Beneath the Eaves

Standing beneath low-pitched eaves, must you not bow your head? --Chinese proverb

About the shining hour when Molotov was positioning his head into a ten-gallon 'hat in Cheyenne, a second sensational gesture of amiability was areadying in faraway Red China. Time for lotus and light, the Communists evidently concluded from the extraordinary demeanor of Big Brother; time to show the impressionables and the skeptics that Red China too was making headway toward cooperation (and toward such long-sought objectives as U.S. diplomatic recognition and membership in the U.N.).

Red China's gesture was a proclamation that it was ready to let go three of the 21 American P.W.s who had refused repatriation after the Korean truce and who now wanted to get out of Red China. Two of the P.W.s. Otho Bell of Olympia, Wash, and Lewis Griggs of Jacksonville, Tex., intended to come home to the U.S., although they knew that they might have to stand trial.

"Even if I were going to be hung, I would come anyway," Bell recently wrote to his wife. The third American, William Cowart of Dalton, Ga., wanted to go to Japan. A couple of Belgian army deserters also wanted to get out of Red China, respectively in favor of the U.S. and Laos.

"Dear friends," Red China's Red Cross assured the remaining P.W. turncoats, "you are also entirely free to leave China of your own will." With unaccustomed humility, Peking radio offered its explanation to the outside world. "China is an economically backward country which has just begun its construction . . . The standard of living cannot be raised rapidly. There are differences between the customs and ways of life of the Chinese people and the European and American people . . . the language difficulties . . . the marriage problem." Red China, adopting conciliatory tactics alongside the Russians beneath the low eaves of Western pressure, smoothly wished its five newest defectors "a smooth future."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.