Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, Korea, Volume VII

795.00/12–750

Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Chinese Affairs (Clubb) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Rusk)

top secret

[Washington,] December 7, 1950.

Chinese Intervention in Korea—Current Intentions

Reference: CA Memorandum, December 1, 1950, “Chinese Communist Intervention in Korea—Counter Strategy”

The following comments are offered in respect to the situation which has arisen as a consequence of massive Chinese Communist intervention in Korea.

Basic Assumptions:

1. The free world is now in the preliminary stage of World War III.

2. The next stage, by Moscow planning, probably envisages either (a) the rapid development of new peripheral conflagrations leading up to direct war between the U.S. and the USSR, or (b) the outbreak of war between the USSR and the U.S. immediately from the situation in Korea.

3. In either event the USSR would endeavor to isolate the U.S. from its present allies, insofar as possible.

4. The outbreak of war with the U.S., although having a background of Soviet propaganda, would be in the form of an unheralded sudden strike against U.S. power at points where it is exposed and accessible to Soviet military strength, with objectives on the North American continent included in that strike.

Moscow–Peiping Intentions:

The Indian messages of August current (see especially Delhi’s 466, August 24¹) seemed to indicate that the Chinese Communists had only limited objectives with respect to American relationships with Formosa and Korea. Chou En-lai’s warning (Delhi’s telegram 831, October 4) was, it will be recalled, related to the 38th Parallel and by clear inference projected no Chinese movement unless foreign UN forces crossed the 38th Parallel: forces comprising only South Korean elements might go north over that line without the threat of Chinese intervention.

Meetings with high Soviet officials appear, however, to have been held in Peiping in both August and October. It is not clear that Chinese Communist objectives (that is, Moscow objectives) were not changed as a consequence of those meetings. It is clear in any event that Chinese Communist propaganda is now aimed at (1) the ousting of UN forces from the Korean peninsula or their annihilation; (2) the removal of the 7th Fleet from the Formosa strait; (3.) the cessation of U.S. aid to the National Government on Formosa; (4) the seating of Communist China in the UN; and (5) Chinese Communist participation in a peace settlement with Japan.

UN forces are now in retreat, and no propaganda gloss put on communiqués from the UN side would be able to hide from the Chinese Communist commanders in the field the fact that the UN military position has badly deteriorated. Until the fronts are stabilized, we should be negotiating from a position of weakness and in those circumstances the Chinese Communist negotiators would surely ask for every conceivable political concession. They would possibly demand in addition that in the withdrawal of UN forces (if conceded) the forces should be without their arms and be under the watchful surveillance of the Chinese Communists. They might propose in addition that the UN bear the burden of Korean rehabilitation—of course under the direction of the “local authorities”. There would appear to be little profit from a deal which not only conceded gratis all Communist demands but required that we foot the bill. Munich couldn’t hold a candle to it.

Advantages of Continuation of UN Operation:

The objective situation in Korea appears to offer little promise that the UN forces would be granted a cease-fire arrangement which would leave them with a shred of prestige or even safety. Vyshinsky’s reaction to the 11-Power proposal² would appear to be an augur of what can be expected from Peiping in reply to the démarche of Sir Benegal Rau.

If there appears to be little potential for a cease-fire and a subsequent compromise agreement, however, there are still elements in the situation which seem to offer some benefits from a continuation of the UN military operation in its present character. If it is militarily feasible, the UN forces might be kept in being in a relatively restricted beachhead with good port facilities which could be made into a “Stalingrad” that the Chinese Communists would find very costly to reduce. This should be practicable and possible in view of the UN possession of truly superior weapons, including an air force, which contribute substantially to redress the balance of forces between the opposing sides. If this is, as postulated, one sector in the preliminary stage of world War III it should be exploited as such, for what it is worth to the global struggle.

There are fruits which could logically be expected to come from the maintenance of the UN position in Korea which are worth striving for. Certain developments which could logically be anticipated to follow from continuation of the UN action, and which would be beneficial to the UN allies, are the following:

1. The Chinese Communists, entering into Korea in such force as the present, can hardly avoid trampling upon certain political and administrative rights of the Koreans in the area invaded.

2. The Chinese Communists, if condemned by the UN as aggressors, will possibly suffer certain political disadvantages at home. Their drive for a UN seat would be effectively checked.

3. The areas under occupation, and particularly North Korea, have been badly torn up by war, and the Communist occupants will therefore sustain an additional burden of rehabilitation—and at the same time face the discontents of the Korean population.

4. The military action itself, as carried out against the UN forces, will constitute an attritive drain upon the resources of the Chinese nation. If it be argued that the Chinese are readily able to meet drains on their manpower whereas the Occidental UN member States supporting the UN operation are not, it is on the other hand to be noted that the Chinese nation lacks anything approaching the same capacity to meet drains on its material resources. This is particularly true at a time when the Chinese economy is still suffering from long years of war and civil war. Whether the USSR is in a position readily to make up those material deficits is an open question.

5. The very successes which have attended the Chinese drive will tend to increase their self-confidence, even their arrogance. This might possibly be true to a certain degree even vis-à-vis Moscow, as well as in respect to the so-called “imperialist camp” against which they are currently warring. This situation will be aggravated perhaps by the circumstance that the Chinese Communists will be in occupation of an area long considered by the Soviet Union (and before the USSR, by Tsarist Russia) to be of considerable strategic and political importance to Russia rather than to China. There does exist in the present situation, in short, the seeds of some possible dissension between the Moscow–Peiping alliance.

