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{
    "localId": "470155428",
    "label": "Report, Foreign Radio Reactions to the Korean Situation and the President's Decision",
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{
    "id": "470155428",
    "sourceUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/470155428",
    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Report, Foreign Radio Reactions to the Korean Situation and the President's Decision",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/470155428",
    "collections": [
        "President's Secretary's Files (Truman Administration)",
        "Intelligence Files"
    ],
    "subjects": [
        "Korean War, 1950-1953"
    ],
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    "levelOfDescription": "item",
    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 28,
            "logicalDate": "1950-06-28",
            "month": 6,
            "year": 1950
        }
    ],
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{
    "seq": 2,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
    "url": "https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/presidential-libraries/truman/hst-psf/602196/875444/875444-07-002.tif",
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    "ocrText": "RESTRICTED\nSUMMARY: Moscow has reacted to the President's decision with much greater speed than\nit did to the North Korean invasion itself. Its first report of the decision appeared\nin a TASS dispatch, transmitted eight hours after public announcement of the decision.\nAnd its first commentary--a PRAVDA article--was broadcast only 13 hours after the\nannouncement. This article represents Moscow's first independent comment on any phase\nof the Korean situation. It takes the position that the decision is tantamount to an\n\"act of direct aggression\"* against North Korea and Communist China. The President's\nstatement and actions, \"without (postwar) precedent,' are cited as \"added proof. that\nU.S. ruling circles no longer restrict themselves to preparing for aggression. But\nthere is little expression of counter-threat or belligerence in the article. The only\nominous statement-- \"Have they not gone too far, however?\"--is followed immediately by\nthe familiar charge that the U.S. is \"brutally violating the U.N. Charter.' This charge\nis supported by a narrowly legalistic type of reasoning.\nThe Soviet-controlled Berlin radio is the only other Communist source from which\nradio comment on the decision has been received. As is so often the case, it exercises\nmuch less restraint. Two and a half hours after the announcement a Berlin commentator\nhurls out such phrases as \"U.S. war criminals,\" \"criminal and provocative action,\"\n\"peace is threatened,\" \"immediate danger of war for Europe,\" and calls for a mass\npublic opinion campaign against \"this new crime against peace.' At the same time, how-\never, listeners are advised: \"Do not worry. The free nations will not need war.\"\nA considerable number of brief and generally cautious comments on the President's\ndecision have been received from Western-oriented radios. They are about equally\ndivided between expressions of approval and of concern about the \"seriousness\" of the\nsituation.\n\"DIRECT AGGRESSION\" AND \"VIOLATION OF THE U.N. CHARTER\": Prior to the President's\ndecision only one Communist radio had attempted to foresee the policy that might be\nexpected of the U.S. in reaction to the Korean situation. Broadcast at approximately\nthe same time the decision was made public, a Radio Warsaw commentary \"assumed\" that to\nsave Syngman Rhee the U.S. would \"make use of its obedient majority in the Security\nCouncil\nto intervene\nIf Whether or not this represented the general expectations\nof the Soviet-Communist elite, it is of some interest in this connection that, aside\nfrom charges of \"direct aggression,\" PRAVDA's primary substantive criticism of the\nPresident's decision has to do with its alleged violation of the U.N. Charter. But it\ndoes not make any reference to an American-dominated Council majority nor, curiously\nenough, to the previously alleged illegality of any Council decision adopted without\nSoviet participation. Instead, PRAVDA merely states categorically that the U.N. never\n\"empowered the U.S. Government to undertake against Korea and China those measures which\nTruman announced yesterday.' Consequently, the U.S., \"acting as though the U.N. did\nnot exist,\napparently intended to place (this act of direct aggression) before the\nThe phrase \"direct aggression\" is repeated four times in the article.\nRESTRICTED"
}