Word: chiangs
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...forefinger at the Vice President. Kennedy insisted again that he shares Administration views that Quemoy-Matsu is a sore point with the U.S. Cried he, in the one moment of greatest heat: "I challenge you tonight to deny that the Administration has sent at least several missions to persuade Chiang Kai-shek's withdrawal from these islands!" As Kennedy completed his sentence, viewers saw Dick Nixon speak, but heard nothing, for his microphone was off. "I'll do better," Nixon started to say. But then he was cut off by the moderator...
...fall of 1954, five years after the Chinese Communists seized the mainland, they first bombarded Quemoy. The resulting pressures on the U.S. from Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek produced a Mutual Defense Treaty, committing the U.S. to aid in the defense of Formosa and the nearby Pescadores islands (see map). At President Eisenhower's behest, Congress in January 1955 passed the so-called Formosa Resolution authorizing the President to use American forces "as he deems necessary for the specific purpose of securing and protecting Formosa and the Pescadores against armed attack, this authority to include the securing and protection...
...there is no commitment expressed or implied to defend Quemoy and Matsu." The President sent Admiral Arthur Radford, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the then Assistant Secretary of State Walter Robertson on a mission to Taipei to discuss Formosan defenses with their old friend Chiang, and, privately, to try to get Chiang to reduce his Quemoy forces. On that, Chiang turned them down...
...home, the argument went on. Cried former Secretary of State Dean Acheson: "We seem to be drifting, either dazed or indifferent, toward war with China." Under Secretary of State Christian Herter claimed that the offshore islands were "not strategically defensible," labeled Chiang's preoccupation with Quemoy's fate "almost pathological." Into the State Department poured about 5,000 letters, 80% of them critical of Ike's policy. The President went on nationwide radio-TV, declared that the Quemoy attack was "part of an ambitious plan of armed conquest ... I assure you that no American boy will...
...representatives in Warsaw for peace talks (at Chou En-lai's request), international and domestic criticism of U.S. risk-taking over Quemoy grew louder. Pressured mightily, Ike and Dulles hinted that the U.S. was softening its line. At a headline-making press conference in September 1958, Dulles called Chiang's dream of reconquering the mainland "problematical." The U.S. apparently hoped to neutralize both sides on the Quemoy issue by pressing for a cease-fire and large-scale withdrawal of Quemoy troops to Formosa. If there were a "dependable ceasefire" in the area, said Dulles pointedly, "I think...