Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Korea and China, Volume VII, Part 1

711.5622/12–1251

Memorandum by Walworth Barbour of the Office of Eastern European Affairs to the Assistant Secretary of State for United Nations Affairs (Hickerson)¹

secret

[Washington,] December 17, 1951.

Subject: Bomber Shot Down by the Soviet Union

With reference to the attached memorandum² concerning possible further steps in regard to the bomber shot down by the Soviet Union off the eastern coast of the USSR, I do not believe it desirable that we protest directly to the Soviet Government in this connection. No matter how you word it, the fact remains that a direct protest to the Soviets would, by its very procedural aspects themselves, derogate from our position that the matter is one for UN consideration and not a direct USSR-US affair. I am persuaded further to the desirability of maintaining this line since a direct protest to the USSR would not result in any satisfaction of any claims we might make for damages or otherwise. It would merely serve as another step on record at best. It would, however, also risk provoking a Soviet reaction magnifying the incident and consequently leading to further exchanges from which the US national interests could not hope to profit.

The American flyers were lost in performance of duty and, as such, are unfortunate casualties of the Korean war and, as much as we dislike it, there is little we can do to obtain redress from the circumstance that they were directly involved with Soviets in distinction to the indirect Soviet involvement which is causing general casualties in Korea. In the circumstances, I think it is probably more in accord with realities of the situation if we take no further action in this case. However, if anyone feels strongly that action is necessary, I wonder whether it would not be consistent with our position that this is a UN and Security Council matter for us to take advantage of the Soviet communication to the Secretary General for circulation to the other Security Council members and similarly circulate a reply thereto.³ If desirable, we could further explore with other Security Council members whether they would be disposed to acknowledge the Soviet note in the same manner and, in referring to the UN command report to the Security Council, be disposed to support our position of condemning Soviet action. In either event no request for formal Security Council action involving any resolution would be envisaged.⁴

1. The memorandum was also addressed to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Johnson) and was routed through the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (Bonbright).
2. Reference is to the memorandum by Mr. Hickerson, dated December 12, p. 1308.
3. Under date of December 4, the Soviet Representative on the Security Council (Malik) sent to the President of the Council a note containing the Soviet communication forwarded to the American Embassy on November 7 (see telegram 801 from Moscow, p. 1095) along with the observation that no United States response had been received in answer to the earlier Soviet note. The Soviet Representative wished to have the information circulated to the Security Council. (U.N. document S/2430, December 6, 1951)
4. The U.S. Government did not respond either to the Soviet note of November 7 or to the communication of December 4 to the Security Council, and the matter was allowed to drop.