Word: formosae
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...prevailing American attitude is that any help to Formosa, military or economic (beyond the present ECA program), would be a mistake because it would build up the Nationalist government, again identify the U.S. Government with it, and thereby contribute to the Nationalist return to the mainland so ardently opposed by our State Department...
Close Call. Consider the U.S. position on Formosa after Truman's statement: the senior U.S. representative was Consul General and Chargé d'Affaires Robert Strong, a State Department career man of modest reputation. The senior military representative was an Army lieutenant colonel assisted by a staff of three other officers and barely enough enlisted men to answer phones, drive staff cars. Not one of the military men had the rank or authority to provide the liaison so urgently required with the U.S. Seventh Fleet...
...planes appeared over Formosa's west coast. They were reported as strange aircraft because the Nationalists had not been informed that they were coming. Nationalist fighters took off to intercept them. A moment before they would have opened fire, they recognized the U.S. markings on the planes. At Tainan, where the American planes came in to land, Nationalist ack-ack crews learned only at the last minute, and then from their own pilots, that the "strange" planes were American. Had the identification come a few seconds later, the crews would have fired on the U.S. planes...
Most responsible Chinese here are fully aware that Washington and the Seventh Fleet have a war on their hands and other things than Formosa to think about. Nevertheless, they have reasonably requested clarification here and in Washington of Truman's rather cryptic cease-fire orders to Chinese forces, and with notable patience and forbearance have tried to learn what is expected of them by the Seventh Fleet...
Just Relax. In the early course of these inquiries, the Chinese were told in all seriousness that there would be no problem of communication or plane identification since the Seventh Fleet would stay completely away from Formosa. Incredulous Chinese officials pointed out that planes from a U.S. carrier would surely at some time or other approach the Formosan coast. What if a U.S. plane were in trouble far from its carrier-would it ditch at sea rather than land on Formosa? The American attitude remained: you boys just relax, you'll never see Seventh Fleet ships or planes...