795B.5/4–3051: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Embassy in the United Kingdom
4969. Pls deliver fol personal message to Morrison 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 [Page 391] 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.
This country, which fronts on two oceans, has heavy responsibilities in the Pacific, as well as in the Atlantic. It is properly and deeply concerned with the problems of the Pacific and is making great sacrifices toward their solution.
The real problem is how to achieve our agreed aims in Korea. The attack must be repelled, and it must be shown that its continuance will not pay.
Short of a change in the aggressive Communist purpose, I do not see how hostilities can cease. So long as this purpose persists there will be fighting in Korea. So far there has been no indication of a change in purpose. In fact, a new and massive offensive is under way.
Under these circumstances, we must fight. And our economic and political measures and attitudes should back up our military ones. We must convince the enemy that a cessation of hostilities is in his interest.
I believe that it is essential to make plain in every sensible way that our military objective is a limited one, and that the fighting can and will stop when the aggression stops.
There are many indications that a major air attack may be launched at any time against the United Nations forces from bases on Chinese territory. If this occurs, we must assume that a decision has been made to attempt to drive the United Nations forces from Korea whatever the cost or consequences. Under these circumstances, it may be imperative to attack the bases from which the attack upon our forces comes.
Should this air blow be launched against us, the safety of the forces, land, sea, and air, will be gravely imperiled. Time will be a factor of the most vital importance in launching a counter blow against the bases from which the attack comes.
We realize fully that the Governments which have forces in Korea are deeply concerned in this decision, and for this reason we have been holding consultations to reach the widest possible agreement on the procedure to be followed.
The particular circumstances of an attack cannot be anticipated, but I think we can anticipate that the decision of how to meet the attack, if there is a major one, would have to be made at once. As a practical matter, consultation after the event between Washington and London—to say nothing of additional consultations with the other Governments—would require the passage of hours, even days, during a time of grave peril to our forces.
[Page 392]For these reasons, we believe that this Government, as the Unified Command, must retain the latitude to determine whether an attack requires immediate counter action in order to preserve the safety of the forces. This requires confidence on the part of our Allies that the decision will be soberly and wisely made, with full realization of all that is involved. I think that the course which the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have followed over many months has justified this confidence. I think also that the authority to take counter action to preserve a command is inherent in and essential to the very conception of command. Any other view would leave this Government with the responsibility for the forces—our own and those of other nations—engaged in Korea, but unable to take a step which may prove to be essential to preserve their very existence.
This Government profoundly hopes that the necessity for the decision which I have been discussing will never be presented to it. But it cannot rest upon that hope. The Chinese are plainly playing for a military decision. They have still large bodies of troops uncommitted. We cannot close our eyes to the possibility of a reckless and desperate play on their part at some point in the battle.
Another question which has been much discussed between our Governments is the use of economic measures to aid the military ones.
In your message which your Embassy let us see on April 27 you voiced objection to the Additional Measures Committee rushing ahead and submitting a report at once to the Political Committee of the General Assembly.1 I do not believe that the issue is really one between precipitate action and considered and deliberate action.
The proposal for economic measures has been under discussion since last January, and the Resolution of the General Assembly providing for a committee to consider it was taken on February 1. At that time it was understood that the Committee might defer its report if the Good Offices Committee reported satisfactory progress. It was also understood that the Additional Measures Committee was not required to remain inactive until the other Committee reported failure. For almost three months now the Good Offices Committee has been at work, and yet it cannot even report progress.
Under these circumstances, I do not believe that continued inaction by the Additional Measures Committee is helping to bring about or to increase the possibility of negotiations for peaceful settlement. On the contrary, I think that it suggests timidity and indecision on the part of the United Nations.
In the past some members of the United Nations have believed that the development of economic measures would further alienate [Page 393] the Chinese Communists and increase their hostility. I do not see how their hostility can be increased. I do not see any possibility of any basic realignment of the Chinese Communists toward the free world unless and until they end their attack. A prerequisite of this seems to be a conclusion on their part that to end the attack is in their interest. So it seems to me that the addition of economic measures to the military ones we are already taking will move the Chinese in the direction of this decision and that failure to take them moves them away from it.
Moreover, what we are actually proposing is that urgent consideration should be given to the adoption of a resolution calling for an embargo on war materials for Communist China and the establishment of review procedures which would make possible changes in the initial embargo in the light of actual developments in China and Korea and in the experience of cooperating countries in applying their respective control measures.
The United States has done much more than this and has ended all commercial and financial relations with Communist China. We would welcome similar action by all United Nations members. But we recognize the great importance of unity in action; and, therefore, in the effort to get general agreement, suggest something considerably less than what we have done.
So far as the United Kingdom is concerned, what we have proposed means little more than proclaiming publicly what is already being done.
However, public agreement upon these measures in the United Nations and their extension to other countries would, we think, be a demonstration of a united will to participate in a collective program designed to diminish the war-making power of the Chinese Communists and to bring home to the Chinese the increasing cost to them of the course upon which they are embarked.
In the political field our Governments have differed in the past regarding the wisdom and advisability of admitting the Chinese Communists 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 [Page 394] 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.
I am still giving careful thought to the possibility which we suggested last month, and which you also developed on somewhat different lines, of having a new declaration of aims, which will reemphasize our desire for peaceful settlement upon conclusion of the aggression.2 We will have further talks with officers of your Embassy during the coming week. I am sure, however, that you are already aware of the serious objections which we have to certain elements in your counterproposal. These objections can be developed in detail during the forthcoming talks.
In any event it is my immediate suggestion that the present moment is not an opportune one for a public statement. The military issue in Korea is still being fought out. General Ridgway believes that he can meet and repulse the attack. It is clearly a great one and is not yet fully developed. In this situation any statement by us looking toward a peaceful settlement is, in my judgment, sure to be rejected with contempt as a cry for peace from nations which are sorely pressed. So I think we would retard rather than help the chances of a peaceful settlement by a statement now.”
- For related documentation, see the compilation on economic sanctions against Communist China, pp. 1874 ff.↩
- Two drafts (not printed) of a proposed report from President Truman to U.N. Secretary-General Lie on the Korean situation are in Department of State file 795B.00/4–2051. The drafts, dated April 21 and 27, were designed to set forth the views of the United States regarding the nature of its mission as the Unified Command in Korea and to indicate the desire of the United States for an honorable cease-fire and settlement in Korea.↩