Memorandum from Secretary of State Dean Acheson to Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall

ARCHIVES AND RECORDS NATIONAL 60 SERVICE" COPY TOP SBCRE I February 19, 1951 Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense After talking with Mr. Lovett, it was agreed that it would be better for me to discuss the attached memorandum with you rather than to send it on to the White House with possiblos differences of view to be resolved by the President. The following points are those which I wish to raise: 1) The draft message proposed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff suggests that "consideration should also be given to attack by naval gun fire" It seems to us that such an operation clearly increases the hazard of an already hazardous attack within seventeon miles of the Soviet boundary. It could be anticipated that a naval force would require a screen to the northward. You will recall that a United Nations air screen in the Yellow Sea shot down a Soviet plane at a point forty miles from the center of the United Nations task force. Further, a naval force would be subject to submarine attack. Lasly, the sinking of a capital ship by Soviet air or submarine action would represent a far more critical incident than the loss of certain aircraft. 2) The dangers of a bombing raid close to the borders of the Soviet Union were discussed at some length with the President last summer. The attached nemorandum of September 11, 1950, contains a summary of that problem. At that time, the President imposed the limitation which General MacArthur now wishes to raise. One question is whether the correspondence with Tokyo today indicates now that the dangers from the supplies in Rashin are significantly greater than last summer whon it was decided that the danger was not sufficient to justify continued bombing. Frankly, I do not think that the incoming messages are very persuasive on this point. The bombing might have one or both of two objectives; the destruc- tion of marshalling yards and communications, and the destruc - tion of the supplies themselves. Is it not possible to deal with the communications DECLASSIFIED E. O. 11652, Sec. 3(E) and 5(D) or (E) Dept. of State letter, 5-13-2013 By NLT. He NARS Data 6-23-76