Korea: Britain and the Korean War, 1950-51

History Notes Issue 1 [June 1990]

Korea: Britain and the Korean War (1950 - 51)

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HISTORY NOTES

KOREA Britain and the Korean War, 1950-51

Hi$torieal Brae", lLRD

No.1

History Notes, an occasional series produced by the staff of LRD's Historical Branch, provide background information on issues of interest to the FCO.

Already published: 1. Korea: Britain uid the Korean War, 1950-SI:June 1990

Second edition (revised) November 1994

2. The PCO: Policy, People and P1ac., 178a-1991: April 1991 Third edition (revised) March 1993 3. Locarao

19~5:

The Treaty, the Spirit aacI the Suite: October 1991

4. PCO Records: Policy, Praetiee aacI P08tenty, Second edition (revised) November 1993 5.

peo Library: Priat, Paper aacI PabHcatiolUl,

6. Women ill Diplomacy: The rco,

178~-1994:

178~-199~:

August 1992

178~-1993: March

1993

May 1994

7. 'My Purdah Lady': The Foreip OfBce aad the Secret Vote, 178a190 9: September 1994

For further information contact FCa Historical Branch, Library and Records Department, Clive House, Petty France, London SWI gHD, Tel. 0']1-270 4215.

KOREA

Britain and the Korean War, 1950-51

Historical Branch, LRD

This History Note is a shortened version of a seminar paper given by H J Yasamee (LRD) at SOAS in 1990. It was first circulated on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the outbreak of war in Korea on 25 June 1950 and has been updated for this second edition.

WILl

NOln'H

r

US MARINES LANDING

T!!E KOREAN WAR

'950 - 1953

..

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I INTRODUCTION Some forty years ago on 25June 1950 Prime Minister, Mr Attlee, was informed by his Private Secretary: 'The Foreign Office thought you should know that a state of war has been declared between Northern and Southern Korea. The United States Government are calling an emergency meeting of the Security Council.

'The Ambassador for Southern Korea in Washington has issued a statement attributing the outbreak of war to Soviet influence'.

This minute opens Volume IV of Series II of Documents on British Policy Overseas, which covers the Korean War from its outbreak in June 1950 to the fall of General MacArthur in April 1951, marking the onset of a long period of stalemate when, according to one senior FO official: 'The truth is we are in ajam in Korea .... The fact is that we can neither get out nor get on'.l The course of the war falls into several distinct phases; (a)

the outbreak of hostilities inJune which led to the fall of Seoul and the invasion of virtually the whole of southern Korea,

(b)

the fight back by UN troops under General MacArthur which started with the spectacular success of the Inchon landings on 15 September,

(c)

the entry of Chinese 'volunteers' into combat, during October 1950, which created 'an entirely new war', whereby communist forces held the initiative until spring 1951, and

(d)

the long period of military and diplomatic stalemate around the 38th parallel which characterised the rest of the war. The first truce negotiations took place inJuly 1951, but it was not until two years later that the armistice was signed on 27 July 1953.

DBPO documents the diplomatic side of the war while the military events are covered by General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley in his two-volume official history of the war, sponsored by the Cabinet Office.!

1.

Documents on British Policy Overseas, Series II, Volume IV: Korea 1950-51 (HMSO, London, 1991), p.405.

2.

General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley. The British Part in the Korean War, Volume I (HMSO, London 1990).

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II THE RUSH TO GO IN Anglo-American Consultation and Co-operation

Volume IV of DBPO opens with the flurry of diplomatic activity in the United Nations from 25 June. Remarkable in this early phase is the speed with which commitments were made on the basis of very little hard information.

While General MacArthur was busy sending his small 'plane-load of eight observers from Tokyo, and the UN Commission in Korea began to spring into not very effective action, British Ministers were faced with decisions as to whether to support American-sponsored resolutions in the UN calling on members to deplore North Korean aggression and to weigh in with assistance to the fast collapsing South Korean forces in the south.

