795.00/5–2551
Memorandum by George F. Kennan to the Deputy Under Secretary of State (Matthews)
Confirming what I have just reported by phone, I visited this afternoon the gentleman of whom we have spoken.1
He received me very cordially and pleasantly in a sort of a summer pagoda adjoining his house, and we talked for some two and a half hours. His general attitude toward the visit seemed to be: “I am, as a diplomatic representative of the Soviet Union, always happy to meet with worthy Americans and to talk things over with them.” He complained, incidentally, that he was isolated, that people were afraid to see him, etc. I naturally told him that I understood his position very well, having served so long in Moscow, even though I personally deplored the decline of normal and free contact between diplomatic representatives and others.
I told him that what I had come to talk about was the problem of a possible cease-fire in Korea. I explained my own status and emphasized that as an official on leave, occupying no responsible post in the Government, I obviously could not treat with him formally on behalf of our Government. I realized, I said, that this problem of a cease-fire was a very complicated one involving numbers of other countries, and that its final solution would require many things besides just such conversations; but I was convinced that if we were able to ascertain that there was some identity of view between our two governments as to how we should proceed toward it, the other difficulties could all be surmounted, whereas if no such identity of views existed I feared that any efforts to arrive at agreement elsewhere would be apt to be unsuccessful. I wanted to find out, I said, how he felt about this: whether he thought that it might be worthwhile for us to talk about these matters, bearing in mind my status, or whether he thought it would be better for us not to do so, or whether perhaps he thought there was some other forum where the matter ought to be discussed. While he refused to be drawn out on this question, he did say that unless he had thought there might be some use in our talking he would not have [Page 484] agreed to meet with me. In the discussion which ensued, he turned the subject time and time again to general political questions, advancing the usual Soviet propaganda theses. It is my impression that his reason for doing this was probably that our conversation was being overheard and recorded; at least I assumed that to be the case, and his words seemed fully in accord with this hypothesis. I tried generally to avoid this type of discussion by saying repeatedly that I was sure we would not agree on these wider matters, and the best we could do would be to see whether we could not get on with the practical matter at hand. What is set forth below, therefore, about our actual exchanges on the subject of a cease-fire represents not a single continuous conversation but a series of things which came out in the course of this prolonged dialectic exercize.
He wanted to know what I thought about the proposal that all foreign troops be withdrawn from Korea. I said I thought that was desirable as a final solution but did not believe that anything of this sort could be done immediately: the Koreans, I thought, were not in a situation where they would be able to take over the handling of their own affairs at once; I feared that the immediate departure of all foreign troops would only mean the renewal of civil war on the peninsula; nothing could be worse than to have the whole thing start all over again in this way; I thought that once hostilities ceased under some sort of cease-fire agreement we would have to face the question of the future of Korea, but I was afraid that agreement on that would not be easy for us to reach and negotiations might take a long time. What, he asked, did I think my Government’s position was with regard to the future of Korea? I replied that as I understood it it was the position adopted by the United Nations, in a series of resolutions, namely that Korea should eventually be an independent and democratic state; but I did not think this goal had to be achieved to the satisfaction of everyone concerned on the day following termination of hostilities.
He asked on what basis I thought a cease-fire might usefully be discussed—what terms, that is, I thought my Government would approve. With the usual disclaimers about not binding my Government, I said I thought it might be useful if we could examine the problem on the basis of termination of hostilities approximately in the region where they are now taking place, recognizing that there would have to be some sort of control authority which could give the respective sides assurance that the armistice would not be exploited by the other side for the purpose of amassing new strength and launching a new offensive. When he pressed for further details, I said that unless I knew whether his Government was interested in seeing hostilities [Page 485] ended on something like this basis I did not think any useful purpose would be served by my going into greater detail. I said there would be plenty to discuss under this concept if we both felt in principle that it was a concept worth pursuing.
When he brought up, as he did repeatedly, the question of our wider differences with the Chinese Communists, I told him that I thought no useful purpose would be served by trying to couple consideration of the cease-fire question with the wider problem; I thought we could make progress only if we took the specific question of a cessation of hostilities in Korea and looked at it alone and without relation to the wider differences concerning general Far Eastern problems. He said that in this case my remarks contained “nothing new,” and he was at a loss, therefore, to know what to say in reply to them. He did indicate, however, that if I could make more detailed proposals his Government would be interested to hear them. To this I replied, as indicated above, that I thought no useful purpose would be served by my trying to go into greater detail at the time, in the absence of any indication from him of the views of his Government on the general desirability of such a cease-fire. I felt that if I were to try, in these circumstances, to go into greater detail about this, I would be only airing views so personal that I did not think they would be useful to him.
When I pressed him to say whether he thought that it would or would not be useful for us to meet again, he was evasive but not negative, saying that he thought that it was a good thing in general for people to talk things over and that he would always be happy to receive me and to pass the time of day. I had the feeling that his reluctance to say anything more definite on this point stemmed from an unwillingness to indicate that he would ask for further instructions from his Government. I therefore said that I would like to give further thought to what he had said and would come back on another occasion at his convenience, if this were agreeable to him. When I suggested several different days on which I thought I could do it, he selected Tuesday June 5 as the most agreeable to him, provided his duties as Chairman of the Security Council did not interfere. We therefore left it that I would return next Tuesday afternoon at 3:00 p. m. in the absence of any further word from him.
I think I should add that during the course of the conversation he repeatedly turned the talk to the problem of the Chinese Communists and our relations with them, going into the usual propaganda line about how sensitive they were, how we had offended them, etc. I think my own replies to these charges are scarcely of sufficient interest to recount. I did say to him that I thought it would be a great mistake to [Page 486] underestimate the extent to which the conduct of the Chinese Communists had been offensive to the American people; I was sure, I said, that ten years of good behavior toward this country on the part of the Chinese Communist regime would not suffice to wipe out in the minds of many of our people the memories of the provocative and hostile attitude which they had exhibited toward our representatives and toward this country in general in these recent months and years, not to mention their gratuitous and uncalled for entry into the hostilities in Korea. The frequency with which he introduced this subject and the emphasis which he laid upon it seemed to me a strong indication that it was in this area, namely of its relationship with the Chinese Communist Government, that the Soviet Government felt itself inhibited in discussing the subject of a cease-fire in Korea.