diction over that part of Korea where the Temporary Commission was able to observe and consult and in which the great majority of the people of all Korea reside; that this Government is based on elections which were a valid expression of the free will of the electorate of that part of Korea and which were observed by the Temporary Commission; and that this is the only such Government of Korea." 1

The United States, trusting to the moral authority of the United Nations and the Charter undertakings of its members, withdrew its own armed forces from South Korea. That left South Korea with only local forces suitable for maintenance of internal order. In contrast, the Soviet Union rapidly built up the war power of the Communist regime it had installed in North Korea, and on June 25, 1950, these forces launched a full-scale attack, implemented with many Russian-made tanks and planes.

The United Nations Temporary Commission, which was present on the spot, and the membership of which included India, instantly and unanimously found that this was armed aggression, and so reported to the United Nations Security Council. That Council in turn, by a vote of 9 to 0, with one absence and one abstention, certified to the fact of aggression, and called on the members of the United Nations to help to resist the aggression.3 Sixteen nations responded with military contributions, and over forty responded with either military or material aid.

The small and lightly armed forces of the Republic of Korea were initially overpowered by the assault. The Communist aggressors quickly occupied all of Korea except a small beachhead at Pusan. But the forces of ROK quickly rallied and the United Nations members gave increasing support. A brilliant military operation, involving a bold landing at Inchon, caught the aggressors off balance, and enabled the United Nations Command to break out of the Pusan beachhead. The aggressors were routed and destroyed as an effective force.

It seemed that the United Nations could now complete its earlier action to unify Korea. Accordingly, on 7 October 1950, the General Assembly set up a new body, known as the United Nations Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea-initials UNCURK and usually used-to complete the task of the previous Commissions.* The new Commission proceeded to Korea.

But the long-sought unification and freedom of Korea was not yet to be. Another Communist aggression intervened. In November 1950 the Chinese Communist regime sent masses of its armed forces into Northern Korea. The United Nations General Assembly by a vote of 44 to 7, with 9 abstentions, adjudged this intervention to be aggression.5

1 Res. 195 (III), Dec. 12, 1948; U.N. General Assembly, Official Records, Third Session, Part I, Resolutions, pp. 25-27.

2 Reports of June 25 and 26, 1950; United States Policy in the Korean Crisis (Department of State publication 3922; 1950), pp. 12 and 21.

Resolution of June 25, 1950; supra, pp. 2538-2539.

Res. 376 (V); supra, pp. 2576-2578.

' Res. 498 (V), Feb. 1, 1951; supra, pp. 2608-2609.

The United Nations Command was forced to withdraw again to the south of Korea. But again they fought their way back to a point where the aggressors held less territory than when they had committed the initial aggression from the 38th parallel.

On 27 July 1953, an Armistice was concluded with the United Nations Command. This was no free-will gift of peace by the Communists. It came only after final fanatical efforts to break the line of the United Nations Command had failed with ghastly losses to the attackers. It came only after the Communists realized that, unless there was a quick armistice, the battle area would be enlarged so as to endanger the sources of aggression in Manchuria. Then and only then did the Communist rulers judge that it would be expedient to sign the Armistice.

The Armistice contemplated that there should be a political conference with reference to Korea within three months. But the Communists found it inexpedient to live up to that agreed recommendation. They desired first to consolidate their position in North Korea. Only now does the Korean Political Conference meet, after long haggling over its composition and place of meeting.

The composition and the place of the Conference are precisely those which the United Nations side proposed six months ago.

This fact enables one to judge where lies the responsibility for the delay.

The seven-year story I have summarized is a story of persistent attack against the forces of international law and order represented by the United Nations. Whether this attack will still prevail may be determined by this Conference.

During the seven-year period of 1947 to the present time, which I have briefly reviewed in relation to Korea, the Governments of France, Great Britain and the United States have been working with the Soviet Union to bring about the unification of Germany and liberation of Austria. There have been hundreds of meetings of the Foreign Ministers or their aides on these subjects. Nothing has been accomplished. But something has been learned. This Conference can usefully have that in mind as we judge the proposals which come before us here.

It seems to us that Soviet Communist conduct has been largely influenced by fear of freedom.

It seems that the Communist ruling class believe that a society is most peaceful and most productive if its members conform to a pattern which is prescribed by rulers possessed of absolute power. This inherently involves a suppression of freedom, for freedom implies diversity, not conformity, but it is not enough that freedom be suppressed within what is now the Soviet orbit, because freedom is contagious. Accordingly, freedom outside that orbit cannot be acquiesced in and the area of suppression must be constantly expanded in order to preserve the existing area of suppression.

Thus, the Soviet Communist rulers seem to have been driven by their own doctrine, by their own fears, to seek constantly, in one way or 1 Supra, pp. 724-750.

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another, to extend their control until there is finally achieved the goal which Lenin referred to as "the amalgamation of all nations" and which Stalin referred to as "the amalgamation of the masses into a single state Union."

It may be said that Lenin and Stalin are dead-and so they are. But their doctrine is not dead. It continues to be taught to Communists throughout the world, and Communists continue to practice it throughout the world.

As the record stands to this date, the Communist rulers have at no time, at no place, voluntarily relaxed their grasp on what they had. This is so even though, as in the case of Eastern Germany, Austria and North Korea, they had promised that the grasp was to be only temporary. Also, in every non-Communist nation of the world the agents of international communism work to achieve the amalgamation of the nation and its people into the system of Communist dictatorship. The problem which we face here at Geneva is the same problem that has been faced elsewhere. It is the problem of achieving "peace" and "democracy"-in the historic meaning of those words. They are alluring words, rich in their traditional meaning. Communist propaganda has adopted them as lures, to trap the unwary. It must be remembered that when the Communists speak of "peace," they mean a society of conformity under a single directing will. When they speak of "democracy," they mean a "dictatorship of the proletariat.'

