Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, The Far East and Australasia, Volume VI

740.00119 Control (Korea)/2–1748

Memorandum by the Assistant Chief of the Division of Northeast Asian Affairs (Bond)¹

secret

[Washington,] February 17, 1948.

In endeavoring to assess the probable effect upon the forthcoming Interim Committee deliberations on Korea of the announced establishment of a “Democratic People’s Republic” in North Korea, it seems to me not unlikely that one important effect may be to strengthen the hand of those who oppose the withdrawal of US occupation forces from Korea and who consequently espouse the view that developments since the adoption of the General Assembly Resolution of November 14, 1947 have rendered the provisions of that Resolution inoperative and that the whole question of Korean independence should therefore be returned to the GA for further consideration.

Should the view prevail in the IC that US withdrawal at this juncture in the face of developments in North Korea would prejudice the efforts of the UN to bring about a united and independent Korea, and should the IC therefore refuse to sanction further steps by the Commission in Korea which would set the stage for such a withdrawal, we would be faced with the necessity of reexamining our (the Army’s) present intention to withdraw in any event before the end of 1948. Should the IC adopt such a position, we would, I believe, be very ill-advised to take any irrevocable steps toward unilateral withdrawal pending reconsideration of the problem by the GA, although the same objection would not necessarily apply to the mere holding of zonal elections in the US zone of occupation.

In the light of the foregoing, it seems to me that we should at least be giving some thought to the possibility that we may be obliged to persuade the Army to keep its powder dry so far as withdrawal is concerned, and to stand pat in South Korea at least until the next session of the GA, presently scheduled to meet in Paris in September of this year.

Quite apart from the question of what decision the IC may be expected to reach, it seems logical to me that if we plan to make one more serious effort to bring about the withdrawal of Soviet occupation forces from North Korea, it would in any event be in our interest to be still in effective occupation of South Korea at the time of the convening of the next session of the GA.

1. Submitted to the Director and Deputy Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Butterworth and Penfield) and to the Chief of the Division of Northeast Asian Affairs (Allison).