331. Memorandum of Conference With President Eisenhower0
OTHERS PRESENT
- Ambassador McConaughy
- Colonel Eisenhower
After amenities, Ambassador McConaughy said there is a lot going on in Korea and that the government is doing well. Prime Minister Chang Myon, whom the President knows, is turning out to be a good man who wants to work with the Americans. Factionalism exists but this must be expected in oriental countries. The Ambassador himself has tried to stress the fundamentals of national unity in the national interest. The Koreans of course hope that he can secure additional aid for them on this trip.
The President said that Korea gets a disproportionate share now of available U.S. foreign aid. In answer to the President’s question, the Ambassador said that $165 million in military support funds are planned for Korea during this fiscal year. The Koreans are working on an exchange rate reform and would like to have a stabilization fund from the United States.
In answer to a further question, the Ambassador said the Koreans export rice and a low grade of coal. Possibly they could export fish, minerals and seaweed, but these latter commodities are rather second-rate exports. There is no way of getting around the fact that Korea is a poor country. Their main resource is cheap labor. With it all, they are fine people and he himself harbors warm feelings for them.
The President, while expressing his admiration for the Korean people also, said they have got to find a way to work themselves up the economic ladder. We must convince them that their nation is not sovereign if it continues incapable of supporting itself. This is a fact the Koreans do not like to face. The Ambassador agreed but said the Koreans emphasize the unnatural split of their country. Most of their resources are north of the 38th parallel and the manpower is south. The President said he did not understand how Roosevelt and Churchill allowed the Communists into North Korea at the Yalta agreements. He himself had begged Truman at the time of Potsdam not to demean himself by asking the Soviets into the Far Eastern war. The President said that the Russians being in the Kurile Islands does not make sense.
[Page 692]Ambassador McConaughy said that Khrushchev plans to visit North Korea on the way back from his present trip. It is surmised that Khrushchev considers it necessary to counter the President’s visit. The thing to watch out for is a unification proposal which Khrushchev might make, which of course would be phoney. The President said that if the Chinese ever ended their domination of North Korea, the North Koreans would be desirous of joining the ROK’s to obtain the benefits that the ROKs enjoy.
The discussion then turned to Ambassador McConaughy’s schedule which will include a visit to Canada in the vicinity of Mt. Eisenhower.
The Ambassador then said that his wife as well as he had felt the President’s visit to South Korea had been a great success. The President expressed as his only disappointment the fact that the Japanese failed to cancel his visit before his departure from the United States. All in all, he considered the Far Eastern trip a plus. The Ambassador again agreed and said his wife hopes to communicate with Mrs. Eisenhower while here on a two-week stay. The President told me to arrange for Mrs. Eisenhower to see Mrs. McConaughy. (This has been arranged for Monday, September 19th.)
Ambassador McConaughy then expressed great satisfaction with the way his country team is working in Korea and expressed admiration for General Magruder and Dr. Moyer of ICA. General Magruder, in particular, is having problems with the ROK army, which needs a pay raise beyond the financial capabilities of the government. The President said he feared getting a bunch of mendicants on our hands. He has no suggestions as to what to do to bolster the Korean economy, but thought the ROKs might examine their military strength. A country cannot thrive if it keeps a large proportion of its population “on the front.” Six or seven years ago he had proposed a scheme which we considered reasonable but which had been rejected by Rhee. Given his choice, Rhee would have had an army of forty divisions. Like Chiang Kai-shek, he nurtured dreams of attack against the North.
In answer to the President’s question, Ambassador McConaughy said that the army pay scale is comparable to that in the rest of the country. Their top-ranking generals are paid the equivalent of $70-80 per month. This fact produces a temptation to corruption–the selling of tires and gasoline and the like. The situation is better, thanks to the work of General Magruder who is a logistics expert. The Ambassador said he feels that with it all the Koreans must keep a strong military position. The President agreed. The Ambassador said the new government would like to cut military strength by 100,000 men. General Magruder [Page 693] considers this too high a figure under his present instructions and would prefer the cut restricted to 50,000.
The discussion then turned to the subject of bureaucracy, in which the President mentioned with some feeling the salaries and expense accounts and privileges which the Congress sees fit to vote to itself. The Ambassador agreed.
In conclusion, the President said he assumed our government would try to help the Koreans a little more. Our aid is spread thin and it is difficult to justify disproportionate aid to a little jut on the continent of Asia. This location is important principally because we have given our word that we will defend it. He agreed that, given our existing conditions, it is necessary for us to stand behind the ROKs. He agreed with the Ambassador that South Korea in the hands of the Communists would be an extremely distressing thing for the Japanese. The Ambassador said Mr. MacArthur is trying his best to improve relations between Japan and South Korea.
After an exchange of pleasantries, the meeting ended.
- Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, DDE Diaries. Secret. Prepared by John S.D. Eisenhower. McConaughy was in Washington on home leave.↩