The opponents of a hard policy on Quemoy are quite possibly a majority in this country, as they pretty surely are in Europe and most certainly are in the neutralist nations. In the United States, all our fellow travelers, habitual appeasers, pacifists, and ADA types, along with most of the “liberal wing” of the Democratic Party, are, naturally enough, numbered among them. But they include also many citizens without a spot of pink: isolationists, for example, and anti-statists—among them, I imagine, not a few of national review’s readers.
The case against holding firm on Quemoy is put into the form of a many-pronged argument, fairly well standardized by now. Quemoy is geographically part of the mainland. Hostile troops on Quemoy are a provocation to the Peiping regime. Quemoy is militarily untenable. Quemoy is not necessary to the defense of Formosa. The Chinese Communist regime is in to stay. Chiang is an historical ghost. On Quemoy we are isolated from our allies. We should not permit Chiang to decide U.S. policy. Fighting over Quemoy will lead to general war. Quemoy is not worth the life of one American boy. And so on.
Comments