Defeat

The U.S. and its allies stood at the abyss of disaster. The Chinese Communists, pouring across the Manchurian border in vast formations, had smashed the U.N. army, this week were clawing forward to pursue and destroy its still-organized fragments. Caught in the desperate retreat were 140,000 American troops, the flower of the U.S. Army--almost the whole effective Army the U.S. had. With them, fighting to establish a defensive position, were 20,000 British, Turkish and other allies, some 100,000 South Korean soldiers.

It was defeat--the worst defeat the U.S. had ever suffered. Even though the U.N. forces might still have the luck, skill and power to slow the Communist drive and withdraw in good order from the devastated peninsula, it was a defeat that could not be redressed in Korea. If this defeat were allowed to stand, it would mean the loss of Asia to Communism. If it were allowed to stand, no Asian could evermore put any stock in the promise that had given him hope against Communism--the promise that the U.S. and its allies would come to his help. And no European would be able to believe, with any firmness, that the U.S. was the bulwark against Communism that it professed to be before the disaster in Korea.

The Alternative. Until the statesmen acted, the preservation of the U.N. forces in Korea--such as could still be preserved--was the problem of the generals and of their battered, much-enduring regulars. And the only way the statesmen could save them would be through a plea for an armistice, or acceptance of a deal with the Communists. By any such deal, Communism would emerge triumphant.

The alternative was war--that is, a recognition of the terrible fact that the U.S. and Communist China were already in a state of war. That would mean, inescapably, a campaign against the mainland of China by sea and air (see INTERNATIONAL).

To discuss other possible, hoped-for alternatives, Britain's Prime Minister Clement Attlee arrived in Washington this week, after a conference with France's Premier Rene Pleven. Attlee came to argue for some sort of deal with the Communists, a prospect that still seemed to Europeans to have some meaning.

Atomic Horrors. If the reported view of top U.S. military men should prevail, and the U.S. (with, as it hoped, the full support of the U.N.) should launch a sea and air blockade against Communist China, that war would have to be pursued in the full knowledge that it might go on for years, however it might be shortened by the help of anti-Communist forces inside and outside China. The war would have to be begun in the knowledge that Russia might come in too, which would lead to the atomic horrors of World War III.

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