740.00119 Control (Korea)/5–1649: Telegram
The Ambassador in Korea (Muccio) to the Secretary of State
548. Following is text Korean Office Public Information release dated 16th:
“Yesterday news clippings from the United States were brought to President Rhee’s attention relating to a statement issued by him on May 7. Actually, through an unfortunate oversight, what was released on that date was a rough outline of what the President was preparing to say.
“The offices of the President’s Secretariat and Public Information join in expressing regret over the carelessness in releasing the unfinished copy as the President’s formal statement, and hereby earnestly request all press correspondents to help make clear the following points as the correct view of the President:
“The President’s statement: All of my friends who know what I stand for will, I hope, understand my position in spite of any misstatements that may occur. I did not, of course, say that the Communist menace was made in Washington as well as Moscow. Rather, I meant to make clear what I have said more than once in the past: that the division of Korea between the United States in South Korea and the Soviet Union in North Korea was made between these two powers without our knowledge. The responsibility for this division will not, I am certain, be disavowed by the powers who made it, and we naturally expect the United States to stand by and help us solve this problem. We say this in no spirit of criticism, but rather to help insure a correct mutual understanding of the situation by the Korean and American peoples.
“As I have said before and I repeat: We are ready to maintain internal peace and order without foreign aid. So far as our internal order is concerned, we would be safe even if the United States token security force were withdrawn today. I must again repeat, however, that if we should be attacked by a major foreign power we would need more than mere moral help from those nations friendly to us.
“Ambassador Muccio was right when he said I have never asked him for a mutual defense pact between the Governments of the United States and Korea. There has been talk about such a pact, and it has been proposed by our representative to the United Nations in New York, Ambassador Chough Pyung Ok, and we do hope some such arrangement can be arrived at. But it is quite correct that I have not made any such request of him. What I am advocating as a solution to the grave threat against Korea and all Asia by the aggressive forces of Communism is adoption of one of the following three things: (1) the formation of a Pacific Pact similar to the Atlantic Pact; or (2) an agreement between the United States and Korea alone, or with some other nations, for mutual defense against any aggressor nations; or (3) [Page 1024] a public declaration by the United States of a pledge to defend a reunited, democratic, independent Korea, in accordance with the policy of President Truman respecting Communist aggression.
“It must be made clear that in asking the United States to aid us in preserving our freedom we are not asking that US troops be made to fight our battles. It is an outright assurance of material as well as moral aid from the United States that is most needed. Korea stands willing to fight any nation or nations that should attack and attempt to destroy us. Whatever happens, we will fight to defend ourselves until we have exhausted every means at our command, whether or not we have outside aid. So long as we continue our struggle to maintain a peaceful independent existence as a free and democratic nation, we can only trust that we may receive the same moral and material aid given so freely by the United States to all the powers allied to it during the past two world wars. We believe that in fighting for ourselves we are fighting for all other democracies. I cannot see why the democracies should not stand together for mutual defense while the Communists gang up together for the destruction of all democratic governments and the conquest of all free peoples.”