The sum of the matter is this:

When we negotiate with the Soviet Communists and their satellites, we are confronted with something far more formidable than individual or national lust for glory. We are confronted with a vast monolithic system which, despite its power, believes that it cannot survive except as it succeeds in progressively destroying human freedom.

I do not present this analysis in a mood of pessimism, but rather in a mood of realism. Communist doctrine authorizes accommodation when the opposition is strong. It is our task here to show such strength-strength of honourable and non-aggressive purpose that the Communists will find it acceptable to grant unity and freedom to Korea.

Yesterday, we heard three proposals for the solution of the problem of Korea. The Republic of Korea and the Republic of Colombia advocated a solution giving vitality to the resolutions of the United Nations those resolutions which refer to the establishment of a united and free Korea.

The proposal of the North Korean-Communist regime was, however, something different. It did not so much as mention the United Nations or its resolutions. These, it seems, are to be treated as nullities.

The Communist proposal is in essence the same as that made in June 1950, as a prelude to the armed attack upon the Republic of

1 Proposal of Apr. 27, 1954; The Korean Problem at the Geneva Conference, pp. 39-40.

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Korea. Also, it is strikingly similar to the scheme which the Soviet Union presented at Berlin last February for the unification of Germany. Conformity, you see, is the Communist rule.

The present Communist proposal on Korea provides that the freely elected government of the Republic of Korea, representing at least three-quarters of the Korean people, would be forced into combination, on a basis of equality, with the Communist regime ruling a small minority of the people in the North.

General elections are proposed by the Communists under a law, the terms of which would be subject to veto by the Communist regime. The proposal stipulates that the election conditions should exclude all "foreign interference." Presumably, this is intended to exclude United Nations supervision.

The scheme is designed to destroy the authority of the existing government and to replace it by a Communist puppet regime.

The North Korean Communist proposal likewise requires that all foreign forces should be withdrawn from Korean territory within six months. The United Nations forces would have a long way to go. The Chinese Communist forces would have only a few miles to goand they could quickly return.

The United States does not desire its troops to remain indefinitely in Korea. But we remember that once before we had our troops in Korea and withdrew them prematurely as it turned out. We do not want that history to repeat itself.

This then is the North Korean proposal. The United States must reject that proposal because it does not meet the requirements of a free, unified and independent Korea, for which so much blood has been expended and suffering endured.

Peace is always easy to achieve by surrender. Unity is also easy to achieve by surrender. The hard task, the task that confronts us, is to combine peace and unity with freedom.

The people of the Republic of Korea know freedom, and they have fought and suffered as have few others to preserve their freedom.

I have myself seen the freedom of the Republic of Korea.

I have been to the University of Seoul and seen the young men and women of Korea eagerly acquiring knowledge in a free, liberal educational institution.

I have attended sessions of the Korean Assembly and seen the functioning of this body, whose members had been chosen by freely contested elections observed by a United Nations Commission.

I have met in a vast auditorium with thousands of Christian refugees who had recently fled from North Korea into the Republic of Korea to escape the religious persecution of the Communist North and to gain the freedom of religion which prevailed in the Republic of Korea.

The Republic of Korea, which fought so valiantly for freedom, will never accept unity at the price of thinly disguised annexation by the

1 Proposal of Feb. 4, 1954; Foreign Ministers Meeting: Berlin Discussions, January 25-February 18, 1954 (Department of State publication 5399; 1954), pp. 228-229.

Soviet-Chinese Communist bloc. The United States sent over one million of their youth to fight in Korea to save Korea from violent annexation by aggressors. Of them, over 140,000 became casualties. Certainly we are not disposed, here at the Council table, to give away what our sons battled so bravely to preserve.

It is basic that whatever programme is adopted here for the unification of Korea must in fact also be a programme which will assure the freedom of Korea.

A workable programme for unifying Korea does not have to be invented by us. It is already at hand. It was laid down by the United Nations General Assembly resolution of October 7, 1950. That is the resolution to which I have already referred, the resolution which established a Commission to complete the unification of Korea by observing elections in that part of Korea where observed elections had not yet been held.

That United Nations Commission (UNCURK) is at this very moment waiting in Korea ready to fulfil its clear and precise mandate from the United Nations.

Accomplishment of that mandate would complete the unification and freedom of Korea which was interrupted first by Soviet obstruction in 1948, then by North Korean Communist aggression in June 1950, and then by the Chinese Communist aggression of November 1950. Now that aggression has been thwarted, the interrupted work of the Commission should proceed. That is our proposal.

It would require the Chinese Communist regime to withdraw their forces of aggression and occupation from North Korea so that the United Nations can complete its task in an atmosphere free of menace.

It is important to think of freedom not only in terms of the freedom of individuals but also in terms of national freedom. Korea is a peninsula of such strategic value that it has for many years been the subject of big-power politics. Russia, Japan and China have successively sought to use Korea to serve their own policies of aggrandizement. For a long time the Koreans have not been the masters of their own destiny. That state of affairs should be ended.

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The United States seeks no advantages in Korea. We are in the process of concluding a Mutual Security Treaty with the Republic of Korea. But that treaty implies no aggressive purpose and the United States does not seek thereby to gain a forward position which could menace anyone.

Japan is no longer an aggressive force and has loyally undertaken to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or the political independence of any other country,

The Republic of Korea has itself no ambitions which extend beyond its natural borders.

Are Soviet Russia and Communist China willing to renounce ambitions which would be served by control of Korea? If so, it will be possible to give Korea that national independence which the United Nations has been seeking for Korea, and which the Koreans want for themselves.

1 Treaty of Oct. 1, 1953; supra, pp. 897-898.