Out of the skies over Formosa one day this week roared a U.S. C-54. It landed smoothly at Taipei's airfield. From the Bataan stepped General Douglas MacArthur. He was welcomed by Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek, whose determined face had over the years become almost as familiar to history as Douglas MacArthur's lofty scowl. MacArthur, accompanied by Vice Admiral Arthur Struble, commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, had come to discuss the defenses of Formosa, which the U.S. is committed to guard against Red attack. Said MacArthur, shaking Chiang's hand: "How do you do, Generalissimo, it was nice of you to come down and meet me."
The two men, who for nearly 40 years had been fighting the various separate battles that history assigned them, had never met before. Last week, at long last, the two fighters stood side by side in the same battle. After months of snubbing the Nationalists on Formosa, Washington had begun to see the one fact that counted about Chiang. Formosa's Governor K.C. Wu had sharply stated that fact: "The only force in this part of the world with a sizable anti-Communist army, with a leadership that has a popular following and with the will to fight, is the Nationalist government."
It had taken the U.S. a long time to reach the same conclusion.
The Road to Decision. Last January, the President of the U.S. announced: "The United States Government will not provide military aid or advice to Chinese forces on Formosa . . . The resources on Formosa are adequate to enable them to obtain the items which they might consider necessary for the defense of the island."
Secretary of State Dean Acheson had persuaded the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, against the advice of General MacArthur, that the U.S. should not intervene in Formosa. He advanced the remarkable argument that if Russia had its way in Asia, the Communists would eventually become highly unpopular among Asian people and the U.S. would gain popularity for its nice-mannered nonintervention.
The Red invasion of South Korea knocked such arguments into a cocked hat. The President reversed himself, announced what most military men—and plain common sense—would tell any American: Formosa in Red hands would be "a direct threat to the security of the Pacific area . . ."
Can Formosa Hold? In the six months that it took for the U.S. to make up its mind, the Reds had built up a sizable invasion fleet. The Red dragon began to spit fire; Communist leaders made belligerent statements about how.they would liberate Formosa and crush Chiang. Would Formosa be the dragon's next bite?
Last week, the Communists tried to take Taitan, a small Nationalist-held island off the mainland port of Amoy. The Nationalists drove off the attack. Later, the Nationalist air force—which had been idle for a month because of President Truman's request that the Nationalists cease operations against the Red mainland—strafed Communist forces on the Chinese coast, reported that it sank 150 Red invasion vessels. The Nationalists called this action a "self-defense measure," and Washington accepted that explanation.