Word: matsu
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...allies in NATO conceived this worrisome ghoul. They are understandably distressed at Nixon's suggestion that Quemoy and Matsu should be defended under any and all circumstances and at Kennedy's call for assistance to overthrow Premier Castro's government. Their idea has been that such matters are at the discretion of the President and of the State Department. Mere candidates in their view should ignore their conventions' proclamations that foreign policy is the most important issue in the campaign. Our allies would prefer, according to Mr. Reston in yesterday's New York Times, that Kennedy and Nixon refrain from...
...Asiatic Fleet from 1936 to 1939, when he was retired. (He was twice recalled to duty in Washington during World War II.) In 1955 the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader queried top-ranking Army and Navy officers, asking: "Do you think giving up the liberty of Quemoy and Matsu would produce peace?" Yarnell was the only advocate of surrender: "To paraphrase Bismarck, these islands are not worth the bones of a single American. Use the surrender of the islands to secure the release of servicemen and civilians illegally held prisoners of the Chinese Communists." Among those who said no: General Claire...
Though the "related positions and territories" clearly referred to Quemoy and Matsu, the names were deliberately omitted from the resolution in line with Secretary of State Dulles' policy of maintaining freedom of action; at the same time, the resolution was aimed at keeping the Chinese Communists at bay, since, presumably, they did not know whether the U.S. would attempt to deter an invasion of Quemoy. "I won't be pressed or pinned down," said Dulles at a press conference, "on whether an attack on Matsu and Quemoy would be an attack on Formosa...
...offshore islands out of the defense perimeter. The amendment was beaten down, 74-13 (Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, both absent, were paired: Kennedy for, Johnson against). In April 1955, Dulles told a press conference that "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...
...more as a nagging reminder of their presence than of their purpose. Over the months, their guns were heard less and less (Eisenhower's visit to Formosa last June occasioned the last big shelling). Though U.S. policy has at times been wobbly as well as ambiguous, Quemoy and Matsu, garrisoned with 100,000 Chinese Nationalist troops, are still free-a fair measure of the power of the bristling question mark that the U.S. has raised for the Communists to ponder...