National Affairs: Red Alert

As Chinese Communist shells slammed into the Nationalist offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu last week, ending a three-month lull in the Formosa Strait, military strategists of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization sounded a Red alert at a SEATO meeting in Washington. Warned Admiral Harry D. Felt, U.S. commander in chief in the Pacific: "The Southeast Asian peninsula is a target for Communist China, and Laos is the first point of entry." Another danger spot, said Felt, was shaky South Viet Nam, under "worsening" pressure by Communist guerrillas (TIME, May 2).

Meeting outside Asia for the first time since its formation in...

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