State-JCS Meetings, lot 61 D 417
Memorandum of the Substance of Discussion at a Department of State Joint Chiefs of Staff Meeting1
[Extract]
. . . . . . .
Trials of the POWs
Mr. Matthews: I gather Clark has come in for broader authority to try prisoners. Our people have had a new look at the subject and are somewhat impressed by his arguments.
[Page 798]Mr. Johnson: We have worked on a message with the Army, but I have not seen the draft. (The draft was circulated to the meeting and is attached as Annex A.)2
General Collins: Are the British likely to make difficulties?
Mr. Johnson: On a show-down, I doubt it. They have some lawyers in their army who are worried. I have urged the British to get straightened away by March 5.
Admiral Fechteler: The message is all right with me.
General Vandenberg: It is all right with me as far as it goes. We have come to a pretty pass when the Commander can’t take action on riots.
General Collins: We have taken plenty of action. It is difficult, however, to determine the ring-leaders in order to try them.
General Vandenberg: What is the objection to court-martialing rioters?
General Collins: It has been an agreed State–Defense position for some time that the effect on our prisoners in Communist hands might be pretty bad.
Mr. Matthews: This message gives him all the authority he has asked for, does it not?
Mr. Johnson: He draws a distinction in his own message between individual acts of violence and riots. The thinking in the Army and in the State Department is that raking up the pre-Koje period would give the Communists a propaganda platform. We could amend the message to refer to past riots in the camp when we withhold authority.
General Vandenberg: I would concur with that. I think the riots in the camps now are serious.
Mr. Matthews: Let’s put in the word “past”.
General Lemnitzer: Wouldn’t you have to change the first paragraph?
Mr. Johnson: Yes, you would.
General Collins: We ought to be clear that he has authority to prosecute further riots and past cases of violence.
Mr. Bohlen: Would he be going back to past cases of violence involving anti-communists before the prisoners were separated?
General Collins: Some of them are in that category.
Mr. Bohlen: Does he go back to the period before the prisoners were screened? In the past the guards perhaps were not adequate to protect the camps and you might run into the Geneva Convention which says the holding power would provide adequate protection. You might get a boomerang on it.
[Page 799]General Collins: This doesn’t meet the question you raised, Chip, but it would meet Van’s point.
General Vandenberg: How can we get Chip’s point in?
General Collins: I think we had better do it in paragraph 3, or perhaps with another sentence at the end of paragraph 1, such as: “It is felt you should not go back to the period before segregation.” Couldn’t Johnny and the Army get together on the amendment? We don’t want him to go back to the pre-Kojedo period so far as riots are concerned or before segregation in the case of individual acts of violence.
Mr. Bohlen: If you say “since segregation” you would not have to make the distinction between riots and acts of violence.
General Collins: I think we should spell it out. Is that all right with you Van?
General Vandenberg: Yes.
Movement of ROK Government to Seoul (A draft message was circulated and is attached as Annex B.)3
General Collins: This draft message has been worked out informally with the State Department.
Mr. Johnson: Paragraph 2 can be changed to read that the State Department “has” urged the action.
General Collins: The more specific things you throw on Clark and ask him to put the squeeze on Rhee without the clear support of the Government back home, the more you affect the relationship between Clark and Rhee. The old guy may blow up and make it difficult for Clark to do business with him on even more important problems.
Mr. Matthews: I think there is a lot in that, but the only thing that will be effective will be to scare him on military grounds.
Mr. Bohlen: Could you send General Taylor and Ambassador Briggs to see him? Taylor could give the military arguments as the man on the spot.
General Collins: We deliberately got the Field Commander out of this game.
Mr. Johnson: Taylor has just arrived.
General Collins: I think it would be bad to involve him.
General Vandenberg: I think Clark is going to have to do it.
Neutralization of Kaesong (A draft message was distributed and is attached as Annex C.)4
General Collins: I have made some changes in the proposed message which I will read.
[Page 800]On Part 1, our general feeling was that to make an announcement now that we were going to call off the Kaesong sanctuary in the middle of the UN General Assembly meeting was bad, but we have given him authority to act if necessary. We have simply withheld authority to make the statement at this time.
On Part 2, the problem has to do with notifying other nations. It occurred to me that photographs alone would not be very useful, and it would be better to get appropriate interpretative notations from the field indicating the location and nature of the military facilities. I would like to add that.
On Part 3, which deals with the text of the public statement in case he is attacked, the White House has suggested two deletions, and we agree with them.
General Cabell: We [With] respect to the photographs, don’t we want to say “oblique” aerial photographs, so we won’t appear to have violated the sanctuary ourselves?
General Collins: A good suggestion.
Mr. Johnson: We can label the photographs “oblique”.
General Vandenberg: Why don’t we get this thing wound up? Why do we withhold comment on Part 1?
Mr. Johnson: That came from your boys here, and I think they just had not had time for a full study. We could say comment on the statement is under consideration.
General Collins: It might well be that when you decide to make the announcement you would want to add something.
Mr. Johnson: I think that was the reason.
General Vandenberg: It is just one of those things that will take a long time to be cleared.
General Collins: It would have to be cleared at the time by the President anyway.
General Vandenberg: O.K. That sounds good enough to me. I withdraw my objection.
. . . . . . .
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A note on the title page read: “State Draft. Not cleared with any of the participants.”
Of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Generals Vandenberg and Collins and Admiral Fechteler attended. Matthews headed the Department of State contingent. Admiral Page Smith represented the Department of Defense and Lay and Gleason the NSC. In all, 20 persons attended. The question of Chinese Nationalist troops in Burma was also discussed.
↩ - The draft was not attached to the source text, but was transmitted in final form as telegram JCS 932476 to Clark, Feb. 27; for the text, see p. 801.↩
- The draft was not attached to the source text. It was transmitted as telegram JCS 932503 to Clark, Feb. 27; for the text, see p. 802.↩
- The draft was not attached to the source text. It was transmitted as telegram JCS 932457 to Clark, Feb. 27, 1953; for the text, see infra.↩