The Communist forces in Korea were hard pressed when their envoys came to the conference table at Kaesong in July, 1951. Through entering into armistice talks they secured a measure of relief from military pressure which made it possible for them to restore and rehabilitate their military capabilities. Was their original purpose to gain armistice terms more favorable to the Communists; to tie down United Nations military forces in Korea in order to reduce their capabilities in other areas; to subject the United Nations to the material and economic drain of continued warfare; or to impose stresses to split apart the coalition of nations which undertook to repel Communist aggression?
We cannot enter the dark recesses of the handful of minds where the answers to these questions lie hidden. Since we can not, we do not know to this day whether the original truce talks represented a genuine effort on the part of Communist leaders to achieve an end to the blood-letting in Korea or were designed solely as a politico-military tactic. Chinese Communists had used truce talks in the war against Chiang as a device by which to gain time to rebuild their military strength for new offensives or to improve their bargaining position at the conference table. Perhaps they had no more in mind when the suggestion was made regarding an armistice in Korea.
The possibility of an armistice was first raised as a minor element of an ostensibly unimportant speech by Jacob Malik, delegate of the U.S.S.R. to the United Nations. The United Nations, hopeful of resolving the differences between the opposing forces in Korea through negotiation, hastened to approach the enemy commanders regarding a conference. In making this approach to the joint commanders, Generals Kim 11 Sung of the Korean Peoples Army, and Peng Teh Huah of the Chinese Peoples Volunteers, United Nations Commander-in-Chief General Ridgway proposed that the meeting be held aboard the Danish hospital ship. Jutlandia , in Wonsan Harbor. In their reply the enemy commanders rejected this proposal, naming Kaesong as the conference site. Kaesong was an important communications center near the western end of the battle zone. It was controlled by the enemy. Its use as a conference site would restrict operations, particularly aerial activity, along the western end of the battle zone. The United Nations, nevertheless, to expedite matters accepted the site named by the Communists.
Through an exchange of radio broadcasts with the enemy commanders a meeting of liaison officers was arranged. Along with Air Force Colonel Jack Kinney and ROK Army Colonel Lee Soo Young, I represented the Commander-in-Chief of United Nations forces at this meeting. At the agreed time, 0900 hours, July 8, 1951, we three, with Chinese and Korean interpreters, crossed the Imjin River at Munsan-Ni by helicopter and set a course for enemy-held Kaesong. Arriving there some thirty minutes later, we circled about searching the ruins of the bombed-out city for signs of the expected Red envoys.
Finally observing a white panel laid out on a field on the north edge of the city, we descended. The field was surrounded by soldiers. We dismounted from the helicopter and waited. As the sound of the motor died out it was replaced by tense silence. After a short interval an escort officer and two interpreters, one of them a girl, moved from the encircling soldiers and approached us apprehensively. They were to take us to the meeting place—a former tea house not far from the landing strip, which subsequently became the site of the armistice negotiations.
Here the enemy envoys, headed by Colonel Chang Chun San, of the Peoples Army, and Colonel Tsai Chen Wen, of the Chinese Peoples Volunteers, were arrayed to receive us. Their appearance, like that of the soldiers we had observed, bespoke the straits they were in. They were ragged and poorly equipped. Theirs was an army sore beset. As we entered the building they arose. Both groups sat down. The food and drink which had been placed on the table between us went unnoticed. The formality of a cigarette completed, Colonel Chang led the way to an adjacent room where a green cloth covered conference table had been arranged. In six hours we completed arrangements for a meeting of armistice delegations on July 10.
The morning of the first meeting I led the delegation’s motor convoy to Kaesong. We were detained enroute for more than an hour at the enemy outpost at Panmunjon. “We must make preparations to insure your safety,” explained the outpost commander after telephoning his superiors in Kaesong. The real reason for the delay was disclosed later. As the convoy approached Kaesong, each vehicle marked according to agreement by a large white flag, three unmarked vehicles filled with Red officers in full dress pulled out of a side street and took position in front of the lead vehicle in which I was riding. As the procession wound through the town these buffoons ludicrously assumed the demeanor of conquerors and perhaps as many as a dozen cameramen dropped off along the route to photograph the spectacle. Without doubt these propaganda shots have been circulated widely throughout the Communist world to give substance to the myth of Communist victory in Korea. Hard- pressed though they were, the Communists were prepared from the first to make the most of the armistice negotiations.
