Word: matsu
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...post-debate speeches Nixon refrained from the ''I will not give up one inch" line and talked of defending Quemoy and Matsu only if an attack was a "prelude to invasion" of Formosa. He got a helping hand from the White House, which said that the President and Vice President agreed "exactly." Kennedy no longer stressed that he wanted to move the Chinese Nationalists out of the is lands, and said he could go along with the "prelude to invasion" definition. There now seemed little open water between the two positions, though undoubtedly there would be many more...
...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...