British support was readily given in the hope that this support would be more moral than actual and that the deployment of a few naval vessels (one light fleet carrier, two cruisers and five destroyers and frigates) would suffice. Later the Cabinet was prepared to take the political decision, against military advice, to s nd limi ted ground forces to Korea. The main reasons for this were (a) to consolidate the AngloAmerican alliance and the fight against Communism in the name of the UN, and more specifically (b) to retain influence over the Americans over the handling of the war and to encourage them to help with the support, and if necessary the defence, of other areas in South-East Asia - particularly Malaya, Indo-China and Hong Kong.

Even so the British military force in Korea, like others gathered under the UN flag, was never more than a token beside the size of US contribution. At the halfway point of the war 8000 British servicemen were fighting alongside a quarter of a million American GIs. The main British contribution was on the diplomatic side: the aim being to localise the conflict and bring fighting to an end through negotiation. Tactics tend d to concentrate on finding some face-saving formula to give the Soviet Union and later China a way out. This was based on the assumption that these countries were looking for a way out. Foreign Office officials became increasingly doubtful that this was the case, especially when South Korean and UN forces were being driven back.

The ultimate aim was to achieve the unification of a free and independent Korea, divided since 1945 at the 38th parallel. This remained the long-term aim, but in the absence of a convincing UN military victory, British policy from the autumn of 1950 became increasingly directed towards the short term aim of achieving a return to the status quo.

In the first days of the war, British input was limited. Apart from the successful move to modify President Truman's famous statement of 27 June, when American plans to send troops to Korea, naval forces to Formosa and military aid to Indo-China were announced, British influence was not admitted to the American policy-making process in Washington . The first explanation of American determination to make a stand in Korea was given at a general meeting of NATO Ambassadors in Washington on 27 June. Mterwards, senior State Department officials

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'were at pains to tell me (Franks) how much they regretted their inability to consult with us during the last 36 hours. They ought to have done so and would like to have done so but the rapidity of developments in Korea and the difficulty of bringing the cumbrous machinery of the American government together not excluding General MacArthur inJapan had been such that they could not do so as they would have wished'.

This set a pattern which ran throughout the course of the war. Despite the excellent personal relationship between the British Ambassador, Sir Oliver Franks, and Dean Acheson, the American Secretary of State, British Ministers and officials were continually being faced with faits accomplis and expected to fall in. The same was not true in reverse. Indeed British preoccupation with keeping the Americans informed of every twist and turn of British policy sometimes got in the way of keeping the eye on the ball. This happened with attempts to secure Soviet mediation in July 1950.

British concern to assure Washington that they knew nothing of the Indian approach to the Soviet government- made in parallel with the British one - delayed action in Moscow enabling the Indian initiative to scupper the British one.

To some extent Korea was seized upon as an opportunity to revive old wartime combined consultation - not just on the military, but also on political and economic levels. On 6 July the Prime Minister asked for special talks in Washington between the American and British Chiefs of Staff. It was hoped that these would be the first of a regular series: vitally important for the coordination not just of strategy in Korea but of strategy across the globe. Talks did take place later in July, and again in October, but they hardly got beyond general reviews of the situation in the Far East and repeated requests from London for more information on US intentions and plans of campaign remained a feature of the Anglo-American dialogue on Korea.

The American Embassy in London did what they could to keep the Foreign Office informed of developments during the first weeks when such was the chaos that very little reliable information was coming out of Korea. Mter the capture of Captain Vyvyan Holt, the British Minister who stayed behind after the evacuation of Seoul on 28June, the Foreign Office had no direct report of what was happening until the establishment of Mr Sawbridge's itinerant mission in the middle of July. Even thereafter we remained fairly dependent on the US and press reports for information.

These were at best patchy and not helped by the inaccessibility of General MacArthur, even after the accreditation of a senior British liaison officer, Air Vice Marshal Bouchier, to his staff in August.

As regards political cooperation, Mr Attlee proposed talks with President Truman in August and again in September. His visit to Washington in December was at the third time of asking. The Washington talks, which have already been covered in Volume III in so far as they relate to European Defences, are covered more fully in Volume IV. Although the Prime Minister claimed to be satisfied with the full and frank exchange of views at Washington, the Foreign Office was doubtful about any satisfaction in regard to the then critical situation in the Far East. Indeed, Mr Attlee had scarcely left Washington before the Americans began to proceed with plans,

3.

