Editorial Note
The plenary sessions at Panmunjom reconvened on July 10. In his opening statement, Delegate Nam Il insisted that the United Nations Command was responsible for recovery of the prisoners released by [Page 1365] Rhee and he demanded to know what measures were being adopted to prevent such releases in the future. Nam also asked whether the armistice would include the Army of the Republic of Korea and what guarantees the United Nations Command would give to insure that South Korea would go along with the terms of the agreement. Harrison could only counter by stating that the United Nations Command assumed the Republic of Korea forces would remain under the command of the United Nations Command after the armistice and would abide by the provisions of the agreement. As stated in General Clark’s letter of June 29, Harrison continued, the United Nations Command would do all in its power to cause the Republic of Korea to cooperate with the armistice, although it could not guarantee that the Republic of Korea would fully support it. Harrison stated that the United Nations Command was prepared to provide police protection to the members of the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission and he suggested that all nonrepatriate prisoners be moved to the demilitarized zone where they could be turned over to the Commission with a lesser chance of hindrance or incident. A record of this session can be found in telegram C 63574, Clark to JCS, July 10, 1953, not printed. (Matthews files, lot 53 D 413)