Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Korea and China, Volume VII, Part 1

711.5622/11–2651

Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for United Nations Affairs (Hickerson) to the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Johnson)

secret

[Washington,] November 26, 1951.

Subject: Possible UN Action Re Bomber Shot Down By Soviet Union.

Should we pursue further in the United Nations our claim that Soviet Union pilots shot down a United States plane on a United Nations patrol mission over international waters far from the Soviet coast?

On balance, we are inclined to let the matter lie.

The only practical step open to us would be to have the matter put on the agenda of the Security Council. The only respectable resolution we could offer under this item, in view of the different versions of the plane incident which we and the Soviet Union have publicized, would be a resolution creating an impartial commission to investigate the facts. (We offered such a resolution on September 1, 1950, UN document S/1752 when it was charged that our pilots had bombed Chinese territory; the Soviet Union vetoed that resolution on September 12, 1950.)

The difficulty with this proposal is that even if it were adopted by the Security Council, we could not be confident of getting from an impartial body an affirmative finding for our version of the incident. Indeed, it is not out of the question that an impartial group might find in favor of the Soviet story. The only witnesses who might have supported our case were the members of the crew of the lost plane. The Soviet airmen involved, and probably hundreds of Soviet citizens, could be produced by the Soviet Union to testify that they “saw” the United States plane over Soviet territory and even that they “heard” it open fire. Apart from eye-witnesses, the only evidence we could offer would be our radar “plots” on the plane when last heard from, and the orders under which it was operating. It is not clear whether General Ridgway would want to disclose these to an impartial group. In any event, from the information available to the Department so far, the most we could prove would be that the plane was last known to be far from Soviet territory and that if the plane kept to its course it could not have come within 20 miles of Soviet territory. It does not appear that we could prove that the plane did not in fact lose its way and deviate from its course. That weakness in our case is obvious on the face of the report which we filed with the Security Council.

We could, of course, bring the case to the Security Council on the assumption that the Soviet Union would not agree to establishing an impartial commission and would veto it, thus giving us a propaganda victory. It is, however, a highly questionable and dangerous practice to introduce resolutions which we do not really want to see adopted merely in the hope that the Soviets will veto. Further, in the discussion in the Security Council, the factual weakness of our case and the futility of any investigation will become apparent. It will become quite clear that in fact we do not know what happened to the plane and where it was shot down, and the Soviets do. The other members of the Council and the United States may well assume that in fact our plane did lose its way and fly over Soviet territory, and would resent being asked to support us when they think we may be in the wrong.

We have also examined the possibility of asking the Secretary General to put in a claim against the Soviet Union on behalf of the United Nations and of the personnel of the plane, under the principle of the Bernadotte case, and the opinion of the International Court of Justice and the General Assembly resolution (365–IV) which reaffirmed the right of the United Nations to make such claims. Those claims would seem to apply only to agents of the United Nations injured or killed while on duty for the United Nations, and that the troops of a member nation in the United Nations action in Korea are not such agents of the United Nations as would authorize the United Nations to file a claim in a case like the present. Whether the United States Government could bring such a claim not merely in its own capacity but as the Unified Command is an interesting theoretical question, for which, of course, there is no precedent. We are asking L to look into these questions, although it would not appear desirable to pursue such steps at this time.¹

1. Mr. Johnson responded to Mr. Hickerson in a memorandum of November 28 which read as follows:

   “I recognize the force of the arguments contained in your memorandum of November 26 on the above subject for taking no further action on this matter. However, I am not yet convinced that we should not in some way publicly and clearly contrast the Soviet attitude on this question with our attitude at the time our fighters violated the Soviet frontier near Vladivostok. Were it not for the UN aspect of the question we would have clearly demanded the usual assurances and indemnification. I am not sure that we wish to leave the record standing that in the event one of our planes is unlawfully destroyed and the personnel killed while engaged in UN action, we will not make some effort to obtain redress.

   “I suggest that UNA, EE and FE further discuss this matter.” (711.5622/11–2851)