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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (June 26, 1962)
4 A MmFORDi'wrRiBUNi Everyone in Southern Oreson Reaiii The Mail Tribune Published Daily except Saturday by MEDfOnD PRINTING CO 33 North FlrJSt, PhJ12-Sll ' ROBERT W RUHL, Editor HERB GREY Advertising Manaser C.EHALD 1 LATHAM. But. Mgr. ERIC W ALLEN. JR . Mne. Editor EARL H ADAMS. City tittm 11ARRV CHIPMAN. Tle. EJItor RICHARD JEWETT. Sporta Editor OLIVE S rARCHF.R. Women1! Editor DALE ERlCKSONCirculBlion Mgr. " An Independent Newspaper Entered ai aecond clasa matter it Medlnrd. Oregon, under Act of M,rch 3. 1897 SUBSCK1PTION RATES Bv Mail In Advance. Copy 10c Daily and Sunday 1 year 1' 00 Daily and Sunday 8 moa. SO0 Dailv and Sunday 3 moa. 410 Sunday Only One yl M By Carrier In Advance Medford, A.hland. Central Point. I 1 : I e Point Jacksonville. Gold Hill. Phoenix, Shady Cove. Rogue Riv er Talent and on motor router Daily and Sunday 1 year 18 00 Dailv and Sunday 1 mo. 1.50 r-rrli nrt Dealera Copy 10c All Terms Cash in Advance "official Paper of City of Menrord Official Paper ot Jackson County ' UnitedPresa International Full Leased Wire V P 1 Telephoto Newsplcturea ""MEMBER OF AUDIT BUREAU AHvprtia.ns Representative: NELSON ROBERTS & ASSOCI ATES. Officei In New York. Chi caao Detroit. San Francisco. Los Aneelea Seattle. Portland, Denver NEWSPAPER BLISHERS ASSOCIATION NATIONAL EDITORIAL 5& A S)CTIN Flight o' Time Medford and Jackson County History from the files of The Mail Tribune 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 years ego. FLIGHT OF TIME 10 YEARS AGO Plans to bring television to Medford during the Republic an and Democratic National conventions fell through with the announcement that techni cal difficulties would make the project virtually impos sible. Authorization for construc tion of the new union term inal building at the Medford municipal airport received from Civil Aeronautics admin istration. 20 YEARS AGO June 26. 1942 (Friday) Bureau of census report shows average Orogonian paid $10.03 a month for rent during 1940. From Arthur Perry's "Ye Smudge Pot" column: "The weather is appercntly doing nothing to pears but making big ones out of little ones. Po tatoes are reported to be suf fering the same fate." 30 YEARS AGO June 26, 1932 (Sunday) Chandler Egan, Medford, holds five up lead in semi final opponent after 18 holes In Pacific Northwest Golf as sociation tournament in Port land. National Democratic party convention nominates New York Gov. Franklin D. Roose vclt and Speaker of the House John Nance Garner for presi dent and vice president. 40 YEARS AGO June 26, 1922 (Monday) Temperature reaches 108 in Medford, one degree below all-time high set in August, 1820. Medford realtor offers to turn Rogue valley ranches over to persons who will use a portion of crops grown to pay tor the property. 50 YEARSAGO June 26, 1912 (Wednesday) Democratic party nominates Woodrow Wilson for presi dent on 4(Hh ballot; Gov. Thomas R. Marshall of Indi ana nominated for vice presi dent What's Your I.Q.7 Nine or ten correct it superior; stven or eight ii excellent; live or six is good. i. .uno the piulcsslunal football team that plays for Baltimore. 2. Dried coconut meat, from which coconut oil is ex pressed, is known us what'.' a. What is an unusually larRc or fine crop called.' 4. What Asiatic country once held a mandate over the Marshall, Caroline and Mariana groups of Pacific is lands? 5. Does the State of Ha waii have one, or two, mem bers in the U. S. House of Representatives? ti. Ill which city is the Bas tille? 7. In what war did the bat tle of San Juan Hill occur.' 8. Who wrote under the pen name "Uncle Remus.'" B. In what scientific field is the name of Lee DcForest prominent? 10. What body gets between the moon and the sun to cause a lunar eclipse? Answers: 1, Colli. 2. Copra. 3. Bumper crop. 4. Japan. S. One. 6. Paris, France. 7. Spanish-American. 8. Joel Chand ler Harris. 9. Wireless tele phony. 