FOREIGN RELATIONS: Plain Warning

Four years ago, when Communist China poured shout and shell on the Nationalist-held offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu, President Eisenhower came to a decision never publicly announced: U.S. force would be used to help fight off invasion of Quemoy and Matsu by Red China. Last week, with shout and shell raining again (see FOREIGN NEWS), the U.S. saw Quemoy and Matsu as being of even greater importance than in 1954. Said the President at press conference: the Nationalists now have one-third of their strength deployed on the offshore islands, and loss of that strength would lay Formosa itself more open to invasion.

Intently studying the moves of the Chicoms (cablese opposite of Chinats), the U.S. State Department fired off three warnings in six days. The message: it would be "highly hazardous" for anyone to believe that a Quemoy-Matsu invasion could be "limited."

Defense of the islands is a planning headache to U.S. military men. But the U.S., at week's end, showed that it was more than willing to back up its blunt diplomatic talk with military beef. To the Seventh Fleet of Vice Admiral Wallace ("Beak") Beakley steamed the carrier Essex and four destroyers from the Middle East, the big carrier Midway and the heavy cruiser Los Angeles from the West Coast. U.S. fighters rolled onto the ready line on Formosa, and Tactical Air Force sent out from the states a reinforcing squadron along with air cargo support planes from the Military Transport Service—all meaningful public warning that the U.S. means business.