APPENDIX 8

[From the China Post, Apr. 26, 1972]

STATEMENT OF LEO J. MOSER, REPUBLIC OF CHINA DESK, STATE DEPARTMENT, IN THE CHINA POST, APRIL 26, 1972

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: U.S. INTEREST IN ROC DEFENSE UNAFFECTED A State Department official said here yesterday that the U.S. interest in the defense of Taiwan has not been affected by its efforts to improve contacts with Communist China.

Leo J. Moser, country director of the Republic of China in the department, made the remark in a statement before winding up 9 days of consultations with United States and Chinese officials here.

Moser said the United States will continue to cooperate closely with the Chinese Government in the field of military assistance.

The full text follows:

I am very pleased to have had this opportunity to return to Taiwan and exchange views with friends here.

The historic ties between the United States and the government and the people of the Republic of China have been close. They remain so. I would describe our mutual relations as based on four pillars: friendly diplomatic relations; mutual defense; a common interest in economic progress; and shared social values and experiences. I will say a word on each.

FRIENDLY RELATIONS

Friendly relations: Diplomatic relations between our two countries are firm and warm. Relations here in Taipei remain close. Your Embassy in Washington has close and continuing contact with our highest leaders on matters of mutual `concern. In recent weeks official relations between our peoples have, incidently, broadened at the consular level-with the opening of a Chinese Consulate General at Calexico, California and the announcement of plans for another Consulate General at New Orleans and a Consulate at Guam.

Defense: The defense relationship between the United States and the Republic of China is embodied in the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1954. We continue to be closely associated with your government in the field of military assistance. Our interest in the defense of Taiwan has not been affected by our efforts to reduce the dangers of war by improving our contacts with the mainland of China. Our highest leaders have reaffirmed our determination to stand firmly behind our treaty commitments to the Republic of China.

ECONOMICS

Economics: The United States continues to be vitally interested in the strength and progress of the economy of Taiwan. In past years, we provided almost $1.5 billion in economic aid. Since the end of that program in 1965, the American public has considered Taiwan's continued economic growth to be an excellent example of the success of an aid program. Our attitude toward Taiwan's economic future was summed up by Henry Kearns, President of the United States Export-Import Bank, earlier this month, when he said: "The general confidence we have in the future of this country is expressed by us in our willingness to provide very large credits for long periods, and we believe that is more important than words."

Beyond these three specific pillars of our relationship-the diplomatic, military and economic-lies a broad spectrum of shared values and social contact. Our peoples share the same views of justice and freedom. Though we come from different corners of the world, our social and political ideals are by no means alien to each other. This is an important factor in a world torn by fanaticism and narrowly ideological approaches.

COMMON INTERESTS

Our common social interests at the more personal level are also shown by the great number of our people who visit Taiwan-your booming tourist trade is an example, as are high level visits such as that of Dr. David, President Nixon's Science Advisor, who will be here later this month. Many of your people visit our country as well-the large number of Chinese studying in the United States is an notable example of this type of contact between our peoples. As a result of such broad contacts, our peoples know each other well.

Our relations rest on firm foundations. I am confident that these relations will continue to be characterized by close and effective cooperation over a broad area of mutual interests.

85-381-72-19

APPENDIX 9

[From the New York Times Magazine, Feb. 13, 1972]

NIXON'S APPOINTMENT IN PEKING IS THIS TRIP NECESSARY?

(By George W. Ball)

George W. Ball, the former Under Secretary of State, now an investment banker, is a frequent commentator on the political scene

During the palmy days of the Europeon dynasties, kings and emperors, sovereigns of all titles and descriptions, were accustomed to visit one another's courts. Between jousting and feasting, they attended to their family affairs-arranging royal marriages, launching intrigues against rivals, meddling in the management of small neighboring realms and discussing their financial and commercial troubles. Then gradually, beginning in the 15th century, systematic machinery was established to deal with most of this business. Under the leadership of Venice, the Italian city-states established permanent diplomatic missions in one another's capitals, and, with Spanish and French refinements, a modern apparatus for the conduct of intergovernmental business began to emerge, complete not only with permanent diplomatic missions but modern foreign offices, manned by diplomats of professional competence.

Such a system was a logical byproduct of political evolution. When countries were little more than the private estates of their absolute rulers, a king could dispose of the affairs of his kingdom as he saw fit: but over the centuries-and particularly after 1815-the detailed business of making and executing foreign policy was, as Sir Harold Nicolson has pointed out, shifted "from the Court to the Cabinet." The result was impersonal diplomacy practiced through career ambassadors, acting on instructions from professional foreign offices-a system in keeping with the modern age.

