MINUTES TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1953 UNITED STATES SENATE, MORNING SESSION Washington, D.C. The committee met at 11 a.m. in executive session. Present: Chairman Wiley, Senators Smith, Taft, Langer, Ferguson, George, Green, Fulbright, Sparkman, Gillette, Humphrey, and Mansfield. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles reported on his recent trip to Europe. He was accompanied by Harold Stassen, Director for Mutual Security, who was in Europe with him. No stenographic record was kept at this meeting. The committee recessed at 12:30 p.m., to meet again at 2:30 p.m. (110) REPORT BY THE CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1953 UNITED STATES SENATE, AFTERNOON SESSION Washington, D.C. The committee met, pursuant to call, at 2:30 p.m., in the Foreign Relations committee room, U.S. Capitol Building, Senator Alexander Wiley (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Wiley (chairman), Smith of New Jersey, Taft, Ferguson, Knowland, George, Green, Fulbright, Sparkman, Gillette, Humphrey, and Mansfield. Also present: Dr. Wilcox, Dr. Kalijarvi, Mr. Marcy, Mr. Holt, Mr. O'Day, and Mr. Cahn, of the committee staff. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will please come to order. General, we are pleased to have you here. If you have any particular way you want to pursue the course, devious as it may be, let us know, and we will let you have your will. STATEMENT OF GENERAL OF THE ARMY OMAR BRADLEY, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF; ACCOMPANIED BY REAR ADM. B. L. AUSTIN, OFFICE, CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS; COL. P. H. LASH, JR., OFFICE OF LEGISLATIVE LIAISON, OFFICE OF SECRETARY OF DEFENSE; COL. C. V. CLIFTON, OFFICE CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF; AND MAJ. G. M. SEIGNIOUS General BRADLEY. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I have not prepared a statement. I understood you wanted to talk particularly about the blockade of China. I imagine along with that you probably want to discuss any action with reference to the Far East: but I had nothing in writing to go on. I spent all day yesterday before one of your committees, and did not have time to go into it and find out just exactly what you want. LINES OF ACTION IN THE FAR EAST I was given to understand you wanted to discuss possible lines of action in the Far East, particularly in reference to a blockade, is that right? The CHAIRMAN. That is right. That is part of it, I guess. Do you desire to have us question you first, or to make your statement and then have us question you? General BRADLEY. I do not care. I can cover the various lines of action and then submit myself to questions, as we go through or afterward, as you wish, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Very well, carry on in your own way. General BRADLEY. Well, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have considered many alternate lines of action in the Far East, including that of a blockade, and various other lines of action that we can run over hurriedly, and maybe we can bring out the details by questioning. In running through the list, No. 1 is to increase the ROK [Republic of Korea] forces so as to decrease the number of American divisions in the front lines. INCREASING ROK FORCES We have had a study under way since last July, in fact about last June, to increase the number of ROK forces. Along in August, we recommended an increase of a divisions, bringing the total South Korean divisions to a, and then within the last month, we got an approval from the President and the National Security Council to increase it by a more, bringing it to x. We think that we can go up to as many as a divisions, but it is going to involve a rather high policy decision, because there is no money in the Army's budget at this time to cover more than the cost of x, and the others, the equipment for them is going to have to come out of the reserve stocks in Korea, and it is going to have quite an effect on the economy of South Korea. It just is not as simple as saying, "Well, we will form æ more divisions," because as I say, there is no money for it in any budget, and it has not been provided for, so far in even the 1954 budget. Practically, they have been handling the Korean war so far by deficit spending, and supplemental spending and estimates, but we do think if we want to, we can increase the number of divisions up to a, certainly, and maybe a. They will not be as good as the divisions we have now. We will have to spread the leadership out. That is one reason we did not try to do it any sooner, because when we started, we only had a divisions trained as internal security forces. You will remember, in the early days, they were pretty badly banged up, and we got down to the point where we had to reorganize about a skeleton divisions at one time and then, in the fall of 1950, we went on up to x; but due to the fact that none of those people had served in military forces under the Japanese occupation, and had nothing other than noncommissioned officers, or officers of very low grades, we did not have much leadership in the higher grades. They did not have much in the way of staff officers. That has been very largely corrected so that at the present time those a divisions have been in there all the time, and are as good divisions as you will find anywhere. General Van Fleet said that he would just as soon have one in the line now, as one of our own. 1 Numbers not