10. The earth. TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 1962 Whither WallStwrt "A bull market will be sweeping along and then something will happen trivial or important and first one man will sell, and the continuity prices is broken." That's Bernard B. sudden market breaks, migrations of birds or the mass performances of whole species of ocean eels. Figuratively speaking, Baruch's "first man" started selling in late November, when the bull market which had been building since September, I960, reached its peak. But no real sell-off came then. The sharp break came in mid-March, when Baruch's "first man" and the "others" got to sell ing in earnest. There followed four major set backs; three minor rallies. THE culmination on May 28 saw $20.8 billion in paper profits taken out of stock values in one day. It was trie widest one-aay snue since Oct. 28, 1929, when the Dow-Jones industrial average had dropped 38.33 points. The slump on this year's Black Monday was 34.95 points in the Dow-Jones averace. The trading on May 28 was the highest since July 21, 19339,350,000 shares. Almost 16,500, 000 shares had been unloaded on Black Thurs day, Oct. 29, 1929. From Dec. 13 through May 28 the Dow-Jones average dropped 157.98 points. The drop in the first stage of the 1929 crash, Sept. 3 to Nov. 13, had been 182.48 points. BUT now comes what appears to be a miracle. Af ol-innf nnftll Matr 90 rtlrr invpafnrc Gllfrrprl into the market in search of bargains. The volume of sales, 14,750,000 was the second highest in history. The Dow-Jones average rose 27.03 points on the day. Shares on the New York Stock Ex change appreciated by $14.7 billion in paper value. One finanical writer called it "the most fantastic recovery in modern history." What happened had many of the classic aspects of the end of a bear market. The Me morial Day holiday gave investors an opportunity to reflect; time is a useful antidote to panic. I UST as price declines tagious, so a sudden may be, especially such May 29. But previous apparent selling climaxes had been reached on the on May 1. On the bullish side are corporation earnings reports for the first quarter of 1961, many of which set new records: If unemployment is high, so is employment. rrocluction continues to build except in spotty areas like steel. Detroit is begin ning to speak of a 7-milIion car year, which would be the second highest on record. Normally perhaps as much as one-third of all common stocks are held by such institutional in vestors as banks, insurance companies, college endowment funds, mutual funds, pension funds, and profit-sharing trusts. Many of these moved up banKers-iooK stocks, Services, a $1 billion outfit, is reported to have put $20 million into the market on May 28 and 29. Other 1929-1962 diilerences are too numerous to detail; it suffices, perhaps, just to express prayerful thanks that they do exist. E.R.R. Red China's Red China uses boundary disputes to raise or lower international tension just as Premier Khrushchev manipulates access to West Berlin for a like purpose. Right now, Chinese Com munists are tuniinir up the heat along their border with Kashmir while damping flames along their border with Nepal. Nepal and Red China in 19G0 engaged in a brief spat over claims to Jit. Everest, which strad dles the Nepalese-Tibetan border, but the matter was settled by boundary treaty last October. Ac tual demarkation of this boundary will begin at the end of June, with Chinese and Nepalese teams erecting one hundred pillars along the boundary at points where misunderstandings had been possible. CUC1I evidences of accommodation arc viewed with suspicion in India, which thinks the Oc tober treaty gave Red China some territory to which it was not entitled. Nepal is the buffer state which shields India's heartland, the Ganges Valley, from Communist China. During recent months, India has charged Red China with "repeated encroachments" upon In dian territory in the Ladakh area of Kastern Kashmir. New Delhi maintains that Kashmir is part of India, but Peking has refused to recognize Indian sovereignty over the disputed area and, in fact, has agreed to negotiate part of the Kashmir border matter with Pakistan. Pakistan of course welcomes the Red Chinese position and relations between the two nations have become so cozy that there is now talk of pos.