Office of the Historian

320.2–AC/8–2751

Memorandum by the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Merchant) to the Deputy Under Secretary of State (Matthews)1

secret
[Washington,] August 27, 1951.

The attached draft position paper on “China and North Korea”2 for the Tripartite Talks is the subject of the meeting you have called for 12:15 today. It represents a compromise of the original FE draft which had UNA and E support.

The underlined passages3 under (a) and (b) on page 2 point to the two issues between EUR and FE on the paper. FE holds that the underlined passages should be deleted and EUR believes that they should be included.

The issue on paragraph (a) centers on, in the FE view, the lack of necessity and wisdom in considering at this point or intimating to the British and French that in the period after an armistice went into effect and before the subsequent political negotiations had been concluded, the U.S. would contemplate suspending the UN economic measures.

The issue in (b) relates to the proposed stipulation that on resumption of hostilities it requires a massive new Chinese Communist aggression before the U.S. would seek further economic measures. This is contrary to the position personally approved by the Secretary as set forth in the “pessimist” paper on Korea which was transmitted to the Joint Chiefs of Staff two or three weeks ago.4

FE would also prefer to eliminate paragraph (c) on page 3 as being so hypothetical and distant a possibility to make it superfluous for the Ministers to consider at this time. We do not feel strongly on this however.

EUR and John Leddy5 of E in essence are concerned over the [Page 2009] implications of pressing NATO countries for additional economic measures in the UN in light of the Kem Amendment6 and the Battle Bill.7

  1. Addressed also to Messrs. Bonbright and Linder; the Ambassador at Large, Philip C. Jessup: Messrs. Hickerson, Rusk, and Perkins; and to Mr. John K. Emmerson, Planning Adviser in the Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs.↩
  2. Same as Tab A to the memorandum by Mr. Perkins of August 23, p. 2004. The text of the final paper is printed infra. ↩
  3. Set here as italics.↩
  4. Reference is to document WFM T–10/1, August 18, p. 835.↩
  5. Acting Director of the Office of Economic Defense and Trade Policy.↩
  6. The Kem Amendment, Section 1302 of P.L. 45, Third Supplemental Appropriation Act of 1951, approved June 2, 1951 (65 Stat. 52), so-named after Senator James P. Kem of Missouri, provided for a ban on U.S. economic or financial assistance to countries exporting strategic materials to Communist bloc countries.↩
  7. H.R. 4550, the Mutual Defense Assistance Control Act, sponsored by Representative Laurie C. Battle of Alabama, was passed by the House on August 2, by the Senate on August 28, and approved by the President on October 26 (P.L. 213, 65 Stat. 644). The Battle Act superseded the Kem Amendment, and likewise provided for the suspension of economic aid to nations supplying specified strategic commodities to the Soviet bloc.↩