X 1901 458 Jet. 3 neo. 88

This oral report by the Secretary of State was delivered before the Political and Security Committee of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on October 24, 1952.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE PUBLICATION 4771
International Organization and Conference Series III, 88

Released October 1952

Division of Publications • Office of Public Affairs

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 11-13-52

the problem of

PEACE IN KOREA

As I suggested yesterday, in considering the last two Commission

reports before us, it seems necessary that we should take a long and broad look at the whole Korean question, starting with the beginning of this matter and following it through to the present day.

There are many things which we are likely to lose sight of, things which should be present in our minds when we are considering the questions before us. My Government has thought it important to report very fully to the United Nations on all that we have done in your behalf-all that we have done as the United Nations Command, organized by us at your request in accordance with the resolution of July 1950.

We have had many reports. Biweekly reports are filed. On October 18 a longer report was filed by the Unified Command. Now I propose to supplement that by a very full oral report and review of the Korean question.

This will require looking at some history. It will require going back to the early days and recalling, as I shall do in more detail, the early hopes which were held by all of us for a free and unified democratic Korea. We shall have to recall the frustration of those hopes. We shall have to recall the persistent efforts by the United Nations to bring those hopes into being. We shall have to recall the establishment of the Republic of Korea and its Government. We shall have to recall the attempts to subvert that Government. Then we shall come to the actual aggression by force upon the Republic of Korea, and we shall have to recall again the role of the United Nations, making it very clear that the role of the United Nations from the very beginning was to brand as aggression what was aggression, to unify the world so far as it could to resist aggression, and never at any moment to lose sight of the possibility that efforts other than military efforts might be able to restore peace and security in Korea.

We shall have to recall this afternoon the heroism of the few who have been fighting in support of the principles of the Charter against the many who have been fighting against the principles of the Charter. We shall have to recall the many nations which have supported this effort and those fewer nations which have borne the chief brunt of it.

And we shall also have to recall, because we must, that the aggresso has friends-the aggressor has friends in the Assembly and in thi Committee. And we shall have to recall the activities of those friends We do this not merely because this is history but because these are the facts that face us, and we must face those facts.

We shall also want to examine the course of action which has been followed since the aggression began. As we examine in detail what has happened, we must not be too self-deprecating. I think we shall conclude that the United Nations has done all that is possible to try to bring about peace and that the aggressor and those who support him have done nothing to bring about peace and everything to impede it. I shall want to set out in full before you the armistice negotiations, the issue which now remains open, and I should also like to examine the observations with respect to that issue which were made yesterday in this Committee and last week in the plenary meetings by the Soviet Union representative.

DOES THE AGGRESSOR WANT AN ARMISTICE?

This is a broad outline of what I wish to lay before you this afternoon. I do so because this Committee and the Assembly must come to some conclusion as to whether the aggressor really wants an armistice. If there is an honest armistice which is wanted in accordance with the principles of the United Nations, then my Government, and I am sure most of the other governments here, will do everything in their power to achieve it. But if that is not the case and if the resistance must go on, then we shall have to examine our positions and our ability to carry that resistance forward. If, in the words of the psalmist, "I am for peace but when I speak, they are for war," we must know that and we must prepare ourselves to meet it.

There must be always present in our deliberations the thought of those who are suffering by reason of this wanton act of aggression. We must think of the homes in many countries represented here and in Korea where loved ones are missing-in some cases because they are dead and in other cases because they are absent supporting the principles of the United Nations in a distant land to many of them and with superb courage. We must think of the suffering which is being brought to Korea, to those who are supporting Korea and also to the aggressor. It is a sad thing that a million and a half of the men of the aggressor have been killed or wounded in this vicious and illegal act. To them it is just as sad that they are killed in that sort of an act as in a good one, because I suppose that they have very little volition in the matter. But we must think about our own men and our own responsibility to them. I can assure you that those who have the burden of conducting the effort and making the decisions in the Unified Command never for one moment forget that responsibility and their duty.