-ihlo economic aid' from Peking to Pakistan. What it all adds up to is part of the Chinese enigma. Put it looks very much like a squeeze play on India, designed 'to sfaiin relations be tween the Indians and the neiirhborinir govern ments of Pakistan and sell and then others will of thought toward higher Baruch's explanation of which he likens to "the are self-feeding and con- restoration of confidence a massive one as that of long way down, notably into the market to pick investors uiversitieci Boundaries Nepal. K.R.R. w t w HP task ; ' I IffSfi' COMMUNICATIONS Letters to the Editor must bear the although under certain circumstances the use of a pen name or initial for publication is permissible. The Mail Tribune reserves the right to edit all letters with j view to clarification and condensation. Letters submitted for publication must not exceed 400 words. The letters printed in this column do not necessarily represent the views of the paper; In fact the contrary is often the case. Under Pressure To the Editor: Congress is now under terrific pressure to pass the President's Trade Bill. Kennedy and his white House staff of "Onc-World- Welfare-State" Fabian Social Strictly Personal By Sydney J. Harris (c Field Enterprises Inc. TERM OUTDATED About a quarter-century ago, W. H. Audcn, the British poet, termed the 20th century "The Age of j?f Anxiety." The J phrase took li hold; in fact, y Leonard Bern- j stein titled his symphony No. 2 "The Age of S A n x i e t y " J when he com n n c n rl il in llarla 1949. I think the term is outdated. In the last half-dozen years, we have gone beyond the Age of Anxiety, and we have en tered the Age of Schizophre nia, Our personalities are no longer merely disturbed they are split, from top to bot tom, among the leaders and the people. To me, the most obvious and appalling evidence of this schizophrenia can be seen in the hydrogen bomb testing by both sides. The split between what we know and what we do was badly and accurately summed up by Ambassador Lall of India at Geneva this spring, when he said: "It will be of no help to the future to say that the purpose of further testing was a 'search for security.' No security can be found in this way and the lead ers of both sides have said so. The leaders of both sides have said that there can be no security through the per fection of weapons of mass destruction." Ambassador Lall contin ued: "This is such a basic contradiction that it tre mendously increases the ap prehension of the world. Obviously we are standing near a very dangerous prec ipice if the very countries which announce that they cannot find security in the development of weapons still go ahead and develop weapons of mass destruc tion further and further." What George Orwell called "Double Think" in his satire, "1!)R4," has come to reality 20 years earlier than he thought. In their speeches, both President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev agree that atomic war would bo suicide, that no nation could be the "victor." that was as an instrument of national pol icy is no longer feasible. I Nevertheless and "never ! theless" is always the sign ot I schizophrenia both countries i are going ahead with the jspiraling arms race, both are ; testing, both nre preparing j furiously for "defense" in a war which cannot be defend ed It is the ultimate irony i that all we can auroe upon is that everybody will lose. ' If an individual behaved that way, he would promptly be placed in a mental institu tion. But when nations be , have as irrationally, their 'sanity is hardly questioned -i and those few who dare to question it are branded as j lacking in "patriotism" The world, as Balac grimly pre dieted, is becoming an insane I asylum run by the inmates. name and address ot the writer. ists want this dictatorial power over our tariffs more than anything else. The situ ation is desperate for this na tion. Here's why: Since the Reciprocal Trade act was passed in 1S34, tar iffs on foreign imports have been reduced 80 per cent, making U.S. tariffs among the lowest in the world. Still furthering of tariffs will accel erate the tortent of cheap la bor goods already destroying American industry by pouring into American markets. More and more American employ ees will be added to the army of unemployed. Relief bur dens will push taxes up at the same time income is go ing down. The fire of infla tion will be fanned, eating mercilessly into our savings and the fixed incomes of our retired old folks. And after the nation has been fatally weakened, the Harvard "Experts" surround ing President Kennedy will offer the only "logical cure"- incorporation of our