On February 7 the authorities in Peking handed a statement to the United Kingdom Chargé d'Affaires, for transmission to the 16 powers concerned on the United Nations Command side, proposing the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Korea and the holding of elections throughout the country in order to unify the peninsula.⁹¹ A few days later the Chinese and the North Koreans announced that agreement had been reached to the effect that Chinese Communist forces would be withdrawn from Korea between April and the end of the year. There was at first a disposition to regard the Chinese statement as a propaganda move but the announced intention to withdraw Chinese Communist forces suggests that there is more than propaganda behind the Chinese proposal. Nobody has yet produced a completely satisfactory explanation for the Chinese offer: some consider that it may be evidence of a genuine desire for a settlement; others consider still that it is a mere propaganda manoeuvre; others think that it may be related to disarmament proposals and the Communist desire for a summit meeting; and yet others think that it may be related to the Chinese desire for a seat in the United Nations. The United States is inclined to extreme skepticism and to test Chinese intentions in a manner which some Americans themselves describe as "not too forthcoming." Like the British and Australians, your officials have inclined toward the view that there should be more encouragement than the United States appears to consider suitable in any reply to the Chinese statement. Representatives of the 16 are to meet in Washington, probably tomorrow (March 4) to hear United States proposals for a reply.

2. During your absence, we have tried to exert pressure on the official level to make sure that the Chinese statement is not rejected out of hand. We have also shown concern over the presentational aspect of the United Nations case. We have advanced the view that the countries replying to the Chinese on behalf of the United Nations should reply in terms which will appear reasonable to the uncommitted nations. An appearance of reasonableness seems to us to imply a readiness to discuss modalities for unification, and a reply in language which could not be considered provocative or offensive by the Communist side, taking into account the political realities which include the inability of countries like Communist China and the Soviet Union to admit that they encouraged or committed aggression in Korea or that they have otherwise been wrong. It seems to us to be unrealistic to attempt to extract any sort of formal apology or confession of guilt from these governments.

3. We have been concerned ever since the Geneva Conference, in the spring of 1954, that the 16 countries representing the United Nations side have maintained unreasonable requirements in the matter of supervision of elections in Korea looking toward the unification of the country. We have consistently held that it is unrealistic to expect the North Korean régime to surrender as though it had been defeated militarily and accept conditions for unification which it did not participate in drawing up (and indeed which were formulated at the height of the Korean war and at the point where the U.N. Command side thought that it was going to overrun all of North Korea); nor does it appear reasonable to expect these authorities to submit to supervision of elections by a body in which they are unrepresented and with which they have considered themselves to be at war. We have, therefore, devoted ourselves to trying to find a formula which would meet both the U.S. requirements for elections under "United Nations auspices" and the practical need to have supervision acceptable to the North Koreans and their supporters. Our last proposal was that the United States might consider suggesting to the Chinese, in the reply to the proposal of February 7, the hope "that arrangements for these elections acceptable to all concerned, could be worked out under the auspices of the United Nations."

4. The situation is too fluid to ask you for a definitive indication of your views. Reports from Washington vary from those suggesting that the State Department (or, at the very least, some influential officials in it) may hold views quite close to our own, to those suggesting that the rigid line of the last three years will be maintained, if necessary in the face of objections from the close associates of the United States. I thought, however, that you would like to have this information to bring you up to date as future developments may be quite rapid. In case you would like to read further on the subject, I  attach copies of the following telegrams:†

Our Y-70 of February 26 to Canadian Embassy, Washington.
Embassy Washington Telegram 434 of February 26 to Ottawa.
Our Y-73 of February 28 to Canadian Embassy, Washington.
Embassy Washington Telegram 466 of February 28 to Ottawa.

J. L[éger]

⁹¹Pour un résumé de la note chinoise, voir le New York Times, February 11, 1958, p. 1.
For a summary of the Chinese note, see the New York Times, February 11, 1958, p. 1.