Editorial Note
In a telegram sent through commercial cable, Senators William Knowland and Alexander Smith, Congressman Walter Judd, and General James Van Fleet urged President Rhee to use his good offices to reestablish close cooperation and friendship between the Republic of Korea and the United States. Such partnership and cooperation, they stated, were better ways to assure a united Korea after the political conference than “fixed conditions.” A text of this telegram was transmitted in telegram 5 to Seoul, July 1, 1953, not printed. (795.00/7–153)
Another friend of President Rhee in the United States, former Ambassador William C. Bullitt, advised Rhee against making demands for an alliance with the United States to unify Korea by force if the political conference was not successful. Bullitt did raise the idea of a limited offensive to the waistline of Korea, but Secretary Dulles, with whom Bullitt discussed his communication to Rhee, cautioned the former Ambassador not to give Rhee the impression that even a limited offensive would have United States support under existing conditions. (Telegram 30 to Seoul, June 30, 1953; 795.00/6–3053)