Documents on British Policy Overseas, Series II, Volume III: Gennan Reannament, September- December 1950 (HMSQ, London, 1989).

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opposed by the British Government, for a UN resolution condemning Chinese aggression followed by more sanctions against China.

Responsibility for the War While keeping a weather eye on military developments in Korea and political juggling in the UN, a good deal of the early documentation in the volume focuses on Foreign Office analyses of what the war was really about - who was the prime mover of the aggression and what were the implications for British foreign policy.

British support for the American rush to go into Korea owed much to the assumption - which never really changed even after Chinese entry into the war - that North Korean aggression was Soviet inspired.

The consensus was that the North Korean attack had been launched as a limited operation within the ambit of an overall Soviet offensive to expel Western influence from the Far East. It was thought that the Soviet Union hoped for a quick walk-over and that the unexpected vigour of UN reactions was a shock from which the Soviet government seemed slow to recover - affording scope for a degree of diplomatic manoeuvering.

The Korean adventure was regarded as a Soviet probe to test western reactions in a vulnerable area where there was apparently little risk of an all-out war. British military and diplomatic experts were seriously worried bywhat appeared to be a new departure in the Cold War: Soviet willingness to go beyond the tactics of subversion to those of open armed aggression.

Although the Foreign Office did not discount the possibility that the Soviets might be tempted to further the experiment of turning the cold war into a hot one in other soft spots, notably Persia and Berlin, strategic planning continued on the basis that the Soviet Union would not risk war before 1954 (a calculation brought forward to 1952 by the end of the year). When assessing Soviet intentions in the first weeks of conflict in Korea, the Foreign Office concluded that the Soviet Union probably considered Korea a mistake and might already be looking for a way out. Briti h efforts through July and August were directed towards finding such a way.

When China entered the war in October, virtually the same thought processe were applied to China. By 1951, the Foreign Office had settled to the view that the Korean War was the result of close Sino-Soviet cooperation - but that the Soviet Union remained the prime instigator.

When assessing Soviet motives in the summer of 1950 - long before any signs of Chinese intervention - the idea occurred to Foreign Office officials more than once that Soviet moves in Korea were really designed to embroil China against the UN as part of a Soviet long term aim of keeping Communist China from taking her rightful seat there, as a means to disrupt, and ultimately, to break-up, the UN. However, as US policy towards the UN began to unfold during the Korean War with a series of initiatives apparently aimed at turning the UN into a western security organisation, rather than a world-wide forum for the peaceful settlement of disputes, the Foreign Office became concerned that it was American, rather than Soviet, policy which would lead to the demise of the UN in its existing form.

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III THE SEARCH FOR A WAY OUT The successful resolution of the Korean conflict, as with any war, depended either on a convincing military victory or diplomatic success. On the military side British forces were rarely in a position to determine the outcome. However, the commitment of forces to Korea gave Britain some say in the handling of the campaign and the British contribution here was divided between support and restraint of American plans depending on how well the military campaign was going.

So long as there was a real prospect of military success, eg in the period following the Inchon landings in September, we were prepared to support the UN drive northwards across the 38th parallel and even up to the Manchurian border. Indeed Ernest Bevin, the Foreign Secretary, argued that this was essential, as to stop at the parallel and leave North Korea an entity would mean that ' Russia will have virtually triumphed and the whole UN effort will have been in vain.'

This view was challenged by Air Marshal Sir John Slessor who told his dissenting Chiefs of Staff colleagues on 3 October that he could not understand this point of view since even just a return to the status quo must surely be a defeat for Russia while going north would only increase commitments and risk an extension of the war by Chinese intervention. The argument for going north was based on the prospect of military success. The reasons why this eluded UN forces are dealt with by General Farrar-Hockley rather than by DBPO. Suffice it to say that contemporary Foreign Office coromen ts on the failure of UN forces to make headway in the early part of the campaign included the fact that 75% of US fighting troops had no previous battle experience and US anti-tank weapons had little effect on the heavy Soviet tanks with which North Korean forces were supplied.

