Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1950-11-06
OF Grovest Significance

General Macarthur has not exaggerated in
declaring that the intervention of "alien Com
munist forces (meaning the Chinese Reds)
against the United Nations in North Korea is
potentially development of "the gravest inter-
national significance" For the grim truth is
that this is an act Of lawlessness SO explosive
in its possibilities that it could lead ultimately
perhaps quickly-to general world war or at
least to an about conflict in ASIA with our own
country the most deeply involved OF the Western
Powers
The fact that General Macarthur has not
mentioned the Chinese Communists by name
indicates that he does not wish to brand them
in the open as criminals until he has q better
idea of just how far they propose to go In fighting
on the side of the shattered North Korean
aggressors That point is not yet clear. Possibly
Mao Tse-tung has sent large elements of his
forces across the Yalu River to attain only
strictly limited objectives-for example, to hold
on to the power dams that are of great
Importance to Manchuria's industries or to make
a token fulfllment of his earlier threat that he
would not stand idly by while American and
Allied u N. troops marched northward.
ominously enough, however, the Peiping
radio and other propaganda outlets OF the Mao
regime have been pouring out flood of vicious,
incendiary statements strongly suggesting that
the Chinese people are being conditioned for
unlimited intervention. They are being told
that the United States dhe United Nations Is
not mentione0 is in Korea in order to attack
their country and that therefore they must
support all those who voluntarily undertake
the sacred task" of resisting us where we now
are so as to protect their homeland. AT the
same time after loudly announcing that AFRAID
shelters are being built in Mukden and other
Manchurian cities, Macs minions have made
oi,,t If ornio at W
atomic bombs over there, we can expect to
receive the same thing in retaliation-a broad
hint, and a superfuous one, that Russia stands
soidly behind Red China.
It may be- of course, that this uniquely ugly
and violent form of propaganda is merely part
of a war of nerves and not the prelude to action
of kind that could precipitate great armed
conflict But the fact remains that Red China
has already sent many thousands OF troops
against the United Nations and that hundreds
of thousands more are massed menacingly across
the Yalu River in Manchuria. Coupled with the
invasion of Tibet and with Peiping's Sharply
increased aid to Ho Chi Mini in Indo-China, the
picture suggests that Mao-who has military
treaty with the Kremlin-is poised to plunge
into total battle. Such a plunge in view OF
his unsettled internal situation, would seem to
be a kind of madness but we cannot safely
discount the possibility that his Russian mentors
have persuaded him to take It,
All of which means that the United Nations
may soon have to deal with the greatest ana
gravest crisis in its history. More particularly,
1t means that the United States, as the leading
u N. Power in Korea and the Pacific, may have
to make the most difficult and most portentous
kind of decisions. The significance OF what the
Chinese Communists are doing may prove to be
considerably less grim than now seems to De
the case, but we had better not underestimate It,