Now, toward the end of the 20th century, the United States is moving back toward the medieval dynastic practice. Today even the day-to-day shaping of foreign policy has been largely transferred from the Department of State (the Cabinet) to the White House and its staff (the Court), while the actual transaction of diplomatic business has been, in increasing measure, pre-empted by the President (the sovereign), acting personally or through his Assistant for National Security Affairs. Meanwhile, the Department of State atrophies while ambassadors become messenger boys.

The summit meetings that occur when the President elects to be his own ambassador as well as his own foreign office create special problems. Because no head of a major state can pay a visit to the capital of one country without appearing to snub others, it has become an accepted principle that summitry breeds summitry. Thus, no one was surprised that, once the President abruptly announced his intention to go to China, he found it necessary to arrange visits with Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada, President Pompidou of France, Prime Minister Heath of Great Britain, Chancellor Brandt of West Germany and Prime Minister Sato of Japan, primarily to repair the damage to the extent possible that resulted from his failure to consult in the first place.

That such a flurry of to-ing and fro-ing seems excessive and somewhat erratic is certainly no reason for deep concern. Yet the fact that it was largely made necessary by the trip to China and the further fact that the Chinese visit even more than most summitry-reflects a retrogression toward an outworn medieval practice is enough to raise the famous question of the Second Warld War: "Is this trip necessary?"

Let me make clear at the outset that I welcome our response to the signal from China's leaders suggesting that, for their own reasons, they would be prepared to receive an emissary from the President. Where there are representatives of the United States already in a foreign capital-and that includes our mission to the Vietnamese talks in Paris-the sending of special Presidential envoys is poor diplomatic practice. But in the present instance, there was no practical alternative and Mr. Kissinger was undoubtedly well fitted for the assignment. Not only is he

an exceptionally intelligent man, who has thought deeply about world power relationships, but he knows the President's own foreign-policy concepts better than anyone else, and there is no aspect of Sino-American relations he could not explore with complete competence.

Yet the unanswered question is why the President did not leave it at that. If he wanted further exploration, why did he not send Mr. Kissinger back with additional instructions? Why did he insist on seeking an invitation to Peking for himself? For even though it is sound policy to establish communications with China, the President's trip is, in political terms, a costly and hazardous way to go about it. It is diplomatic overkill, distorting the importance of China in the Far East spectrum and upsetting our friends in Asia.

From the famous meeting at the field of the Cloth of Gold in the 16th century to Woodrow Wilson's catastrophic efforts to make peace by personal diplomacy in Paris in 1919, meetings of heads of state have tended to cause disappointment, mischief and misunderstanding. Certainly, throughout the cold war, conferences between the President and the Communist leaders have been marked by persistent failure. To be sure, President Eisenhower's ventures into summitry evoked momentary spasms of journalistic euphoria, with the "Spirit of Geneva" in 1955 and the "Spirit of Camp David" in 1959, just as a later impromptu Johnson-Kosygin meeting conjured up the "Spirit of Glassboro" in 1967. But like all spiritswhether alcoholic or ectoplasmic-they evaporated in the clear, dry air of reality. Thus, the sad but significant fact is that there has never been an instance in the entire postwar period where a summit meeting resulted in a diplomatic breakthrough. In spite of the President's recent assertion that, in the case of the Soviet Union and China, “which have basically one-man rule," summitry is sometimes a necessity "for major decisions," every significant gain that has been made in the whole area of East-West relations—including the Austrian State Treaty, the Limited Test Ban Treaty, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Berlin Agreement—has resulted from painstaking diplomacy pursued through traditional methods.

That is, of course, an unpalatable conclusion for most Americans, because they like their Presidents to go traveling. It is only natural that people should think of their leaders as their surrogates who solve their problems for them. In fact, in medieval times disputes were often resolved through "ordeal by battle" in which, as a substitute for war, chosen heroes from each side settled international disputes by fighting to the death in full sight of the contending armies.

But underlying the popularity of presidential travel is a widespread misconception as to what foreign policy is all about. In the soggy mythology of this intellectual rainy reason it is too often assumed that nations have no opposing interests or objectives that are fundamental; thus, all the world's peoples could live happily together "if only they could understand one another"—or, through some anthropomorphic transfer, "if only their leaders could talk to one another." It is a sad comment on human vanity that such a pathetic thought often finds resonance with the leaders as well-particularly those convinced of their own powers to charm or persuade. For, if all that is needed is for chiefs of Government to practice "person-to-person" diplomacy and engage in homey "heart-toheart" talks, one does not have to worry about such squalid matters as maintaining "power balances" or "spheres of influence" or any of the other "outmoded concepts" of the "old diplomacy." It is all very easy and comforting. Unhappily, this anodyne thesis finds no confirmation in experience. Men and women are not motivated by pure reason and, even if they were, nations do have conflicting interests that cannot be wished away. Thus, there is nothing more dangerous than to rest the relations between states too heavily on the capricious interaction of diverse personalities. No one knows-least of all the expertswhy individuals like or dislike one another-or why they have sudden fallingsout over seemingly inconsequential matters. What is clear is that the mysterious chemistry of human relations produces some exotic and unstable mixes.

