Memorandum of Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Philip Jessup, H. Freeman Matthews, and Dean Rusk

NLT 823 48 DECLASSIFIED E. O. 11652, Sec. 3(E) and S(D) or (F) RATIONAL RECORDS SERVICE* N TUI econc GLONE 367 10.11.77 of / By NC NARS Date 2.4.17 December 27, 1950 Memorandum of Conversation This morning the Secretary saw Mr. Jessup, Mr. Matthews, and Mr. Rusk and reported to them what took place et the meeting at Blair House last night. He said that in addition to himself and General Marshall, Secretary Snyder, General Bradley and Mr. Short were also present. He said the President wanted to discuss the situation in Korea, whether we could hold our position there, what we should do if we could not, etc. The Secretary said that General Marshall mentioned to the President the meetings which had been held recently between the State Department and the Defense Department people and asked the President if he would like to attend, The President said that he would and Secretary Snyder indicated he would also like to come. Mr. Rusk suggested that it might be best to bring the - resident into these meetings only when they were of specific interest to him or when the participants were ready to talk to him. Mr. Acheson said that General Marshall had asked him to report the discussion last night. He had followed the line suggested in Mr. Rusk's paper on our future course in Korea. He said that we were clear on our big objective, That objective is to take a stand against aggression on a collective security basis and retain that position as long as we could. He said that reverses did not warrant withdrawal. He pointed out that we were not hopelessly outnumbered in Korea and that the Chinese Communists had the burden of being on the offensive. The Secretary said that we should test out the Communists and see whether they had the vast power that they were supposed to have or whether they did not have this strong power. Mr. Acheson said that the President agreed that we should not pull out of Korea and leave our friends there to be murdered. The Secretary said that we must consider, of course, how we could eventually disentangle ourselves from this situation. He, pointed out that we had never intended to keep a large force there. He also mentioned the importance of not conducting a withdrawal which would result in a loss of these forces since they represented so large a part of our strength. Mr. Acheson