Judged by old-fashioned standards of diplomacy, the world seemed to be blowing up a major war last week. But with ears dulled by the cold war's screeching decibels of massive denunciation, the U.S. took with relative composure a week in which:
1) Russia's Nikita Khrushchev, in a letter to President Eisenhower, issued a virtual ultimatum that the U.S. must withdraw its forces from Formosa Strait, abandon not only Quemoy and Matsu but Formosa as well—or be faced by the combined might of Russia and Red China.
2) The President found the tirade so abusive that the U.S. flatly rejected it, sent...
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