Matthews files, lot 53 D 413: Telegram
The Commander in Chief, United Nations Command (Clark) to the Joint Chiefs of Staff
flash
C 64007. 1. The Armistice Delegation, represented by the liaison officers, completed agreement on the Armistice at 1405I hours today. The Armistice will be signed by the senior delegates acting for their respective commanders at Panmunjom at 1000I hours on 27 July 53.1 I will sign immediately thereafter at my advance headquarters at Munsan-Ni. Ceasefire and effective date will be simultaneous at 2200I hours on 27 July 53.
2. In accordance with agreement reached with Communists, there will be a simultaneous press release issued here and at Munsan-Ni at 1600I hours today. Imperative that no information on this matter be given to press prior to that time.
- According to telegram CX 64028, Clark to JCS, July 27, 1953, at the morning meeting of liaison officers on July 26, the Communists refused to agree to signing at Panmunjom by supreme commanders on the grounds that the UNC had refused to exclude Chinese Nationalist and ROK correspondents. The UNC maintained that these press observers would constitute no threat to the security of the Communist commanders, but agreed to the Communist side’s proposal for initial signing by senior delegates at Panmunjom with the supreme commanders signing later at their own headquarters. (Matthews files, lot 53 D 413) There was still a final problem, Clark’s insistence that the UNC senior delegate should not sign the armistice in a building adorned with two copies of Picasso’s “Dove”. For the resolution of this issue, see Clark’s From the Danube to the Yalu, pp. 294–295.↩