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4. An appropriate international commission shall be set up to supervise the holding of free all-Korean elections.

The composition of this supervisory commission shall be the subject of further examination.

5. Recognizing the importance of preventing any violation of peace in Korea, it is deemed necessary for the States most directly concerned in the maintenance of peace in the Far East to assume obligations for ensuring Korea's peaceful development, so as to facilitate the settlement of the problem of Korea's national unification.

The question of which States are to assume obligations regarding the ensuring of Korea's peaceful development and the nature of these obligations shall be the subject of further examination."

Geneva Conference: Statement by the United States Representative (Walter Bedell Smith), June 5, 19541

[Extracts]

Some of my colleagues have spoken with great feeling this afternoon, as indeed the importance of the occasion warrants. As I am, I hope, the last speaker, I will exercise restraint in deference to the important statements which have been made, as well as to those who have made them.

In the first place, it is true, as Mr. Nam Il states, that the North Korean Regime on April 27 made certain proposals. They proposed the establishment of an all-Korean commission which would have the power to draw up an all-Korean election law and to establish conditions for the elections throughout Korea. Apparently, as an afterthought, because they wished to throw over this proposal the cloak of international participation in the conduct of Korean elections, they suggested the establishment of a "neutral nations supervisory commission" to assist the all-Korean commission. Mr. Molotov today has spoken of an “all-Korean body" and recommended it to us. The composition and tasks of this body, he says, shall be the subject of examination. He has also referred to and recommended to us an appropriate international commission to supervise the holding of free all-Korean elections. The composition of this supervisory commission, he says, shall be examined further.

1 For complete text, see ibid., pp. 149–153.

As has been many times pointed out, a spurious commission of this kind would consist of equal numbers from North and South Korea, although the relative difference in population has also been pointed out many times. This commission would also, I understand, have membership of so-called "social organizations”—a concept with which we have had unfortunate experience in the past, when efforts were made to unify Korea in the early days after the war. This commission is also, I should judge by previous proposals, to have the power to suppress so-called "terrorist groups" which we know, unfortunately, by experience is the communist name for any group that opposes them. A most familiar and completely significant feature is that our communist colleagues insist that the commission can operate only by agreement; that is, the commission will operate only if the communists want to agree, and, of course, they will only agree on their own terms. And this is what we have known for years as the principle of unanimity, or the "built-in veto".

It is to assist this kind of commission that Mr. Chou En-lai has felt himself obliged to suggest a so-called "neutral nations supervisory commission". Mr. Chou En-lai admitted the need for international participation, and then he made a proposal for international supervision that I regret to say seems to me to be completely fraudulent. His proposal is fraudulent because it pretends to establish an international body which we are to assume would have some authority and which could assure honest elections. As a matter of fact, such a body could do absolutely nothing, so long as the control of the entire election procedure was in the all-Korean commission, in which the communists have their what I have called built-in veto.

Let's take a moment to examine our past and present experience with what we, of the United Nations, hopefully accepted as a so-called "neutral" commission set up by the Korean Armistice. That commission, you will all recall, consists of the representatives of Switzerland and Sweden, countries whose impartiality and neutrality cannot well be challenged, and of Poland and Czechoslovakia, Soviet-satellite countries which are neutral only in the technical sense of nonbelligerency, and which have certainly not shown themselves to be impartial. The communist members of this commission have consistently prevented the commission from carrying out its assigned function. As a result of this obstruction the communist side has been able to violate with impunity the provisions of the Armistice. At this very time as we sit here in Geneva, the aggressors in Korea are bringing in arms and reinforcements to North Korea under conditions strictly prohibited by the Armistice, and the Supervisory Commission is impotent

to check these violations because the communist members of the commission refuse to permit the commission to act.

Genuinely free elections in Korea can indeed be assured if the elections are placed under the control and supervision of the United Nations. The United Nations has the competence, the experience, the authority, the impartiality and the facilities to perform this task. They could never take place under the formula proposed by Mr. Nam Il. The vast majority of us represented here know what really free, uncoerced elections are, and we are not to be deluded.