The first ten days of the conference were spent in formulating an agenda. As finally adopted it contained four items: (1) Determination of a military demarcation line and a de-militarized zone to separate the forces, (2) Concrete arrangements for supervision of a truce, (3) The exchange of prisoners of war, and (4) Recommendations to governments concerned.
This last item was a compromise on the Communist effort to introduce into the agenda an item entitled “Withdrawal of foreign troops.” This the United Nations Command refused to discuss, since it involved political decisions which transcended the requirements of a military armistice. It was eventually agreed that the opposing commanders would recommend to their respective governments the convening of a conference empowered to discuss political matters.
Discussion opened on the first agenda item, determination of a military demarcation line. Senior Communist delegate General Nam II argued for the 38th parallel. Acceptance of this line and a demilitarized zone based upon it would have deprived us of any suitable defensive position north of the Han River at Seoul, thus forcing our withdrawal to the south bank of the Han in order to insure the safety of our forces. This meant a general withdrawal on the order of one hundred miles and an actual advance by enemy troops over territory we had won in combat. It would have left the northern portion of the Republic of Korea defenseless against a repetition of Red aggression. It was totally unacceptable to the United Nations forces.
What did the United Nations propose? Seeking a stable armistice, senior delegate Vice Admiral Joy postulated that both sides should be afforded good defensive positions during the armistice. This would tend to insure the security of the forces so long as they remained in their respective positions, and to discourage either side from breaking the armistice. Joy proposed a line which afforded good defensive positions to each side. He asserted that this line, which lay well to the north of the existing battle line, was a more accurate expression of the over-all combat situation in Korea than was the latter. This was because the United Nations was employing air and naval capabilities not fully reflected in the position of the ground battle line. A cessation of hostilities, he reasoned, would result in the withdrawal of these independent air and naval capabilities from the region between the ground battle line and the Yalu. Since the enemy had no comparable capabilities, there would be no corresponding withdrawal on his part. Therefore, a line of demarcation accurately reflecting the existing military situation would have to be positioned to the north of the line of ground contact.
General Nam pretended that the theory of independent air and naval capabilities was outrageous and asserted that the line of ground contact was an accurate expression of the total combat situation—that all air and naval action are reflected in the location of that line. He nevertheless did not propose that line as a demaraction line but insisted on the 38th parallel.
Discussion on this item went on without progress until August 22, when Colonel Chang intemperately broke off the conferences over an alleged violation of the agreement relating to the security of the conference site.
Soon Kim and Peng were clamoring for our return to the conference, but General Ridgway refused to allow the talks to be resumed in the unsatisfactory surroundings of the enemy held town and proposed an alternate site in the zone between the two opposing armies. The Communists counter-proposed the use of Panmunjom, the location of their outpost, five miles to the east of Kaesong. Once again the liaison officers met—this time to agree on conditions for resuming the talks at the new site.
With the resumption of the talks at Panmunjom, the United Nations made a new proposal—a demarcation line corresponding generally to the existing battle line. Generals Hsieh Feng and Lee Sang Cho, speaking for the enemy, countered with a proposal which represented a departure from the principle of the 38th parallel. They pretended that the battle zone extended from the vicinity of Kosong on the east coast to Changsan Got on the west. They referred to alleged fighting in the Onjin and Yonan areas to prove that a battlefront existed in that region. They then proposed that Communist forces withdraw on the western half of the front from the coast to the 38th parallel and that United Nations forces withdraw from an equivalent area of land in the battle zone. United Nations spokesmen, General Hodes and Admiral Burke, ridiculed the pretense that there was a ground front in the west and stated that the narrow coastal strip Hsieh and Lee wanted to trade to us would be a military liability—an area we could not defend. We refused to exchange useful military positions along the battle front for areas totally unrelated to it.