once su premely strong and glorious nation into a World Govern ment already being called "Euramerica." Fifteen NATO countries signed the "Declaration of Paris" last January, so Eur america is not just specula tion. It is to be a Super Gov ernment which would have a monopoly in heavy arma ments, including nuclear wea pons. It would absorb all U.S. Armed Forces. Its World Court would issue "Decisions" superseding our own deci sions. (There goes our Con nally Amendment). It would put the United States into an economic, political, and mili tary straight jacket. It would j strip us of our national sov-i ereignty, and abolish U.S. in- j dependence. i The Onc-worlders are j pushing proposals that would j give this "new nation" the power to levy taxes, issue currency, regulate commerce, set standards of social services for all member nations, and to accept other nations, pre sumably even Communist na tions, as members. The Com mon Market is the nucleus around which this new "Super Nation" will be built. Presi dent Kennedy's Trade Bill would be our first and fatal step into the trap being set for us. Folks. "Euramerica'' is not your America. II is a death trap for our country. Every alerted citizen should imme diately write, wire, or phone his Congressman to oppose this monstrous, "grab- for- i power" President's Traoe Bui. L. C. Powell .116 SE Eighth st. Grants Pass, Ore. Finding A Haven To the Editor-When people get old, they start, as a rule, i to think about where the soul lis going to find its haven. ' when the body stops to func i tion. That is. the religious ' person docs, whether be be a j Christian. Mohammedan, or what. Now it so happens that I am neither, but for 50 years or more I have taken great , interest in scientific subjects, i astronomy in particular and anthropology in general. 1 can recall reading Haeck el's (Earnest Ilaeekel. a Ger man scientist. lS;t4 l!119) "The Riddle of tlie I'niverse" back in 1904. It made a very deep impression on my mind. In fact, it destroyed my belief i in a lot of religious supersti i Hon w hich I might have har j bored before. i Recently 1 have read a cou ple of the latest books out on astronomy, one. "Pie ; Changing Universe" and the other. "Our Fmeriins I'm- 1 verse.'' They tell of billions MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE, MEDFORD, OREGON Quemoy, Matsu Island Flare Ups Can Be Counted On in Two-Year Cycles By PHIL NEWSOM UPI Foreign News Analyst The story of the Nationalist held Quemoy and Matsu is lands off the Red Chinese main land can be counted up on to flare up in roughly 2 y e a r cycles. The Reds car ried out their first heavy bombardment of Quemoy in 1954. In 19S6. I Newsom c o I n c I ding closely with a visit of Vice President Richard Nixon to Formosa, there were ominous reports of feverish Red activ ity, including the construction of a strategic railway into Amoy and of 10 new airfields opposite Formosa. In 1958, spurred by reports of a further Red Chinese build up and Peiping radio broad casts that a "landing on Que moy is imminent," the United States placed the 7th Fleet and the 5th Air Force on alert and began escorting National ist supply ships into Quemoy. Welcome for Ike In 1960, the Communists welcomed a visit by President Eisenhower to Formosa with a massive bombardment of Quemoy, labeled by the Pres Washington Report By William to United Feature Syndicate JUDGING A NATION Washington - If a man is known by the company he keeps, may a nation be judged by the kind of trou ble which "?V really stirs it the most? The 2 kind of trou- " ble whicli we allow to con cern us most a r g ues little for the wis dom of our choices and even less for the maturity of our judgment, the perceptiveness of our discrim ination and depth of our na tional understanding and com passion. For what seems clearly most of all to bother us will not be the possibility of nu clear war that could destroy the world. Rather, it is the possibility of a recession that could at worst compromise our prosperity, reduce all profits and eliminate some, of burning suns In far off space, of exploding galaxies: stars and universes in their death throes, and stars and universes being born. Where a person reads such matter, if he is a religious character and cannot shake his belief about a future life, it is bound to make him think