Office of the Historian

FE files, lot 55 D 128

Memorandum by the Director of the Office of Northeast Asian Affairs (Young) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Allison)

top secret
[Washington,] September 2, 1952.

Subject:

  • Proposed Presidential Statement regarding Korean Armistice Negotiations.

The reactions of Ambassador Murphy1 and General Clark2 take up the two aspects of the proposed statement: form and substance.

As for form, I fully share Murphy’s reservations regarding the wisdom of having the President base a statement on such dubious sources as the Progressive Party and the New York Daily Worker. I felt last week, and I still feel, that the form of the message should be changed; whether the substance of the proposal could not be made in the armistice negotiations, either in a public session or executive.

As to the effect of the heavy bombardment program, I think we should ask the intelligence agencies to make a quick analysis. I have not seen anything yet to bear out Clark and Murphy in terms of influencing the armistice negotiations.

My comments on General Clark’s telegram are as follows:

(1)
I seriously question whether inclusion of the POW question in a political conference would force the UNC to give in on this issue or result in concessions to Communist demands.
(2)
I think his sub-paragraphs a, b, and c should be proposed by the UNC for an ad hoc political conference, including other representatives.
(3)
The President’s proposal, wherever made, probably will produce a counter proposal or result in the Communists holding American prisoners as hostages. This seems to me the real difficult issue to be negotiated in this proposal. Perhaps we could get the Communists to accept the proposal if we used the right channel. General Clark has omitted any reference to the Greater Sanction Statement which disposes of his argument in this paragraph. In any event, we should accept no counter proposal from the Communists.
(4)
One ancient report3 is not sufficient basis for evaluating the effect of civilian morale in North Korea. Let’s have a full study of this.
(5)
I do not see a trap.
(6)
I agree on the inadvisability of the proposed statement. However, I do not think that General Clark has correctly analyzed the substance of this proposal as a way of getting out of the impasse on the POW issue. However, his other telegram,4 which I have not seen, may do that.

  1. For Murphy’s reactions, see telegram 777 from Tokyo, Sept. 1, p. 466.↩
  2. For Clark’s reactions, see telegram C 54495 to JCS, Sept. 1, p. 467.↩
  3. Young’s reference was to an intelligence report quoted in Clark’s telegram C 54495 to JCS.↩
  4. Clark’s other telegram was C 54499 to JCS, Sept. 1, 1952; for its text, see supra.↩