Extracted text

OCR Page 1 of 14
2/13/54, Reel 3, Track 1, Page 1 MR. ACHESON: What we were saying was that among the other things that would have happened aposition if you were to guarantee Siggman Rhee, he would have taken (as belligerent a A position then as he has taken the last two or three days, where with our up again(?) guarantee he says that he's going to start the war in Korea whether we like 1 it or not. As Dr. Graham pointed out - you say what you pointed out. DR. GRAHAM: Well, the question that is being mised now, in connection with the limited assistance to Indochina just support what you said. that thegie. MR. ACHESON: Yes. The moment the administration says that it is going to send 150 technicians into Indochina you have vast protests about keeping Americans out of war, etc., etc. So it seems to me utterly silly to say that every ion single act which you may take you must decide you are going to take before you know what the situation is under which you are going to take it, and announce it; and if you don't do that, thenyou don't take it. DR. OPPENHEIMER: Isn't there a practical difficulty which is even more formidable -- that is, no matter how careful your study, no matter how complete your map of the world, you're bound to leave something out. And that omission is sure to be very provocative. MR. JOHNSON: Well, to carry that one on, it seems to me that this is a little bit like - -which fortunately wasdifested- - the efforts that were made at San Francisco and have since been made in the U.N. to define aggression. As soon as you'v defined aggression someone will A find a way to aggress that isn't in your list of definitions, and isn't it - to come back to a point you made, Dean, just before we changed the tape - 3115 ish't Foster's mistake in thinking that a declaration in 1914 or a declaration posture in 1939 would have been the same thing as being in a position where we could do something about it. The situation in Korea was that we were not in a posture where we could do something about this. I think Joe Grew has always said that if we had been prepared in 1914 or 1939 the situation would have been different; not that we would have said anything. I think that's the