Outrage

From Communist Manchuria last week, the U.S. received a thin piece of news: U.S. Consul General Angus Ward was still alive. The Chinese Communists who held him prisoner had permitted him to send out a request for food, clothing and reading matter.

That was all the State Department knew about the humiliating status of the diplomat and four consulate colleagues jailed with him (TIME, Nov. 21). Angrily, President Truman called the whole affair an outrage. Secretary of State Dean Acheson said that the U.S. would not even consider recognition of Communist China until it released the prisoners and offered assurances that the 2,500 other Americans stranded in China would be safe.

George N. Craig, National Commander of the American Legion, hotly demanded that the U.S. send troops to rescue Ward and his companions if the Chinese Communists do not release him. The remedy involved not only risking Ward's life, but war. This week Dean Acheson appealed to 30 nations, including Russia, to protest the conduct of the Chinese Communists.

The State Department was also obliged to deliver a formal protest to the other side in China's war. A U.S. freighter, the Flying Cloud, had been shot at by a destroyer escort while running the Nationalist blockade off the China coast. The protest was bound to be mild, since the department does not acknowledge the blockade but looks upon it benignly.

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