given in the transcript. But see the discussion beginning on p. 162 below. That is partly accounted for by the fact that those men have been in there all the time, they do not rotate and are tried combat veterans, whereas a lot of ours, due to rotation, have been in there for only a short time. Those ROK divisions now trained are crackerjack divisions and by last July we had graduated a good number of officers from our officers schools here in the United States, we had gotten a lot of officers and noncommissioned officers out of our training centers in Korea, so we now do have a much better corps of leaders and I feel we can enlarge that to a, certainly, and maybe even larger, if you make that decision and are willing to appropriate the funds for it. That is one step that can be taken, and get more of our divisions out of the front lines. As a matter of fact, a certain number of our divisions in Korea now are not in the front lines, but are in reserve. Up until about a week ago, there were a in reserve, and we put them all back in and took out some American divisions and a Commonwealth division which had been in the front lines for many months. USE OF CHINESE NATIONALIST DIVISIONS Another step that could be taken is to use a couple of Chinese Nationalist divisions, and the Chiefs have recommended that they be used from a military point of view. We realize there is a lot of political implications in it, and those have to be taken into consideration by our Government before making that decision. From a purely military point of view, we think it would be a good way to get additional divisions. We would have to fully equip them, because we think that probably we would want to leave their present equipment on the island of Formosa to give to other divisions so as to get them ready, and you could rotate say a certain number of divisions at a time through Korea and it would give us some very fine divisions. There is a lot of argument, as I say, for and against it politically and that is the opinion that will have to be arrived at, the political decision at this time. They could be used, of course, if you get them strong enough, and if we are willing to give them additional air and naval support, they can be used on the mainland. As you know, they have been making raids on the mainland for many months. There are several thousand now, several thousand Nationalists on those offshore islands, not Formosa but the ones in close, but a number of thousand have been trained in commando tactics and are very effective on raids. They go in to the mainland in battalion size, and create a considerable diversion, and then they come back off. They do not have the logistic strength to make up a big landing and stay, unless we give them more support than we have. INTERRUPTING CHINESE COMMUNIST SHIPPING One other way the Nationalists could help, of course, is by interrupting shipping. They have done a little of that. They do not have the means to carry it on too much, because they only have small craft, and they cannot stand too much rough seas and when it gets too rough, they have to come in, but they could step it up if the decision was made to do it. They do that on the grounds that they have declared a couple of the Chinese Communists ports as closed ports, and say they will keep anything from going into those, and also they can do it on the grounds that this is contraband shipping going in, contrary to the economic blockade sanctions, and if anything is in violation of that, they can interrupt it and stop it. TACTICAL USE OF THE ATOMIC BOMB We have discussed many times the use of the atomic bomb, tactically. Of course, you know there are no strategic targets worth mentioning in Korea. We have looked for a long time and studied the possible tactical uses in Korea and it is rather hard to find a target at this time that we think is sufficiently remunerative as a target for the expending out of the stockpile. However, get them out in the open, and I think we would have to consider it very seriously. The CHAIRMAN. What? General BRADLEY. Consider very seriously the use of the A-bomb, if we found a suitable target now in Korea, and of course that might have considerable effect on operations. INTENSIFYING ECONOMIC SANCTIONS Another thing we have considered is trying to intensify the economic sanctions. It is being violated, we know, by some. We cannot get any agreed estimate on that, by the British and some of the others. We think more material is being run into China than they think is being run in, and there is a wide difference of opinion among themselves and ourselves on the amount that is going in, but something possibly more can be done on that, by pressure on the governments that are concerned. BOMBING MANCHURIAN AIR FIELDS Of course, we have given great consideration to the possibility of bombing Manchurian air fields. There has been quite a fleet built up in Manchuria. They have increased the number of jet fighters so that they have around 1 hundreds of them now, MIG-15's. They have a capability of reaching our front lines by the use of wing tanks on strafing missions only. In fact they can come a little beyond the front lines, but if they carry bombs like our bombers, they don't have the range to bother our troops on the front lines. However, they do have a number of IL-28's, twin-engined jet bombers now stationed up in Manchuria which have a range that would enable them to reach all Southern Korea and even into Japan. 1 Number not given in the transcript. |