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    "ocrText": "2/13/54, Reel 3,\nT\nK 2, P:\n4\nMR. JOHNSON:\nCan we get a little of the background of why the President felt he had to go\nto Wake Island? at that time? From Phid, or from you, Dean?\nMR. ACHESON:\nAverell has this much more -- This was a proposal which came to me, when it\nwas pretty full blown. I had vast distaste for the minole(Idea. It didn't\nto be something which\nseem to me/tpat/this was directly within my field of operations -- I didn't\nwant to have anything to do with it, didn't want to go on it and wouldn't\ngo\non it. It wasn't - - didn't seem possible for me to undo the decision. Now\nall the considerations that led to it I don't know. I presume they had\nsomething to do with the elections which were about to occur, something to\ndo with the whole attitude of the country toward General MacArthur, something\naug.\nto do with the f racas that we'd had in August-of that same year about the\nmessage to the Veterans of Foreign Wars -- all of those things probably entered\ninto it. But the matter, when it was decided, was not discussed with me.\nI knew about it when it was practically decided/officially H it wandt decided,\nwhen I was asked about it, and I said I didn't like it and didn't want to go\non it and hoped it wouldn't occur, but that --\nMR. NITZE:\nMy recollection was that oneof the important considerations was this question\nKUMAN,\nof MacArthur's announcement of a demand for surrender. We'd done a good deal\nand\nof work on this question of what kind of a statement to make in advance of\nADMIN\nyou\n<<s\ncrossing the 38th Parallel in the hope that we could get a settlement right\nthen and there before crossing the 38th Parallel. Our considerations in the\nState Department had led us to believe that what you wanted to do was to make\nthis pill as easy as possible for the enemy to wallow provided that you got\nout of it something which would in fact give you military security. You\ncouldn't just stop at the 38th Parallel and let them rebuild their forces and\npin you down there forever. What you wanted was some U.N. access to North\nKorea so that you could disarm and control the North Korean troops, but you\nwanted to do this in a way which was as likely as possible to be accepted\nand would save the face of the Nor th Koreans and the communists to the maximum."
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