795.00/7–553: Telegram
The Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Robertson) to the Department of State
priority
16. Repeated information Pusan 9, Tokyo 7 (for Ambassador Murphy). For the Secretary from Robertson.
Department telegram to Seoul regarding aide-mémoire1 received in garbled form after I delivered aide-mémoire to Rhee Friday and not serviced until several hours later.
In addition to restating our position, purpose of revised aide-mémoire was to adopt as much of Korean language as possible that they had used in their aide-mémoire (which I returned to Rhee for reasons I have already stated) so as to make form more acceptable to them without altering substance our views.
We had given careful consideration to all points raised in reference telegram and following are my comments on them:
- 1.
- We added general phrase “supporting air and naval forces” in paragraph 2 because Rhee has shown particular sensitivity to any implication we will ignore Republic of Korea air and naval units and it indicated no commitment as to size. Concept of “balanced” forces is not intended to be implied. I doubt that Rhee and his officials place any such interpretation on it.
- 2.
- I do not believe suggestion on paragraph 5 changes sense. I have carefully indicated such steps could only be reasonable ones.
- 3.
- Point in paragraph a was designed to eliminate strong Korean fear Korean prisoners of war would somehow not be free to return to South Korea from demilitarized zone. Koreans consider terms of reference ambiguous on this point. General Clark stated to Rhee he would write him letter guaranteeing this result.
- 4.
- Last sentence aide-mémoire drafted following discussions with Collins, Clark, Briggs, Murphy and Taylor. Rhee and his Ministers reacted violently to language in my first aide-mémoire on logical grounds it turned Republic of Korea forces over to command of Commander in Chief United Nations Command permanently, as no change in arrangement could be made without our assent. We all agreed language needed modification to meet Republic of Korea views since it would have created a major issue endangering negotiations. In my opinion Rhee would never agree to placing his forces under United Nations Command for indefinite time. Present language provides safeguards against precipitous Republic of Korea withdrawal for about six months after [Page 1331] armistice and possibly longer. Critical time would be a joint withdrawal from political conference when Republic of Korea Government might wish resume hostilities alone if necessary. We should by then have arranged our military and political positions to meet that contingency.