Mter Chinese intervention in the war, there was much less enthusiasm for pressing northwards. Chinese intervention and successes from November to December 1950 ended the argument about going north until February 1951 when UN forces had recovered sufficiently to make a second crossing of the 38th parallel a possibility.

At this point, Mr Attlee stepped in to insist upon an American assurance that General MacArthur should be restrained from advancing further northwards.

Anglo-American differences over China The difficulty of achieving a military solution made it all the more important to find a diplomatic one. However, British efforts to provide this by a series of initiatives for mediation, buffer zones, and a cease fire on varying sets of conditions foundered on the failure to reconcile Anglo-American differences over China. As SirJohn Sterndale Bennett pointed out from Singapore inJanuary 1951 'The basic weakness of what may be called the allied position is that an attempt has been made to build a united policy over a fundamental rift- a divided attitude towards China. So long as Korea went militarily well, this rift was to some extent obscured. But as soon as things began to go badly it threatened the whole structure and is now being exploited to the fullest extent.'

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The essential point of difference in 1950 was that whereas a numbe r of western and Asian countries, including Britain and India, had re cogn i ed the communi t government in Peking of Mao Tse Tung as the de jure gove rnme n t of China in place of Chiang Kai Shek's Nationalist government which still clung to power in Formosa, the United States government and the majority of UN members would not. This led to tensions over the ultimate disposal of Formosa - which was dragged at the outset into the Korean crisis by President Truman's statement on 27 June - and the unresolved question of Chinese representation at the UN, where China was still represented by the Nationalist government.

The clearest exposition of the American case against the People 's Republic of China was set out in a long message from Acheson to Bevin on 11 July 1950, which gave 8 reasons for US non-recognition: (1)

Peking has shown no sign of wanting normal relations

(2)

Peking has singled out US citizens and interests for hostile treatment

(3)

Peking does not accept international obligations of China

(4)

Peking has recognised Ho Chi Minh and is interfering in Indo-China

(5)

Peking is supporting the communist insurgents in the Philippine, Malaya and Burma

(6)

Peking is cooperating with Soviet penetration of China

(7)

Peking does not have complete control over China

(8)

Peking is supporting North Korea.

With the exception of point 7 the Foreign Office was not impressed by thes arguments. Sir Pierson Dixon, DUS, commented that they merely amounted to saying that the US did not like Peking's face, adding 'We d o not like the face of th USSR or Czechoslovakia, but we recognise them noneth ele s', While the US government continued to regard the Communist Chine e as completely beyond the pale, the British government sought to build a policy which would k ep the door to the west open to China and which would encourage her to settle down as a stable and peaceful member of the international community - in other words to admit the People's Republic to the UN. Foreign Office officials maintained that China, although working s a Sovi t subordinate, was by no means merely a Soviet satellite . It was confidently pr dicted that China, which was thought to be working for independent domin ation of the Far East, would eventually break with the Soviet Union. This process was like ly to take years; meanwhile the only effect of US policy was said to be to drive China furth r into the arms of the Soviet Union.

At the same time it was considered that however well China was treated, in time h e would also break with the west. It was acknowledged that America was probably ri h t

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to say that China was not really interested in putting diplomatic relations on a normal footing and that she would like to cut off western contacts, build up a selfsufficient economy and get rid of foreign traders, foreign teachers and missionaries.

Furthermore, conflict in the Far East was inevitable since 'without control over South East Asia and its rubber, oil, tin and rice, the Chinese revolution could not be complete'.

