Accidental State

by Hsiao-ting Lin

56. Strong to State Department, “Relations of D. L. Osborn with Formosa League for Re-emancipation,” memorandum, July 14, 1950, no. 794A.00/7–1450, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 1.

  57. Strong to State Department, January 13, 1950, no. 794A.00/1–1350, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 1.

  58. Strong to State Department, January 26, 1950, no. 794A.00/1–2650, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 1.

  59. Strong to State Department, February 8, 1950, no. 794A.00/2–850, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 1.

  60. Strong to State Department, February 22, 1950, no. 794A.00/2–2250, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 1; Strong to State Department, March 10, 1950, 794A.00/3–1050, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 1; Strong to State Department, March 11, 1950, no. 794A.00(W)/3–1150, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 3.

  61. CKSD, diary entry for January 17, 1950, Box 48.

  62. Strong to State Department, March 18, 1950, no. 794A.00/3–1850, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 1.

  63. Strong to State Department, April 9, 1950, no. 794A.00/4–950, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 1.

  64. Strong to State Department, April 4, 1950, no. 794A.00/4–450, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 1.

  65. CKSD, diary entry for June 2, 1950, Box 48; Strong to State Department, June 2, 1950, no. 794A.00/6–250, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 1.

  66. Lloyd E. Eastman, Seeds of Destruction: Nationalist China in War and Revolution, 1937–1949 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984), 311.

  67. Qin Xiaoyi, ed., Zongtong Jianggong Dashi Changbian Chugao [The preliminary draft of collected materials describing the activities of President Chiang Kai-shek], vol. 9 (Taipei, Taiwan: KMT Historical Committee, 2002), 2.

  68. CKSD, diary entries for January 3, 21, February 3, and May 18, 1950, Box 48.

  69. Li Songlin, Jiang Jieshi de Taiwan Shidai [Chiang Kai-shek’s time in Taiwan] (Taipei, Taiwan: Fengyun Shidai, 1993), 108–112; CKSD, diary entries for May 30, 31, and June 1, 1950, Box 48.

  70. Chiang Kai-shek to Hu Zongnan, January 2, 1950, TD/YZ/1950, no. 75716; Chiang to Hu, January 3, 1950, TD/YZ/1950, no. 75718; Donald Edgar to State Department, January 2, 1950, no. 794A.00(W)/1–250, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 3.

  71. Chiang Kai-shek to Wang Shuming (deputy commander-in-chief of the Nationalist Air Force), January 3, 1950, TD/YZ/1950, no. 75717; Chiang to Wang, January 3, 1950, TD/YZ/1950, no. 75719; Strong to State Department, January 16, 1950, no. 794A.00(W)/1–1650, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 3.

  72. Chiang Kai-shek to Luo Lie, January 20, 1950, TD/YZ/1950, no. 75721; CKSD, diary entry for January 25, 1950, Box 48.

  73. Chiang Kai-shek to Hu Zongnan, March 25, 1950, TD/YZ/1950, no. 75732.

  74. State Department, “Danger that Chinese Communist Troops may Enter Burmese Territory,” memorandum, July 1, 1950, NARA, RG 59, 790B.00/7–150; Dean Acheson to Robert Strong, July 28, 1950, 790B.00/7–2850.

  75. Ministry of National Defense, “Report on the retreat of Nationalist troops into Vietnam and its handling in the aftermath,” July 1, 1950, in Huang, ed., Fuguo Dao Liu Yue Guojun Shiliao Huibian, 1:30–35.

  76. Ibid., 32–33; Strong to State Department, January 10, 1950, no. 794A.00(W)/1–1050, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 3; Strong to State Department, April 22, 1950, no. 794A.00/4–2250, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 1.

  77. For more about the Communist Chinese support for Ho Chi Minh in the early 1950s, see Zhai Qiang, China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 10–42.

  78. King C. Chen, Vietnam and China, 1938–1954 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969), 203–208.

  79. Division of Research for Far East, State Department, Intelligence Report IR 5809, “Indochina Background Brief,” by February 11, 1952, in Kesaris, ed., O.S.S./State Department Intelligence and Research Reports VIII, reel 1; Huang Jie, “Huang Jie Zishu” [Huang Jie’s own account], Zhuanji Wenxue [Biographical Literature] (Taipei), 38, no. 3 (1981), 33–42.

  80. Bai Chongxi to Chiang Kai-shek, February 7, 1950, in Huang, ed., Fuguo Dao Liu Yue Guojun Shiliao Huibian, 1:11–17.

  81. Foreign Ministry to Executive Yuan, top secret, April 12, 1950, AMFA-1, 172–1/0591.

  82. CKSD, diary entry for March 28, 1950, Box 48; Strong to State Department, March 16, 1950, no. 794A.00/3–1650, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 1.

