August 27, 1958
US – CHINA – FORMOSA: Washington, 27 – The military correspondent for the Associated Press focused today on the clouds that seem to be gathering over the Far East, saying that the United States was controlling access to mainland China with a strategic force that would be capable at an hour’s notice of deploying both conventional and atomic weapons. Washington has already ordered this force to be mobilized. It includes 66 ships of the Seventh Fleet, 12 air squadrons, further naval forces as well as remote-controlled missiles already installed on Formosa. It also has another two army divisions in South Korea and air defense forces stationed in Japan and in the Pacific Ocean. Meanwhile, communist China itself appears to have prepared for the possibility of atomic warfare. According to reports from Hamburg, an expert on Far East issues for the newspaper Die Welt writes that sources in Beijing had assured him that China was in a position to respond to an attack by the Americans with atomic weapons if the USA so desired. The writer added that senior Chinese officials had assured him that in the near future the Chinese would test their own atomic bomb.
