S/S Files: NSC 118 Series
Memorandum by the Counselor (Bohlen) to the Secretary of State
Subject: NSC 118/1 “U.S. Objectives and Courses of Action in Korea”
Further to my general memorandum with respect to the NSC agenda December 19,1 I should like to suggest that in voicing your concurrence in NSC 118/12 you make the following statements which will be made of record in the record of NSC action.3
1. Paragraph 2b, courses of action in the event the armistice negotiations clearly fail, subparagraphs (2) and (3), provide for increasing the scale of military operations consistent with the capabilities of our forces, and for removing any instructions against advances or air attacks excepting within twelve miles of the USSR border. While these are military instructions;
“It would be understood that the Commander-in-Chief of UN Forces, before engaging upon any major ground operations or advances in North Korea, would first consult with Washington”.
2. In agreeing with paragraph 2b(4), which removes “restrictions against the employment (unilaterally and on short notice, if the situation so requires), of United States Air Forces to attack Chinese Communist air bases, etc., such employment, however, to be specifically [Page 1356] authorized by the President”, I would recommend the following statement by you in the record:
“If time permits the State Department would have opportunity of informing our key allies of our intention and of the reasons therefor in such a way however as to safeguard completely the security of the information and the surprise of the operation”.
If you agree, it would be desirable for you to hand Mr. Lay after the Council meeting the attached sheet4 containing the above texts, so as to assure exact recording in the Council minutes.
I do not think that the changes in the present draft of 118/1 made today by the Senior Staff,5 which you will find in your book, need give us any concern.
However, you should know that:
1. The Joint Secretaries are recommending to Mr. Lovett that the second sentence of Defense version of paragraph 2b(6), pertaining to naval blockade should provide that the U.S.: “failing to obtain their agreement (i.e. of the major powers to a blockade), impose a naval blockade on Communist China”. The Secretaries would have this blockade include Dairen, Port Arthur, and Hong Kong.
If Mr. Lovett makes this recommendation, it would as Mr. Nash6 said in Senior Staff, really sharpen the issue; and it should make the task easier for the adoption of our version of paragraph 2b(6).
2. The Joint Secretaries are also recommending to the Secretary of Defense that the withdrawal of U.S. troops be initiated, immediately there is an armistice, on the most rapid possible scale for redeployment and not be related either to the build-up of ROK forces or to the phasing of Chinese Communist withdrawals. The point of the Joint Secretaries is that, once there is an armistice, the Communists would be deterred from violating it not by presence of U.S. troops in force as much as by the implied “greater sanctions”. The Joint Chiefs, according to Admiral Wooldridge, do not share this view.
3. The Joint Chiefs of Staff will recommend, in addition to the changes agreed upon by Senior Staff, that, in the event armistice negotiations clearly fail (2b) the U.S. should “(1) Determine and take whatever measures in addition to the current mobilization effort would be required to meet the greater risk of general war which would then exist, and to attain the minimum settlement in Korea acceptable to the U.S.”
The issue involved, in the context of the courses of action which follow (increasing scale of operations, removal of restrictions against [Page 1357] advances, etc.), seems to be that the mobilization effort should be expanded in order to achieve an acceptable settlement by means of a clear-cut military decision.
- Mr. Bohlen’s memorandum of December 17 is not printed (NSC 118 Series).↩
- Dated December 7, p. 1259.↩
- The quoted statements in paragraphs 1 and 2 of this memorandum reflected particularly the views of Assistant Secretary of State Hickerson who had consistently urged caution and the need for consultation prior to launching air attacks against Chinese bases (memoranda of December 17 and 18 from Hickerson to Bohlen and Acheson; NSC 118 Series).↩
- Not printed.↩
- See Lay’s memorandum, dated December 19, p. 1374.↩
- Frank C. Nash, Department of Defense representative on the NSC Senior Staff.↩