MINUTES

TUESDAY, JULY 14, 1953

UNITED STATES SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS,

Washington, D.C.

The committee met in executive session at 10 a.m. in the com

mittee room.

Present: Chairman Wiley, Senators Smith, Tobey, Ferguson, Green, Gillette, and Mansfield.

The committee considered S. 2337, providing compensation for Danish vessels.

Witnesses were: Under Secretary of State Walter Bedell Smith, Warren E. Burger, Assistant Attorney General (Civil Division), Department of Justice, Francis Green, General Counsel, Maritime Administration.

No action was taken on the bill.

For record of proceedings, see official transcript.

The committee adjourned at 12:10 p.m.

(660)

REPORT BY THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE

FOR FAR EASTERN AFFAIRS1

[Editor's note: A major break in the deadlocked Korean war negotiations occurred on March 28, 1953, when the Chinese and North Koreans agreed to an exchange of sick and wounded prisoners and proposed a resumption of formal armistice discussions. The exchange was carried out between April 20 and May 3, and the armistice talks resumed at Panmunjom on April 26. An agreement on prisoners of war-the main roadblock in the way of settlement— was signed on June 8, but the prospects of peace were immediately put in jeopardy by the South Korean Government's connivance in the escape of more than 25,000 prisoners in its custody. The armistice talks were suspended on June 18, precipitating Assistant Secretary Robertson's June 25July 11 trip to Korea for discussions with President Rhee. With a commitment from Rhee not to make further disruptions, discussions were resumed and an armistice was signed on July 27. Prisoners were exchanged at Panmunjom in August and September; a U.S.-South Korean mutual defense treaty was initialed in Seoul on August 8. Attention then turned to efforts to arrange a political conference.]

THURSDAY, JULY 16, 1953

UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, Washington, D.C. The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in the Foreign Relations Committee room, U.S. Capitol, Senator Alexander Wiley (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Wiley (chairman), Smith of New Jersey, Tobey, Langer, Ferguson, Knowland, Green, Sparkman, Gillette, Humphrey, and Mansfield.

Also present: Dr. Wilcox, Dr. Kalijarvi, Mr. Marcy, and Mr. Holt of the committee staff.

[The committee first considered and ordered reported the nominations of Frances E. Willis to be Ambassador to Switzerland, John Alanson Perkins to be a U.S. Representative at the Second Extraordinary Session of the General Conference of UNESCO, and H. van Zile Hyde to be U.S. Representative on the Executive Board of the World Health Organization. Legislation was approved creating the Corregidor Bataan Memorial Commission, authorizing Michigan to construct and operate toll bridges across the St. Mary's river to Ontario, providing for the Nogales sanitation project, and providing for a study of proposals to modify existing peace and security organizations. A proposal to amend legislation creating a Niagara Falls bridge commission was passed over. The committee then heard a report from Assistant Secretary of State Robertson on his trip to Korea.]

1 See appendix E.

The CHAIRMAN. We have the privilege to have before us this morning, Assistant Secretary of State Walter S. Robertson, who will report to us on his recent mission.

He has not had any sleep for 48 hours, but looks as fresh as can be, and I am sure that from press reports he did a grand job, and I want to say to you, sir, that we welcome you back to God's country. Now, sir, carry on in your own way.

Mr. ROBERTSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is good to be back in God's country.

Senator SPARKMAN. May I suggest that according to Syngman Rhee, the statement should be "Veni, Vidi, Vici."

STATEMENT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FAR EASTERN AFFAIRS WALTER S. ROBERTSON, ACCOMPANIED BY KENNETH T. YOUNG, JR., DIRECTOR, NORTHEAST ASIAN AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Mr. ROBERTSON. Gentlemen, I arrived here late yesterday morning, accompanied by a very troublesome Korean bug, which required a lot of paregoric, and I had literally had only 2 hours sleep the night previous.

So, after reporting to the President and Secretary Dulles, I went off to bed and stayed there until this morning.

I did not know, until I got to Washington, that I was going to have to appear before you gentlemen this morning, and so the statement that I am about to read to you was hastily put together, and it is in no sense comprehensive.

I hope, however, that the statement, plus the answers I shall attempt to give to your questions, will give you a clear picture of our mission to Korea.

SAVING THE FACE OF MR. RHEE

Senator SMITH of New Jersey. Is any of this classified? I mean, the press has been after me, as to what you have to say.

Mr. ROBERTSON. I think as we go along that you gentlemen will agree that maybe part of this you do not want to be published anywhere.

Senator FERGUSON. Will you designate that as you go along? Mr. ROBERTSON. All right, sir.

Senator FERGUSON. In your opinion.

Mr. ROBERTSON. May I say here that Mr. Rhee, in order to make an agreement with us, had to reverse himself on most of the things he said he would never do.

