U.S. POLICY ON INDO-CHINA

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27874, 24 January 1956, Page 13

U.S. POLICY ON INDO-CHINA

‘Congress Applied The Brakes’ (Rec. 10 p.m.) WASHINGTON. Jan. 22. Mr John McCormack (Mamachusetts), the Democratic Party leader in the House of Representative*, said today the United State* “would have been over the brink and into war” but for the brake* applied by Congressional leaders. He was being questioned on a ' television programme about the “brink of war” statements attributed to the Secretary of State (Mr Dulles) in a “Life” magazine article. Mr Dulles was quoted as saying that the United States was brought to the verge of war three times, but avoided going over as a result of firm policies. One of the “brinks” was Indo-China. Mr McCormack said leading legislators of both parties advised a “slow-down” at a meeting in Mr Dulles’s office in April, 1954. He said there was talk at the gathering of “a mass air attack upon the Communists who were besieging Dien Bien Phu.” Elaborating later to a reporter. Mr McCormack said the Congressional leaders advised Mr Dunes and Admiral Arthur W. Radford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to “get together” first with Britain and France. Admiral Radford, he said, favoured American intervention in Indo-China at the time Communist forces were storming the French fortress at Dien Bien Phu, which finally fell. Mr McCormack added that Admiral Radford conceded under questioning at the meeting that other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff “did not agree with him.” He recalled that President Eisenhbwer had declared previously that the Administration would not embroil the United States in war without going to Congress in advance. At the meeting in Mr Dulles’s office. Mr McCormack said, the "substance” of the Congressional leaders’ position about a prior agreement with Britain and France was this: “Before you come to Congress. you had better come up with a full package, signed and sealed—and no token assistance.” Mr McCormack said senators and members of the House of Representatives at the meeting with Mr Dulles and Admiral Radford “did not say yes or no” to intervention itself, except to respond to the idea of “going it alone” with a demand for the full assistance package, “signed and sealed.” Mr McCormack said: “This brink stuff is a joke to me.” He said Mr Dulles's statements were “not consistent with unity here or abroad.”