The Fundamentals Remain

All week long the negotiators in the little wood-and-matting house at Panmunjom disputed over what is a neutral nation. Sweden or Switzerland would not do. said the Communists, and seemed to prefer an Asian nation. Fine, said the U.N.: how about Pakistan? The Communists promised to think about it. But above all this haggling, one point was rising clear: to reach an armistice, one side is going to have to surrender its fundamental position on prisoner repatriation.

Last week the discussion hardly touched the fundamentals, which involve the terms on which the Communists would be al lowed to talk to their soldiers in neutral custody and, as the Communists put it, "eliminate their apprehensions."What sort of "explanations" will be made, and then, what will happen to those whose apprehensions are not relieved? The Communists would like a chance to get the balky prisoners off in a corner, so they can be threatened with family reprisals if they don't go home. The Reds also seem to be urging that any who still refuse repatriation would have to remain in custody, perhaps for years, while a political conference wrangles over their fate.

The U.N. is willing to let the Communists talk to the reluctant prisoners (48,000 at last count), but insists on safeguards against intimidation. Prisoners who remain unwilling to return to their Communist homeland must be promptly freed, argue the U.N. negotiators.

On these fundamental points turns the possibility of armistice. Do the Communists really want a truce? Perhaps they do; perhaps they are cleverly counting on the U.N. command wanting one just a little more.

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