Editorial Note

On February 18, 1954, the four Ministers meeting at Berlin issued a communiqué describing the agreements they had reached during four weeks of discussions. For a text, see Department of State Bulletin, March 1, 1954, pages 317–318. This communiqué was the culmination of the efforts at the Conference, among other things, to call a conference of Korean belligerents to discuss the political settlement of the Korean problem. The meeting was scheduled to begin in Geneva on April 26, 1954. There was no provision for neutral participation and the question of the restoration of peace in Indochina was also to be discussed. For documentation on the Korean phase of the Geneva Conference, initially concerned with United States efforts to persuade the Republic of Korea to participate in the meeting, see volume XVI, pages 1 ff.