Split

The U.S. State Department has broken ranks on China policy. Two sharply conflicting views are now struggling to prevail.

The diehards of the Far Eastern Division, led by Assistant Secretary for Far Eastern Affairs, W. Walton Butterworth (whose May appointment has not yet been confirmed in the Senate), will not budge from their static "wait-until-the-dust-settles" strategy. But a dissenting group, led by Director George Kennan, the Department's policy-planning troubleshooter, is demanding some attempt, however limited, to regain the initiative for the U.S. after its catastrophic failure in the Orient.

Kennan was indignant when State flatly and successfully opposed a Republican drive in Congress to write a $100 million Far Eastern section into the Military Assistance Program (MAP). The funds would have been at the disposal of the Administration for discretionary use against Communism in East Asia.

A $100 million kitty, Kennan argued, would permit a start on the only dynamic policy now proposed from any source--a systematic interference with Communist organization of East Asia. Obviously, it would need privacy and finesse in application, which the discretionary feature of the Republican amendment would make possible.

Secretary Acheson, who is smarting under criticism of his White Paper on China (TIME, Aug. 15), and grows steadily more emotional over the Chinese Nationalist regime, jumped to the conviction that the Republican amendment would earmark aid for the Nationalists, and gave no weight to the larger idea of harassing the Communists.

But Kennan pressed the argument.

Acheson yielded--reluctantly. He decided that if Congress wanted to force the money on him, he would not openly oppose it, so long as the legislation did not require him to spend it through the Nationalist government.

Acheson's conversion was too late to save the House $100 million proposal. But MAP has still to pass the Senate. There

California's Senator Knowland plans to offer a $175 million Far Eastern amendment along the lines of the one defeated in the House.

So far, Acheson refuses to accept the Knowland proposal. Instead, he has his aides looking for some other bill to serve the same purpose. His attitude has convinced leading Republican Senators that he really opposes the whole idea, still sides with the department's dust-settling faction. At the moment, the chance of a positive program in China seems slim.

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