Wednesday, February 4, 1953 Little colder today and cloudy and little rain. Myra went down to Lucile Hancocks to a party Ladies Literary I went down town and took Mother to Bank to see about Relief Society affair. I have read and listened to news Nothing special. Standard Feby 5 53 Talk Showed Ike Learned Ropes Fast By WALTER LIPPMANN WASHINGTON The Presidents message is impressive evidence for the answer, which was made long ago by the early Eisenhower supporters, when the opposition said that the General was inexperienced and uninformed in domestic affairs. Those who like Ike answered that he had shown an unusual capacity for finding and using advisers to work out with him his own position in an unfamiliar field. This long and comprehensive and tightly packed message is not a personal statement but the work of what is already, at this early date, an organized and remarkably coherent administration. The message is quite different in kind from the ambiguous and often ambivalent campaign speeches. It is addressed primarily to the problems themselves rather than to what the voters are supposed to be wishing to hear about those problems. The Presidents position is manifestly informed in the sense that what he says reflects not only the principles and opinions of the new Eisenhower men but also the experience and expertness of the old hands without whom the departments would cease to function. Should Be Read The result is a document, it seems to me, to be read rather than to be spoken too long and too concise to be taken in at a first hearing. We shall all, therefore, be reading and talking about its many subjects for some time to come. Only about one fifth of the message deals with foreign affairs, and most of that will, I think, begin to take on concrete significance only after Secretary Dulles has come back from Europe. The passage about Korea is brief but it announces a decision which is likely to open up a new, and quite possibly a far reaching development in the Far East. The President is revoking the instructions to the 7th Fleet to prevent the Chinese on Formosa from attacking the Communists on the mainland. If these new orders meant only that the Nationalists may now attack the mainland, they would not mean very much. For, as of today, the Chinese Nationalists cannot do very much more than in fact they have been allowed surreptitiously to do for a considerable time. They have no navy and no air force capable of any serious amphibious operation against the mainland, even assuming that their infantry were equipped, trained and reliable for such a difficult military undertaking. The crucial question, therefore, is not what the President will permit Chiang to do. What Chiang can do is not very much, not remotely enough to compel the Communists to agree to an armistice in Korea. The crucial question is how much the President will find it useful and wise to give Chiang in order to make Chiang able to do more than he is able to do today. No New Ally The new order to the 7th Fleet will not release a new ally who has been straining at the leash to attack our enemies. The new orders will pose the problem in Washington of how many naval ships, airplanes, and how much amphibious equipment it would be profitable to invest in Formosa. On this the message rightly and properly says nothing and makes no commitments. What I have been saying is not an American estimate cf the situation in Formosa, it is, as one can see by reading the interesting and probably carefully timed speech delivered last week at the Young Republican Club in New York by the permanent representative of Nationalist China at the U. N., the view of the Formosa government. Dr. Tingfu S. Tsiang said, I believe that what will really meet the situation in the Far East is Free Chinas capacity for undertaking an independent offensive against the puppet Communist regime on the mainland of China. My plan is not that American air and naval power should be used to help Free Chinas infantry to invade the mainland. My plan is that Free China should acquire enough naval and air power in addition to its present land power so that Free China can independently invade and liberate the mainland. The power of an independent offensive meets the situation better than any other plan. However you might view my suggestion now, I am convinced that the diplomatic and strategic exigencies of the developing situation will require Free China to have the power of an independent offensive. Important Statement This is an important statement because it is says so clearly what Chiang will ask of the President. It is a reliable outline of what the Chinese Nationalists consider necessary in order to intervene effectively in the Far East. They will ask the President to give them the power required for an independent offensive to invade and liberate the mainland. What they can do with much less than what they ask, and what they will be willing to do merely in order to get a truce in Korea, will be a continuing problem for the President, (Copyright, 1953, New York Herald Tribune Inc.)