795A.00/9–2153
The President to the Under Secretary of State (Smith)
eyes only
Dear Bedell: I am sorry that I was not in Washington today to discuss the MIG incident with the entire staff. I realize that the recommendations sent to me had the unanimous support of my shrewdest and most knowledgeable advisers on such matters;1 however, I must confess I was not convinced. I have the feeling that the decision recommended to me—and which I approved—follows the ritualistic, and will likely have no other effect than just to start an argument as to the ethics of the case.
Perhaps I should pause to say, here, that I well realize I can be very wrong. If I didn’t realize this, I would have decided according to my own instinctive reaction rather than as I did.
Having expressed this much distrust of the decision we made, I hasten to add that since we did not do anything startling or different we should expect no startling results—either advantageous or adverse. My own solution made no hit with anybody and, of course, I must make the further admission that it was merely shooting from the hip.
But my reaction was:
- (a).
- Like all the rest of you, I agree that we had to pay the $100,000 in this case.
- (b).
- The MIG plane is no longer of any great interest to us that I know of, and consequently we are not anxious to have this one—and certainly I cannot see why we want any more of them.
- (c).
- Having paid $100,000, I would have withdrawn the offer.
- (d).
- Next, I would have notified the Communists that we had no interest in the MIG plane, and if they wanted to send a pilot down and take it back, that would be all right with us.
The advantages, as I see them, of this course of action would have been to stand before the world as very honorable people, maintaining that while we had not been guilty of real violation of the Armistice, we were anxious to avoid any implication of violating its spirit. As a consequence of this desire, we not only redeemed our pledge to pay the $100,000, but we likewise were ready to return the ship to the Commies.
[Page 1513]Of course, someone would argue that you could not possibly explain to the American people the expenditure of $100,000 for something we did not want. My own reply to that one would have been that we were letting the offer stand until we could find out if there were any signs on the other side of someone taking up our offer, well knowing that if he did, we would get certain technical information concerning the latest types in use, and then let it go.
Over and again this disadvantage of explanation at home would have been, in my opinion, a tremendous gain in propaganda value in almost every other country.
There is, of course, no reason for writing this except to give you personally some inkling of the reasons and considerations that flashed through my mind when I heard about the matter. If we are to win the propaganda war—and I think it most important that we do—we have got to be alert for every opportunity to produce unusual results. The normal and the routine are not good enough, and I do not for a moment believe that the defection of this one North Korean will encourage any others to come in.
You will recall that in World War II, when we gave the French some P–40s, two of the pilots defected at once and went back to France with our planes. This did not stop us from giving more to the French. Some months ago a Polish pilot came into Denmark with a plane, and I believe one also came in to Yugoslavia. These incidents are so scattered and so infrequent as to have little significance.
Of course, if MIG planes start coming in to us by the hundreds, I will eat crow, but knowing the Communists I would gamble that there will be little if any more of this. Their methods of punishing people through torturing families are too well known and too effective to give rise to any great hope that we are going to wreck the Communist Air Force in this fashion.
If we get accused of violating the spirit of the Armistice, and this argument makes any headway with neutrals and even some of our friends, I think we will experience a defeat in this so-called psychological warfare.
This note is for no official action whatsoever. I am merely trying to put my personal thoughts before you—as my old comrade and associate—so that when next we meet we may discuss these matters in an effort to develop a sort of pattern, or at least a conviction, that will possibly help us in the future. As for the current one, we have made our decision, we will make it stick and we will do the best we can with it. I think it goes without saying that I hope you and C.D. and Radford are completely correct in your estimate.
As ever,