A Patsy?

After eight months of haggling, in which hopes have risen only to be dashed, peace in Korea seemed farther away than ever. In the truce tents at Panmunjom and at SCAP headquarters in Tokyo, dejection seized the U.N. team and expressed itself in one gloomy question: "Has the U.N. been made a patsy?"

The unhappy answer seemed to be yes. When truce talks began last summer, the Communists were recoiling with heavy casualties from two massive spring offensives that failed. Now, admitted Truce Negotiator Vice Admiral Joy last week, the U.N. has become militarily weaker and the Communists stronger. Despite the foolishly overnamed Air Force "Operation Strangle," the Communists have been able to build up strong defenses extending 20 miles up the peninsula. The U.N. commanders are confident that they can still beat off an offensive, but they are no longer in a position to launch a U.N. offensive without 1) powerful reinforcements, 2) heavy casualties. Said realistic Admiral Joy: "The speed of reaching an armistice is in direct proportion to military pressure . . . The U.N. must now negotiate from a position of stalemate."

The issue which now stalemates the truce talks is Russian representation on a truce commission. The U.N. attitude is that Russia is not a "neutral," and to recognize her as such would be to give her a legal foothold in South Korea; the U.N. had gone quite far enough by its willingness to accept as neutrals the Soviet stooges, Czechoslovakia and Poland. But the Communist negotiators stick stubbornly to the demand, even though the U.N. has said (in its bluntest words yet) that its position is "firm, final and irrevocable." Even if this issue can be settled, there remains the question of exchanging prisoners, and of permitting North Korea to build up airfields during the truce.

The strain is beginning to tell on the negotiators. Crabbed Admiral Joy: "Some people get my goat. They do not want any casualties, but they want an armistice quickly. And they want an armistice without any concessions to the enemy." This week, the U.N. no longer seemed a confident command acceding to the petitions of a battered enemy. Instead, it seemed the side which desperately wants the truce because it does not know what else to do.

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