Gromyko to G.M. Malenkov, attaching draft telegram to Razuvaev

To Comrade MALENKOV G.M.

I am sending a draft telegram to Comrade Razuvaev. I ask you to review it.

A. Gromyko

20 November 1951

No. 334/ag

Copies: Mikoyan, Kaganovich, Khrushchev

TOP PRIORITY

NORTH KOREA

SOVIET AMBASSADOR

We draw your attention to the inadmissibility of your actions in connection with the appeal of the Korean friends to the UN on the question of speeding up a peace settlement in Korea.

You communicated only on 18 November (your No. [number is illegible]) about the intention of the Korean friends to put forth an appeal to the General Assembly and the Security Council with demands: about the immediate cessation of military operations in Korea, about the withdrawal of troops from the front line and creation of a 2 kilometer demilitarization zone and about making answerable those guilty of prolonging the war in Korea—asking if such an appeal would contradict the statement of Comrade Vyshinsky.

Since we knew nothing about the proposed appeal of the Korean friends with a statement of the indicated demands, or at whose initiative arose the question of putting these demands before the UN, we asked you to elucidate (our No. 1059).

Without waiting for an answer to your telegram, in which were laid out the demands of the Korean friends mentioned above, you informed us (Your No. 1353 of 19 November), that on that same day, i.e. 19 November, the text of the statement by Pak Heon-yeong [Pak Hon Yong] will be transmitted over the radio. Moreover, after receipt of our inquiry (our No. 1059), on the question of the indicated demands of the Korean friends you limited yourself only to a report that you had raised the question at your own initiative and to a repetition of the question of whether there is a discrepancy between the proposals of Comrade Vyshinsky about withdrawal of troops from the 38th parallel and agreement in Kaeseong to the point of the agenda about the establishment of a demarcation line. Concerning the appeal, you also only reported that it would be announced 19 November.

Thus, both in telegram No. 1353 of 19 November and in telegram No. 1355 of 19 November, you informed us that the Korean friends will announce their appeal, even though at that time you did not have instructions from us and could not yet have received an answer to your inquiry. As a result the Korean friends made the appeal without agreement with us.

In that way you acted inadmissably thoughtlessly. Your guilt is aggravated also by the fact that you did not even take the trouble to find out from the Korean friends whether they had reached agreement with the Chinese friends about the appeal to the UN with the aforementioned demands, and you elucidated this only when you had received a direct order to do so and after the Koreans had already made their statement.

Learn this in the future.