320/1–1051; Telegram
The United States Representative at the United Nations (Austin) to the Secretary of State
Delga 504. From Gross. Re Korea. I advised Pearson that we would not oppose revised statement of principles (Delga 498)1 subject to important factor of promptness presentation and allowance of short reasonable period after adoption to enable Peiping to transmit reactions. Furthermore, that we assumed that next step would be promptly taken if negative reply received from Peiping or in event of undue delay of reply from Peiping.
Re paragraph 2 statement of principles (Delga 498), I told Pearson we would interpret language relating to “lull in activities” as if it read “lull in activities pending completion of details of some such formal arrangement”. I explained difficulty which might arise from misconstruction of present language; for example, if Communist forces took short breathing spell. Pearson agreed and said that although it [Page 55] would be difficult to send revised language back to London, he would support in committee our interpretation.
Pearson commented that they had a “bad time” last night when they heard of London’s démarche suggesting an intermediate step limited to paragraph 5 of statement of principles. Pearson said London appears now to have abandoned this in favor of serious consideration of the statement of principles transmitted by Pearson. [Gross.]