February 19, 1951
Secretary Marshall telephoned Secretary Acheson and asked that the latter take up with the President, the following matter:
General Marshall said that, following the present action in Korea, there would be considerable restlessness for rotation of troops on the battlefront. In view of this, the General thought the question of alerting two national guard divisions for overseas service should be considered immediately. It had been deferred during the recent debate on troops for Europe and five to ten days had been lost. Since his statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the number of troops now contemplated for Europe, he thought it might now be possible, without detrimental effect to European morale, to alert the two divisions. It would take a minimum of two weeks for them to complete preparations to report for overseas duty.
If it was decided that these divisions should be alerted, it would then be necessary to determine how the question of publicizing or not publicizing their destination would be best handled. In fact, they would be destined for the defense of Okaido rather than for the rotation of troops in Korea. But the General would not want his hands tied on this. It was an open question in his mind whether their destination should be indicated, or whether nothing should be said on this, in which case the assumption might be made that they would be going to Europe.
The Secretary said he would talk with people in the Department and would be glad to mention it to the President.
On his return from the White House, the Secretary telephoned Secretary Marshall and reported on his talk with the President. The President, he said, would be more concerned with the effect on the Manpower Act than the effect on the Wherry Resolution. He did not think it would have any particularly serious effect on the latter. He thought that some effort would probably be made
- 2 -
in any event to attach the Wherry Resolution to the Manpower Act. The President had expressed great concern over getting the Manpower Act through and had asked what the Secretary's guess was as to how long it would be on the floor; to which the Secretary had replied that he had no idea, but that Secretary Marshall could probably advise him on this.
The President had said on the point of Secretary Marshall's question that he thought whenever you try to adjust military action to political \(probably meant "domestic" political\) considerations, you got into trouble. He had said that when the time came that General Marshall thought they should go, they should be sent, and let the chips fall where they will. The President had thought that the question of alerting them without mentioning destination should be thought over carefully, since speculation on this would cause the men and their families worry. Here General Marshall interjected that destinations were never told in the last war, but he conceded that things were somewhat different now.
Secretary Acheson said he had told the President that Secretary Marshall was not asking for a decision; that he was just asking him to give the matter preliminary thought. Secretary Marshall said he would be seeing the President tomorrow and would be bringing it up with him then.
Mr. Acheson said he had told the President that he thought the effect in Europe would be very much less than it would have been before the General's statement on the number of troops.
S:BE:ma