At the same time, Gilpatric showed that he could be intellectually flexible on occasion. When it came to the admission of China into the United Nations, for instance, Gilpatric argued forcefully in a letter to "The New York Times", written during his Eisenhower years, that the United States should stop trying to block the Communist country's admission into the international governing body. "By no longer trying to block Communist China's admission to the United Nations the United States might be able to bring about a reduction in tensions in southeast Asia that would lessen the chances of further Communist 'nibbling' or 'brush-fire' type of aggression."