Telegram from Ambassador Warren Austin to Secretary of State Dean Acheson

INCOMING TELEGRAM Department of State TELEGRAPH BRANCH 6-1 SPARET Action Control: 4186 UNA Rec'd: April 9, 1951 FROM: New York 9:51 p.m. Info SS TO: Secretary of State DECLASSIFIED G O. 11652, Sec. 3(E) and P NO: 1385, April 9, 7:37 p.m. of State letter L EUR NEA Re: Korea possible Asian-Arab appeal. ARA FE Palar (Indonesia) called at his request today. He identified DCR himself as the unnamed Asian colleague on whose behalf Rau had approached us on March 26 for an Asian appeal to the PRC and UN that no forces should cross the 38th parallel (MYTEL 1330, March 26). He was speaking as the rep of his govt and not on behalf of Asian-Arab group in raising this quéstion. He thought it likely that members of that group would present their views to USUN within a day or two. His position is based upon fear of general war and its effect on the future of his govt. General war might be expected to destroy Indonesia as a democratic state and delay indefinitely its economic development for lack of capital from US. After a third world war the US would probably not be in a position to set up a new Marshall Plan and to make capital available to Indonesia. Therefore, while opinion in the Asian-Arab group has not crystallized, he was advocating a step which admittedly would sacrifice the prestige of the UN to some extent in order to preserve peace. He sees this as primarily a great power problem with the immediate solution the bringing together of the great powers even though hostilities continue. A forthcoming PRC offensive might well mean general war and therefore some appeal should be issued to fore-stall the offensive. He recalled the criticism of the Asian-Arab states for dividing their proposal of 12 December into two draft res, which the PRC had interpreted as indicating their siding with the west and lacking in impartiality. Recalling that Indonesia had stood against dividing the two proposal for that very reason, he thought that experience dictates that an appeal be made now to lay a foundation for effective negotiation after a Chinese offensive has started and when the UN forces might be in a far less advantageous position than now. Speaking for himself, he is considering an appeal to the PRC not to go south of the 38th parallel. Although he realizes the difficulty of UN or any group in it appealing to the UN itself, he thinks there should be a correlative appeal to the UN forces not to go north of the 38th parallel. Such an appeal might REPRODUCTION OF THIS SECRET MESSAGE IS PROHIBITED