Van Fleet on Korea

Early this month, when General James A. Van Fleet shocked the Senate Armed Services Committee into an investigation of the U.S. Army's ammunition shortage (TIME. March 16 et seq.), the security-minded Senators heard much of his testimony in closed session. Last week the committee released a censored version of the former Eighth Army commander's secret testimony--testimony which made it clear that the ammunition shortage was only one of many U.S. blunders in Korea. Said Van Fleet:

P: In June 1951, before the Korean truce talks began, "we had the Communist armies on the run . . . We stopped by order, did not pursue to finish the enemy ... I believe we would have gotten all his heavy equipment and perhaps 200,000 or 300,000 prisoners ... I was crying [for Washington] to turn me loose."

P: "The war that does the most damage to the enemy [in Korea] is from the air. It is an almost one-service war that goes on, air war, doing the damage to the enemy deep in his own territory ... If the Army had been adequately supplied with ammunition ... it would consume more of the enemy, the enemy supplies, create problems for him, which, in turn, would help our air service."

P: "I am against extending this war ... to any greater sphere of land mass of Asia, like Manchuria ..." The U.S. should "confine our fighting to Korea, if possible, but with a victory, military victory."

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