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

795.00/12–2251

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Johnson)

top secret

[Washington,] December 22, 1951.

Subject: Sixteen-Nation Statement on Korea

Participants:	Mr. David W. McNichol, First Secretary, Australian Embassy
	Mr. U. Alexis Johnson, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Far Eastern Affairs

Mr. McNichol called on me this morning and gave to me orally the substance of a message on the above subject which the Embassy had just received from Canberra, as follows:

“On the basis that a statement is to be issued, it could accept a statement of the nature of our draft”.

Their concurrence with the statement is based on the following understanding:

(a) “Further discussions to be held on the nature of the action to be taken in the event of a fresh aggression in Korea, Pending agreement on such action, the Australian Government in joining in it is not hereby committed to any particular form of military or economic action, that is, bombing in China and the blockade”.

(b) “Statement does not constitute a commitment on the part of Australia to provide any definite form of assistance,”

The message also raised the question of the unlimited nature of the statement in terms of time, as well as whether in the event of renewed aggression by North Korea only, with no overt assistance from China, the Republic of Korea would consider that the statement constituted a commitment on the part of the participating countries to initiate hostilities against China.

In reply, I informed Mr. McNichol that in our view the statement did not constitute a commitment to take action against China without any regard for the circumstances which might exist elsewhere at the time, but that it did constitute a commitment to take whatever action was considered militarily desirable in the circumstances then existing, that is, we were saying to China that if the armistice is broken and that if aggression is again committed in Korea we would mete out retribution to China whenever and however possible; we agreed that discussions on the nature of the action to be taken would, of course, have to take place but that we did not feel it either necessary or desirable to reach agreement on this prior to the issuance of the statement since any commitments in this regard would have to be conditional upon the military situation existing elsewhere at the time. Therefore, it did not seem to me that the conditions under which Australia was concurring with the statement were unreasonable or out of line with our thinking on the subject.

With respect to the question of the time limit, I stated that it seemed to us impossible to incorporate in the statement any limitations expressed either in terms of time or events and therefore this had been left indefinite. Mr. McNichol agreed that it did not seem practicable to introduce any such limitation, although we both recognized that no government could effectively bind itself in a matter of this kind for all future time.

With respect to the question of North Korean aggression without overt assistance from China, I stated, and Mr. McNichol agreed, that this appeared to be very unlikely as the balance of military strength in the foreseeable future would be strongly on the side of the Republic of Korea as against an unassisted North Korea.

Mr. McNichol stated that the Australian Government suggested alternative wording for the second sentence of the last paragraph of the draft statement so that it would read as follows:

“We affirm our resolution in the interests of world peace to stand united and prompt to meet any further act of aggression in contravention of the principles of the United Nations”.

He stated that their formulation of this sentence was based on the premise that the word “resist” in the present draft implied commitment to take military action in opposition to aggression wherever it may occur, and as in certain areas and certain circumstances such military action might not be practicable, it was felt that the words “to meet” would be preferable. I told Mr. McNichol that we appreciated the suggestion and would certainly give it full consideration. However, this sentence in the present draft, which had been suggested by the UK, did not appear to us to constitute a commitment to take military action but simply meant that we would “resist” aggression by whatever means possible, and in any event, the sentence taken in context could well be interpreted as applying only to Korea.

In reply to his inquiries, I told Mr. McNichol that we were greatly disturbed over the recent apparent leaks to the press of our thinking on this subject; that we were taking all possible measures to assure against any further leaks and in the meanwhile categorically denying to the press any knowledge of the subject.

In reply to his inquiry, I told him that we were encouraged by the progress of the negotiations on the statement and hopeful that they could be completed shortly, possibly next week, and that the negotiations at Panmunjon would thereby be materially assisted.

From our conversation it appeared that Mr. McNichol had been discussing the statement with Jarvie of the South African Embassy and that he (Mr. McNichol) assumed that the South African reply to us constituted concurrence with the statement.