795.00/3–951
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Rusk)
Subject: Limitations on counteroffensive action by UN forces in Korea
| Participants: | Ambassador van Roijen, the Netherlands |
| Mr. Rusk, Assistant Secretary—FE | |
| Mr. Scott—WE1 |
Ambassador van Roijen called at his request to inquire about General MacArthur’s recent statement regarding limitations on counteroffensive [Page 220] action by UN forces in Korea.2 He said that this statement had occasioned some worry in The Hague that General MacArthur might seek the removal of the restrictions under which he currently has to operate in Korea.
I told the Ambassador, very confidentially, that the problem was more of a public than a private one. I said that General MacArthur had not in fact requested the Joint Chiefs of Staff to recommend any changes regarding the restrictions under which he was operating. For reasons which the Ambassador would readily understand, the restrictions nevertheless did present General MacArthur with a uniquely difficult military problem and thus with a considerable public relations problem. Unlike situations with which commanders in the field are ordinarily faced, such as the attainment of specific objectives with the entire resources available to a government behind them and with access to enemy targets limited only by military exigencies, General MacArthur was faced with a situation where the precise objectives of his mission had not yet been finally determined; where he knew he could not expect further significant reinforcements, and where he was required to respect the “sanctuary” of the enemy in Manchuria. Under such circumstances it would be next to impossible in a democracy such as ours to attempt to censor General MacArthur in his quite natural determination to remind the public from time to time of the unique character of the restrictions under which he was having to operate in Korea.
On the policy side, I assured the Ambassador that our very firm policy to localize operations to Korea would not change through any action on our part. It was clearly desirable, not only from an ideal policy viewpoint but because of hard, military facts, to conduct the campaign in Korea so as to avoid the extremes either of precipitating an all-out war with China or withdrawing from the peninsula. While this was not an easy course to steer, I observed that no one would have thought it possible a year ago that as many American soldiers could be fighting Chinese soldiers as are engaged in Korea today without the US being at war with China. Possibilities existed, of course, that [Page 221] the Chinese Communists might themselves take some new action such as a decision to engage in air warfare on a major scale in Korea or to attack American troops in Japan, or possibly to launch an offensive against Indochina. If any of these things happened, we would of course be faced with a new situation and we would have to reconsider our present policy in the light of such a new situation.
In response to a question, I told the Ambassador that we did not have any direct evidence that the Chinese Communists were in fact planning any such adventures in the immediate future, but that they could not be ruled out as possibilities.
Regarding the crossing of the 38th parallel, I told the Ambassador that, for the while at any rate, this was still an academic question except for aerial and naval attacks and perhaps feints and thrusts by the ground forces. We were not in a position to launch a major offensive across the parallel at this time.
Referring to the portion of General MacArthur’s statement involving decisions yet to be made on the highest international levels, I said that the GOC, according to our information, had come up with a complete blank insofar as any reaction by the Chinese Communists was concerned. Our best guess was that the Peiping authorities were waiting to see the results of their next major offensive before deciding whether to commit a heavily increased number of their forces or to have a go at negotiations for a cease-fire.
Although recognizing that the present see-saw operations in Korea present a difficult public relations problem in this country, the Ambassador appeared to be reassured regarding our basic policy toward the situation. I asked him to request The Hague to limit the dissemination of the information I had given him, emphasizing its extremely confidential character.
- Joseph W. Scott, Officer in Charge of Swiss and Benelux Affairs.↩
- On March 7, General MacArthur issued a statement wherein he said: “Assuming no diminution of the enemy’s flow of ground forces and matériel to the Korean battle area, a continuation of the existing limitation upon our freedom of counter-offensive action, and no major additions to our organizational strength, the battle lines cannot fail in time to reach a point of theoretical military stalemate. Thereafter our further advance would militarily benefit the enemy more than it would ourselves.” The statement concluded with the observation that “vital decisions have yet to be made—decisions far beyond the scope of the authority vested in me as the military commander, decisions which are neither solely political nor solely military, but which must provide on the highest international levels an answer to the obscurities which now becloud the unsolved problems raised by Red China’s undeclared war in Korea.” (Hearings, pp. 3540–3541)↩