Office of the Historian

795.00/9—2552

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State for United Nations Affairs (Hickerson)1

top secret
[Washington,] September 25, 1952.

Subject:

  • Korea

Participants:

  • Ambassador Gross—USUN
  • Mr. Hickerson—UNA

Before Ambassador Gross returned to New York today, I told him that at the Malik dinner tonight he should find an opportunity for raising casually the question of the Korean armistice negotiations. He should tell Malik that the UNC position against non-forcible repatriation of POWs is absolutely firm. We have no desire to detain a single PW, or to send him to any particular destination but we will not use force to compel him to go to the Communists. At Panmunjom we have made repeated efforts to find a solution for the impasse on this question. We have offered various proposals for impartially determining the desires of the POWs, as well as suggestions which would save the Communist face on this issue. All these have been rejected. Despite our repeated efforts to get the Communists to make their own suggestions for a solution of the impasse, none have been forthcoming. So long as the Communists continue to insist on our using force to repatriate resisting POWs there will be no armistice and the responsibility is entirely theirs.

I further told Ambassador Gross that if Malik suggests that both sides agree to an armistice now on the basis of the Geneva Convention leaving the question of those unwilling to return for subsequent negotiation, [Page 539] or makes any other substantive suggestions for disposing of the POW question, Ambassador Gross should listen without commenting on the substance. He should indicate that he is not sufficiently familiar with the details of the negotiations to express any judgment on any specific proposal. If Malik wants him to send any specific proposal back to the US Government, Ambassador Gross would, of course, be glad to do that. The best thing would be, however, for these suggestions to be made at Panmunjom where the UNC negotiators would give them the most careful consideration.

I told Ambassador Gross to go ahead on the above lines unless I telephoned him with different instructions.

  1. This memorandum was drafted by Henkin.↩