795.00/8–2450
Memorandum by Mr. Max W. Bishop to the Ambassador at Large (Jessup)1
Subject: State Department Drafts on Korea Policy and the 38th Parallel.2
Jimmy Lay said this morning that he was somewhat surprised at the last State Department’s drafts on the above subjects. He pointed out that the President had asked for policy recommendations on what we do when we reach the 38th Parallel. Jimmy said that he could hardly understand how, in the light of the President’s specific request, we could reply to the President merely stating that we have no policy recommendations at this time.
I told Jimmy that these were working drafts and that they would, of course, be changed in the process of staff consideration. I pointed out that the response to the President’s request might have to be negative but that nevertheless if that were the case, the reasons would be clearly set forth in the paper in the final draft which would be entirely responsive to the original request. I said that I hoped that the Staff Assistants could have a free exchange of substantive ideas this morning and that on the basis of that exchange, the Department of State would attempt to consolidate all of the agreed ideas into one or two drafts.
I hope to prepare for you today an analysis of the many papers on the Korean matter and some suggestions as to how we can best get forward.
- Mr. Bishop, a member of Ambassador Jessup’s staff, was the Department of State Representative on the NSC Staff Assistants, while Mr. Jessup was the Departments Representative on the NSC Senior Staff.↩
- See the draft memorandum by Messrs. Allison and Emmerson on “U.S. Courses of Action, in Korea”, dated August 21, p. 617, and the Department of State draft memorandum on “Future U.S. Policy With Respect to Korea”, dated August 23, p. 635.↩