Tokyo, January 23, 1958

No.F/2
Dear Mr. Minister:
1. I wish to acknowledge with appreciation the receipt of your letter of January 17, 1958, concerning the question on the personal representative of the Japanese Prime Minister. I have carefully read your letter and fully agree with you that an urgent question is to settle the long-pending problems as soon as possible and that the Japanese sincerity is to be further demonstrated in the forthcoming overall talks. I will bear in mind your kind guidance in this regard.
2. Taking this opportunity, I wish to state that at my several meetings with you and Vice Minister Kim, while in Seoul, the following points have been made clear with regard to the question on the said personal representative:
i. Premier Kishi's personal letter, as it is not an official diplomatic letter, cannot be delivered through regular diplomatic channels, but only by a personal representative of Mr. Kishi.
ii. The Japanese side has informally decided to name Mr. Yatsugi as such personal representative.
iii. Therefore, in case such letter is to be received, such personal representative will carry the letter directly to our Government.
Further, I was instructed by your official letter, Woijung No.4355 of December 12,to obtain a secret letter from the Japanese Prime Minister or Foreign Minister and the idea of the above personal letter was designed as a compromise plan. This point was also made clear at my talks with you and Vice Minister Kim. Therefore, from the Japanese standpoint, it was with reluctance to have agreed to send such personal letter.
His Excellency
Dr. Chung W. Cho
Minister of Foreign Affairs
As a matter of fact, as reported last week, the Japanese side is reportedly re-examining its plan to send such a letter after seeing our reaction thereto (Japan Times, January 16).
3. The instructions I received from you, both orally and in writing, can be summed up as follows:
i. Person like Mr. lshii say be preferred to Mr. Yatsugi, but there is no objection to including Mr. Yatsugi as a member of Ishii' s delegation.
ii. By letter instructions, part of which was quoted in your letter under reference, I was told that mutual agreement should be reached as to the personality of the representative and date of dispatching. in other words, the quoted portion of your letter of December 28 is interpreted as showing that the idea of the dispatch of the personal representative, itself, was not in question but what was at issue was the "personality" and "date".
4. Your letter of January 17 states that after my return here I hastily "approached and impressed the Japanese side as if our Government were ready to receive the personal envoy in question". This is not factual. All I discussed with the Japanese side after my return from Seoul, was regarding the wording of the Japanese draft of the said personal letter. Among the Japanese side Premier Kishi, Deputy Cabinet Secretary Tanaka and Mr. Yatsugi were the only ones who knew about this plan at the time and on our side only Min. Yiu and myself. Quite unexpectedly, however, the Japanese press started reporting on the question of the dispatch of the personal representative. I then immediately pointed out to the Japanese side that such a report should not have appeared. In addition to this, both Min. Yiu and 1 issued statements denying that our side had concurred with the Japanese side on the dispatch of the personal representative in question. I am, therefore, at a loss to understand how your conclusion that I hastily approahced and impressed the Japanese side, etc., was drawn.
5. I have heretofore made several attempts to persuade the Japanese side to send the said letter through this office. The Japanese side maintained that in that case, such letter must go through its Foreign Ministry and then approved by the Cabinet meeting, of which possibility is extremely remote.
Such being the case, I do not think it possible that the said personal letter can be received by our side through this office, as you suggested in your letter, in my humble opinion, it would be better for our side to receive the letter at an early date. Otherwise, it is feared that our hesitation would only give the Japanese side a good excuse towithdraw the letter altogether, because it was, at first, quite reluctant to issue such letter anyway. I would be grateful, if the Government would instruct me in this regard.
With regards and highest esteem, I remain,

Sincerely yours,
M.T.KIM