Saturday, 5 September

Le Monde commenting on the forthcoming visit of Kim Il-sung (金日成)[1] to Moscow points out the various speculations, e.g.

1) He intends to get rid of the Chinese hold which has taken a prepondering influence during the hostilities. He wishes also to be assured that the North Korean army, which has been reduced to a cadaverous state, would be brought back to its 1950 strength.

2) The initiative of the visit has come from the USSR which is feeling uneasy to see that North Korea is falling within the orbit of Communist China.

3) Moscow intends to conciliate her interest with Communist China as Peng Dehuai had preceded Kim to Moscow.

4) The recent purge in North Korea shows a conflict between the pro-Chinese and pro-Soviet cliques and the ascendency of the latter.

5) The visit, no doubt, is concerned primarily with the coming political conference in October and they may discuss a sort of military pact along the same lines as that between South Korea and the United States, and the economic assistance to North Korea.

There are certainly grounds for these speculations.

Sunny and pleasant weather. Business quite good. Monsieur Preboist called in the afternoon to tell us that his wife [Maude] will stay in our Sartrouville house after the Fobes leave and that he learnt from the Fobes that another American will move into our house.

[1] Kim Il-sung (1912-1994) was the leader of North Korea.