Scant U.S. Support For Rhee Plan

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27415, 30 July 1954, Page 11

Scant U.S. Support For Rhee Plan

(Rec. 8 p.m.) WASHINGTON, July 28. The general*feeling among members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives seemed to be one of great personal sympathy for Dr. Rhee and admiration for the stand South Korea had made against the spread of communism in the Pacific, a Reuter correspondent reported. However, the measures he proposed when he appealed to Congress to attack China seemed to have met with scant official, or unofficial, enthusiasm. It was reported that President Eisenhower, backed by American military and economic experts, had attempted to dissuade Dr. Rhee from his theory that the Korean conflict should be reopened. Senator Alexander Wiley, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters after he had listened to Dr. Rhee: “I listened with interest to a great man and a great patriot, who made a great speech for his country.” He was asked whether he favoured Dr. Rhee’s proposal to attack Communist China, but he declined to comment.

Senator Pat McCarran (Democrat, Nevada), who has for many years supported the cause of the Nationalist Government of Chiang Kai-shek, said, when asked if he would favour the South Korean statesman’s plan for overthrowing the Chinese Communist Government: “On that I am not too certain. I feel that there might be other more effective ways to make use of the forces of the free world.” Senator Henry Jackson (Democrat, Washington) said: “What the South Korean president was proposing was a form of limited preventive yvar, and obviously we cannot undertake that. “Guns, ships, and planes are the least of our problems in the Far East. Our big job is to convince the people there that we are on the side of freedom and independence, and opposed to colonialism.” Senator Walter George, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said: “I would not like to state an opinion yet on the Rhee proposal.”

Senator Albert Gore (Democrat, Tennessee) said: “I shall await with interest the reaction of President Eisenhower and the Secretary of State (Mr Dulles) to President Rhee’s proposal**