Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Korea, Volume XV, Part 1

695A.0024/3–453

Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Allison) to the Secretary of State¹

confidential

[Washington,] March 4, 1953.

Subject:

• Representation to Eden Concerning U.K. Participation in Trials of POWs in Korea

General Clark has recently been authorized to hold trials, as provided under the Geneva Convention, of POWs in Korea for offenses involving attacks upon and murder of UN guards or other POWs as well as for fomenting or participating in riots and demonstrations. It has been the desire of General Clark as well as State and Defense that these trials have a multi-lateral UN character rather than be strictly a unilateral United States matter. To this end Clark has asked that the Commanders of the other UN contingents in Korea make available qualified personnel to serve with United States personnel on the military commissions holding such trials. The Legal Adviser’s Office and the Legal Adviser of the Department of Defense consider the proposed procedures to be entirely consistent with our announced purpose of abiding by the spirit and principles of the 1949 Geneva Convention on prisoners of war.

The Department has supported General Clark by discussing the matter with representatives in Washington of the 15 nations concerned² and asked their cooperation in granting any necessary authorization to their Commanders in Korea to comply with the request of General Clark. None of the countries has expressed any objection except the United Kingdom.

During the past two weeks discussions have been proceeding with the U.K. Embassy here and all of the numerous requests for further information and details which the Embassy received from London have been promptly fulfilled. The U.K. Embassy has this afternoon confidentially informed us that Eden has received here a long message from London soliciting his views and apparently indicating an intent to put the matter before the British Cabinet for a decision. The tone of the message is said to be unfavorable to U.K. participation in these trials, the objections apparently being based upon a very technical legal interpretation of the letter of the 1949 Geneva Convention. This interpretation holds that the United States, acting on behalf of the UN, is the sole “detaining power” under the Geneva Convention and is therefore obliged to hold the trials under strictly United States procedures, any attempt to multilateralize the trials in order to give them a UN rather than a United States character being legally unjustifiable and undesirable from the policy standpoint of protecting U.K. troops captured by an enemy in any future conflict.

Whether or not Mr. Eden raises this question with you,³ it is recommended that you briefly express to him the hope that the U.K. will find it possible to authorize its personnel to participate in the military commissions as presently envisaged by the United States.⁴

1. This memorandum was drafted by Johnson.
2. Johnson raised the subject at the weekly briefing of nations participating in the UN effort in Korea, held at Washington on Feb. 24, 1953; memorandum of conversation, not printed. (795.00/2–2453)
3. The reference was to the discussions held among British Foreign Secretary Eden, Chancellor of the Exchequer Butler, Secretary Dulles, and Secretary of the Treasury Humphrey, Mar. 4–7, 1953. For more information on these talks, which were both political and financial in content, see volume vi.
4. The following note was written on the source text in Dulles’ handwriting: “Allison, I spoke to Eden who said he would follow up sympathetically. JFD.”