How to deal with China in general became a major preoccupation in Foreign Office thinking about the Korean War and one analysis supplied by Rob Scott, AUS, in March 1951 found particular favour: 'We must I think expect developments in our relations with China similar to those in relations between Russia and the west, and the only sound policy to follow is a policy similar to our policy in regard to Russia - create positions of strength, resist Chinese aggressive designs wherever they show themselves, avoid provocation, be patient, persistent, but firm, and stand ready at all times to negotiate on terms acceptable to ourselves. We should make it plain that we shall not interfere in their affairs, but will not tolerate interference in other people's. We can apply the ancient oriental maxim of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" in all sorts of ways - match visa delays with visa delays, match restrictions on British interests in China with restrictions on the important Chinese remittances from Malaya ... above all treat them as equals. Equality and reciprocity applied with firmness and politeness are conceptions the Chinese understand well. The policy which we have followed has been, to my mind, the right one; recognition and negotiation. But though I have felt sure all along that this was the right policy to follow, I have never felt confident that it would succeed. An alternative policy was bound to fail and our policy was right because it offered the only chance of success'.

That having been said, there was a lively debate between Foreign Office officials in London, Singapore and Peking as to the exact nature of Chinese communism and the prospects for an accommodation with the west, which drew the wry observation from Sir Pierson Dixon that: 'I feel that we have a number of people who understand China and a number of people who understand Communism, but what we want is somebody or preferably a group of experts who understand Chinese Communism'.

What Anglo-American differences over China meant in practice when it came to a settlement of the Korean War was that when the British or Indian governments took initiatives with the Soviet Union or China to keep out of the war or bring pressure to bear on the North Koreans to end the fighting or begin negotiations for a cease fire, the communist response invariably stated that the question of Korea could only be settled in conjunction with the satisfaction of Chinese claims to Formosa and representation at the UN. Since American steadfastness on her China policy meant that Britain was unable to offer any such quid pro quo, none of these approaches got beyond a polite hearing.

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In both cases, steps were taken to exert pressure on the US governmen t to be mor accommodating. In the case of Formosa, Bevin started off strongly by warning Acheson that whereas the US had wholehearted support in Korea, it should not rely on the support of the UK or Asia over Formosa.

British military experts agreed that from the strategic point of view, US poli y on Formosa was sound. So long as Communism remained militant and expan ioni t nobody wanted to see Formosa, commanding an important line of communi ation, fall under communist control. But ultimately British policy rested on the Cairo declaration of 1943 that Formosa was destined for the lawful governmen t of China: namely the People's Republic. US policy was concerned to 'put Formosa on ic 'and this is what eventually happened, after the referral of the questions to a UN ubcommittee in the autumn of 1950.

In the case of Chinese representation at the UN, a British deci ion in early Jun to vote for PRC representation in July was postponed after the outbreak of th hostilities in Korea. At the New York conference of Foreign Ministers in September, Acheson conceded that the US would not regard a vote in the UN for the PRC a 'unforgiveable'. After this grudging green light, a British vote for the admission of a PRC representative was cast for the first time on 19 September.

Thereafter, differences on China were able to rub along until December when the military situation in Korea once again became critical and the Americans proceed d with plans to condemn Chinese aggression in the UN and to take additional measures against her. This produced a crisis of the first order for Anglo-American solidarity which ran to the end of January, with the British government d eclaring their intention of voting against the Americans before being brought to agre through a face-saving formula of drafting modifications.

British reluctance to condemn Chinese aggression was rooted in the fear that this would push China irrevocably into the Soviet camp, lead to an escalation of the war and the break-up of the United Nations. As the crisis developed, the i u b cam less a question of policy towards China, than a question of how sp cial wa th special relationship. And the Foreign Office was led to the disagreeable onclu ion that in the final analysis, and in the Far East at least, Britain must follow wher America led, whatever the merits of the case. There are a numb r of minut tending towards this conclusion, from the PUS (Sir William Strang) downwards.

One of the more acute was the following assessment from Sir Pier on Dixon: 'There are several ways of expressing the balance of advan tage for British policy in the face of the difficulty in which we are placed by American policy in the Far East: as I see it the balance can be mo t faithfully stated as follows.

'We consider that American Far Eastern policy is wrong-headed, will unnecessarily add to the hostile forces ranged against us and may precipitate a world war. There can be little doubt that we ar right.

'We go on to argue that we must oppose that policy. The vital qu is up to what point ought our opposition to be maintained?

