795.00/1–1851
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, by Lucius D. Battle, Special Assistant to the Secretary of State
The Secretary telephoned the British Ambassador and said that Mr. Rusk and Mr. Bancroft had told him of their conversation with the British Ambassador.1 The Secretary was afraid that they could not do what Mr. Bevin requested. What he would suggest is that Mr. Austin in his speech today,2 after saying that the Chinese people were aggressors, would not go into the machinery, but would call for future measures to be considered. He could not promise to go further to meet Mr. Bevin for two reasons: The first was that we had talked with 45 Delegations along the general lines of the paper we had sent to Mr. Bevin about ten days ago.3 These Delegations understand that this is our general attitude, and if we don’t go through with it, we will add to the general confusion. The second reason is that in order to do everything possible to keep everyone together and in going along on the five principles, we brought ourselves to the verge of destruction domestically. The Secretary felt he could not take any further chances unless it made a great deal of sense to do so, and he did not think that Mr. Bevin’s suggestion made that kind of sense. [Page 99] It is foolish just to say the Chinese are aggressors and not do anything further about it.
That again gets us into the very difficult position which we were in from Saturday through nearly all of Wednesday.4 The Secretary said he thought the most sensible thing to do to keep the situation cool is to have some UN body which reports to the General Assembly and will keep the matter in the field of discussion. The Secretary pointed out that we could have all the preliminary talks with the British which were necessary. But he did not think we could back off from the matter now. The Secretary said he thought someone must have gotten Mr. Bevin stirred up on this question, because he could not see that Mr. Bevin’s attitude was a sensible one.
Mr. Acheson then read to the British Ambassador a suggested revision of what Mr. Austin would say today, which would leave out the portion about what the Committee should be asked to establish, and stating that “the measures to be taken should be designed to restrain Communist authorities from undertaking the initiation of any adventures which they have in mind.” He read the suggested speech as follows:
“We believe the General Assembly should reaffirm the determination of the United Nations to continue its efforts to meet the aggression in Korea. We believe the General Assembly should call upon all states and authorities to render assistance to the United Nations and to refrain from giving any assistance to the aggressors.
“By doing these things the GA would say in principle that collective measures should be taken to meet the aggression in Korea. In our view it would be well for the Assembly to call upon some such body as the Collective Measures Committee to consider what future collective measures should be taken.
“We believe that this body should undertake the study immediately and should report back to the GA as soon as possible with its recommendations on the basis of which the GA would make recommendations to the Members.”
He thought this would make our attitude perfectly clear and would embarrass no one. But he thought that it was not sensible to refer to the Chinese as aggressors and leave it there.
Sir Oliver said “All right, yes,” and then paused. He said he thought we must do what we thought right; that he could not believe that it was a matter of first importance from the British point of view, but he was speaking for himself on this. He said he had told Mr. Rusk he would get off a telegram and do what he could to straighten Mr. Bevin out on this. He said, taking into account the conversation which took place a half hour before, he did not see how [Page 100] any damage could come of it. Secretary Acheson interjected that he did not see how anything but good could come from the proposed US action, and to this Sir Oliver replied that he was not certain about this, although he agreed that good would come from the public opinion point of view. The Secretary said he did not see how we could avoid recommending something, for if the UN does not recommend something positive, there are plenty of volunteers around to fill the vacuum. If the UN can fill the gap efficiently, calmly, and wisely, that was the way the situation should be handled, rather than being handled on the basis of cries that nobody was doing anything and “we” must do something. He said if the proposed action were one that we were springing on Mr. Bevin, he would be justified in objecting, but it was just what we had proposed ten days ago.
- No record has been found in the Department of State files of the conversation held by Messrs. Rusk and Bancroft with Ambassador Franks, but Mr. Battle’s memorandum indicated that the Ambassador set forth Mr. Bevin’s opinion that the United Nations should now identify Communist China as an aggressor in Korea but should not take any further action.↩
- See the editorial note on the First Committee meeting held on January 18, infra.↩
- See telegram 3283, January 5, to London, p. 27.↩
- January 13–17.↩