Hsieh and Lee abandoned this approach and shifted the talk to the line of contact with the possibility of mutually agreeable adjustments to straighten the trace of the line and render it more satisfactory to both sides. The United Nations thereupon proposed exchanging the coastal islands it held north of the battle line and its salients at Chorwon and at Kosong for the reentrant at Kaesong. This proposal was warranted on military grounds, but it must be conceded that the delegation was not insensitive to the importance attached to Kaesong by the Koreans. It is a historic capital and cultural center—a wealthy city whose prosperity is built on its ginseng production. It is surrounded by rice- producing areas having ready access to Seoul by boat via the Han River. It lies south of the 38th parallel and its people were citizens of the Republic of Korea before the Reds overran the area.
But the Communists too are sensitive to considerations such as these. When it became apparent that any adjustments in the line would affect their holdings in the Kaesong area, Hsieh and Lee opposed the entire principle of adjustments in the line of contact.
It was then accepted that the line of contact would be taken as the demarcation line.
But the line of contact is not a precise line nor one that is susceptible of easy determination. It lies somewhere in the no-man’s land between the front lines of both sides and changes almost daily. As the difficulties of determining the exact location of the line became manifest it 'also became evident that the enemy was most anxious to get it established. He described it as the “place where both sides would agree to stop fighting.” “Once it is determined,” Hseih said, “other things should fall into place more easily.” Actually the Communists recognized the powerful deterrent effect of the establishment of such a line upon future military action. By starting the armistice talks they had eased the military pressure. By getting agreement on a demarcation line they hoped to further ease that pressure.
Recognizing this, Hodes and Burke took the position that agreement in principle was as far as it was then possible to go since the line of contact as of the time the armistice became effective could not be determined until that date. They held that in the absence of any assurance of an early agreement on an armistice, the time and effort required to determine the existing line of contact might well be wasted. The United Nations did not maintain this stand for long, however, and finally agreed that as an inducement for an armistice settlement the existing line of contact would be accepted as the demarcation line provided over-all agreement was reached within thirty days.
This made the fixing of the line of contact inevitable. With Lieutenant Colonal Butler, from Headquarters Eighth Army, I was appointed to resolve this problem with Colonel Tsai and Captain Kim of the Korean Peoples Navy. In an atmosphere of relative informality we concluded an agreement on the location of the line within a few days. Following the same procedure we subsequently reached agreement on the precise boundaries of a demilitarized zone two kilometers to each side of the demarcation line. These negotiations were conducted expeditiously because the Communists wanted to see this agreement in effect.
Discussions began on arrangements for supervising the truce. The enemy had little to suggest. In fact, it quickly became evident that he sought minimum terms—a simple cease fire—by which he would gain respite from military pressure without incurring restrictions on his freedom of action in the future. Our side, on the other hand, sought arrangements which would insure against a resumption of hostilities; that is, no increase in the level of troops or supplies during the armistice, no improvement of military facilities, including airfields, and an inspection of rear areas to supervise the execution of these restrictions. A bi-lateral armistice commission made up of equal numbers of military personnel from each side was to administer the truce.
The enemy agreed to the armistice commission and to the principle of no increase in troops or supplies but refused to accept any limitation on the reconstruction of airfields or to permit inspection teams to enter the area under his control. An agreement to limit forces with no machinery for monitoring its observance is, of course, a poor thing upon which to rely for the security of one’s forces.
After weeks of discussion the Communists finally agreed to a drastically limited inspection of certain specified air and sea ports of entry by personnel not of the opposing forces but from neutral nations. But to the Communists there are no neutrals. You are either with them or ipso facto against them. The United Nations nominated the traditional neutrals, Sweden and Switzerland, for membership in a neutral nations supervisory organ. The communists named Czechoslovakia, Poland and the U.S.S.R. In naming the U.S.S.R. (whose unneutral association with the Korean war was a matter of common knowledge) the Communists created a spurious issue—a trading point to be exchanged later for United Nations concessions elsewhere. They knew that we could not accept the Soviet Union as a member of this neutral body and hoped that we could be induced to concede on some material issue in return for their withdrawal of the nomination.
