Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, The Far East and Australasia, Volume VI
740.00119 Control (Korea)/12–1748
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Northeast Asian Affairs (Bishop) to the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Butterworth)
Attached is a draft of a memorandum which Niles Bond and I have prepared for your consideration. We would suggest that it be a memorandum from you to the Acting Secretary.
[Page 1338]Draft Memorandum Submitted to the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Butterworth)
In my memorandum of December——it was concluded that the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Korea at this time would seriously jeopardize the security and stability of the Government of the Republic of Korea, and that such withdrawal should therefore be further postponed. The object of the present memorandum is to set in motion, as a necessary condition precedent to a final decision regarding withdrawal from Korea, a careful review of the conclusion set forth in NSC–8, approved by the President on April 8, 1948, that the U.S. should withdraw its forces from Korea “as soon as possible with a minimum of bad effects”. In undertaking such a review it is essential that U.S. policy in Korea be examined as part of an overall Pacific policy based upon the fundamental national objectives as well as the security requirements of the United States in the Far East as a whole.
There could be little disagreement with the thesis that United States troop withdrawal from Korea should be carried out as promptly as possible if it were certain that such withdrawal would in no way contribute to the expansion of a hostile communist politico-military power system in northeast Asia. Until such a certainty exists, however, it is inescapable that the question of withdrawal from Korea must be linked to the larger question of the probable repercussions of such withdrawal throughout northeast Asia on the national objectives and the security position of the United States in the Pacific area.
Should communist domination of the entire Korean peninsula become an accomplished fact, the islands of Japan would be surrounded on three sides by an unbroken arc of communist territories with the extremities of the Japanese archipelago virtually within gunshot range of Soviet positions in Sakhalin and the Kuriles in the northeast and communist positions in southern Korea in the southwest.
In such an eventuality we could anticipate an intensification of efforts to bring Japan within the sphere of communist power, with the communists making full use of the enticement value of the economic resources at their command, of the political persuasiveness of the increasing number of communist governments in Asia and Europe, and of the familiar psychological appeal to “brother Asiatic and comrade”. In the face of such a situation we could further anticipate that we would be confronted with increasing difficulties in attempting to hold Japan within the United States sphere and to deny Japan to the communist power system.
[Page 1339]The Japanese are mature politically and can be expected to make the most of the bargaining power of their position on the front line between the United States and the USSR. With the abandonment or the loss of all of Korea to the communist power system the United States would have lost its last friends on the continent in northeast Asia and there would develop immediately among the Japanese an even greater uneasiness flowing from their exposed position. It would be increasingly difficult under continued military occupation to get the Japanese to exert their utmost toward economic recovery. It is almost certain that over a period of years the United States could not maintain its power and influence in Japan under developing conditions of such a character without constantly increasing effort. Economic burdens would continue to mount. The Japanese people would become increasingly restive in forced acceptance of subsidy and charity and would develop added resentment toward military occupation. While it may perhaps be feasible to deny Japan to the communist power system through continued military occupation of Japan, such can hardly be considered a satisfactory or enduring solution to the attainment of basic United States objectives or to the preservation of the security interests of the United States in the Pacific. Similarly, the maintenance of United States troops in Korea can hardly be considered a satisfactory or permanent solution of the same questions.
While it must be recognized that the continued presence of U.S. forces in Korea entails the risk of our being forced to choose between military involvement and precipitate withdrawal, it is believed that there should be weighed against this risk the value to be gained from denying south Korea to the communists in the interim. It must be recognized too that the retention of U.S. troops in Korea will force the U.S. to undertake expensive and thankless tasks of combatting communist attacks ranging from psychological to guerilla warfare and will confront the U.S. with problems which are both onerous and burdensome. However, it may be that failure to face up to these problems in Korea could eventually destroy U.S. security in the Pacific.
It is believed that the United States cannot withdraw its forces from Japan except as a concomitant part of a successful program designed to force the withdrawal of communist politico-military power and to develop in non-Soviet northeast Asia a group of independent peoples operating as sovereign entities who, on an economically viable basis, are capable of successfully resisting communist expansion. The development of such a program might well be rendered impossible by the premature withdrawal of U.S. troops from Korea. While the United States cannot assure the attainment of its basic objectives or its permanent [Page 1340] security in the Pacific by remaining indefinitely in military occupation of Japan or keeping United States garrison forces in Korea, it must at the same time be re-emphasized that if the communist power system were successful in consolidating its control of northeast Asia including Japan, the United States security position in the Pacific would be breached and the attainment of our objectives impossible.
In northeast Asia there is one of the four or five significant power centers of the world. The power potential of northeast Asia is enormous. It would be foolhardy to imagine that any power system, and especially the communist politico-military system, would be unaware of the potential power of the resources and population of this area, or would fail to make strong efforts to obtain and consolidate control thereof.
Japan is the industrial heart of the area. According to recent estimate, there will be 120,000,000 Japanese by 1970. It is obvious that control of Japan would, for the foreseeable future, be the greatest single prize which the communist power system could obtain in Asia by adding to that system one of the few important power centers of the industrial world.
With the expansion of this hostile communist power system in Asia, and with the probability, if not certainty, that Japan is a target of prime importance to world communism, it is imperative to examine the questions (a) whether communist expansion in northeast Asia has already reached the point at which the security interests of the United States require positive efforts to prevent further expansion; (b) whether the communist power system, already brutally frank and outspoken in its hostility to the United States, must be caused to draw back from its present extensive holdings; and (c) whether the United States can afford to allow further advances, continuing measures designed merely to retard those advances.
It is in the light of the foregoing bare outline of an extremely complicated and important situation that United States policy toward Korea should be re-examined with a view to determining in the light of the national security of the United States whether the present program for the withdrawal of United States forces from Korea should or should not be re-affirmed and in the light of that decision, to determine the broad outlines of future U.S. objectives vis-à-vis Korea.
Recommendations:
- 1.
- It is recommended that the Department place before the National Security Council a request that, as a matter of urgency, the decisions taken in NSC–8 be reviewed.