something like, "How far will I have to travel when I leave this world?" Now, some of these galaxies are 60,000 light years away off in space. Which makes quite a trip. A light year is the distance light travels in one year at the rate of 186,000 miles per second. Imagine that! Of course the Christian's heaven might be located on another planet in our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Even at that, the soul may have a long trip to travel as some of the stars in the Milky Way are many light years ago. The nearest star to our solar system is four light years awav. So that, if our can didate for heaven is going to have a future biologic ex istence similar to that on this earth, on another planet, it is believed by most astron timers that such planets exist in outer space, ad infinitum In other words, in our fa ther's house are many man sions. Which makes me wonder- can it be that there is a hea ven for me too, in spite of the fact that I don't admit I am a sinner? Well, the words of tlie scientist are based on facts, faith. Religion is a blind John E. Ring 1040 West 1Kb st. Medford. Wonders What Bible To the Editor: Your can- I ncd" lead editorial of Sunday quotes Dr. Fred C. Schwarz i as calling himself "a narrow minded. Bible-believing Bap tist." He claims this is tlie j j basis of his anti-Communist j crusade. I I wonder what Bible Dr. ! Schwarz believes. 1 can find no place in my Kinc James j Bible where God promised to serve America or freedom of the Western world from Com munism. Most orthodox teaco ers believe Communism will be defeated at the battle of A m a g e d d o n. The Bible : teaches the present World Or- j der will be destroyed by God. I It offers men. as individuals. I escape from that wrath. It says nothing about nian-ied crusadv; Parker Bailey ! tiJS B Street i Ashland. Ore. -s4 ..in ident "a deliberately aggres sive act." This history of events in volving the tiny islands less than half a dozen miles off the mainland is recited now in relation to the excitement generated over the last week as result of the latest reports of a Red buildup in Fukien province. These report said the Red Chinese had massed the big gest military force since the Korean War on the coastline opposite Formosa. The forces were estimated at 400,000 ground troops and 300 aircraft "mostly of the fighter type." Early speculation was that the Reds were posing a new threat to Quemoy and the Matsus. Later it was decided that the lack of any visible concentration of shipping meant that the Reds actually were preparing to defend themselves against an inva sion attempt by Chiang Kai shek forces from Formosa. Preventive Measure This later line of specula tion, however, did not rule out a Red attack on the off shore islands as a preventive measure. In early 1955 Eisenhower asked and received from Con gress approval in advance of S. White and put some of our people out of work. rTHESE melancholy reflec tions arise from a column- its's memories of public atti tudes as they were sensed only eight or nine months ago and from the same columnist's estimates of the public atti tudes of today. Then, sober and informed men in Washington were aware, and were saying with little short and private dis pair, that before the last leaves of that autumn had fallen one of two of the most dreadful alternatives in hu man history might befall this country: a tacit surrender, by way of appeasement, to So viet imperialism in Berlin; or a war of unimaginable fe rocity to sustain the integrity and honor of the free world. By luck perhaps-by allied efforts perhaps-but certainly by the grace of providence, this turned out to have been far too gloomy a view. All the same, at the time the pos sibilities then seen were clear and imminent and factually unchallengeable. TUT what was the country's " response? So far as this correspondent could judge, from many conversations with many people and from letters from a great many more, the public in general was by no means deeply exercised. Now, turn forward from last fall to this early summer of the present year. The stock market has undeniably been falling in a distinctly uncom fortable if not indeed in an alarming way. Certain kinds of hard-core unemployment still exists and, for various causes, may be spreading here and there. Lack of economic confidence in