"A Bad Page of History"

The closer an armistice came, the more indignant the South Korean government became. Bitter old Syngman Rhee sat in his presidential mansion in Seoul, abrupt to General Mark Clark, who called on him, angry at President Eisenhower, who wrote him. Twice during the week, 78-year-old President Rhee said that he would go along with the U.S., then reversed himself. "We cannot accept any armistice so long as the Chinese remain in Korea--make no mistake about that," he said. "But if we feel forced to take unilateral action, we will talk it over, as friend to friend."

He had left himself room to maneuver, and maneuver he did. His subordinates did the most extreme talking. All week long, generals, cabinet ministers and assemblymen heaped abuse on the U.S. and the pending armistice agreement, talked of resisting the neutral truce commission, hinted that they would .have to guard Americans against public outbursts, threatened to fight on alone. They spoke with the eloquence of despair. Said Major General Choi Duk Shin, ROK delegate who has been boycotting the Panmunjom talks: "The foreigners, you, who came in here, are going to destroy us ... The people will say: perhaps we would have been better off with the Communists, after all. You must stop dealing with us only by force . . . You are writing a bad page of history."

Rhee's most articulate spokesman in Seoul was Foreign Minister and Acting Premier Pyun Yung Tai, who sat last week in a bullet-pocked hospital in Seoul. Said Pyun: "The leaders of the free world are still suffering from the ideological hangover of the Second World War. You wait while your enemy is sharpening his dagger to kill you. You will call me a warmonger, but I am not. We have learned the lessons of war as you never have and we want peace desperately. But we want a real peace, not a sham peace. We are not stupid. We know we are fighting not only for ourselves but also for America. You speak of the necessity of unity. What's the good of unity if it is to be used for surrender?

"You will sign your armistice. And what then? Then you will have to recognize the Chinese Communists. And after you do this, all the small nations of Southeast Asia will do likewise."

The atmosphere between allies turned ugly. Rhee proclaimed a "semi-extraordinary emergency" throughout South Korea; spokesmen talked of "spontaneous demonstrations" about to begin. U.N. commanders, exasperated yet sympathetic, tried to guess how much Rhee might be bluffing and could not be sure. They also wondered whether Rhee would be able to control and limit anything he began in so explosive a moment. They told each other that after all, had it not been for the U.N., Rhee would have been pushed into the sea. They talked over the pressures they might bring to bear. The U.N. controls his supplies, gasoline, ammunition and food; it controls the artillery and air; it even controls Korea's currency and through the currency controls the economy. On such dark and unpleasant considerations between allies whose blood had been shed together, did peace approach an unhappy land.

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