396.1 GE/6–554: Telegram
The United States Delegation to the Department of State
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Dulte 152. I may be borrowing trouble but think you should know in advance my personal estimate what may develop during this afternoon’s Korean plenary, asked for by Nam Il. View of British and Dominions was expressed very clearly at yesterday’s meeting of sixteen. This view is that the issue of free elections is paramount, and that this, and not the principle of the authority of the United Nations, should be emphasized. Eden’s tentative memo on “possible points of agreement” sent you by Secto 3631 omitted any reference to the UN. Both Watt (Australia) and McIntosh (New Zealand) have had very definite instructions from their governments to emphasize the “free election” principle and not the UN principle which I wish to make the clear-cut issue, and both of them had to a certain extent to “interpret” their instructions in order to give us a measure of support.
I am sure that the Chinese and North Koreans are well aware, via Menon, of this difference in emphasis and think it probable that at this afternoon’s plenary Nam Il may try to intensify difference by some form of proposal for “free elections under international supervision acceptable to the UN side” which, though spurious to us, could seem [Page 348] plausible to some of our allies. As I informed you, Eden told me yesterday he had “heard that Nam Il would touch his hat to the United Nations”. If this happens, it could put us in a very difficult position, as many of the sixteen will take the view that if the purposes of the UN re unifying Korea by free elections can be accomplished it would be unreasonable to frustrate them by insisting that Communists make here a public acknowledgment of UN authority which we have been unable otherwise to impose on them and which they have publicly repudiated, particularly since the UN itself has branded them as unfit for membership.
Many of our sixteen associates now take the view that the UN itself is actually a belligerent, regardless of the form and purpose of the resolution which made it so. We have two possible speakers for this afternoon, and I have a statement in reserve quoting the statements of the Swiss and Swedish members of the NNSC which can be used as a stopgap. Phleger, Robertson and I believe that we may want to delay Monday’s planned restricted session on Korea until later in the week, in order to allow time for you more accurately to assess possibilities.