710.5/12–1550
Memorandum by the Director of the Office of South American Affairs (Warren) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Miller)
Lt. Gen. Ridgway1 had me over today for lunch with him in his office at the Pentagon. There were just the two of us present. We had a splendid opportunity to speak about anything urgent. In the 45 minutes that I was there, the following matters were discussed:
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2. I inquired as to the position which State is to take with respect to any future offers of Latin American troops for assistance in the Korean effort. The General expressed the personal view that the only thing we could do would be to point out the undetermined course which we must take at this moment in view of the Korean developments [Page 679] and thank our Latin American friends for any offer, at the same time suggesting that they keep the troops ready for use in connection with the United Nations effort as foreseen in the resolution, “United for Peace”. The General is going to try to obtain a decision by the three Defense Departments so that we can have an official Defense statement covering the foregoing. In the meantime, any remarks which we might make to Latin American Chiefs of Mission could be slanted in the light of the information in this paragraph.
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- Lt. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway, Deputy Chief for Administration of the Army General Staff.↩