Experts Claim Formosa Aid Would Not Precipitate War

President Eisenhower's formal request to Congress asking authority to defend Formosa and the Pescadores will not make any fundamental change in America's China policy nor lead to World War III, University Far Eastern experts agreed last night.

The President yesterday requested that Congress authorize him to use force against any Red China aggression, to re-deploy Chinese Nationalist troops with American ships, and to ask the United Nations to negotiate a cease-fire.

John K. Fairbank '29, professor of History, said that Eisenhower's request put the United States in a strong position by advocating a cease-fire under United Nations suspices, especially in view of Chinese Communist Premier Chou En Lai's subsequent rejection of this approach.

The main significance of the request, according to Benjamin I. Schwartz '38, assistant professor of History, lay in the President's desire to rally a Democratic Congress to his support and to present a unified front. Only insofar as the Congress might authorize attacks on the Chinese mainland, Schwartz added, has there been any positive change in American policy.

Edwin O. Reischauer, professor of Far Eastern Languages, thought that the Presidential request did acknowledge a Two China policy in which this country rejects an offensive attack by Chinese Nationalist troops on the China mainland.