INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS DIVISION WEEKLY SUMMARY NO. 26 FOR WEEK ENDING 4 JULY 1950 THE INTERNATIONAL WEEK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79-01090A000100030002-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: November 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 21, 1999
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: July 4, 1950
• Content Type: SUMMARY

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INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS DIVISION
WEEKLY SUMMARY NO. 26
For week ending 4 July 1950 Volume III
The International Week
The moral authority of the Security Council decision recom-
mending armed assistance to the Republic of Korea was greatly
increased by the concurrence of India. To date ! 43 UN members
have voiced their support.
THE UN AND KOREA
Broad support given UN action. The first week after UN
intervention in the Korean crisis brought virtual blanket endorse-
ment from non-Soviet UN members and some offers of military
assistance as well. India's declaration of support more than
counter-balanced Egypt's embittered abstention and this move of
India, Asia's largest non-Communist state, will significantly
undermine the contention that UN measures merely express the
policy of Western imperialists. There is some basis for hope
that Egypt's position will not set the pattern for all Moslem
states. Pakistan has denounced Egypt's attitude as "foolish and
illogical" and has taken the initiative in approaching Syria,
Iraq and Laudi Arabia. Meanwhile in Washington and Lebanese and
Syrian Ministers have privately condemned the Egyptian position.
Reaction in the Far East is one of relief at prompt US action.
Burma's Prime Minister declared that a folded arms policy would
have made it impossible for him to have resisted current efforts
of Burmese leftists to align Burma with the Soviet bloc. Even
Yugoslavia followed its negative SC vote with a noteworthly effort
to explain to the US that, although open alignment with the West
would have undermined Tito's ideological warfare with the USSR,
it privately welcomed UN action as reinforcing Yugoslavia's
security against attack. The Yugoslavs have now gone a step
farther and a Belgrade press release hints approval of the UN
decision.
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This almost universal endorsement of vigorous UN action con-
stitutes a development highly favorable to US security. For the
first time the UN has sanctioned the use of military force to re-
sist aggression and the wide approval of international public
opinion will weigh heavily on the crucial ideological level. Thus
whit would otherwise be a unilateral armed intervention by the US
in a disputed area of power politics rises to the dignity of a
collective international effort to uphold law and order.
Ad hoc UN armed e . The prompt emergence of an ,
UN armed force to ddal with the Korean situation demonstrates the
ability of the UN to respond to vigorous leadership under a flex-
ible interpretation of the Charter and in the absence of Soviet
obstruction, Under Article 43 of the Charter UN members under-
took to make available to the SC, on its call, and in accordance
with special agreements, "armed forces, assistance and facilities,
including rights of passage," Since from the outset Soviet non-
cooperation has prevented the Military Staff Committee from assist-
ing the Security Council on UN military planning matters under its
Charter mandate, no special agreements have yet been concluded.
In this situation the need for immediate action compelled the SC
to rely on general Charter provisions and ad hoc arrangements in
calling on UN members to "furnish such assistance to the Republic
of Korea as may be necessary to repel the armed attack...."
In order to counter Soviet efforts to exploit any tendency
to view US action as unilateral, and to emptasize and formalize
the UN's role inthe military aspects of the Korean rdxir crisis,
some UN members are actively considering the creation of a SC
coordination committee to screen offers of military aid and receive
reports from the field forces. Some officials also favor the formal
designation of General MacArthur as UN Commander-in-Chief and the
display of the UN flag by armed contingents defending South Korea.
All such efforts to put the UN stamp on measures taken in Korea will
strengthen the prestige of the UN and also place US action on a
high moral plane.
L he UN?_ Secretariat and the Korean Sanctions, Throughout
the Korean crisis, Secretary General Lie has demonstrated an uncom-
promising attitude in support of strong UN measures against aggres-
sion, With the chips down, Lie has again shown undivided loyalty
to the UN, and his actions refute the frequent charges that he has
pro-Soviet leanings, In fact his record in the Korean affair now
makes it doubtful whether the USSR, in the event that it should at-
tend the General Assembly, would accept an extension of his tdrm of
office as Secretary General.
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As for the Secretariat in general, its members are theoretic-
ally international civil servants obligated to put national alle-
giance to one side in the execution of their duties. Approximately
eighy are nations of the USSR or its satellites, and in view of
the universal character originally envisaged for the UN, naturally
no attmept has ever been made to exclude communists as such. Fur-
thermore, the important post of Assistant Secretary General for
Security Council Affairs is held by Konstantin Zinchenko$ a
Soviet nation, As the Gubitchev case revealed, it is too much
to expect that communists will place their loyalty to the UN
above that to the Kremlin. Therefore at a time when the UN is
abam virtually at war with a Soviet puppet, it would be dangerous
from a security standpoint to afford the secretariat access to any
military information. Thus in setting up machinery to coordinate
military contributions to the UN for use in Korea only carefully
screened members of the secretariat will be used in conjunction
with a new gc , hoe organ.
Effect of Korean crisis on the "peace" camoaisn. The immediate
effect of the Korean war on the Communist "peace" campaign will be
to decrease its effectiveness, and at the same time to increase its
intensity.
The Communist invaision of South Korea hands the West a clear-
cut issue with which to point up the hypocrisy of Communist peace
pretensions. In the first place the UN Security Council, acting
on information supplied by a UN Commission in Korea at the time of
the attack. quickly branded the North Korean regime as the aggressor.
Furthermore, this and subsequent UN action elicited overwhelming
approval in the non-Soviet world. More specifically, the concur-
rence in UN action by India (a leading proponent of neutrality in
East-West conflicts) should carry great weight with.fence-sitters
whose support the USSR seeks to enlist. These clear indications of
North Korean culpability plus implicit Soviet inspiration in the
now familiar pattern of Communist-organized civil strife reveal more
clearly than ever the sharp contrast between Communist peace talk
and aggressive actions.
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Facing what could prove to be a set-back to the peace cam-
paign, the USSR will probably redouble its peace propaganda in
an attempt to shift the blame and dorwn out charges of Soviet
complicity. Initial Soviet treatment of the Korean situation in-
dicates that two main themes will probably be developed: 1) that
the US has now moved from the stage of war preparations to "direct
aggression," and 2) that the ramming through of "illegal" Security
Council decisions under American pressure exposes US cynicism to-
ward the peaceful principles of the UN. The basis for such charges
has been proclaimed with increasing vigor in recent months, am
US military action in Korea will be cited as proof of these standard
peace campaign. assertions.
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