the Kennedy ad ministration unarguably ex ists among businessmen and tliis is unarguably bad, just ified or not. Along with all this, how ever, are certain incontest able facts: Industrial production in the last reporting month, May, went to a record high. Auto mobile assemblies rose. So did automobile sales. Output of home goods, of industrial, commercial and farm machin ery and of freight and trans portation equipment, also rose. Total employment was at or near a record high. VOW, none of this is said ' to suggest that everything in the economy is just peachy and that there is no room or need for improvement or for rational and reasonable con cern. Still, the great central truth does remain that even if the business scene were in comparably worse than it is or is ever likely to be, the situation of the people is in finitely better than it was last fa!!. But what do we now do? Do we thank fate and fortune and God that we now stand where we do on life's truly great and mortal issues the preservation of freedom and of peace, if only a kind of peace? No, we could not get very moved in that autumn time when it seemed possible that the whole world might be hroken apart in smoke and flame. But we are dreadfully excited, and generally and excessively worried, now that it seems possible just pos s'ble that many of us may lose some of our luxuries and that some of us might just might lost our jobs for a little while. Can a nation be judged by the kind of thing it permits itself to fear the most? any military measures he might have to take to protect Formosa and the Pescadores in the Formosa Strait. Whe ther this was to include Que moy and the Matsus remained an administration secret. Since then, the Nationalists and the Reds have engaged in Matter of Fact (ci New York Herald AN ISLE HE NEVER MADE Washington - A little more is now knowa about the Chi nese Communists' military build-up in Fukien province, on the Formosa Strait. A very large force of about 400,000 men is now de ployed there, disposed in depth along ihe coast for 120 miles from the Amoy Quemoy area Alsnp northwards. MIG-19 air untis have also moved into the Fu kien airfields. The best hunch, which is all anyone can have as yet, re mains that the purpose of the build-up is primarily defen sive. The reinforcement of Fu kien began in March, consid erably after Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek began talk ing seriously about a return to the mainland this year. The extended Communist deployment from the Amoy Quemoy area northwards has a defensive look, so far as it can be judged, which is not very far. The disposition of the force in depth, from the coastline inwards to the north-south mountain chain that divides Fukien from the rest of China, again looks like a precautionary measure. It could be aimed, in fact, to pre vent a popular rising that might otherwise be sparked by the arrival of Nationalist air-dropped troops on the mainland. NONETHELESS, a great un certainty remains. The Peking government may be exclusively motivated by fear of a landing by Chiang in a time of deep and increasing peasant wretchedness and discontent. But Peking's de fensive plans may all too eas ily include a spoiling attack on the offshore islands in the Formosa Strait, and particu larly on Quemoy. Such an at tack would be intended to throw Chiang Kai-shek off balance and thus forestall him. During the campaign. Pres ident Kennedy voiced the opinion that Quemoy and the other offshore islands were superfluous positions which might well be abandoned. In so doing, it should be noted, the President was merely echoing the view of the late John Foster Dulles, whose fin est feat as Secretary of Slate was the successful defense of these same islands in the Que moy crisis in 1958. The Communists' first at tack on Quemoy was made in 1949, when the Nationalist armies were still in flight to Formosa. Substantial Nation alist forces had tht.i been left behind on Quemoy, Tne Com munist attack, which was ill prepared, was repulsed by the Nationalists with a total Com munist loss of close to 20,000 men. Hence the offshore is lands remained in Nationalist hands; but in the Truman years hardly any troops were stationed on Quemoy, which PS Try and Stop -By BENNETT CERF PARKE CUMMINGS selects these paragraphs from tha prospectuses of three new clubs he scarcely thinks he'll join: 1. Flabbiness doesn't last long at the Casa Blanc Hideaway Club. The 9:30 curfew is strictly en forced, and members arise at the stroke of 5:30. After a 4 -mile cross-country jaunt through the hills followed by a plunge into Dare devils Pool's icy water . . . 