795B.5/4–3051: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Embassy in the United Kingdom 1
4969. Pls deliver fol personal message to Morrison2 from Secy soonest:
“I am writing you about some of our common problems, especially those relating to the Far East. We each ought to understand the other’s position—what we think; why we think it. We start from the common ground of desiring peace and security in the Pacific and the earliest conclusion of the Korean conflict. We agree that the United Nations must fight the attack in Korea. We are doing everything possible to limit the fighting in Korea.”
[Here follows discussion on Korea; see volume VII.]
“In the political field our Governments have differed in the past regarding the wisdom and advisability of admitting the Chinese Communists3 [Page 246] to the United Nations. Whatever may have been the merits of this debate, can we not now agree to a moratorium upon it? At a time when the Chinese Communists are defying the United Nations, fighting its forces on a major scale, and denying the validity of every provision of the Charter, the discussion of their possible admission to the United Nations seems to me to have the most divisive possible effect between us and to give them the greatest encouragement in continuing their present course.
It is difficult everywhere in this country, and in all the countries which are supplying forces in Korea, to keep our peoples constantly alive to the rightness and necessity of the sacrifices which have to be made for a struggle limited in its nature and not susceptible of the conceptions of victory to which people have become accustomed. To add to these difficulties discussion of admitting the enemy to the organization which they are fighting seems to me so utterly confusing to the average man as to imperil the whole United Nations operation in Korea.”
[Here follows further discussion about Korea.]
- According to drafting information indicated at the usual position at the bottom of the first page of the source text, Acheson drafted this telegram and cleared it with the following: the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Rusk), the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Perkins), the Assistant Secretary of State for United Nations Affairs (Hickerson), the Deputy Under Secretary of State (Matthews), and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Merchant).↩
- Herbert Morrison was the new British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. For a message from Morrison to Acheson on the Korean situation transmitted by the British Embassy on April 17, see volume vii. The Chinese representation question was not mentioned in this initial Morrison message.↩
- According to a notation by Merchant at the end of the source text, two changes were effected with Acheson’s approval in the original text. One revision was made at this point, the original text reading “Chinese Communist Government” being changed to read “Chinese Communists”.↩