Office of the Historian

795.00/6–2353: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Embassy in Korea1

secret
niact
Washington, July 6, 1953—7:37 p.m.

20. For Robertson from Secretary. Have carefully considered your #192 and 061600Z.3 President’s June 16 [6] letter4 offering security pact was informally cleared with Senate leaders and received general public approval. Any present uncertainty as to Senate action is slight and results from feeling in some quarters that President Rhee desires to commit US to a reckless suicide pact. We are trying to eliminate this fear and I shall be meeting early Tuesday with bipartisan Senate leaders and will then cable further. What is needed most of all is for Rhee to give assurance that ROK is dependable partner not committed to rash adventures.

Dulles
  1. This telegram, drafted by Dulles, was repeated to Tokyo for Murphy and Clark as telegram 51 and to Pusan as telegram 17.↩
  2. Dated July 6, p. 1336.↩
  3. Dated July 7, p. 1337.↩
  4. Not printed; for text, see Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953, pp. 377–380.↩