Johnson turned the Chinese offer down flat. This time it was Mr. Wang who appeared to be flabbergasted. The Chinese delegate stumped out of the conference room and conferred with his Communist advisers, one of whom spoke with a marked Harvard accent. A short while later, the talks were recessed for four days.

It was now up to Peking to figure what other face-saving formula it could find for releasing the American civilians, if it really was in earnest about getting to the "other practical matters."

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