Word: matsue
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Spiked Spearhead. Meanwhile, the U.S. had diplomatic difficulties of its own in the form of a thorny negotiation with Chiang Kai-shek over the evacuation of the Tachen Islands. Last September the U.S. decided that the islands of Quemoy and Matsu were not militarily vital to the defense of Formosa. Later, as a condition to giving up the Tachens, Chiang demanded a public U.S. promise to defend Quemoy and Matsu. Politically, this was a reasonable condition, for with the Tachens gone, the other islands, as well as having tactical value, would become a test in the minds of free Asians...
Three times the U.S. was on the point of announcing that it would defend Quemoy and Matsu, but at the last moment Dwight Eisenhower, to soothe British fears, vetoed it. He thought U.S. intentions were already clear enough "to make certain that no conflict occurs through mistaken calculations on the other side . . . We have been as exact as it seems possible...
...line" theory must take into account activities on the other side of the line, such as pre-invasion troop concentrations and other threatening actions. With this in mind, the President has suggested that action might be taken if the Communists attempt to seize the key islands of Quemoy and Matsu. But he has not made this policy explicit, and to a certain extent has opened United States planning to the very charges of vagueness which it is now trying to avoid. For this reason, another clear statement, defining the limits of our interests in the so-called "outlying areas...
...During the days of the united front in China (1938-39) before the Stalin-Matsu-oka pact, my husband [George Fitch] went to Yenan from Chungking with Chou Enlai...