  83. Strong to State Department, January 20, 1950, no. 794A.5/1–2050, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 4. The figures were revealed to Robert Strong by Ren Xianqun, K. C. Wu’s provincial finance commissioner. See also Wu, Cong Shanghai Shizhang dao Taiwan Shengzhuxi, 115–117.

  84. Strong to State Department, February 18, 1950, no. 794A.00(W)/2–1850, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 3.

  85. CKSD, diary entries for March 30 and 31, 1950, Box 48. Similar evaluation was given by the intelligence chiefs in the State Department, who predicted that the gold stocks Chiang possessed would not last beyond October 1950. See State Department Policy Information Committee memorandum, April 12, 1950, in Merrill, ed., Documentary History of the Truman Presidency, 32:210.

  86. Qin, ed., Zongtong Jianggong Dashi Changbian Chugao, 9:59; British Consulate in Tamsui to Foreign Office, “Summary of Events in Formosa during the month of March, 1950,” April 5, 1940, in Taiwan Political and Economic Reports 1861–1960, ed. Jarman, 9:97–98.

  87. CIA, “Situation, Hainan,” March 20, 1950, in CIA Research Reports: China, 1946–1976, reel 1.

  88. Strong to State Department, April 10, 1950, no. 794A.00/4–1050, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 1.

  CHAPTER 7 ▪ U.S. Military and Security Policy Goes Underground

  1. William Pawley to Acheson, memorandum, November 7, 1949, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, Box 26.

  2. Acheson to John MacDonald, top secret, telegram, November 18, 1949, no. 894A.20/11–1849, Formosa 1945–1949, reel 3.

  3. CKSD, diary entry for November 15, 1949, Box 47.

  4. State Department, “Shipments of Military Materiel to Formosa and Status of Equipment on Island,” top secret memorandum, January 3, 1950, no. 794A.5/1–350, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 4.

  5. U.S. Embassy in Manila to State Department, April 19, 1950, no. 794A.56/4–1950, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 4.

  6. Strong to Acheson, January 30, 1950, no. 794A.00/1–3050, reel 1; State Department, office memorandum, February 2, 1950, no. 794A.551/2–250, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 4.

  7. CKSD, diary entries for January 31 and February 1 and 16, 1950, Box 48.

  8. Strong to Dean Acheson, February 1, 1950, in ROCA, reel 20.

  9. Strong to State Department, January 31, 1950, no. 794A.00/1–3150, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 1; State Department, “Visits by Air Force Intelligence Personnel to Taiwan,” memorandum of conversation, February 2, 1950, no. 794A.5511/2–350, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 4.

  10. On August 21, 1950, at a dinner party held by the Nationalist Chinese Mission in Tokyo, Major Vanderpuyl handed Lester K. Little, the recently retired inspector general of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, an envelope addressed to General He Shili, head of the Chinese Mission, remarking that Little might be interested in the contents. To Mr. Little’s astonishment, the envelope contained an official copy of a classified State Department telegram from Taipei, bearing a handwritten notation to the effect that “here is what those State Department people are thinking.” The telegram in question was from Robert Strong to the State Department, sent around early August 1950, in which Strong stated that no real changes had been produced by Chiang Kai-shek’s recent party reforms. When Lester Little later arrived in Taiwan, he revealed the matter to Karl Rankin, who succeeded Strong as U.S. chargé d’affaires in Taipei. See Rankin to State Department, September 5, 1950; H. Freeman Matthews (deputy under secretary of state) to Major General James H. Burns (Office of the Secretary of Defense), September 11, 1950; and O. Edmund Clubb to Rankin, March 21, 1951, in ROCA, reel 20.

  11. Frederick E. Nolting Jr. (Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of State) to Troy L. Perkins (acting director for Chinese affa
irs), June 28, 1951; Perkins to Rankin, July 1951, ROCA, reel 20.

  12. General Zhu Shiming (head of the Chinese Mission in Japan) to Foreign Ministry, February 2, 1950, TD / DMW, vol. 7, no. 54506.

  13. Strong to State Department, February 24, 1950, no. 794A.00(W)/2–2450, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 3.

  14. See Maochun Yu, OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), 256–260; Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, Patterns in the Dust: Chinese-American Relations and the Recognition Controversy, 1949–1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 91.

  15. See Edward J. Marolda, “The U.S. Navy and the ‘Loss of China’, 1945–1950,” in Larry I. Bland, ed., George C. Marshall’s Mediation Mission to China: December 1945–January 1947, ed. Larry I. Bland (Lexington, VA: George C. Marshall Foundation, 1998), 409–420.

