895.00/10–2848: Telegram
The Special Representative in Korea (Muccio) to the Secretary of State
165. Following press statement released today by Korean Prime Minister Lee Bum Suk on South Korean uprising.1
[Page 1318]“The so-called Red uprisings in the three districts of South Cholla Province are well in hand. Our loyal Army and local police and Navy have eliminated all resistance, except in a few small pockets.
“This disturbance was not a ‘civil war’, a ‘mutiny’ or a ‘rebellion’, but a terroristic activity of the Communists, synchronized with the application for United Nations recognition of the Russian puppet government in North Korea. While it was intended primarily to change the opinion of the United Nations Assembly, it also represented a part of an elaborate plot for a small minority of Communists to take over control of all of South Korea.
“It was organized by forty skilled Communist operators who were members of the constabulary. They managed to gather a force of about 2000 other constabulary men and about an equal number of civilian members of the Communist underground. Other Communist cells were scheduled to come out into the open, if the uprising in the south had not promptly lost momentum because it failed to gain sympathizers from the populace and encountered effective action on the part of the government.
“The North Korea radio reported all details of the uprising down to the serial number of the train the Communists captured (this number incidentally was the only thing in the report found incorrect) long before full reports were available in South Korea.
“The first act of the terrorists was to murder their army officer, the police, and a few civilians after, of course, holding mock trials before ‘peoples courts’ in approved Russian revolutionary style.
“The work of the Communist organizers was made easy by the fact that recruiting and training of our constabulary was under the atmosphere of joint cooperation between left and right with no adequate provision to check the Communistic propaganda. Korean leaders repeatedly warned of these officials of the presence of a Communist Trojan horse in the constabulary but their warnings were ignored. After the recent election several Korean leaders suggested to collect all of the cartridges of the constabulary, to prevent any contingency occurring from the constabulary, but their warnings were ignored. Many of the men the Americans recruited for our constabulary service were self-styled refugees newly arrived from the north of the 38th parallel, who were accepted without proper investigation.
“However, the country is not in danger. The new government is taking vigorous steps to weed out the Communists not only in the constabulary but in every other position where they can damage our country. The Communist underground, while very active, is quite small, and will never prevail against the millions of loyal democratic Koreans”.
Pass GADel Paris.2