Memorandum of Telephone Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall

s. 407 = ARCHIVES RECORDS *NATIONAL AND SERVICE* TOP SECRET 59 February 19, 1951 conf Secretary Marshall telephoned Secretary Acheson and asked that the latter take up with the President, the follow - ing matter: General Marshall said that, following the present action in Korea, there would be considerable restlessness for rota- tion of troops on the battiefront. In view of this, the General thought the question of alerting two national guard divisions for overseas service should be considered immediately. It had been deferred during the recent debate on troops for Europe and five to ten days had been lost. Since his state- ment before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the mumber of troops now contemplated for Europe, he thought it might now be possible, without detrimental effect to European morale, to alert the two diviaions. It would take a minimum of two weeks for them to complete preparations to report for overseas duty. If it was decided that these divisions ahould be alerted, it would then be necessary to determine how the question of publicizing or not publiciaing their destination would be best handled. In fact, they would be destined for the defense of Ckaido (1) rather than for the rotation of troops in Korea. But the General would not want his hands tied on this. It was an open question in his mind whether their destination should be indicated, or whether nding should be said on this; in which case the assumption might be made that they would be going to Europe. The Secretary said he would talk with people in the Depart- ment and would be glad to mention it to the President. On his return from the White House, the Secretary telephoned Secretary Marshall and reported on his talk with the President. The President, he said, would be more concerned with the effect on the Manpower Act than the effect on the Wherry Resolution. He did not think it would have any particularly serious effect on the latter. He thought that some effort would probably be made DECLASSIFIED E. O. 11652, Sec. 3(E) and 5(D) or (E) Dept. of State letter, 5-13-2019 By NLT. HC NARS Date 6.23.76 OP SECRET