But this was before the black headlines from Formosa. With popping eyes, General O'Reilly read that the Chinese Nationalist Foreign Minister had taken up the challenge. He offered to toss a coin with the Chinese Communists for Quemoy and Matsu!
"I'll be jiggered!" the general breathed. "They'll fight about everything else, but be damned if they'll admit the Irish are bigger gamblers than the Chinese! Now let's see what the Commies say."
Peking was silent for two weeks. Then, in a broadcast from Radio Peking, Chou En-Lai made his reply.
He agreed—but with conditions. He insisted on a neutral commission to supervise the toss, half Communist members, half non-Communist. World observers, weary of neutral commissions that never achieved anything, interpreted this as a delaying tactic and agreed the whole thing would fall through.
"This is further proof," the Nationalist Foreign Minister commented with icy scorn, "that the Communists are no longer real Chinese. For any Chinese worthy of the name would not be afraid to risk the fall of the coin."
But Marx had not quite liquidated the gambling fever that runs strong in the blood of any Chinese, be he ever so Communist.
Stung, Chou En-Lai retorted: "We agree! Let the coin decide!"
It was agreed that Prime Minister Nehru of India, as a neutral, should supervise the matter, and that New Delhi would be the scene of the actual tossing. And Nehru thought it fitting to invite General O'Reilly, as the father of the whole thing, to bring the same "Golden Judge" to India, to be used again.
The general came gladly, but declined to make the toss himself. "My country is too closely involved in this matter," he explained, "and there might be talk if an American made the toss."
He suggested Nehru himself do it, and the Prime Minister agreed.