S/P Files: Lot 64D563

Memorandum by Mr. John Foster Dulles, Consultant to the Secretary of State

secret

Notes on Korea

1. The South Korean nation was rapidly developing as a free society binder the guidance of an excellent U.S. mission and with some material aid from the U.S.

What happened there cannot be blamed on internal abuses or failures. On the contrary, if there is any local explanation of the attack, it would be that the Soviet Communists were worried by the success of the South Korean experiment in free government and felt that they had to snuff it out as a dangerous moral salient on the otherwise communist-dominated mainland of North Asia.

2. The large initial success of the attack was contributed to by the following causes:

a)
The South Korean military forces, by U.S. decision, were without combat planes, tanks and heavy artillery although the enemy to our knowledge possessed these in substantial quantity and good quality.
b)
There was failure to evaluation properly the intelligence information. It showed that over several weeks there had been a gradual concentration of large troop and tank formations. But there continued to be a fixed idea on our side that there would not be more than border raids in strength.
c)
There was a mood of complacency on the part of U.S. military advisers, induced by over-confidence in the morale and discipline of the South Korean troops. They seem not to have weighed the fact that the South Korean troops were without battle experience and their morale and discipline could not, in actual combat, survive a totally unequal matériel situation.
d)
GHQ Tokyo was not informed promptly, and when informed did not evaluate the attack as serious until the third day when Seoul was within the enemy grasp. It seems to have been assumed that the attack was a purely North Korean adventure, carried out without the Soviet planning, preparation and backing which would assure its success as against any resistance that the South Koreans could interpose.

The foregoing deficiencies can be substantiated circumstantially if desired. Perhaps they did not decisively affect the outcome. They are noted because it is possible that the same deficiencies exist elsewhere and that corrective measures may be desirable.

3. Presumably the Soviet policy represented by the attack has its origin in planning of a global nature. One possible local factor, namely the growing success of the South Korean experiment, has been noted above. It is also possible that the attack was designed to throw out of gear the planning under way in relation to Japan. In fact, the attack does have the effect of giving renewed importance in Japan to military factors and making difficult a transition to political, economic and social autonomy, a transition needed to prevent growing antagonism and perhaps hostility on the part of the people. This could give Communism an opportunity to make Japan a point of U.S. weakness rather than of strength in the Far East.

4. The response of the U.S. to the Korean attack, notably the President’s statement in relation to Korea, Formosa and Indo-China and its prompt execution with U.N. backing, represented statesmanship of a very high order. The rapidity with which these major decisions were taken cannot but be impressive. The action provides the best chance of causing the Soviet Communists to pause in pursuing a course of militant aggression which, if left unchecked, would make probable a Third World War under conditions disadvantageous to the United States.

John Foster Dulles
  1. Mr. Dulles returned to Washington from his trip to Japan and Korea on June 29. The source text is a copy of this memorandum which was transmitted on June 29 by Mr. Allison, who had accompanied Mr. Dulles, to the Counselor (Kennan).