320/12–1650: Telegram
The United States Representative at the United Nations (Austin) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 16—8:08 p. m.]
Delga 446. Assume Department will have text Wu’s statement at press conference today from Sunday press. UN press releases will be sent Department by USUN pouch Sunday evening. USUN daily unclassified summary account of press conference will be transmitted Department Sunday afternoon.1
USUN learned that following Wu press conference, Foote (secretariat) gave correspondents oral briefing as follows:
CPR delegation conferred with Lie and Entezam after today’s press conference, spending about thirty minutes with each. Conversations were described as “cordial and friendly.” In response to a question [Page 1562] asked privately by one of the correspondents, Foote said he “certainly would not assume” that cease-fire had been subject of discussion. Later, in oral briefing, Foote told correspondents that CPR delegation on Friday, December 15, had asked SYG Lie to help them arrange departure by air next Tuesday for Peiping. Foote said these arrangements were “going forward.”
Continuing oral briefing, Mat Gordon (secretariat) said cease-fire committee probably would have interim report for committee 1 on Monday, December 18. Gordon said Entezam committee would continue its efforts by every possible means. Gordon “did not exclude possibility that CPR may attend committee 1 meeting.” Gordon added that Rau expects to see Wu over the weekend. Gordon said that he had approached Wu after the press conference and asked him to clarify his statement CPR “willing to try to advise the Chinese volunteers to bring to an early conclusion the military operations which they have been forced to undertake with the Korean people’s army in their resistance against the US armed forces of aggression.” Requesting that there be no attribution to UN sources, Gordon told correspondents Wu had indicated that CPR “might be willing to withdraw volunteers if certain circumstances were met.”
- Not printed.↩