895.00/4–1349: Airgram
The Secretary of State to the American Mission in Korea
secret
Washington, April 13,
1949.
A–68.
1. The Department has received a report from a source in the Far East, who has an excellent reputation for accurate reporting, to the effect that he expects serious trouble in Korea within a 60-day period.
2. He said the initiative will be taken by the south Koreans.
3. This information ties in with reports from the same source received during the middle of February 1949 which indicated:
- (a)
- That the military situation in Korea has become more critical during the past few months, causing competent observers to expect some sort of a conflict as a certainty.
- (b)
- That in north Korea military preparations have been intensified; liaison between the north Korean army and the Chinese Communists in Manchuria has been constant; military equipment reportedly has funneled across the Yalu River; defense measures have been stepped up, including founding of plans to move the capital from Pyongyang nearer Manchuria and that the RR from the 38th parallel north to Pyongyang has been ripped up.
- (c)
- That in the south the south Korean Army gained a new esprit de corps from the putting down of the rebel uprising of October 1948, even though the south Koreans did not distinguish themselves much in that incident; and that army leader Lee Bum Suk, aided by intensified training in communication and tactics by the Americans, has [Page 988] tightened his organization to the point where south Koreans think they could not only defend but even attack.
- (d)
- That a feeling-out process has for some time been under way in the frequent minor forays by both sides into the “target range” neighborhood of the 38th parallel—no longer guarded by American troops.
4. Request Mission’s comments on foregoing.1
Acheson