THE NATION: The Bell

"Everything seems to be in fine shape," said Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Felix Stump. "When the bell rings, we will be ready to go." This week the bell rang for the Chinese Nationalists to evacuate the Tachen Islands with the help of the U.S. Seventh Fleet.

Before the bell, there was an anxious wait for 1) the payoff on a major U.S. gamble that Red China would turn down the U.N. invitation to discuss ceasefire, and 2) agreement between the U.S. and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek on defense of the offshore islands.

Predicted Bellicosity. Last fortnight U.S. prestige among free Asian peoples plummeted when President Eisenhower endorsed the idea of U.N. cease-fire talks. If Red China's Chou En-lai had accepted the U.N. invitation under the New Zealand resolution, he would have won wide international backing for a seat in the U.N. and, perhaps, a neutralized Formosa, a sitting duck for Chou to bag when he pleased.

But U.S. policymakers had calculated that Chou would follow the pattern of Communist revolutionaries and make the bellicose decision. He did. Having committed himself to grab Formosa by force of arms, he would not trade that threat for the enormous diplomatic and propaganda advantages that might have followed Communist acceptance of a cease fire agreement.

Chou's belligerent refusal of the U.N. invitation last week was coupled with the demand that he be seated in the U.N. to discuss a Russian resolution charging the U.S. with aggression in the Far East. But the U.S. was in a good position to counter this proposal. Having placed itself on the side of peace, the U.S. could from now on make its power felt in the Pacific.

On the heels of this Communist setback last week came another face-loser for the Reds. Two of eight MIG planes that at tacked a U.S. patrol plane and its escort over the Yellow Sea were splashed by U.S. Sabres, and the rest were routed.

Spiked Spearhead. Meanwhile, the U.S. had diplomatic difficulties of its own in the form of a thorny negotiation with Chiang Kai-shek over the evacuation of the Tachen Islands. Last September the U.S. decided that the islands of Quemoy and Matsu were not militarily vital to the defense of Formosa. Later, as a condition to giving up the Tachens, Chiang demanded a public U.S. promise to defend Quemoy and Matsu. Politically, this was a reasonable condition, for with the Tachens gone, the other islands, as well as having tactical value, would become a test in the minds of free Asians of U.S. will to resist more Red thrusts.

Three times the U.S. was on the point of announcing that it would defend Quemoy and Matsu, but at the last moment Dwight Eisenhower, to soothe British fears, vetoed it. He thought U.S. intentions were already clear enough "to make certain that no conflict occurs through mistaken calculations on the other side . . . We have been as exact as it seems possible to be."