Further progress on this agenda item blocked by impasses on the two issues—the reconstruction of airfields and Communist nomination of the Soviet Union—talks were opened on the next item, the exchange of war prisoners.
At the outset of the Korean war General MacArthur had announced that United Nations forces would observe the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of War Prisoners. The North Korean foreign minister in response gave notice that the Peoples Army would observe the “best spirits” of that Convention. This commitment, of course, was meaningless as it left the Communists free to decide what provisions of the Convention they would observe and gave the United Nations Command no assurance as to the treatment of its captured personnel.
How had the Communists interpreted the “best spirits” of the Convention? It requires that the names and status of captured personnel be reported promptly to the Central Bureau of Information on War Prisoners at Geneva. The enemy forwarded two lists containing a few dozen names in the fall of 1950. Thereafter he provided no data on the prisoners in his custody.
The Convention provides that neutral benevolent societies shall be permitted to visit prisoner of war installations to verify that prisoners are being treated in accordance with the Convention and to render aid and comfort. The archetype of such societies is the International Committee of the Red Cross whose status and functions are specifically recognized in the Convention. The Communists refused to admit delegates of the Red Cross to prisoner camps and rejected countless efforts on the part of its officials to secure admission.
The Convention requires that prisoners of war be protected from the effects of military action and that they not be employed in tasks contributing directly to combat operations. The Communists incorporated the majority of our captured personnel into the Peoples Army and employed them in military operations.
The Convention provides for the exchange during hostilities of the seriously sick and injured. The Communists rejected all proposals to implement this provision.
The Convention provides for the marking of prisoner of war camps in a prescribed manner, for their removal from proximity to military targets and for notifying Geneva of their location. The enemy had observed none of these provisions. Mention might also be made of the evidence of atrocities in the treatment of war prisoners which became available from time to time, particularly during the earlier phases of the war.
In sum, insofar as we were able to discern, the enemy had observed none of the provisions of the Convention. It was against this backdrop that discussion of the prisoner of war question was opened.
When we sat down at the conference table the enemy had, through Geneva, relatively complete information on captured personnel in our custody. For our part, we had a few dozen names. But these were supplemented by a fairly extensive collection of data compiled from other sources such as letters from prisoners, Red propaganda broadcasts, Communist newspapers, official Communist communiques on the number of prisoners who had escaped, and figures on the missing in action together with experience factors on the numbers of the missing normally killed in action and captured.
Without hesitation General Lee, speaking for the Communists, proposed the exchange of prisoners on an all-for-all basis with no questions being asked. Admiral Libby, on the subcommittee to discuss this problem, cited the inequality between the two sides with respect to the information exchanged. He said that the United Nations was unable to appraise the problem on the basis of the data on hand and stated that the exchange of data on prisoners was an essential preliminary to talks on the basis of their exchange.
For many days General Lee contended that the exchange of data was unnecessary, but he finally acceded to our demands and on December 18 lists of prisoners were traded. Lee and his cohorts had heard of the significance of the Christian Christmas. They hoped that the release of the names during this season would bring strong pressures on the United Nations delegation to make such concessions as might be necessary to secure the early release of the prisoners.
In the lists exchanged the United Nations Command reported some 132,000 prisoners, the Communists 12,000. The latter was a shocking revelation—one which put the prisoner of war problem in a new frame of reference. The 12,000 reported was about 50,000 less than the number of personnel of our side who had fallen into the power of the enemy. Evidence adduced during the discussion and from other sources indicated that the major portion of the missing prisoners had been incorporated illegally into the Peoples Army. This was accomplished through the device of “release at the front” and a system of indoctrination and training which created “liberated privates.” Lee attempted to deny this when he began to realize its possible implications as regards the negotiations, as he likewise denied our charge that some of the captured personnel had been transported outside of Korea.
