Chapter 29 Chapter 28 Eisenhower ordered to show strength in the Taiwan Strait, the Communist Party and Chiang Kai-shek can't figure it out

When Eisenhower ordered to show his strength in the Taiwan Strait, not only the Communist Party but also Chiang Kai-shek couldn't figure it out. (North Carolina-Washington, August-September 1958) Eisenhower spoke afterwards of what a terrible year he had had in 1958.He described 1958 as "the worst year of my life".Years ending in eight always seemed to be his unlucky years, he said.In 1918, he said, he missed World War I.In 1928 he was in Paris writing a guidebook which gave him a feeling of a standstill in his career.In 1938, his last year in the Philippines, he had some tough fights with MacArthur and feared that he would never be able to leave the islands and this man.In 1948, he retired from the army to become president of Columbia University, feeling lost.In 1958, he suffered a heart attack, weathered a series of international crises and a recession, and found himself regularly at odds with his key foreign policy aides and Congress...

The crisis in Jinmen and Matsu in the summer and autumn of this year refers to one of the international crises that he has survived this year that caused him a lot of headaches. On August 23, the CCP shelled Jinmen on a large scale, and the Kuomintang and the Communist Party broke out in a fierce artillery battle in Jinmen.It was August 25th in the Western Hemisphere when he got the news.He was in a bulletproof shelter deep underground in the mountains of North Carolina.He was participating in the annual "Operation" exercise under the horrors of a nuclear attack.At that time, the government held exercises every year in order to prevent the event of a nuclear attack and maintain its functions.As the head of state, of course he also took the lead in participating in this exercise.He was in the command center of the bulletproof shelter, surrounded by state-of-the-art electronics.

Secretary of State Dulles gave him a report: the Kuomintang has been increasing its troops to Quemoy and Matsu recently, reaching as many as 100,000, accounting for one-third of Chiang Kai-shek's total troops; the day before yesterday, the CCP began to bombard Quemoy.Eisenhower asked: "How is the battle going?" "Physical damage from the artillery fire was minor, although reported casualties were substantial, including the loss of three senior general and deputy commanders on the island," Dulles said. Eisenhower asked: "Do the Communists want to land and take Quemoy and Matsu?"

Dulles said: "I don't think they want to launch a landing, because intelligence shows that their assembled forces and amphibious landing capabilities have not yet increased to the level of attack. I expect that the Chinese Communist Party will impose a blockade on these two islands in an attempt to make The defenders were trapped and starved." The issue of the two small islands of Quemoy and Matsu has been very difficult for Eisenhower in recent years. In 1955, when the United States dispatched transport ships to carry the Kuomintang troops to withdraw from Dachen Island off the coast of eastern Zhejiang, Eisenhower asked his subordinates to put pressure on Chiang Kai-shek to withdraw from Kinmen and Matsu together, or to leave only a symbolic defender.He believed that Taiwan should be treated as a separate political entity and cut off from the mainland; and Chiang Kai-shek insisted on retaining these small islands, which was contrary to the intention of the United States.When the two sides signed the "Mutual Defense Treaty", the United States assumed the obligation to defend Taiwan in the form of a treaty out of temporary needs.However, Eisenhower was very dissatisfied with Dulles' promise to Chiang Kai-shek to defend Quemoy and Matsu during the signing negotiations.Chiang Kai-shek has been brooding about this and has always been dissatisfied.On March 22, 1955, when Chiang Kai-shek received American journalists, he said that for those allies (the United States, of course) who had deceived him at the Yalta Conference, they would now "give up some more locations from his previously reduced jurisdiction." "Expressed indignation, and claimed that "our troops will not retreat from the outer islands under any circumstances."When the United States asked Chiang Kai-shek to reduce the garrison from Quemoy and Matsu, he deliberately increased the garrison.As a president who came from a military background, Eisenhower heard that Chiang Kai-shek had placed 100,000 troops in such a small space, which made him vigilant against Chiang Kai-shek's attempt to draw the United States into the Chinese civil war at any time.Although it was agreed in the "Mutual Defense Treaty" that Chiang Kai-shek's actions against the mainland must require the consent of the United States; however, experience told him that the Orientals are very cunning; he was worried that Chiang Kai-shek would plan some trick to involve the United States in the Chinese civil war.