2. The Classical So ciety does more than de mand Latin essays of its members at each meet ing. Conversation is car ried on exclusively in Latin, and the waiters understand no other lan guage ... 3. All subscribers to the Platter Club are supplier, each month with a record by each of these outstanding quartets: the Screamers, the Loonys, the Hoopies, the Ja:l Breakers . . . Hetty Green, th tight-fisted lady who inherited a fortune rf fifty million dollars and doubled it without ask-r.g anybouy fori advice, wore the same dress for twenty years, did business fun, her home to save the cost of an office, and usually carried A revolver In her pocketbook. She explained that it wasn't buil4iJ she feared, but lawyers I It was his father's birthday, and 7-year-oM Timothy Oivs-rt insisted on shining his shoes as a gift. Reluctantly Father Ol son, already late for the office, took off his shoes ami hamM them to his son. They were returned in due couisc gltster.ir.i black. "Great work. Tim." enthused the fa'.hr thsn whimpered 13 his wife, "Well, there goes my only pair of brown oxfoi is!" C lSS. by Bennett Ctrl. D...butci by K.ni Feitorei Sinlui'.e a propaganda war involving hot words but little action. Any Nationalist attack on the mainland seems highly unlikely at present. Without U. S. opposition, the Reds un doubtedly could take both Quemoy and the Matusus but at some cost. By Joseph Alsop Tribune Syndicate Chiang Kai-shek then regard ed as indefensible and there fore expendable. THE Dulles-Eisenhower "un leashinp" nf rhlnnn v-i- shek was the signal, however, for a powerful build-up by Chiang of large military fore, es on the offshore islands. This was the origin of Chiang's commitment to de. fend the islands. Secretary Dulles did not impede the build-up; but in the first offshore islands crisis he compelled Chiang to evac. uate the most exposed ot these positions, the Tachen islets. After the second off. shore isla.ids crisis in 1958, Dulles also pleaded with Chi ang personally and sent emis saries to plead for a retreat from Quemoy and the Matsu islands. This is worth recalling, be cause Secretary Dulles also persuaded the reluctant Presi dent Eisenhower to run great risks to defend these same is lands, which he begged Chi. ang to evacuate as soon as they were no longer threaten, ed. In other words, Dulles had no fear of a voluntary with drawal, carried out when the threat to the islands had been repelled. iut he judged that the whole situation in Asia would come to pieces like a rotten melon dropped from a third-story window, if the Chinese Communists were permitted to seize the off shore islands at gunpoint. TY THE TIME President " Kennedy took office, tha Asian situation had deterior ated seriously, because of tha collapse o f t h e Eisenhower policy in Laos and the rising threat to South Viet Nam. This was the somber context of the review of the offshore islands problem conducted by the President in person, with all his highest advisors, just twelve months ago. The ques tion, of course, was whether to try to c o m p e 1 Chiang to evacuate. There was no great likeli hood that Kennedy's pressure on Chiang would succeed where the pressure of Dulles had failed. Chiang might hava been faced with an America: disclaimer of responsibility for the offshore islands, but this would have amounted to an invitation to a Communist attack. In view of the deterior ated Asian situation, a major Asian retreat, or seeming re treat, appeared to be ex trcmely dangerous, for just the reasons that made Dulles take a hard line in the 1958 Quemoy crisis. Hence Presi dent Kennedy did nothing. In consequence, the Presi dent will be confronted witlt a choice like the 1958 choice, if the Communist build-up in Fukien leads on to a third as sault on Quemoy. As already noted, the best hunch still is that the Peking leaders do not plan an assault. But tha possibility oi an assault n quite strong enough to justify analysis of the factors in the problem; and this will be at tempted in a further report. MISTER t
