795B.00/5–1050
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chargé in Korea (Drumright)1
Subject: Pres. Rhee’s Comment on Sen. Connally’s Remarks on Korea
| Participants: | President Rhee |
| Mr. Drumright |
In the course of a conversation this morning with President Rhee, he raised the subject of Senator Connally’s recent remarks about Korea. Speaking in a deeply bitter and sarcastic manner, President Rhee said it was very easy for a man several thousand miles away from Korea airily to dismiss Korea and its 30 million people as of no strategic or other importance to the United States. The President went on to say he regarded Senator Connally’s remarks as an open invitation to the Communists to come down and take over South Korea. He wondered how any man, in his right senses, not to mention Senator Connally, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, could make such an irrational statement. The President implied that Senator Connally’s statement had done much harm and that it could not be easily disassociated from United States policy in view of Senator Connally’s close relation to the State Department.
Mr. Drumright reminded the President of the statement made by the Secretary of State following Senator Connally’s remarks. He also reminded the President that the United States was continuing to extend military, economic and moral aid to the Republic of Korea. He reminded the President that during the present fiscal year the ECA was spending more than 100 million dollars in Korea and has, perhaps, its largest staff in Korea. Mr. Drumright said that the United States was also continuing to extend military aid and advice to the Republic of Korea. In this connection, Mr. Drumright pointed out that with the possible exception of Turkey, the United States had its largest Military Advisory Mission in Korea.
Comment: During the same conversation, the President also commented in bitter terms about what he termed the failure of the United States to provide Korea with air support adequate to meet the North [Page 78] Korean air menace (Embtel 662, May 9, 5 p. m.).2 It seems clear that the President’s faith in the determination of the United States to assist Korea in the event of North Korean aggression has been shaken to an appreciable extent by Senator Connally’s remarks, by failure of the United States thus far to take any discernible action to meet Korea’s request for air support, and by what appears to be the failure of the United States thus far to supply Korea with military supplies and equipment under the terms of the MDA program. The foregoing factors, coupled with persistent “talk” that Korea lies outside the United States’ Far Eastern strategic defense zone, is having a decidedly unsettling effect on Korean officials and the public.
- Transmitted to the Department of State under cover of despatch no. 493, May 10, from Seoul, not printed, which drew the Department’s attention in particular to the comment in the final paragraph of the memorandum.↩
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The pertinent passage of this telegram read as follows:
“President… [Rhee] protested what he termed failure of US to respond his request for air support capable of containing rapidly growing North Korean Air Force. Speaking with considerable feeling, he asserted Stalin-aided and trained North Korean Air Force is capable of playing havoc with Korean Security Forces as presently constituted and will continue hold this advantage unless and until existing air disparity is redressed. I replied so far as I knew problem of air assistance to ROK was still under consideration in Washington and Ambassador Muccio had planned discuss it while there.” (102.23/5–950)
See also the memorandum of conversation by Mr. Bond, May 10, infra.
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