6. For so long as the Chinese Communists are engaged in Korea they will presumably be correspondingly braked as regards other ventures directed, by hypothesis, toward Indochina, Formosa, or other areas on their periphery. That would constitute a net gain.

7. Both dissident “guerrillas” and bandits, and other discontented elements in China Proper, would be emboldened by continuation of the present struggle, where they would be disheartened by a quick collapse of the UN forces under the blows of the People’s Liberation Army. The initial roll-up of the enemy front in satellite territory, suggested as one way of throwing the USSR oil balance, would perhaps develop as a possibility in China. Morale in Formosa would also be maintained, where otherwise it would fail. The situation in Japan could better be held stable, where disquiet and vacillation would surely follow upon any rapid withdrawal from the peninsula. The support that a continuing UN campaign would offer to political resistance to Communism in Europe as well as in Asia is another goal to be achieved.

In sum, a new objective in Korea should now replace the first objective of UN forces, namely, the U.S. should strive through the localized UN operation to increase the strength of its political alliances throughout the world, which development should be paralleled by the progressive outlawry of the Moscow–Peiping combine and its satellite friends. The original UN view that the Korean peninsula can be conquered, unified, stabilized, and rehabilitated through UN military, political, and economic means must, however, now be abandoned; and, in certain contingencies, the UN military campaign itself may have to be abandoned. We should therefore make certain that we are found in a military position to accomplish evacuation of the UN forces in the event that (1) there intervene other major developments which make a redistribution of those forces advisable, or (2) it is the UN will that the project be abandoned as hopeless from a military point of view. The withdrawal, it should be emphasized, like the UN challenge to aggression in the first instance, should be by UN mandate.

Global Redistribution of U.S. Forces:

A concentration of U.S. military effort, or even UN military effort, on Korea alone would be justified only on the basis of the hypothesis that the Moscow–Peiping axis at the present time contemplates only a limited peripheral operation and not the development of the Korean hostilities in the near future into the dimensions of World War III. Such an assumption cannot safely be assumed. It is because of this circumstance that neither the U.S. nor any of its allies should be caused to keep in Korea contingents which cannot safely be spared from strategic areas of greater importance for the global defense of the free world. It is clear that the over-all world danger is increasing. It is truly desirable that the UN Korea operation be kept in being, in at least token form and preferably in effective form, in the anticipation that at least some of the benefits listed in the foregoing section may be gained, and in order that there shall be full exploitation of all reasonably safe opportunities that may develop for inflicting a defeat on some sector of the world Communist camp. The UN commitment, however, should be related to our over-all capabilities and demands on our strength from the main theaters of potential conflict, and the circumstances and times alike appear to demand that the U.S. contingent particularly should be reduced substantially in order that we may strengthen other, more important areas. It is tentatively suggested that approximately all but two or three full divisions of the U.S. forces should be evacuated in the near future, while the UN nations support it, the UN action should be asked for stronger contingents. The UN force is not small: under General Walker’s command alone there are 4 U.S. divisions, 8 ROK divisions, 2 British brigades, 1 Turkish brigade, the U.S. 187th Airborne RCT, and smaller Filipino and Thai units.^* The ROK force particularly is presumably subject to expansion. Perhaps other contingents than the American can be built up as well. But if the U.S. partial withdrawal leads in due course to termination of the UN operation before an overwhelming Communist threat, so be it.

As suggested in CA’s reference memorandum of December 1, it would seem essential that there should in any event be such redistribution of U.S. forces as would assure the primary defense of Japan. Germany and western Europe generally likewise have their demands on the forces of the allies. The defense of the U.S. itself and the training of its new armies of course should be given priority over all else.

Conclusion:

It is patent that the demands of both the Korean war and other theaters cannot now be met except by (1) making much heavier demands on the armed forces of other UN member States, and (2) mobilization of substantially larger forces in the U.S. itself. It should not be overlooked that the USSR in supporting Peiping’s intervention in the Korean war presumably undertook certain commitments to help its ally directly or indirectly by actions of its own—depending upon developments, for the Communist tactics are flexible. It is not to be assumed as certain that the Soviet aid would be forthcoming only when and if the UN forces were to cross the border of Korea and intrude into the territory of China itself. The Soviet Union may plan for reasons of both military advantage and political prestige to balance the Chinese Communist operation in Korea by another operation of its own, whether near to or far from the Korean theater. The immediate present, and particularly the period when there may be in progress any evacuation of UN forces from the peninsula (which evacuation would naturally tend to strengthen other potential theaters of warfare in which the USSR presumably has an interest), would appear to be one critical period. Whether it is the most critical period remains to be seen. It does not appear in any event, however, that the free nations can afford to consider longer that they have until 1952 to prepare.

1. For the text of this message, see vol. vi, p. 446.

2. Reference is to the appeal of the 13 Arab-Asian nations; see the memorandum by Mr. Hickerson, December 5, p. 1408. During the General Assembly meeting on December 6, Mr. Vyshinsky had made the following statement:

   “It is common knowledge that the United States armed forces crossed the 38th parallel with the approval, among others, of the authors of a statement issued by several Powers and published in the Press; in which they now plead that a halt should be called at the 38th parallel and that that line should not be crossed. Yet at that time they gave their full support to the northward march of MacArthur’s legions beyond the 38th parallel and to the Manchurian border.” (U.N. document A/PV.319)

3. C.f., Hanson W. Baldwin, “The Command Line-Up”, New York Times, Thursday, December 7, 1950. [Footnote in the source text.]