December 25, 1951
Memorandum from Gromyko to Razuvaev
To Comrade STALIN I.V.
According to the report of Comrade Vyshinsky, reports have been published lately in French and American newspapers in Paris which underscore the inevitability of a breakdown in the peace negotiations in Korea and the possibility of broadening the Korean conflict and which lay the responsibility for this on the Korean-Chinese side (telegram No. 812).
In connection with this, Comrade Vyshinsky is introducing a proposal that by the time the period for agreement about a demarcation line [expires], i.e. by 27 December, the Korean-Chinese command publish a communiqué about the course of the negotiations with an exposure of the position of the Americans, which is aimed at drawing out and breaking down the negotiations for an armistice in Korea. In the opinion of Vyshinsky, MID [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] DPRK should send such a communiqué to the chairman of the General Assembly of the UN with a request to publish it as a document of the UN and to send it to all the delegations in the Assembly session.
MID USSR considers the above indicated reports of the French and American newspapers as blackmail, done for the purpose of putting pressure on the Korean-Chinese side.
As regards the communiqué proposed by Vyshinsky, in the opinion of MID, it is scarcely necessary to give advice to the Koreans and Chinese on this account, since they systematically publish reports which disclose the line taken by the Americans in the negotiations about an armistice in Korea. From the other side, the distribution of a Korean-Chinese communiqué as a document of the UN will not give any practical results, and a request from the Koreans and Chinese about this can be evaluated as a sign of their weakness.
In view of this, MID considers that to give any kind of advice to the Korean and Chinese governments regarding the communiqué is inadvisable.
A draft resolution is attached.
I ask you to review.
A. Gromyko
25 December 1951
No. 396
Copies: Molotov, Malenkov, Beria, Mikoyan, Kaganovich, Bulganin, Khrushchev.
Gromyko suggests to Stalin, via Razuvaev, to turn down Vyshinsky’s proposal for publishing a communiqué about the American position in the armistice talks.
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