740.00119 Control (Korea) /1–446
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Under Secretary of State (Acheson)
The Chinese Ambassador7 called on me at his request. He referred to earlier talks which he had had with the Secretary and with Mr. Vincent8 about plans for trusteeship for Korea. He said that he had discussed with Mr. Vincent a draft paper outlining the plan for trusteeship. He assumed that the procedure now would be that the American-Soviet Commission would consider whether a trusteeship was necessary and, if so, would recommend to the four governments the form which the proposed trusteeship should take. I said that I assumed this was correct. He then asked whether I could tell him what the Soviet attitude was toward a trusteeship. He said that the attitude of his government was that it hoped a trusteeship would not be necessary as it felt that would greatly complicate the Korean situation. I told the Ambassador that I did not have the information necessary to answer his question. I gathered from the Moscow communiqué9 and from the Secretary’s radio speech10 that we also hoped [Page 607] that a trusteeship would not be necessary and since the communiqué had been joined in by the Soviet Government I knew of no reason to suppose that that Government did not share the same view.
- Wei Tao-ming.↩
- John Carter Vincent, Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs.↩
- For the communiqué issued December 27, 1945, by the Foreign Ministers of the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union on their conference at Moscow, see Department of State Bulletin, December 30, 1945, p. 1027. See also telegram 4284, December 27, 1945, 3 a.m., from Moscow, Foreign Relations, 1945, vol. vi, p. 1150.↩
- For text of radio address on December 30, 1945, see Department of State Bulletin, December 30, 1945, p. 1033.↩