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tion

'Now it can be argued that we ought to maintain our opposition up to the hilt, that is to the point of risking a serious split in AngloAmerican relations. This argument rests on the supposition that only by digging our toes in can we seriously influence American policy, the underlying thought being that the Americans have just as much need of us as we have of them and would therefore change their policy if they were convinced we were not with them.

'But it is not the case that the Americans feel a great compulsion to carry us with them in the Far East: they are prepared & indeed determined to go their own way in that part of the world. The threat of our disagreement over their Far Eastern policy is therefore not as potent as we might suppose. If we were ready to tell them that we should have to reconsider our European & world policy if they continued with a F E policy of which we disapprove, that might have some effect, because in the West it is true that they are dependent on us j ust as we are dependent on them. This would mean that we should have to threaten to reconsider our policy of opposition to Communism & the USSR and of support of Atlantic Defence. Clearly we are not prepared to go to those lengths.

'If we cannot effectively change American Far Eastern policy, then we must, it seems to me, resign ourselves to a role of counsellor and moderator. We have already had considerable effect in this role.

'But we must accept the disagreeable conclusion, in the end, that we must allow the US to take the lead and follow, or at least not break with them. It is difficult for us, after several centuries of leading others, to resign ourselves to the position of allowing another and greater power to lead us.

'If this analysis is accepted it follows that, in the last resort, we ought to support, ie vote for, the American resolution, even if we fail to obtain the assurance for which we have asked.'

In the event the practical effects of the UN resolution on China, passed on 1 February, were negligible, leading mainly to the passage a few months later of a series of modest sanctions against the export of strategic materials to China.

Although historians have made much of the spat in January 1951 - one even going so far as to compare it to Suez in terms of the strain placed on Anglo-American relations, Foreign Office confidence was sufficiently restored in March to make possible a spirited defence of British voting policy on Chinese representation at the UN. This time there was no bowing to American pressure.

Meanwhile the war in Korea dragged on and the reappraisal of policies occasioned by the arrival in March 1951 of a new Foreign Secretary in the person of Herbert Morrison led to the formulation of a new long-term plan in the Foreign Office. This set out a programme for related settlements in Korea, the UN and Formosa over a tirnespan of the next two to three years.

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IV SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING The existing literature was sUIVeyed by Rosemary Foot in a review article 'Making Known the Unknown War' in Diplomatic History, Vol. 15, No 3, Summer 1991. For an introduction to the main events and issues start with Callum MacDonald, Britain and the Korean War (Oxford, 1990): also author of Korea: The War Before Vietnam (London, 1986) and contributor to The Korean War in History edited by James Cotton and Ian Neary (Manchester, 1989). For a closer look at the origins of the war try Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War (2 Vols, Princeton, 1981 and 1990) and for more general sUIVeys see Peter Lowe's book of the same title (London, 1986) and Bruce Cumings and Jon Halliday's thought-provoking Korea: the Forgotten War (London, 1988). For one of the liveliest 'I was there' works, see General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley, The Edge of the Sword (London, 1954), and KM Pannikar, In Two Chinas (London, 1955) for one of the m ore diverting diplomatic memoirs and the at times critical Indian angle. The standard account from Chinese sources remains Allen Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu: the decision to enter the Korean War (New York, 1960), while an authoritative Commonwealth perspective is provided by Robert O'Neill in his official two-volume history, Australia in the Korean War (Canberra, 1981); for the British perspective see the official history by General Sir A Farrar Hockley, The British Part in the Korean War (HMSO, 1990). For some of the best quotes from Foreign Office files, see Michael Dockrill's penetrating sUIVey of 'The Foreign Office, Anglo-American relations and the Korean War, June 1951' in International Affairs, Volume 62, No 3, Summer 1986. The main Foreign Office papers are published in Documents on British Policy Overseas, Series II, Volume IV, Korea 1950-1 (HMSO, 1991) and are discussed in essays in FCO Occasional Papers No 5: Korea (a series available from Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Historical Branch, Library and Records Department, Clive House, Petty France, London SW1H 9HD).

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