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Dear Ken:

Sorry to hear that your trip has again been postponed. However, we will very much look forward to seeing you early in the new year.

I much appreciate your letter of November 14 in regard to the status of the Dokdo Island (Liancourt Rocks). The information you gave us had never been previously available to the Embassy. We had never heard of Dean Rusk's letter to the Korean Ambassador in which the Department took a definite stand on this question. We of course knew of the ROK Government's desire to have Article 2(a) of the Peace Treaty amended to include Dokdo and Parangdo and conveyed that request in a telegram to the Department at that time, along with other ROK suggestions for amendments to the draft treaty. We were subsequently made aware of the fact that Article 2(a) was not to be amended but had no inkling that that decision constituted a rejection of the Korean claim. Well, now we know and we are very glad to have the information as we have been operating on the basis of wrong assumption for a long time.

I am sending with a transmitting despatch, a copy of the note that we have just sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which includes as a final paragraph the wording suggested in the Department's telegram no. 365 of November 27 and which refers to Dean Rusk's note to Ambassador Yang of August 10, 1951.

Sincerely yours,

E. Allan Lightner, Jr.

Kenneth T. Young, Jr., Esquire,
 * Director, Office of Northeast Asian Affairs,
 * The Department of the State,
 * Washington 25, D.C.