All in the Day's Work

At wintry Panmunjom one day last week, a thin, precise man stepped out of a helicopter, tucked his brown briefcase under his arm and strode purposefully toward the conference tents. He was Rear Admiral Ruthven Libby, commander of U.S. Cruiser Division 3, who has been detached for temporary duty as a U.N. delegate to the truce conference. The admiral wore a plain Navy overcoat without stripes or shoulder boards; only his gold-braided cap marked him as a naval officer. Said a British newsman who was watching the scene: "If you switched that cap of Libby's for a Homburg, he'd look like any banker or solicitor arriving for a day's work at the office. And that helicopter of his gets to look more like a limousine every day."

After six months of conferences, the U.N. negotiators had settled down to the grind like a group of calloused commuters. Regulation U.S. Army space heaters maintained a comfortable temperature inside the tents. At night, when the heaters were off, water in tumblers and decanters often froze. "Maybe," said a bored and impatient G.I. guard outside, "if they'd take those damned heaters out of there, they might get somewhere with this show."

Upside-Down Reasoning. For days on end last week, "this show" got nowhere. The Communist negotiators were so obviously stalling that the U.N. suspected they had been ordered by Moscow to drag their feet while Andrei Vishinsky ran off his diversionary shenanigans in Paris (see INTERNATIONAL). Nothing so far afield was mentioned across the tables at Panmunjom, but the language was sharper and more insulting than it had ever been before. At one point, Major General Howard Turner said to Red China's Hsieh Fang:

"You suggested that if the U.N. commander is so concerned for the security of his forces, he should withdraw from Korea. What a typical piece of upside-down reasoning! You've cast yourself in the role of a bandit who says to his victim, 'You've nothing to fear from me as long as you surrender your purse and walk away without creating a disturbance.' The U.N. has not come to Korea to surrender. We have no intention of walking away . . . and leaving the South Koreans to your tender mercies."

Stung into rage, Hsieh shot back: "Your statement is rude and absurd. You've gone too far in your absurdity and arrogance. You've reversed black and white. Your statement proves your lack of sincerity. You've fully exposed your ugly, ferocious features of a bandit."

Belated Thoughts. While such amenities were being exchanged, Washington was beginning, belatedly, to realize that the effort to truss up the Reds at the conference table was not enough; that safeguards, inspection devices, etc., etc., could probably not be negotiated in a form that would guarantee that the enemy could not attack again (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). But still the men at Panmunjom went, businesslike, about their daily task. For some kind of agreement with the enemy is necessary too, if the U.N. expects to get its prisoners back from the Communists.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.