Now, all of you gentlemen who know the Oriental well realize that that is a very difficult thing for him to do, to save not only his face with his people, but to give them justification for reversing his position.

That is the reason I have carefully stayed away from making any statements, or doing any bragging about what we accomplished, and you can appreciate that, the more you destroy his face, the more difficult you make it for him to collaborate with us.

Now, the objective, what we are trying to do is so important, in saving the lives of our boys, and getting a cease fire against which we can negotiate our differences, that is so much more important than anything else, I think we ought to collaborate in giving him any out that we can give him, consistent with honor, and the upholding our principles.

Senator SMITH of New Jersey. We shouldn't say that he was forced to yield.

Mr. ROBERTSON. No. That is the reason we agreed upon the kind of statement that we did. If you will read the statement-as far as the American public opinion is concerned, I hoped it would be evident we could make no such statement, had we not had a written agreement with Rhee that he would collaborate. It was written. more for Korean consumption than for American consumption.

Senator GREEN. Was there another statement, a similar reference was made in the newspapers to a statement that hadn't been disclosed.

Mr. ROBERTSON. I don't understand, sir.

Senator GREEN. I say, the newspapers have from time to time had an account of some written signed statement which has not yet been made public.

Is there such?

Mr. ROBERTSON. We have neither made public our aide-memoire to him, nor have we made public his letter to us replying to that, our aide-memoire. It is the difference between those two texts which are points that I will cover, and which we still have to negotiate. I think our public reference to these documents should be general, rather than specific. I don't think now is the time to go into them publicly.

Senator GREEN. I didn't want to discuss it, I wanted to know whether there was such.

Mr. ROBERTSON. I got a bad press for the reason I couldn't give out any explanation of many things. The boys are out there to write, and what they can't find out, they very often make up

Senator GREEN. Well, let us have Mr. Robertson speak freely to us. The CHAIRMAN. I would like to say, let him read his statement; let him go on, and we will question him later.

Senator GREEN. I have finished my statement.

Then afterward let him give to the press what he thinks he should, rather than each one of us deciding individually about it. The CHAIRMAN. I certainly feel he should read the statement and afterward should tell us what part of it is available to the press and what is not.

I suggest that you carry on; otherwise we will carry on ourselves and get nowhere.

THE KEY TO THE KOREAN PROBLEM IS SYNGMAN RHEE

Mr. ROBERTSON. The problem of Korea, like so many other Far Eastern problems, is one in which there are few black and white choices. We have to concern ourselves with choosing between varying shades of gray, dealing with conditions as they are, not as we

should like to have them, making compromises which do not fulfill our ideals but which attempt to make the best of bad situations.

If it were desirable or possible to conform the ROK people to our yardstick, our customs, morale, and behavior, it would take a very long time to do so, and the problems of the present are so pressing that we cannot await any such evolution.

In my opinion Syngman Rhee is the key to our problem in Korea and will continue to be for the few remaining years left to him of health and intellectual vigor. Whether we like it or not, it is he with whom we must deal, for he has no rivals.

It would be difficult to find a more contradictory or controversial character. Many believe him to be a ruthless, unscrupulous, selfish seeker of personal power who would wreck his country and the world if necessary to achieve his ambitions. I do not agree with this view. He may be ruthless and he may be unscrupulous according to our standards, but in my judgment he is a deeply dedicated, fanatical patriot working for his country, not himself. He is shrewd, crafty, a hard bargainer, illogical, oftentimes irrational, but his goal, I believe, is always what he considers to be in the best longterm interests of the Korean people.

When Patrick Henry declaimed to the Virginia Convention in 1775 "Give me liberty or give me death" he was not indulging in idle oratory. He meant just what he said. When Syngman Rhee tells us today "Give our country liberty or give us death," I believe he means it, just as Henry meant what he said.

I think there can be no doubt that the masses of the Korean people trust him as an honored leader and that the Korean Army is now and will continue to be loyal to him. For us to proceed on any other assumption will, in my opinion, produce a situation far more dangerous to our interests and the peace of the world than the one we are now facing.

I am saying all of this to emphasize that we are dealing with no ordinary man but a powerful force fully capable of goading himself or being goaded, under certain circumstances, of trying to lead his country into national suicide, an event which obviously would be not only a catastrophic sacrifice of a brave people but one which would be fraught with the greatest danger to the security of all United Nations Forces in Korea.

Rhee's crusading spirit has inspired his people with a determination, courage and fortitude in their fight against Communist aggression probably unmatched by any other country in the world, including our own. What would we not give for a similar spirit in some of our Western allies? In addition, the Korean Army, equipped by us, is the largest, best-trained anti-Communist army in Asia. Both the Korean indomitable spirit and the Korean Army are powerful assets for our side to be preserved, not destroyed. We should make every effort consistent with honor to keep Korea a friend and an ally in our global struggle against the forces which would destroy us.