MR. DULLES MEETS THE PRESS

With commendable if somewhat belated flexibility the Eisenhower Administration is now undertaking a "clarification" amounting to a realignment of our China policy to bring it more in line both with the military realities and with overwhelming public opinion at home and abroad. The pity is that this more flexible policy was not adopted long before the Chinese Communist attack.

Scripps-Howard's ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS:

Dulles is to be congratulated for his public offer to negotiate a reciprocal loss of face with Red China.

SEATTLE TIMES:

Talk of Munich has not obscured the fact that most of the free world's peoples do not consider the tiny offshore islands to be the rightful or logical place to draw the line against Communist expansion.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR'S JOSEPH C. HARSCH:

The United States, if not yet ready to settle with Peking, [is] getting ready for that step, so hard to take, so relentlessly inevitable.

Columnist WALTER LIPPMANN :

We should prepare for the passing of Chiang's regime. And we should go before the world in favor of a Formosan settlement, asking no special privileges, strategic or economic, for ourselves.

DETROIT FREE PRESS:

If the [little] islands are not defensible or not worth defending, why not just say so, pull out, and forget the demands that Red China first agree to cease fire.

DALLAS MORNING NEWS :

The U.S. and liberty cannot afford to offer an island sacrifice to the Red Moloch.

SPOKANE (Wash.) SPOKESMAN-REVIEW :

It never pays to submit to blackmail, even for the sake of two little islands.

ST. Louis POST-DISPATCH:

U.S. Far Eastern policy needs a stronger nail than attachment to Chiang Kaishek.

Los ANGELES TIMES :

Both the President and Mr. Dulles have acknowledged handsomely that the huge Quemoy garrisons should not have been built up. But that is another matter entirely from abandoning Chiang.

Columnist DAVID LAWRENCE :

Red China would welcome but would not be content with the acquisition of Quemoy and Matsu and will never give up its demand for the surrender of Formosa itself. If America reverses its policy and the Nationalist army on Formosa crumbles and the military position of the Philippines, which are a few miles from Formosa, should be weakened, it would be a signal for the Red Chinese to resume the war in Korea and Indo-China.

CHICAGO DAILY NEWS Publisher JOHN KNIGHT:

Mr. Dulles had talked himself into a trap and is now trying to extricate himself and the President with honor. The irony of the Formosa Strait crisis is that we are now indulging in a form of appeasement to the Chinese Reds.

LEWISTON (Idaho): TRIBUNE:

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles has taken the U.S. to the brink this time against the advice and wishes of America's allies, presumably the U.S. Senate and probably the American public. If the U.S. backs down from this position, the whole free world position in the Far East may indeed be at stake. At the very least, Dulles would have to resign.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE:

Unfortunately, the decision for war or peace rests with the Chinese Reds and their Russian allies, who aren't going to be influenced by legalities or moralities.

Chief of Naval Operations ARLEIGH BURKE to the NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE : My fear is that too many people in the U.S. are not willing--probably because they do not understand the problem--are not willing to stand up for principles. You let one doubtful area go, then the next area becomes a little more doubtful and you become a little weaker --a little weaker in your own spirit.

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