  16. K. C. Shah (aide, Office of the President, Republic of China) to Cooke, March 25, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 2; Cooke, “How Formosa Was Dropped but Did Not Fall,” personal memorandum, ca. 1953, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 11.

  17. A. E. Gates of Commerce International China to Cooke, memorandum, December 6, 1954, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 26.

  18. John Lewis Gaddis, “Defensive Perimeter Concept, 1947–1951,” in Uncertain Years: Chinese-American Relations, 1947–1950, eds. Dorothy Borg and Waldo Heinrichs (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 88–89; Peter Dale Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 109–117.

  19. “Internal Security,” copy of transcript of the Congressional Hearing on Admiral Charles M. Cooke, dated October 19, 1951, Alfred Kohlberg Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, Box 42.

  20. K. C. Shah to Cooke, April 7, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 2.

  21. Lt. Col. Carl Poston (assistant army attaché in Taipei), “Irving Ritchie Short,” memorandum, August 14, 1950, no. 794A.022/8–1450, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 4.

  22. Jiang Biao to James A. Gray (executive vice president, CIC), April 4, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 26.

  23. Agreement between the Board of Supplies, Executive Yuan (ROC) and Commerce International China, Incorporated, April 10, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 26; Jiang Biao to Cooke, April 15, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 26. Hsu Po-lin, a retired colonel who was serving in the ROC Armed Forces around 1950 and 1951, recalled that Cooke and his team members were very active in the Nationalist military forces. They were so energetically supervising training programs and evaluating military drills that even soldiers at the very bottom of the military hierarchy were aware of their presence and activities. Hsu Po-lin, interview with author, May 25, 2007.

  24. Cooke to Knowland, April 10, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 4.

  25. General Sun Liren, daily work reports, April 7 and 11, 1950, Shen Keqin Papers, Box 3.

  26. Strong to State Department, March 29, 1950, no. 794A.56/3–2950; U.S. Embassy in Manila to State Department, April 19, 1950, no. 794A.56/4–1950, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 4.

  27. U.S. Embassy in London to State Department, April 1, 1950, no. 794A.56/4–150; Dean Acheson to U.S. Embassy in Manila, April 1, 1950, no. 794A.56/4–150; U.S. Embassy in Manila to State Department, April 19, 1950, no. 794A.56/4–1950, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 4.

  28. Department of Defense memorandum entitled “AV Gas to Chinese Nationalist Government, Formosa,” March 7, 1950, NARA, RG 330, Records of the Secretary of Defense, Records of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (330.6), Box 50.

  29. Cooke to Fassoulis, April 14, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 26; Fassoulis to James Gray (executive president of CIC), June 10, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 26.

  30. Cooke to Forrest Sherman, letter, April 14, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 8; “Basis of request by the Chinese Government April 1950 for Transfer of Surplus U.S. Vessels and Boats to China as authorized in U.S. Public Law 512,” memorandum by Cooke, April 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 35.

  31. Strong to State Department, May 12, 1950, no. 794A.00(W)/5–1250, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 2.

  32. Sherman to Cooke, May 3, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 8; Cooke to Chiang Kai-shek, memorandum, June 10, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 26; Strong to State Department, June 24, 1950, no. 794A.00(W)/6–2450, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 2.

  33. Cooke to Chiang Kai-shek, memorandum, June 10, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 26.

  34. James Gray to Cooke, June 21, 1950; Fassoulis to Gray, June 24, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 26.

  35. Broadcasting Corporation of China to Chiang Kai-shek, confidential proposal, March 23, 1950, TD/YZ/1950, no.75733; Zhou Zhirou (chief of general staff) to Chiang Kai-shek, April 14, 1950, TD/JMBZ, no. 58086.

  36. General Shi Jue (commander of Nationalist forces in Zhoushan) to Chiang Kai-shek, April 2, 1950, TD/JMBZ, no. 58083.

  37. Cooke to MacArthur, May 2, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 6; Cooke’s memorandum for the record, May 1, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 33.

  38. Cooke to Chiang Kai-shek, “Choushan Situation,” memorandum, April 29, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 2.

  39. Strong to State Department, May 17, 1950, no. 794.00/5–1750, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 2.

  40. G-3, Ministry of National Defense to Chiang Kai-shek, confidential report, May 5, 1950, TD / JMBZ, vol. 101, no. 58076.

  41. CKSD, diary entries for April 30 and May 1, 3, 7, 8, 9, and 10, 1950, Box 48; Strong to State Department, May 16, 1950, no. 794A.00/5–1650; Strong to State Department, May 18, 1950, no. 794A.61/5–1850, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 1.

