795.00/12–2750
Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. Lucius D. Battle, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State
This morning the Secretary saw Mr. Jessup, Mr. Matthews, and Mr. Rusk and reported to them what took place at the meeting at [Page 1601] Blair House last night. He said that in addition to himself and General Marshall, Secretary Snyder, General Bradley and Mr. Short1 were also present. He said the President wanted to discuss the situation in Korea, whether we could hold our position there, what we should do if we could not, etc.
The Secretary said that General Marshall mentioned to the President the meetings which had been held recently between the State Department and the Defense Department people and asked the President if he would like to attend. The President said that he would and Secretary Snyder indicated he would also like to come.
Mr. Rusk suggested that it might be best to bring the President into these meetings only when they were of specific interest to him or when the participants were ready to talk to him.
Mr. Acheson said that General Marshall had asked him to open the discussion last night. He had followed the line suggested in Mr. Rusk’s paper on our future course in Korea.2 He said that we were clear on our big objective. That objective is to take a stand against aggression on a collective security basis and retain that position as long as we could. He said that reverses did not warrant withdrawal. He pointed out that we were not hopelessly outnumbered in Korea and that the Chinese Communists had the burden of being on the offensive. The Secretary said that we should test out the Communists and see whether they had the vast power that they were supposed to have or whether they did not have this strong power.
Mr. Acheson said that the President agreed that we should not pull out of Korea and leave our friends there to be murdered. The Secretary said that we must consider, of course, how we could eventually disentangle ourselves from this situation. He pointed out that we had never intended to keep a large force there. He also mentioned the importance of not conducting a withdrawal which would result in a loss of these forces since they represented so large a part of our strength.
Mr. Acheson asked General Marshall about the directives which have been given to General Mac Arthur. He said he did not understand why we had taken the Third Division out of Japan and put it back in Korea when the defense of Japan was of primary importance under existing directives. General Marshall said that there had been so many directives issued in connection with the crisis in the Far East that he feared there was some confusion about them. He said that he thought all the directives should be reconsidered and rewritten as necessary.
Mr. Acheson said that it was agreed that we should get a complete restatement of the Korean problem for the President, saying what we want done, how to proceed, etc.
[Page 1602]General Marshall said he was worried about Japan. He also indicated his concern that if air attacks started in Korea, it might be very difficult to get our troops out. The General also said that he thought we could get our troops back to a line farther South without using [losing?] our forces or being cut off from them. He said it was important that we have a real plan for this movement so that the Pentagon would know exactly where it was going at all times.
Mr. Jessup asked at this point if we were clear that we would accept a withdrawal of the United Nations forces if the Chinese Communists withdrew. Mr. Rusk said that we would and said this was included in the October 7 Resolution.
Mr. Acheson said that in the meeting last night, the Military had said that we probably would be able to hold at the Kum River and a line going East. He said it would take all of our forces out there to hold it however.
Mr. Rusk said that FE was worried because no effort was being made to improvise in this area. He said that if we got into the matter too far, we would be interfering with the Military Establishment in its operation in Korea. He said he did feel that there were things which could be done in that area which would help out. He mentioned the desirability of getting U.S. dependents out of Japan, which would cut down our commitments out there. He also mentioned the desirability of creating a civil defense organization in Japan. He also said that we should get SCAP so that it could be moved around easily. He said that Japanese police battalions could be organized and used in the defense of airfields against possible paratroop invasion.
Mr. Acheson suggested that we make a list of these things for the Pentagon and take it up with them, stating that we assume the Pentagon is doing these things.
Mr. Rusk agreed that this was a good idea. He also said that the Military Establishment was assuming that they could go no farther on the Japanese Peace Treaty in view of the situation out there. Mr. Jessup said that we must get this question out of the JCS and get the Secretaries of the two Departments to make a decision on the matter.
Mr. Rusk felt that we should give the JCS a clear chance to come through with their views before getting the problem to the Secretarial level. Mr. Acheson said there was nothing else we could do to get a cease-fire resolution. Mr. Rusk said that we had said as much as we could to the Peiping Government in the message sent through the Swedish Government.
