Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Korea and China, Volume VII, Part 2

S/P Files: Lot 64 D 563

Memorandum by Charles Burton Marshall to the Director of the Policy Planning Staff (Nitze)

top secret

[Washington,] January 30, 1951.

1. I am setting down here the main points covered in our conversation of January 30 regarding immediate steps in a procedure for bringing the Korean involvement to an early conclusion.

a. The first step is to identify the basic assumptions. These are:

(1) That it is in the broad security interest of the United States to liquidate the Korean involvement and get its forces out of Korea in the very near future.

(2) That it is not in the military interest of the United States again to push military ground operations north of the 38th parallel.

(3) That the evidence in hand tends to indicate that the Peiping régime also desires to liquidate the Korean situation and achieve some settlement with the United States along the lines indicated in the First Party-Second Party-Third Party conversations.

b. The next step is to get confirmation as to assumptions (1) and (2) from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

c. The third step is to establish a position within the State Department to the following effect:

(1) That the UN procedure—involving long deliberations, formal action such as resolutions, and a multiplicity of committees and commissions, will be too ponderous to bring about the necessary settlement promptly enough and too public to permit the sharp give and take necessary for settling differences in the delicate situation in question.

(2) That covert negotiations will be necessary concurrently with the formalized steps to be taken in the UN.

(3) That for a certain critical period it will be necessary to conduct formal procedures within the UN and covert negotiations elsewhere on the issues with China.

d. The fourth step is to get a message through to Third Party to the following effect:

(1) That the interchanges with Third Party, particularly his information given January 30 regarding a letter from Peiping, is taken with utmost seriousness by this Government.

(2) That the information arrived too late to arrest the processes relating to the resolution for naming Communist China an aggressor.

(3) That Third Party should await a new message of highest importance, due to reach him through the usual channel in the very near future.

e. The fifth step is to lay out a position within this Government as the basis for the next communication to be forwarded to Peiping via Third Party. This position, and the relevant message, should be along the following lines:

(1) The Chinese Communist armies should withdraw beyond the 38th parallel and should cause the North Korean forces to do likewise.

(2) In consideration for the above the United States will undertake to ensure that the UN forces would confine immediate operations in the vacated area to patrols and would avoid pressure upon the withdrawing forces.

(3) Upon reaching the 38th parallel the United States will further undertake to ensure that UN forces will come to rest at the 38th parallel. Republic of Korea forces will be put under the same restraint.

(4) The deployment southward of UN forces will begin promptly after arrival at the 38th parallel. Republic of Korea forces alone will be left in the adjoining area with a screening force of non-Korean forces to ensure that Republic of Korea forces will not cross the 38th parallel from the south and that the parallel is not violated from the other side.

(5) Concurrently Chinese Communist forces should conduct a withdrawal through North Korea, leaving behind only such forces as necessary to restrain the North Koreans from violating the border at the 38th parallel.

(6) The United States will undertake to ensure that as the withdrawal above described proceeds air attacks above the 38th parallel will be diminished and the evacuation of UN forces from Korea will also proceed.

(7) Concurrently with the above, covert negotiations between representatives of the United States Government and the Peiping Government for an agreement for formally registering a cease-fire will proceed.

(8) After the registering of the cease-fire, such covert negotiations will be carried forward with a view of settling other questions between the United States Government and the Peiping régime.

2. Steps b. and d. as described above have been accomplished.