  42. Cooke to Chiang Kai-shek, “Choushan Plan,” memorandum, May 10, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 2; General Shi Jue to Chiang, May 14, 1950, TD/JMBZ, vol. 101, no. 58080; General Wang Shuming to Chiang, May 16, 1950, TD/JMBZ, vol. 101, no. 58081.

  43. British Consulate in Tamsui to Foreign Office, March 19, 1950, FO 371/83297 FC 1016/41; Strong to State Department, March 11, 1950, no. 794A.00(W)/3–1150, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 2.

  44. Strong to State Department, April 10, 1950, no. 794A.00/4–1050; Strong to State Department, April 22, 1950, no. 794A.00/4–2250, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 1.

  45. Strong to State Department, April 25, 1950, no. 794A.00/4–2550, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 1; Associated Press news release submitted for Chiang’s reference, April 25, 1950, TD/JMBZ, vol. 102, no. 58102.

  46. CKSD, diary entry for April 25, 1950, Box 48; Strong to State Department, April 28, 1950, no. 794A.00(W)/4–2850, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 3.

  47. Cooke to MacArthur, April 27, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 6. A witness account of the KMT’s last battle for Hainan can also be found in Seymour Topping, On the Front Lines of the Cold War: An American Correspondent’s Journal from the Chinese Civil War to the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010), 111–121.

  48. Cooke to Chiang Kai-shek, “Comments on the Hainan Battle,” memorandum, April 23, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 2; Cooke to Chiang Kai-shek, memorandum, April 23, 1950, TD/JMBZ, vol. 102, no. 58120.

  49. Chinese Embassy in Washington to Chiang Kai-shek, May 4, 1950, TD / GQX, vol. 4, no. 59679.

  50. Knowland to Cooke, May 8 and June 20, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 4; Cooke to Knowland, May 23, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 4; Cooke to Knowland and Walter Judd, June 16, 1950, Walter H. Judd Papers, Box 164.

  51. Knowland to Cooke, May 8, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 4.

  52. Strong to State Department, May 12, 1950, no. 794A.00(W)/5–1250, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 2.

  53. U.S. Consulate General in Taipei, “To American Citizens in Taiwan,” May 22, 1950, Walter H. Judd Papers, Box 164; Strong to State Department, May 26, 1950, no. 794A.00(W)/5–2650, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 2.

  54. Strong to State Department, May 18, 1950, no. 794A.551/5–1850, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 4; A. E. Cates, Jr. (lieutenant commander, USNR) to
Charles M. Cooke, memorandum, May 20, 1950, Walter H. Judd Papers, Box 164.

  55. Chennault to Knowland, June 12, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 33.

  56. Cooke to Louis Johnson, May 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 33; A Brief Report on the Evacuation of Hai-nan and Chow-San Islands, memorandum by Cooke, May 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 33.

  57. Cooke to Knowland, May 23, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 4; Cooke to Forrest Sherman, May 23, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 8.

  58. Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, vol. 2, The Roaring of the Cataract, 1947–1950 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 526–528.

  59. Strong to State Department, May 19, 1950, no. 794A.00(W)/5–1950, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 2; Memorandum from Charles Cooke to Walter Judd, May 20, 1950, Walter H. Judd Papers, Box 164.

  60. Strong to Philip D. Sprouse, top secret telegram, May 26, 1950, ROCA, reel 14.

  61. Cooke to McArthur, letter, April 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 2; CKSD, diary entry for April 7, 1950, Box 48.

  62. C. L. Shulzberger, A Long Row of Candles: Memories and Diaries, 1934–1954 (New York: Macmillan, 1969), 687–688.

  63. Cooke to Knowland, May 23, 1950, Charles M. Cooke Papers, Box 4; CKSD, diary entry for May 24, 1950, Box 48.

  64. MacArthur to the Department of Army, May 29, 1950, quoted in Lowe, The Origins of the Korean War, 175. See also Chen Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 117–119.

  65. Accinelli, Crisis and Commitment, 25–26.

  66. Philip Jessup (ambassador at large), memorandum of conversation, top secret, June 26, 1950, FRUS 1950, vol. 7, Korea, 180.

  67. CKSD, diary entry for May 24, 1950, Box 48. The story of Karl W. V. Nix’s trip to Taipei and his meeting with Chiang remain open to further scrutiny.

  68. State Department, memorandum, top secret, March 1950, in ROCA, reel 14.

  69. Office of the Secretary of State to Windsor Hackler of the Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs, top secret, April 27, 1950, no. 794A.5/4–2750, Formosa 1950–1954, reel 4.