United Nations spokesmen Libby and Hickman sought in vain to secure for the missing personnel the restoration of their rights as prisoners of war. The Communists steadfastly refused to give any accounting for the missing 50,000 and steadfastly insisted upon exchange on all-for-all basis. In sum, the Reds sought the release and repatriation of all the prisoners of war except about 50,000 whom they failed to list. In addition, they sought the delivery to them, or expatriation, of 37,000 nationals of the Republic of Korea who had been taken into custody as prisoners of war during hostilities and reported as such to Geneva, but whose status had been corrected to civilian internees when investigation established that they were residents of territory within which the Republic of Korea has been recognized by the United Nations as the duly established government. The disposition of these persons was, of course, an internal affair and no business of the Communists.
In the meantime it had become increasingly apparent that many of the prisoners in the custody of United Nations forces were unwilling or afraid to return to the Communists following a truce. Some, particularly former soldiers of the Chinese Nationalist armies, dragooned into the Peoples Army and later into the Peoples Volunteers for Korea, had taken the opportunity provided by the war to escape their Communist masters. Others had been induced to surrender by promises of food, shelter, protection, and kind treatment. Their plight could not be disregarded.
The enemy had no problem comparable to this which confronted the United Nations. By his unilateral action in removing from prisoner of war status approximately 50,000 of our personnel, he had relieved himself of the need to return to our side any prisoners who might be opposed to such return. Under these circumstances and in accordance with the humanitarian spirit and principles of the Geneva Convention, the United Nations advocated that all prisoners be released, but that those who could not be repatriated without the use of force be excepted from the exchange. Associated with the principle of no forced repatriation was that of a screening of the prisoners in a neutral place by an impartial neutral body.
During subsequent discussions it became evident that this latter principle was perhaps even less acceptable to the Reds than the former. They wanted all their soldiers returned. They wanted to discipline those whom they thought deserved it. They wanted to give evidence to their people at home that Communists control is all embracing—that even escape through surrender on the battlefield is short lived. Before their own people and the world they wanted, insofar as possible, to preserve the appearance of victory in Korea. This would be difficult unless all their soldiers were returned.
But even more damaging to the Communists than the failure on the part of some of the captured personnel to return would be a public renunciation of repatriation by Communist prisoners in a screening conducted by an impartial neutral body. This it would be difficult to explain why. Thus, a humanitarian solution which put the welfare of the prisoners first and which was at the same time equitable as between the two sides foundered because the only method by which it could be implemented was too inimical to the interests of the Communist leaders.
In opposing the principle of “no forced repatriation” General Lee and Colonel Tsai, who by now were fully aware of the implications of the Communist policy of incorporating our captured personnel into their armed forces during hostilities, both denied that they had followed this practice and stated that what had happened during the hostilities had no bearing on what must be done upon their cessation. Having honored the Geneva Convention only in its breach throughout the war, the enemy now hung his case on Article 118, which states “Prisoners of war shall be released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of active hostilities.”
The question may be asked, is Article 118 a mandate upon the detaining power regardless of the attitude of the prisoner? To regard it as such would be to misinterpret the intent and purpose of the Geneva Convention. It is a bill of rights for prisoners. Its primary purpose is to establish the rights of prisoners and to provide for their protection. Article 118 must be interpreted in this light. To interpret it as requiring the delivery of a prisoner by force would be to violate the whole spirit of the covenant.
The Communists also referred to Article 7 which reads: “Prisoners of war may in no circumstances renounce in part or in entirety the rights secured to them by the present Convention.” Obviously to permit a prisoner who fears to return home to decline repatriation does not constitute an abridgement of his rights. Indeed it could more properly be regarded as an extension of his rights, an act which is wholly consistent with the underlying spirit of the Convention.
The Communists tried to create the impression that the prisoners were being influenced or coerced into refusing to be repatriated. This is not true, of course. We should have been content if every prisoner had been eager to return home. But one may ask what if the charge were true? Had not the Communists disposed of the major portion of our captured personnel during the course of hostilities by “reeducating” them for incorporation into their armed forces? Having observed a given set of rules throughout the war, they now denounced those rules. Disregarding the fact that their allegations had no basis in fact, it is clear that the argument had no basis in equity.
