The Longest Jump

When the North Korean armies swept south across the 38th parallel in June, 1950, it was nearly two weeks before the U.S. could bring in a division of reinforcements by sea from Japan. Not until three months later did the U.N. forces succeed in pushing the North Koreans back into their own territory.

Last week, after 19 years, the U.S. showed how far it has developed the ability to rush crack troops to the scene of a crisis. Giant four-jet C-141 StarLifters flew some 700 men of the 82nd Airborne Division--part of a larger airlifted force--8,500 miles from Fort Bragg, N.C., with two refueling stops, to parachute-drop zones near Seoul in 55 hours. But for heavy snowstorms in South Korea, which forced a 24-hour postponement of the parachute jump, the operation would have taken barely more than a day.

Playing with Fire. Exercise Focus Retina* was the latest in a series of airlift demonstrations that have whisked troops from home bases in the U.S. to hypothetical hotspots in Iran, Turkey, Greece, Norway and West Germany. It was also the longest distance that airborne troops had ever been flown to a parachute drop. A fleet of 44 C-141s and 33 smaller, slower propjet C-130 Hercules transports carried 2,500 men and 721 tons of supplies and equipment from the eastern U.S. to South Korea. Aside from the weather delay, there were few untoward hitches in the military exercise. One paratrooper's static line failed to release him, and he dangled behind the aircraft until he could cut himself loose with a knife. The 82nd's commander, Major General John Deane, parachuted smack into the middle of an icy 50-ft.-wide stream. He was hastily fished out and draped in a dry parka before going to meet South Korea's President Chung Hee Park at a reviewing stand near by.

Focus Retina, which cost about $1.5 million, was intended as a show of force to discourage the North Korean commando incursions into the South that have grown increasingly bold since the beginning of 1968. In Pyongyang, North Korea's Foreign Ministry denounced the U.S. for "running wild to provoke a new war in Korea." The exercise, said the Communists, was "the most wanton violation of the Korean Armistice agreement and a reckless playing with fire, threatening peace in Asia and the rest of the world." In the six days before the U.S. parachute drop, four firefights broke out in the demilitarized zone. One American was killed in the worst incident, and two U.S. troops and a South Korean soldier wounded. A U.S. helicopter evacuating the wounded crashed, killing all seven aboard. Pyongyang was making plain its annoyance at Focus Retina.

Too Successful. The exercise also had the object of reassuring South Koreans that the U.S., for all its other commitments, remains solidly behind them. President Park, who has sent some 50,000 of his best troops to South Viet Nam, feels he may have to withdraw all or part of that force if pressure from Pyongyang continues. He knows that the U.S. cannot spare more men to add to the 55,000 it already has on the ground in South Korea.

Washington, of course, would like him to keep his troops in Viet Nam, so Exercise Focus Retina was set up to show Park that reinforcements could be moved swiftly from the U.S. to South Korea if needed. It may have succeeded too well. The South Korean army already guards all but 18 miles of the 151-mile frontier with North Korea. South Korean officials were impressed with the speed of the U.S. airlift. But they are now worried that the U.S. may try to pull some of its forces out of Korea on the grounds that in any emergency, it could easily fly them right back. No matter how rapidly U.S. troops can be flown in, Seoul would be much happier if they remained in place in South Korea.

* A Pentagon spokesman accounts for the name thus: "It sounded catchy to somebody in the Joint Chiefs. It has no rhyme or reason."

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