Geneva Conference: Statement by the United Kingdom Representative (Anthony Eden), June 11, 19541

[Extract]

On 5 June the representative of the Soviet Union asked us to consider a draft proposal of five points on which we might reach agreement in principle, leaving methods and procedures for later discussion, and the representative of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has just endorsed that proposal. But would this really help us, when we now know that it is just on the question of methods of application that the divergence of view between us is so sharp? The careful analysis of the five points of the Soviet proposal that has been made to-day by the representatives of Canada 2 and New Zealand has shown beyond any doubt that this is so. I will not go over the same ground again. But I must emphasize that the second of these five points embodies the proposal for an all-Korean commission on which I see no prospect of agreement here.

Therefore, as it seems to me, two issues are now clearly before us: the authority of the United Nations, and the principle of free elections. Unfortunately, no real progress has been made to bridge our differences over either of them. We have to acknowledge candidly the position in which the conference thus finds itself. The delegation of the United Kingdom takes its stand firmly on the two principles which we consider essential to a solution of the Korean problem. While we are ready to explore every possible means of reaching agreement,

1 For complete text, see ibid., p. 165–168.

2 Ibid., pp. 154-161.

Ibid., pp. 161–165.

make the arrangements for the political conference with the other participants. Finally, the Assembly recommended that Member States participating in the political conference on the United Nations side should inform the United Nations when agreement was reached at the conference and keep the United Nations informed at other appropriate times.

Efforts by the United States to make arrangements for the conference in accordance with these resolutions were for long frustrated. However, the Foreign Ministers of France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the USSR, meeting in Berlin, proposed on 18 February 1954 that "a conference of representatives of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Chinese People's Republic, the Republic of Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and the other countries the armed forces of which participated in the hostilities in Korea, and which desire to attend, shall meet in Geneva on 26 April for the purpose of reaching a peaceful settlement of the Korean question".

The Conference convened as scheduled on 26 April in accordance with the Berlin communiqué of 18 February 1954 with all eligible countries attending except the Union of South Africa. In our view this Conference was in effect the conference referred to in paragraph 60 of the Korean Armistice Agreement and the General Assembly's resolution of 28 August 1953. The Korean problem was discussed in fifteen plenary sessions and one special meeting over a period of seven weeks, from 26 April to 15 June.1

Pursuant to the Assembly's resolution of 28 August 1953, the Members of the United Nations who participated in the United Nations action in Korea and attended the Geneva Conference believe it appropriate to inform the United Nations of their efforts to bring about, by negotiation, a peaceful solution of the Korean problem. It is requested that their report on the Conference, and this letter, be circu

1

1 See The Korean Problem at the Geneva Conference, April 26–June 15, 1954.

lated to the Members of the United Nations. Copies of the records of the Conference have been transmitted to the United Nations Secretariat.

(Signed)

For Australia: Percy SPENDER
For Belgium: F. VAN LANGENHOVE
For Canada: Paul MARTIN

For Colombia: Francisco URRUTIA
For Ethiopia: Z. G. HEYwOT
For France: H. HOPPENOT

For Greece: Alexis KYROU
For Luxembourg: J.-P. KREMER

For the Netherlands: D. J. VON BALLUSECK

For New Zealand: L. K. MUNRO

For the Philippines: Felixberto M. SERRANO
For Thailand: Wan WAITHAYAKON

For Turkey: Selim SARPER

For the United Kingdom of Great Britain

and Northern Ireland: Anthony NUTTING For the United States of America: Henry Cabot LODGE, Jr. 1. Our Governments, which participated in the United Nations action in Korea, made every effort at the Korean Political Conference in Geneva to obtain agreement that would lead to the establishment of a unified, independent, and democratic Korea. To this end, our delegations made a number of proposals and suggestions, consistent with the authority and principles of the United Nations, to achieve the unification of Korea by peaceful means on a practical and honorable basis. Agreement was sought on the basis of the following two fundamental principles:

(1) The United Nations, under its Charter, is fully and rightly empowered to take collective action to repel aggression, to restore peace and security, and to extend its good offices to seeking a peaceful settlement in Korea; and

(2) In order to establish a unified, independent and democratic Korea genuinely free elections should be held under United Nations supervision for representatives in a National Assembly, in which representation shall be in direct proportion to the indigenous population in all parts of Korea.

2. The three Communist delegations rejected these principles. In the first place, they argued that the United Nations, through the

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