Office of the Historian

140. Memorandum From the Acting Secretary of State to the President1

Washington, May 3, 1956.

SUBJECT

  • New Weapons for our Forces in Korea

You asked whether the time has not come when we should publicly announce that we will equip our forces in Korea with the newest types of weapons, because of the impossibility of supplying spare parts and maintenance for the older types.2

We think the time is near when this should be done. General Lemnitzer has said that July 1 is the critical date. First, however, we have to solve the problem of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission and its teams. The Department of State is informing the other Governments participating in the United Nations action in Korea on May 4 that the United Nations Command plans to suspend provisionally those provisions of the Armistice relating to the operations of the Supervisory Commission and its teams in the south because of the flagrant Communist violations.3 Some of our important allies with whom we have been consulting are not happy about this course, and we have to make sure that our friends will be prepared to support us when this action by the United Nations Command is considered in the United Nations. Soon after the Neutral Nations Inspection Teams are expelled from the area under the control of the United Nations Command, it will be time, we think, to begin the introduction of new weapons for our forces. We think this can be done as a matter of interpretation of the Armistice Agreement in the light of the actions of the other side. Since the international developments, and in particular the reactions to our expulsion of the Neutral Nations Inspection Teams, can not altogether be foreseen, we shall have to make a final assessment of the situation before the introduction of new weapons is begun.

Herbert Hoover, Jr.4
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 711.11–EI/5–256. Secret. Drafted by Hemmendinger.↩
  2. On May 2, President Eisenhower sent a memorandum to Acting Secretary Hoover in which he solicited Hoover’s comments on a number of international problems, including Korea. Eisenhower’s memorandum reads: “With respect to the military disadvantages we are suffering in Korea because of the Armistice and of our failure to have the Armistice Commission removed from Korea, I wonder whether the time has not come when we should not [now?] publicly announce our intention of keeping our forces there equipped with the newest types of weapons, because of the impossibility of supplying spare parts and maintenance for the older types.” (Ibid.)↩
  3. Infra.↩
  4. Printed from a copy that bears this stamped signature.↩