740.00119 Control (Korea)/9–2447
Memorandum by the Director of the Policy Planning Staff (Kennan) to the Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs (Butterworth)
Walt: With regard to this telegram from Korea,20 I should like to make clear to you the position of the Planning Staff with regard to policy in Korea.
This field, as you know, was covered by a SWNCC directive which carried our policy up through the present period.
We had assumed that the military aspects of the Korean question had been fully taken into account by SWNCC in preparing its program. We are not sure, however, that the SWNCC program represents a logical elaboration of the answers to the questions contained in paragraph 6 of Seoul’s telegram. From the discussions we have had with members of the armed services on this question, we do not get the impression that Korea is regarded as militarily essential to us. If this is correct, we feel that our policy should be to cut our losses and get out of there as gracefully but promptly as possible.
This matter at present is highly operational, and I think no useful purpose would be served by the preparation of a Staff paper on it. If at any time you think we could do anything useful along this line, please let me know.