The inference that the Communists were actually less concerned about the return of all their captured personnel than they were with the appearance of it may be drawn from an effort made by them in March and April. This involved acceptance by both sides of the principle of release and exchange of all war prisoners on the basis of revised lists. It was clearly recognized that adjustments in the original lists would be made. It became a question of how extensive those adjustments would be. That is, the question became not one of principles but of numbers. Colonel Hickman for the United Nations stated that we could not give a firm estimate without conducting a screening of the prisoners, a step which thus far had been avoided. Colonel Tsai proposed a recess until such a screening could be conducted. At our suggestion Tsai obtained for us from the Communists authorities a proclamation of amnesty to the prisoners to be publicized prior to the screening in order to help allay their fears about returning home.
It is reasonably certain that had the results of this screening been satisfactory to the Communists an armistice would have been concluded forthwith. But the results were unsatisfactory in two respects. First, the number of prisoners forcibly opposing repatriation was too great! Only approximately 80,000 of a total of 116,000 North Korean and Chinese prisoners, 16,000 Republic of Korea prisoners, and 37,000 civilian internees were willing to be repatriated to or delivered to the Communists. Secondly, of the 20,000 Chinese prisoners included in the above figures only about 6,000 were willing to be repatriated. This latter was the dominant factor. Willing possibly to wink at the numbers of Korean prisoners, the Chinese could not accept the idea that all the Chinese would not be returned to their control.
On receiving these estimates the enemy peremptorily rejected any further exploration of this avenue of approach to a solution and renewed his propaganda to the effect that the prisoners had been coerced.
The United Nations Command had undertaken the screening of prisoners to determine the numbers who could be repatriated without force, with strong expectations that it would lead to an agreement. The enemy’s concurrence in the action had been secured. Although the effort failed, through it the United Nations Command had become irrevocably committed to the principle of no forced repatriation.
Through the screening the prisoners had been permitted to express their attitude regarding repatriation. Feelings between Communist and anti-Communist prisoners were so high that those who desired to be repatriated had to be separated from those who refused it. Thus, the prisoners who opposed repatriation could'be identified in the future. If any possibility had existed prior to this that they might be delivered to their unwanted masters, it existed no longer. They could not now be abandoned to the consequences of an avowal in the taking of which the United Nations as well as the Communists had played a part.
It was at this stage in the negotiations that the United Nations made yet another effort to bring the fighting to an end. The major unresolved issues were three: The reconstruction of airfields, the U.S.S.R. as a member of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Organ, and the exchange of war prisoners. In an effort to break these deadlocks, Senior Delegate Admiral Joy introduced a package proposal in which the three issues were associated in an over-all solution. The United Nations would recede from its stand against the reconstruction of airfields if the enemy would accept its reasonable and humane position with respect to war prisoners and drop the obviously spurious issue of the U.S.S.R. as a neutral nations observer.
The concession offered in this proposal was major. The airfields in northern Korea are kept out of commission by constant surveillance and bombing. A cease fire would bring an end to this action. Should a cease fire occur with no stipulation to prevent their reconstruction, these fields could be made operational in a few weeks. This done, it would take only hours to transfer the air force now beyond the Yalu to fields in northern Korea—to project the Communist Air Force forward 200-500 miles. Quantitatively, if not qualitatively, that air force is superior to the air elements the United Nations have committed to the Korean war.
How did the Communists react to this effort to strike a compromise on the remaining issues? As expected, General Nam offered to drop the spurious issue of the U.S.S.R. as a member of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Organ in exchange for the concession of the airfields, but refused to make any compromise on the exchange of war prisoners. Since the spring of 1952 the discussions at Panmunjom have been limited to this issue. Elsewhere the Communists have called for a “cease fire now” to be followed by discussion of the prisoner issue. Thus they would benefit by our concession on the airfields without accepting the position on prisoners upon which this concession was contingent.
What does it all mean? What did the Communists have in mind when Malik made his suggestion about a truce? Did they really want to end the fighting in Korea or were they merely seeking relief from military pressure to enable them to rebuild their armies? If they wanted initially to end the fighting, did they subsequently change their minds? If they have, for what reason and to what purpose? Do they want an armistice on terms more favorable to them or has the Kremlin directed Kim 11 Sung and Mao Tse Tung to continue the war in the belief that protracted stalemate in Korea is advantageous to international Communism? These and similar questions serve to polish up our speculation, but that is about all. We cannot probe the minds of the Communist leaders. Speculation varies with individuals with developments on the battle front or at the conference tables at Panmunjom and the General Assembly of the United Nations.
