795.00/12–450
Memorandum by Mr. Lucius D. Battle, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State
After the 9:30 meeting today the Secretary talked to Messrs. Webb, Jessup, Matthews, Rusk, Nitze and Kennan on the Korean crisis.
Mr. Rusk asked if the Military were in the frame of mind for the best possible effort which we could make there. He mentioned that they all appear to be extremely dejected and he had been thinking overnight whether we should not think long and carefully about mustering our best effort and spirit together to put up the best possible fight in Korea. He mentioned the difficulty that the British had been in in this sort of situation where the odds were overwhelmingly against them but they had managed to hold. Mr. Rusk thought that we might talk to the Military about making the best possible effort to consolidate our position to one point or points in Korea. He thought we could at least force the Chinese Communists to make a really major effort at great cost to themselves if they were to get us out of Korea. He said that we do have, of course, to consider the welfare and protection of our troops but thought that within that range we might be able to consolidate and make a really effective stand. He mentioned the great difficulty which would result to our position in both Europe and the Far East if we were to simply bow out at this point. He referred to the some 23,000 replacements which were scheduled to move into Korea and asked whether these and possibly others might not be thrown in to help hold a position at some point.
Mr. Kennan said that we were in a very difficult position—one which was similar to the one the British had been in in the last two wars when [Page 1346] they held on when there was no apparent reason for it. He mentioned the political desirability of retaining a position of some sort in Korea.
Mr. Rusk said that we must get a real estimate from the Military on its capacity to resist. He said we must make the best stand possible if we are unable to get a cease fire at the 38th parallel. He mentioned the possibility of using General Collins as a Field Commander with General MacArthur spending full time on the Japanese Peace Treaty.
The Secretary said that in order to do this we would have to strengthen the Military’s will to resist and at the same time see that they did not bomb Manchuria. Mr. Webb said that there were two courses: one to let the Secretary talk to General Marshall; the second, to let the operating level in the State Department take up the matter with the same level in the Military.
Mr. Kennan said that with regard to any possible negotiations with the Russians, a request for a cease fire would look to the U.S.S.R. as a suit for peace. The U.S.S.R. would then want to extract every possible advantage and to damage wherever possible the prestige of the United States. He said their reply would inevitably be an arrogant one. He said that if others approached the Russians for us, the Russians would probably refer to the need for a general political settlement and would probably insist on the discussion taking place in the Security Council rather than the General Assembly. Mr. Kennan said that, if we try to negotiate under a threat to attack the Chinese Communists, the U.S.S.R. would probably appear indifferent publicly. He said that if we threaten general war with the U.S.S.R., they would probably decline to negotiate on that basis. He said that if we threaten to use the atom bomb that the U.S.S.R. would not negotiate under such threat of military action. He said that it was not out of the question that the Russians would agree to some sort of settlement in the Far East involving some sort of status for Korea but that this would inevitably be in the framework of United States concessions in the Far East. Mr. Kennan was speaking from a paper1 which I believe he has put on file in the Department. I was unable to get full notes on all of his discussion.
Mr. Kennan concluded by saying that now was the poorest time possible for any negotiations with the Russians. He said that if there were validity to the theory that negotiations should be from conditions [Page 1347] of strength, this was clearly a very bad time for an approach to the Russians.
Later Mr. Acheson spoke to General Marshall about the foregoing problems and Messrs. Rusk, Matthews and Kennan went over to see the General. Mr. Kennan is doing a memorandum of his meeting over there.2
- Not printed. For an account of the drafting of the paper and extracts there-from, see George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1950–1968, Volume II (Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1972), pp. 27–31.↩
- Not printed. For an account of Mr. Acheson’s telephone conversation with Secretary of Defense Marshall and the subsequent discussion between General Marshall and the Department of State officials, see Acheson, Present at the Creation, pp. 476–477. See also Kennan, Memoirs, 1950–1963, Volume II, pp. 32–53.↩