Editorial Note
The preliminary discussions at Panmunjom dragged on through November and half of December without resolving the basic differences of the opposing sides over composition. At Dean’s suggestion, the outstanding issues were discussed at the subcommittee level and after two weeks a plan was devised for simultaneous discussion of composition, time, and place of the proposed Korean Political Conference. The Communist side’s insistence that the Soviet Union be considered a neutral, South Korea’s opposition to India’s participation, and the general inability to agree to the kind of role neutral nations would play at the conference proved in the end insurmountable problems. On December 8, Dean put forward a “package proposal” which attempted to maintain the principle of a two-sided conference (with the Soviet Union as a voting member on the Communist side) while allowing for limited neutral nations participation. It was rejected by the Communist side on the grounds that it did not recognize the Soviet Union as a neutral and that it unreasonably limited neutral participation. The negotiations ended acrimoniously with charges and countercharges which Dean used as the reason for recessing the fruitless talks.
Extensive documentation of these preliminary discussions is located in the 795.00 files, and the Department of State Bulletin, December 21, 1953, pages 877–878, has printed a copy of Dean’s proposal of December 8. Because of the limitations of space, the editors have not treated these negotiations extensively.