For myself I have been persuaded from the first that the Communists actually do want an armistice in Korea. However, an armistice per se is not their objective. They look beyond an armistice to the unification of Korea under Communist control and to an even greater objective, Communist domination of the balance of Asia, and they determine their actions in relation to these objectives.
Having failed to take south Korea by military action and recognizing that it is beyond their capabilities at this time, the Communists are prepared to terminate that effort in order to resume their attempts to gain control by political activity. An armistice is a step in this direction. But just any armistice will not serve their purposes. They loath to agree to terms which might impair their future ability to dominate Korea, whether by political activity or through a resumption of hostilities at a more favorable time.
The prisoner of war issue appears to involve such considerations. The widespread knowledge that some of their captured personnel would not return and that the Communists were unable to bring about their delivery by force might have serious implications as regards their politico-military program at home and abroad.
Communists fight hard for their objectives. Much as they may want an armistice under what cannot fail to appear to them to be an unfavorable military situation, they continue to endure in the hope of gaining armistice terms more favorable to their future plans.
One may ask why they have endured so long in the face of the oft-repeated statements of United Nations spokesmen that no further concession will be made on the prisoner issue. The answer lies in the fact that Communists are political realists. They have little respect for the forms of diplomatic exchange. Adept themselves at bluffing, they go behind a speaker’s words to determine how accurately they reflect the attitudes of the government or governments he represents and their citizens.
Sources of such information include the press and radio of the free world and our negotiators influence the enemy far less than does the information obtained from these sources. So long as evidence can be found of significant differences of opinion on the Korean war among the governments and peoples of the United Nations, their spokesmen cannot hope to persuade the Communists that the stand of the United Nations on the exchange of prisoners is unalterable. These divisions prolong the war by encouraging the Communists to hang on in the hope that the United Nations will eventually make the concessions which are so important to the future of Communism.
Viewed in this perspective the inclusion of Korea in the debate during the recent national election may have been a factor in our failure to attain an armistice prior to now. The United Nations position on the prisoner issue was not called into question during this debate which centered on the conduct of the war and whether U. S. policy had contributed to its creation. Nevertheless, the controversy may well have encouraged the Communists to hope for better terms.
Perhaps the Communists have been persuaded by this and similar discordant notes which are the inevitable by-product of freedom and the democratic process, that United Nations’ patience could be worn down until they would concede on the prisoner issue as the price of peace. If so, there must now be questions in the Communist camp.
On October 8, 1952, the United Nations, having made known the terms under which it was willing to resolve the issue, recessed the negotiations at Panmunjom indefinitely. By this action they gave the most convincing evidence possible of their determination to make no concession which would result in the forcible delivery of unwilling slaves to unwanted masters.
To understand the full significance of this action to the Communists one must appreciate that in a very real sense, the armistice negotiations have been conducted less in the tent at Panmunjom than in the forum of world opinion. To the political realists of North Korea and Communist China this action means that with respect to the prisoner issue there is such a high degree of unity of purpose among the peoples and governments of the free world that the United Nations must take this step which the Communists can categorize as “breaking off the negotiations” in order to give it expression. The formal ratification of this action by 53 nations voting on the recent Indian resolution in the United Nations General Assembly leaves no room for doubt. World opinion is solidly against the Communists on the prisoner issue. Communist insistence that prisoners are chattels of the State rather than human beings whose rights must be respected has made the armistice negotiations comprehensible to the people of the free world. This is an issue which they understand and to which they will respond. That is why they are free.
Not since the United Nations first moved to oppose armed aggression in Korea has public support of the UN position been so complete. This degree of unity in thought and purpose among the people of the free world is a new factor in the Korean truce negotiations and in the larger sphere of East-West relations. It is a factor which the realistic Communists will recognize quickly but accept with reluctance. Their evaluation of this new factor will be an important element in shaping. Communist tactics of expansion during the months to come.