He had just listened to Dulles' report and learned that the CCP was not yet ready to land; he felt that shelling was a threat, and the way to deal with threats was to respond with threats.He said: "I think it is advisable to show strength and deliberately disclose some of our actions to strengthen our forces in the Taiwan Strait." Eisenhower ordered two aircraft carriers from the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea to sail through the Suez Canal to join the Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Strait.After giving the order, he said: "We strengthen the deterrent force of the United States in the Taiwan Strait, not to support Chiang Kai-shek's counterattack on the mainland, but to prevent him from losing Taiwan. I would like to remind everyone again that the Orientals are very cunning."

At that time, Dulles also advocated that the United States should issue a strongly worded statement to deal with the CCP’s bombardment; while Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Twining advocated adopting a policy of showing strength and “making it impossible for the Communist Party to guess”.The reason is that the United States can neither promise to use force to defend every reef that the Kuomintang calls "coastal islands," nor can it clearly state which islands the United States will defend. Doing so is tantamount to encouraging the Communists to occupy the remaining islands.After listening to the opinions of both parties, Eisenhower advocated that the United States should not only keep the Communist Party from guessing, but also keep Chiang Kai-shek from guessing under what circumstances the US will support him. Only in this way can he restrain his active attack on the mainland and make him act cautiously .

Returning to Washington on August 29, Eisenhower also authorized the use of the Seventh Fleet to escort Nationalist transports trying to reach the islands through the Chinese blockade.He also took special care to instruct that no warship be allowed to come within the limit of three nautical miles. Therefore, before the escort began on September 6, the United States consciously showed off its power in the Taiwan Strait, and assembled an unprecedented number of troops.The strength of the Seventh Fleet on the sea has increased sharply. There are actually seven aircraft carriers, three heavy cruisers, and forty destroyers.Several batches of aircraft from the 46th US Patrol Air Force, the 1st Marine Corps Air Force and other units have been transferred to Taiwan and the Philippines respectively.The first batch of 3,800 US Marines has landed in southern Taiwan, and follow-up troops will follow.Dulles himself later said it was the largest build-up of troops in American history.

When the Seventh Fleet formed to escort the Kuomintang transport ships on September 8, the PLA artillery group fired at them. Even if they did not hit the US warships, they hurriedly dropped the Kuomintang transport ships and slipped into the open sea. When Mao Zedong did not show weakness and did not make mistakes, the Americans were discussing what to do next?Dulles advocated the use of tactical atomic bombs to attack the CCP airport. The declassified documents of the United States show that the US Air Force also cooperated in formulating a plan to use strategic bombers to bomb Xiamen Airport with atomic bombs from Guam.In this regard, Eisenhower had a headache and was unable to make up his mind.

Eisenhower had the honor of being at the center of some major events in the twentieth century. In World War II, the Allied forces landed in Normandy on the "Overlord" campaign; in 1953, he ended the Korean War, which the Americans could not win; His reputation has been evaluated as "almost at its peak".He likes the position of the president, where he can have the greatest impact on major events.He likes to make decisions, mainly because he is very confident that he is the best decision maker in the country. He believes that Dulles' idea of ​​using the atomic bomb is extreme and very bad. If the United States uses nuclear weapons to attack the CCP, it will risk the Russians using nuclear weapons to retaliate. Khrushchev has already expressed his warning to Eisenhower in the form of a letter .When he was distressed by this, he received Zhou Enlai's statement on September 6 calling on China and the United States to resume ambassadorial negotiations.Dulles responded with a threatening statement; he vetoed it to "revise."Although Zhou Enlai's statement called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Taiwan, Penghu, Jin, and Ma, he also instructed to approve the resumption of ambassadorial talks.Zhou Enlai proposed to change the venue of the negotiations from Geneva to Warsaw. Eisenhower also thought it was possible, and did not care about moving the venue from a neutral country to socialist Poland.

On September 11, Eisenhower delivered a radio speech, indicating that the United States was willing to seek a peaceful solution through negotiations with the CCP. Although he stated that he would "never retreat under the threat of artillery fire," he told the whole United States: "I will not fight for the Golden Gate." Ask the boys of America to fight."