357.AD/7–150

The Secretary of State to the Acting Political Adviser in Japan (Sebald)

secret

6. Info OAFE. While fully realizing difficulties involved, Dept recommends that if at all possible you communicate to Muccio or Drumright desirability Rhee and other ROK leaders be prevailed upon to endorse and sign statement to UN SYG along following lines for use in propaganda especially to SEA and SOA. Lack comment from ROK, due harsh necessity, has been serious propaganda handicap, which shld be remedied if at all possible.1

[Page 279]

Beginning text: “The Govt and the people of Korea are deeply grateful for the resolutions of the Security Council of the United Nations calling upon its members to assist the Govt of the Rep of Korea to repel a brutal and unwarranted aggression against it and to restore the situation existing prior to the aggression.2

The Govt and the people of the Rep of Korea are likewise deeply moved by the promptness and vigor with which members of the United Nations, in honorable fulfillment of their obligations under the Charter, have acted to repel the aggression and to restore peace in Korea.

As the constitutionally chosen representatives of the people of Korea, freely acting in accordance with the democratic principles and processes embodied in the Constitution of the ROK, which was set up with the approval and sponsorship of the United Nations, we, the undersigned, solemnly declare that we shall unflinchingly carry on the struggle with all the resources at our command until the situation hitherto existing has been restored.3

We are deeply conscious of the harsh trials through which the people of Korea are now passing, but we share with them the conviction that, in this trial, we are fighting not for ourselves alone but for the great principles embodied in the Charter of the United Nations. Only if these principles survive and flourish in the world can free nations and peoples, especially those newly arrived at national independence, hope to survive in freedom, dignity and peace. The knowledge that our struggle is filled with significance for millions of other peoples and many new nations buoys up our courage and stimulates our efforts. We call upon the people of Korea to renew their resistance to the aggressor with stout heart and furious purpose.

Confident of the ultimate success of the effort to repel aggression, we shall disdain negotiations with the aggressor for any purpose other than the restoration of the situation existing prior to the aggression. No support will be given by the people of Korea to any illegal negotiations with the aggressor undertaken ostensibly in their name, and no recognition will be tendered to any such negotiations that may be purported to have been made.

Recognizing the solemn obligations of our Constitutional position and filled with confident hope for the future, regardless of present trials, we hereto set our names and, with our signatures, pledge to the peaceful future of Korea our supreme efforts and our unstinted sacrifice to the cause in which, with a goodly company of nations devoted to freedom, we are involved.”

Acheson
  1. Under date of July 4, the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea (Limb) communicated to Secretary-General Lie a message substantially similar to that quoted in this telegram except as indicated in footnotes 2 and 3 below; the Korean message was circulated as U.N. document S/1571.
  2. The Korean message contained no mention of restoration of the situation existing prior to the aggression.
  3. In the Korean message, the word “removed” was used rather than “restored,” at this point.