Exasperation v. Patience

At the highest levels in Washington, reflecting a situation that is doubtless nationwide, two moods are pitted against each other. Both concern the Korean truce talks that have dragged along for seven months. One Washington mood was described last week by a foreign diplomat as "a rising note of exasperation." The other mood is patience--continued patience until Communists break the uneasy stalemate that now prevails in East Asia.

Among the exasperated are the Navy and the Air Force. Last week Navy Secretary Dan A. Kimball, speaking in Milwaukee, digressed forcefully from a prepared text. "If, God forbid," he said, "we do not have a truce in Korea, the Navy will carry the war to the enemy. We're not going to fight the next war in the United States." Chief of Naval Operations Admiral William Fechteler spelled out publicly just how his ships & men could act: "If the truce negotiations break down, the Navy is prepared to broaden the scope of its operations . . . We have the capability of blockading the China coast." The Air Force's General Hoyt Vandenberg was equally ready for strategic attacks on the China mainland.

A top Defense Department civilian struck the rising note: "We have come to the point with this thing, where we cannot afford to go on any longer. The American people are losing patience, and I'm afraid that we may be reaching the breaking point." But the Pentagon was not all impatience. The Army's top brass, Generals Omar Bradley and J. Lawton Collins, favored sticking it out at Panmunjom so long as the Communists were willing to talk and not start up a fresh offensive. They felt that the stalemate was, in effect, a gain for the U.S.; it kept down casualties and meanwhile provided a training ground for troops.

The State Department, still urging patience, was nevertheless acutely aware of the other mood. It set up a "task force" of policy-planners to prepare answers to three questions: "Is it worth talking peace to the Communists any longer? If not, on what issue shall we break off--airfields, or prisoners of war? If we break off, what do we do next?"

Until the answers are arrived at, the U.S. policy in Korea is not to walk out of the circus tent at Panmunjom.

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