Mr. Jessup suggested we consider the same message to the U.S.S.R. that we did to the Chinese Communists. He said it was possible that [Page 1603] the Chinese Communists had not told the Russians about our message, and that there might be an additional value to having it go to them through a more direct channel.
Mr. Matthews asked what the Russians had to gain from a cease fire. Mr. Rusk said that if it were possible, although he doubted it, that the Russians were trying to restrain the various Communists, this might help.
Mr. Rusk pointed out that there had been no enemy air activity over Korea recently. He said there was a greater military capability here on the part of the United Nations troops than some of the U.S. military people seemed to think. He said it would be very bad for us to come out of Korea in defeat if there were any chance of our making a better stand.
Mr. Acheson went back to the meeting at Blair House last night and said that General Bradley was concerned over what would happen to the forces in Korea if war came. Mr. Acheson said he was asked whether the United Nations would pass a resolution condemning the Chinese Communists and asking them to withdraw if the Chinese Communists launched a great attack over the 38th parallel. Mr. Acheson said that he had replied that we thought that the United Nations would pass such a resolution if this attack were launched.
Mr. Acheson then said we must consider steps that we could take to bring the fighting to an end and permit us to get out of Korea. Mr. Rusk said there were three ways of doing this:
- (1)
- To win a military victory in Korea and stabilize the situation. He said this was not within our capabilities.
- (2)
- To make it in the interest of the Chinese Communists to accept some stabilization by making it so costly for them that they could not afford not to accept.
- (3)
- To get out in defeat voluntarily or under pressure and then to continue our harassing tactics.
Mr. Rusk said that he preferred (2) above.
The Secretary asked whether if we intended to bring about (2) the Russians would bring in air and sea power. He said that if they wanted to deny us success initially they would want to now. Mr. Jessup said he-doubted that they would bring in air and sea power locally unless they were willing to do it generally because this would set off a major war.
Mr. Rusk said that they could have dealt us a heavy blow by air attack during the evacuation and that they did not do so. He said that the blow could have destroyed any possibility we had of defending Japan. He said if they had wanted to start a general war, this would [Page 1604] have been a good way to do it. Mr. Acheson said that the Pentagon was worried over a disaster of this nature and what might happen to our general situation if such a disaster occurred. Mr. Rusk pointed out that this same sort of thing could be done at any time in Europe. He mid we took the risk in June that entry into Korea would lead to general war.
Mr. Jessup asked whether we had the air capabilities of knocking out both Port Arthur and Vladivostok, to which Mr. Rusk replied that we did not except by using the atom bomb.
Mr. Rusk said that we could get solidarity in the free world by holding in Korea until the Chinese Communists’ intentions became clear. If they went into Indochina and their intent in Tibet became clear, we would undoubtedly have no difficulty in getting the British and French to stay with us.
Mr. Rusk said our other alternative was to pull out of Korea, let the Chinese Communists get a seat in the United Nations and possibly withdraw the Seventh Fleet from Formosa. He said that he felt that some continuation of the Korean operation was necessary for the rest of the world to see what they are up against.
Mr. Jessup asked whether we should bomb the power plants at the Yalu River if the Chinese Communists crossed the 38th parallel in great numbers. Mr. Rusk said that he thought that if a major attack occurred, we should attack any targets anywhere in Korea. He said that they had thought in FE that we should wait and see whether we had any bargaining position for a cease fire if we left the power plants alone. He said the Military had told him that it would take three weeks of conventional bombing to destroy the plants.
Mr. Matthews said that he did not think the power plants gave us any leverage on a cease fire. Mr. Rusk said that he thought it probably did not either.
Mr. Acheson said that the matter of additional guard divisions moving into Korea [Japan?] was not mentioned at Blair House last night.
Mr. Rusk again expressed his fear that we were not exploiting the situation as much as we should. He said that perhaps we should get General Marshall and see what could be done. Mr. Jessup said that he would think that the General would want the decisions made here rather than in the field by General MacArthur.
The Secretary suggested that we take the paper which Mr. Rusk had prepared and go over it again to decide what we wanted to accomplish, how to go about it, how much time it would take and then discuss with the Military how we moved ahead.