Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Korea, Volume XV, Part 1

State–JCS Meetings, lot 61 D 417

Memorandum of the Substance of Discussion at a Department of State Joint Chiefs of Staff Meeting¹

[Extract]

top secret

Washington, June 25, 1952—11 a.m.

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Air Attacks on North Korea Power Plants

General Bradley: I have just talked with Eden on the telephone about the power plants in North Korea.² I told him that the machinery had been removed from these plants and for a long time there was nothing there. Recently machinery had been put back in and power was being made available to industry in North Korea so we decided to hit them. They only became a military target a short time ago.

Mr. Johnson: Hasn’t the machinery been in the plant at Suiho all the time? I discussed it with the Intelligence people yesterday and I gathered that that plant had been in operation.

General Bradley: Yes, I think that is right, but it is not true of the other plants.

Mr. Matthews: We have taken the line that this was a straight military decision and not a change of policy. Do you know whether the British liaison man in the UN Command would have known about this?

General Bradley: Probably not. The big trouble is that this thing happened while Alexander³ happened to be here and he didn’t know about it.

Mr. Matthews: We refrained from speaking to the British about it because we didn’t want to give the idea that the matter had political importance. I had understood that you were going to mention it to Elliot.⁴

General Bradley: I seldom speak to Elliot about the Far East.

Admiral Fechteler: I think it would be a mistake to do so because if you start, the French will want to get in on it.

Mr. Matthews: Perhaps I misunderstood, but I thought that after our last meeting,⁵ when I spoke to you about this matter, that you were going to speak to Elliot.

General Bradley: I didn’t understand that.

Admiral Fechteler: The surprising thing is that we didn’t lose a man or a plane. That is because we caught them flatfooted.

General White: They had two hundred planes on the ground that didn’t go up. I think it must have been one of the days they were not supposed to fly and the local commander didn’t send them up.

Admiral Fechteler: This leads me to feel that they must be having some trouble with POL. If we shut off some more shipping I think it would hurt them.

General White: They have a shortage of parts also.

General Bradley: At Mr. Lovett’s press conference⁶ one of the newspaper men asked whether we realized the political implications. He pointed out that Taft⁷ had said we had lost control of the air over North Korea, and Truman had denied it and then we carried out this raid to show that Truman was right. He asked Mr. Lovett if this was the reason for the raid. It is amazing how people read political implications into everything.

Draft Message to Muccio and Clark concerning Military Intervention

General Bradley: The draft message to Clark⁸ seems OK to us.

Mr. Matthews: I don’t believe we have any changes to suggest.

General Bradley: We were wondering if the attempted assassination of Rhee⁹ was staged with an empty gun.

Mr. Matthews: That crossed our dirty minds too. Lloyd¹⁰ has raised the question with us of having Clark talk to Rhee because of Clark’s influence with him. In view of the message Clark has delivered to Rhee through Van Fleet¹¹ we don’t think this needs to be decided at present. In any case it will be useful to get this message out to Clark and Muccio because if it later proves desirable for Clark to talk to Rhee we should know what we are going to do.

General Bradley: Did Lloyd think we should approach Rhee and lay down the law or else?

Mr. Matthews: Yes. At first he suggested a joint U.S.–U.K. approach, but we pointed out that with UNCURK there this bilateral approach would look bad. He agreed with that, but he wanted Clark to press Rhee right away. It is our view that we might come to that but not right away.

Mr. Allison: Yes, we may have to come to it.

General Collins: Is it clear in this proposed message that any military action taken would be UN rather than U.S. action?

General Bradley: In paragraph 5 it says: “On authorization by U.S. Government to intervene, CINCUNC should take action.” I think that makes it pretty clear, but we might put in that the U.S. Government would be acting as Executive Agent for the UN.

General Collins: I think that would do it.

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1. A note on the title page read: “State Draft. Not cleared with any of participants.”

   Of the JCS, Generals Collins and Vandenberg, and Admiral Fechteler attended as well as Vice Chief Bolté. Matthews headed the Department of State contingent; Gleason represented the NSC and Admiral Smith the Department of Defense. In all, 19 persons attended. In addition to Korea, Turkey, air defense of Japan, and British representation on Clark’s staff were discussed at this meeting.

2. See the editorial note, p. 351.
3. The bombing caused an adverse reaction in other nations participating in the UN effort in Korea, particularly Great Britain. Lord Alexander of Tunis, British Minister of Defense, was in Washington at the time and, as Bradley noted, was not informed. For Acheson’s account of this incident and the “snafu” which resulted in the failure to inform the British, see Present at the Creation, pp. 656–657.
4. Sir William Elliot, Air Chief Marshal, Royal Air Force, Chairman of the British Joint Services Mission in Washington, and U.K. representative on NATO Standing Group.
5. State–JCS meeting, June 18, 1952; memorandum of discussion, not printed. (State–JCS Meetings, lot 61 D 417)
6. For a report on Lovett’s press conference of June 24, 1952, see the Washington Post, June 25, 1952.
7. Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio.
8. The draft under reference was sent as JCS 912098 to Clark and Muccio, June 25, 1952, infra; the draft can be found in FE files, lot 55 D 128, attached to a memorandum by Young to Johnson, June 25, 1952.
9. A 62-year-old man, identified as Yu Sit’ae, was seized by Korean police while attempting to assassinate President Rhee at a ceremony marking the second anniversary of the outbreak of the conflict in Korea. The ROK Government charged that the assassination was part of a plot by the opposition Democratic Nationalist Party (DNP) and arrested two of its members (draft memorandum, June 26, 1952; FE files, lot 60 D 330, “Korean Internal Political Situation”).
10. On June 23, Selwyn Lloyd and members of the U.K. Embassy met with principal officers of the Department of State, excluding the Secretary who was in the United Kingdom. For a summary of their discussions on Korea, see Tosec 14, p. 352.
11. Van Fleet informed Rhee that he and Clark were in complete accord with the political position of the U.S. Government and the United Nations in the Korean internal crisis and that there was no divergence between U.S. and UN political and military positions (telegram 1437 from Pusan, June 25, 1952; 795B.00/6–2552).