795.00/4–651
Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Northeast Asian Affairs (Johnson) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Rusk)
Subject: Attached Memorandum of April 5 from JCS, Military Action in Korea.1
I fail to follow the reasoning, in particular of paragraph 2, of this memorandum. Paragraph 2a states if the immediate objective of Soviet strategy is western Europe, it would be to the Soviet advantage for a maximum number of UN forces to remain in Korea, The memorandum goes on, however, to state that if the immediate Soviet objective is the Far East, it would be to the Soviet advantage for UN forces to leave Korea. The memorandum goes on in paragraph 2 to state without qualification that any armistice which would leave Communists and UN forces in Korea would be greatly to the disadvantage of the UN forces.
[Page 306]If the JCS assumption that it would be to the advantage of the Soviets for UN forces to withdraw from Korea if immediate Soviet objectives are in the Far East, I do not perceive how an armistice which would leave UN forces in Korea would necessarily be to our disadvantage.
With reference to paragraph 3, I agreed that while [sic] a satisfactory resolution of the Korean problem in a sense of a unified non-Communist Korea cannot be expected unless and until there is a general relaxation of world tensions. However, I do not think it necessarily follows that military action, as suggested in paragraph 4a, must be continued until the millennium when our political objectives for Korea can be attained without jeopardizing our position with respect to the USSR, Formosa and seating the Chinese in the UN. It seems to me that the memorandum entirely rejects the possibility of arriving at an acceptable modus vivendi such as we have been considering.