795.00/1–951: Telegram
The United States Representative at the United Nations (Austin) to the Secretary of State
priority
Delga 498. For Hickerson from Gross. Korea. I called on Pearson at his request. In accordance with telecon with Hickerson, I outlined to him the President’s reply to Attlee. Pearson was particularly interested in assurances re our withdrawal and he thought rumors with regard to this question had been causing some concern.
Pearson indicated they had been in close touch with the Prime Ministers in London who had been giving serious consideration to the Korean question. He said they had formed themselves into a drafting committee over the weekend with dubious results. The British had come forward with an alternative to the Entezam group’s proposals based upon the idea of a return to the status quo as of June 25. Basic idea was that the North Koreans would control North Korea with Chinese Communist backing and the ROK would control South Korea with UN backing. Negotiations could then proceed from this basis. Pearson indicated he did not believe this proposal was practical and [Page 45] implied that it did not have Indian support. This alternative suggestion had now been dropped in favor of the Entezam group’s statement of principles. They were now in process of attempting to revise this statement to meet points which had been raised in the Prime Minister’s meeting. He felt that Nehru had probably heard the Chinese Communists reactions to the earlier text. Nehru had indicated that with certain changes, there might be some possibility that the Chinese would go along. Pearson was careful to say that Nehru had made no commitment of any kind that he would support a revised statement.
The points which Nehru had made were that the Chinese Communists would lack confidence that arrangements made by the UN or under the UN as set forth in paragraph 3 and 4 of the earlier text would be fair to them. He also apparently indicated that it would be important to give the Chinese Communists an indication that the questions which they were most anxious to deal with, namely, Formosa and representation of China in the UN, would be included among the subjects for negotiation if a cease-fire were effected. He also apparently suggested that it would be important to refer to the Cairo Declaration1 in some way.
On the basis of these and other suggestions, Pearson had redrafted the proposed text. He had revised the preamble of this text as follows: (cf. Delga 485, January 4).
“The objective shall be the achievement, by stages, of the program outlined below for a cease-fire in Korea and for a peaceful settlement of Far Eastern problems, taking account of the Cairo Declaration, the Charter of the UN and the resolutions of the GA affecting these problems, including such questions as the independence and unity of Korea, the disposition of Formosa (Taiwan), the representation of China in the UN.”
I commented that I wanted to make it clear that we were endeavoring to give free hand to the Entezam group; that we did not want to in any way mould their proposals or take any responsibility for them. We had, therefore, on previous occasion, limited ourselves to stating that we would not oppose their proposal if they put it forward. I did not wish to do more than that at this time. I wanted to advise Pearson, frankly, however, that in my personal opinion, we would have to oppose any proposal which dealt with the substance of the Formosa question by taking account of the Cairo Declaration.
Pearson indicated that he was quite ready to drop this from the preamble. [Page 46] He indicated that they had recognized this as a difficulty and had attempted to cover it over by reference to the charter and the resolutions of the Assembly. He thought that the deletion of the phrase taking account of these three points would not substantially affect the acceptability of the text. In the light of this decision and fact that following phrases were a duplication of the phrases in the final paragraph of the text, he also decided to drop the clause beginning “including such questions”.
Pearson had the text revised and handed us the following revised text (quoted at end of this message) for transmission to the Department with request that we advise him whether we would have to oppose this text if it were submitted on Thursday.2 He took the initiative in saying that he knew it would make a difference to us whether or not the Indians would support this. He wished to inform his Prime Minister3 if possible that if the Indians did agree to this and would support it in the committee, the US would not oppose it. I undertook to obtain this information, again emphasizing that we did not wish to take any responsibility for this proposal or for the form in which it is drafted.
In answer to a question, Pearson indicated that if the proposal were put forward with Indian approval on Thursday, he hoped that the committee by Friday could approve a resolution noting the committee’s formulation of these principles, approving them, and requesting the President of the Assembly on behalf of the committee to transmit them to the Chinese Communist regime with the request that they give them serious consideration as the basis for peaceful solution. He thought such a short resolution might be approved by Friday and that if this were the case it would be necessary to allow delay at least until following Tuesday before the committee took any further action. Pearson still thought it was important for many states that an intermediate step along these lines be taken. He did not expect the Chinese Communists to accept the proposed statement of principles.
Question arose as to whether it was wise for the Assembly to approve the principles as its own statement of policy before knowing whether the Chinese Communists considered them acceptable. Pearson seemed to be quite open-minded as to the possibility of a short resolution of the committee which would not approve the principles. Riddell argued that this would not give the Chinese Communists the assurances they wished and would not meet the desires of the Asian group to make it perfectly clear that this program represented UN policy. Pearson seemed to accept this argument.
[Page 47]Full text referred to above follows.
“The objective shall be the achievement, by stages, of the program outlined below for a cease-fire in Korea, for the establishment of a free and united Korea, and for a peaceful settlement of Far Eastern problems.
- 1.
- In order to prevent needless destruction of life and property, and while other steps are being taken to restore peace, a cease-fire should be immediately arranged. Such an arrangement should contain adequate safeguards for ensuring that it will not be used as a screen for mounting a new offensive.
- 2.
- If and when a cease-fire occurs in Korea, either as a result of a formal arrangement or, indeed, as a result of a lull in hostilities pending some such arrangement, advantage should be taken of it to pursue consideration of further steps to be taken for the restoration of peace.
- 3.
- To permit the carrying out of the GA resolution that Korea should be a unified, independent, democratic, sovereign state with a constitution and a government based on free popular elections, all non-Korean armed forces will be withdrawn, by appropriate stages, from Korea, and appropriate arrangements, in accordance with UN principles, will be made for the Korean people to express their own free will in respect of their future government.
- 4.
- Pending the completion of the steps referred to in the preceding paragraph, appropriate interim arrangements, in accordance with UN principles, will be made for the administration of Korea and the maintenance of peace and security there.
- 5.
- As soon as a cease-fire has been arranged, the GA shall set up an appropriate body, which shall include representatives of the Governments of the UK, the US, the USSR, and the People’s Republic of China, with a view to the achievement of a settlement of Far Eastern problems, including, among others, those of Formosa and the representation of China in the UN.”
- For text, see Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 1943, p. 448. The Declaration, issued by President Roosevelt, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and Prime Minister Churchill promised restoration of Formosa along with other territories taken from China by Japan to the Republic of China.↩
- January 11.↩
- Louis St. Laurent.↩