Andrei A. Gromyko:
Statement by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, July 4,1950
The events now taking place in Korea broke out on June 25 as the result of a
provocative attack by the troops of the South Korean authorities on the frontier areas of
the Korean People's Democratic Republic. This attack was the outcome of a premeditated
plan.
From time to time Syngman Rhee himself and other representatives of the South Korean
authorities had blurted out the fact that the South Korean Syngman Rhee clique had such a
plan.
As long ago as October 7, 1949, Syngman Rhee, boasting of success in training his army,
stated outright, in an interview given to an American United Press correspondent,
that the South Korean Army could capture Pyongyang in the course of three days.
On October 31, 1949, Sin Sen Mo, Defence Minister of the Syngman Rhee Government, also
told newspaper correspondents that the South Korean troops were strong enough to act and
take Pyongyang within a few days. Only one week before the provocative attack of the South
Korean troops on the frontier areas of the Korean People's Democratic Republic, Syngman
Rhee said, in a speech on June 19 in the so-called "National Assembly" where Mr.
Dulles, adviser to the U.S. State Department, was present: "If we cannot protect
democracy in the cold war, we shall win in a hot war."
It is not difficult to understand that representatives of the South Korean authorities
could only make such statements because they felt that they bad American support behind
them. One month before the present developments in Korea, on May 19, 1950, Mr. Johnson,
chief American administrator of aid to Korea, told the American Congress House of
Representatives' Appropriations Committee that 100,000 officers and men of the South
Korean Army, equipped with American weapons and trained by the American Military Mission,
bad completed their preparations and could begin war at any time.
It is known that only a few days before the Korean events, the United States Defence
Secretary, Mr. Johnson, the Chief of the General Staff of the United States Armed Forces,
General Bradley, and the State Department adviser, Mr. Dulles, arrived in Japan and had
special conferences with General MacArthur, and that afterwards Mr. Dulles visited South
Korea and went to frontier areas on the 38th Parallel.
Only one week before the events-on June 19-Mr. Dulles, adviser to the State Department,
declared in the above-mentioned "National Assembly" of South Korea that the
United States was ready to give all necessary moral and material support to South Korea
which was fighting against Communism.
These facts speak for themselves and need no comment. . . .
The United States Government tries to justify armed intervention against Korea by
alleging that it was undertaken on the authorisation of the Security Council. The falsity
of such an allegation strikes the eye.
What really happened? It is known that the United States Government had started armed
intervention in Korea before the Security Council was summoned to meet on June 27, without
taking into consideration what decision the Security Council might take. Thus the United
States Government confronted the United Nations Organisation with a fait accompli, with
a violation of peace.
The Security Council merely rubber-stamped and back-dated the resolution proposed by
the United States Government, approving the aggressive actions which this Government had
undertaken. . . .
The illegal resolution of June 27, adopted by the Security Council under pressure from
the United States Government, shows that the Security Council is acting, not as a body
which is charged with the main responsibility for the maintenance of peace, but as a tool
utilised by the ruling circles of the United States for unleashing war. This resolution of
the Security Council constitutes a hostile act against peace.
If the Security Council valued the cause of peace, it should have attempted to
reconcile the fighting sides in Korea before it adopted such a scandalous resolution. Only
the Security Council and the United Nations Secretary-General could have done this.
However, they did not make such an attempt, evidently knowing that such peaceful action
contradicts the aggressors' plans.
Source:
from the Soviet News, No. 2393 (July 5, 1950), pp. 1-2.
This text is part of the Internet
Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and
copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history.
Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright.
Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational
purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No
permission is granted for commercial use of the Sourcebook.
© Paul Halsall, July 1998