This has been clearly apparent in our whole experience with summit diplomacy. In my own observation, Anglo-American relations were seriously impeded by the fact that President Johnson and Prime Minister Wilson were temperamentally poles apart and did not basically like one another. On the other hand, President Kennedy's willingness to provide Britain with Polaris missiles at the ill-fated Nassau Conference in December 1962, was due in part to the fact that he did like Prime Minister Macmillan and responded to the problem of a fellow politician in distress.

Besides giving excessive play to the element of personal compatibility in international relations, summitry often tends to create an illusion of under

standing that can be quite dangerous. Americans with a common heritage of ideas and national experience are normally able to appraise one another with fair precision, so that understanding can often be advanced by face-to-face discussion. But when leaders have quite different backgrounds, customs and language and, in many cases, ethical attitudes and ideology, summitry is more likely to produce mistaken and misleading impressions than a clear meeting of the minds. One would do well to recall, for example, how Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was tragically taken in by Hitler at their Munich meeting in 1938. No doubt he spoke from conviction when he told the British people on his return to London: "After my visits to Germany I realized vividly how Herr Hitler feels that he must champion other Germans. He told me privately, and last night he repeated publicly, that after the Sudeten German question is settled that is the end of Germany's territorial claims in Europe." Thus Chamberlain had brought back, he said, "peace with honor," "peace for our time."

Why was Chamberlain so easily deceived by such a crude and brutal liar? Not only because he wanted to believe that, of course was part of the story— but, most important, because he had had a face-to-face encounter with a man whose background and standards he could not possibly understand and had accepted the word of an Austrian rabble-rouser as he would that of an English gentleman. Had Chamberlain stayed in London, dealing impersonally with the crisis through his diplomatic agents, the mystique of personal contact would not have worked its malign spell, the squalid betrayal of Czechoslovakia might never have occurred, and, from what we now know about Germany's incomplete preparedness and the plotting of the German generals, the war would quite possibly have been aborted.

Few myths have done more harm than the sentimental conceit that men of different countries can understand one another better through direct conversation than when their exchange of views and ideas is filtered through experts sensitive to the nuances that derive from different cultures. Such a fanciful belief becomes particularly misleading when cultural differences reflect quite disparate habits of thought-as, for example, between Americans and orientals. Thus there seems little doubt that recent meetings between President Nixon and Prime Minister Sato of Japan, far from fostering harmony, have led to misunderstanding, irritation and, finally, an awkward measure of distrust on both sides. That, of course, is not the first occasion for the breakdown of Japanese-American communications; anyone who questions the difficulties of achieving an adequate meeting of minds between Washington and Tokyo should be required to study the disastrous series of misunderstandings that resulted from belated exchanges in the month before Pearl Harbor.

Not only does summitry exaggerate the role of personal chemistry and national difference, but the sense of theater it engenders cannot help but color the judgment of the participants. Thus, when the President meets with other heads of state, the occasion takes command, transforming each attending political leader into an actor on the television screens of the world, with a heavy investment in the success-or at least the appearance of success-of the meeting. It is not an atmosphere that makes for cool judgment; in fact, theater and sound policy are rarely compatible, because contrived excitement can only deflect and distort the diplomacy of a democratic state.

This brings us then to the most serious problem so far raised by the President's prospective trip-the critical damage to key relationships resulting from our failure to consult with friendly governments prior to the July 15 announcement. Why did we not consult? The only explanation so far given is that consultation would have increased the chances of a leak. But a leak, though annoying, would not have been disastrous. No leak could have created anything like the breakage caused by our neglect of consultation unless-and this is the heart of the matter-the White House thought it tactically advantageous to heighten the drama by exploiting the maximum shock effect from what the President has proudly described as "the biggest surprise in history."

Yet, what a dubious policy! For is it really to our advantage to shock the world? Is it not, in fact, extremely imprudent for a great nation to spring surprises on its friends?

Without exception, the supreme modern practitioner of the surprise announcement was General de Gaulle, for whom Mr. Nixon had great admiration. But, though the general held the attention of the world for a number of years-and indeed added color and excitement during an otherwise gray time-he was anything but a model for American statesmen. The France of General de Gaulle, in spite of its past centuries of grandeur, was not a leading nation in the sense