Evening star., 1949-12-13
Much to Answer For

Now that their American victims are at
last in free territory and able to give
detailed reports, we can expect to learn
a good deal more about the nature of
the Communist setup in China and its
small-scale copy in Northern Korea. What
has been made known already, however,
is proof enough that these two Kremlin-
serving regimes have yet to acquire g.
decent respect for the civilized practices
of international relations.
Thus, in the case of Consul General
Angus Ward of Mukden, the Chinese Com
munists are guilty of having kept him
and his nineteen-member party Gncluding
his wife and several other women and
some children) under armed surveillance
from November of last year until their
recent release. More particularly, as re-
CARDS Mr.. Ward himself, they are guilty
of having arrested him on trumped-up
charges and of having held him in jail,
in solitary confinement, for twenty EIGHT
days. During all but four of those days,
despite freezing temperatures, his quarters
were either underheated or without any
heat whatever, and his daily diet was
water-a regimen which made him lose
twenty-five pounds and which might have
killed him had 1t lasted very much longer.
This outrage against an American citizen
serving the United States Government has
had its counterpart in Northern Korea,
where two other rAmericans-Albert Willis
and Alfred Meschter, officials in the
Marshall Plan-have survived eighty-one
days of confinement. Returned south to
Seoul in an emaciated condition Zone of
them is said to have lost sixty pounds),
they have both been quoted as declaring
that the Communists did not physically
mistreat them, and Mr.. Ward has said
the same thing. But this means merely
that they were not punched, whipped or
otherwise tortured by acts of direct
violence to their flesh. In terms Of their
imprisonment and near-starvation rations,
however, their experience certainly adds
up to cruel form of mental and bodily
abuse. "Hellish" Is Mr.. Wards word for 1t.
Such systematic mistreatment, OF course,
besides being a measure of Communist
contempt for the centuries-old standards
Of decency in diplomatic intercourse, is
designed to diScredit the United States in
Asia Yet, as far as China is concerned
Northern Korea's Soviet puppets are
relatively only minor problem right now, +,
the whole business is battling For it has
conceded with the mainland collapse of
the Nationalists, and it has made many
powers think twice about extending recog-
milton to the Peiping Reds. The latter, in
fact, seem to have gone out of their way
to delay getting the very thing they are
anxious to receive.
Certainly, in view of their outrageous
conduct the Chinese Communists can
hardly expect to win American recogni-
ton without offering strict guarantees
against a repetition of what they have
already done. Actually, their conduct
like that which has just led the State
Department to send stiff protest to Bull
garia-raises the serious question whether
we even ought to try to have normal
diplomatic relations with Red regimes
anywhere. Indeed it is question calling
for the sober attention Of every nation
anxious to preserve civilized international
intercourse