Memorandum, State Department Summary of Telegrams

N OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE WASHINGTON DECLASSIFIED E.O. 12065, Sec. 3-402 State Dept. Guidelines, March 6, 1982 March 27, 1951 By DEB NLT, Date 9-4-85 ECRET SUMMARY OF TELEGRAMS FOUR-POWER No meeting was held on Monday. Ambassa- EXPLORATORY TALKS dor Jessup reports he has been trying to explore possible new approaches to agenda which might get meetings off dead center. Jessup feels that a completely new approach might give us a propaganda advantage and, at any rate, something new to bargain with. KOREA Sir Benegal Rau called on our deputy UN delegate, Mr. Gross, in New York to discuss the tactical crossing of the 38th Parallel. He said a certain Asian delega- - tion had suggested that now was an appropriate time for an Asian appeal to the UN not to let its forces cross the 38th Parallel. Rau said he was pre- - senting this idea to us, not as a suggestion, but to get a US reaction before communicating it to his Government. He said he thought that the concept of his unnamed Asian colleague was based partly on the fact that the 38th Parallel question is no longer academic and partly on General MacArthur's recent statement on crossing it. In answer to questions by Gross, Rau expressed the personal view that the appeal, if observed by UN forces, would remove one ground of the Chinese Communists basis for intervention, in that the claim could not again be made that the UN had invaded North Korea. He felt that the UN forces might halt some 10 miles behind the 38th Parallel allowing the remaining area to be a buffer zone for land patrol action, and this might be a stronger political position than the zone previously sug- gested north of the Parallel. Gross stressed that as members contributing troops have been advised, any crossing of the Parallel is a tactical mili- - tary measure and the UN is not committed to unification of Korea by the invasion on a strategic scale of North Korea. He thought it likely that any strategic crossing would be on the basis of wide consultation, certainly among the group contributing armed forces. He stressed the fact that UN