Evening star., 1950-06-27
They Must Be Stopped

At the moment in the confusion of war news
from Southern Korea it is far from certain
whether the United States-acting through the
United Nations-has enough time left to throw
in aid of type effective enough, and on a scale
large enough, to save the country from being
completely overrun by the Kremlin's puppet
invaders from the north.
Prior to being taken by surprise by this act
of Communist aggression "a surprise that throws
serious doubts on the use Of our intelligence
system), the official American view was that the
Southern Koreans could hold their own against
attack from the north, provided Cd that they
had a genuine will to resist and (2) that the
Russians did not intervene by offering heavy
support to their puppets-two points that are
open to considerable question at this time.
The one basic fact that is really clear right
now-amid conflicting reports about the fate of
Seoul, the capital city, and about the morale
OF the Southern KoreanS-is that the invaders,
undoubtedly acting on instructions from the
Kremlin, have no intention of obeying the
Security Councils order to cease fire and with
draw to their own territory north of the 38th
parallel Accordingly, at its meeting in New
York today the U. N. Council will have to do
something about this challenge to its authority,
but just what it do, or will do, is problemat-
ical in the extreme, though conceivably it may
in applying direct military pressure to the
situation.
In this connection, however what needs to
be emphasized is this fact: That the success
of anything we may do in concert with the
United Nations-whether we limit ourselves to
the shipment of military equipment or intervene
directly with such things as our air power-will
depend largely on the character of Southern
Korean resistance and on the scope of Russian
Intervention. If the resistance folds, then obvi-
ously our help will not save the country. BY the
same token, if the Soviet Union goes all-out in
supporting its puppets, even a combination of
determined resistance and heavy American aid
will be incapable of holding the peninsula. For
that peninsula is strategically and tactically
untenable in the sense that the Russians with
their continental lines of communication, could
take it with relative ease if they put full-scale
force behind drive to take it. That is why
Korea has been excluded from the official United
States concept Of what constitutes our primary
line of defense in Asia and the Far Pacific.
But the fact remains, regardless of all these
considerations, that our country and the United
Nations as whole have compelling reasons to
do everything possible at this stage-even at the
risk of war-to save Southern Korea For what
the Russians seem to be doing, through their
northern puppets, is probing soft spot in the
free world to find out how far they can 60
without having the free world hit back They
may be ready to carry this test to the point of
global explosion, but whether they are or not,
it seems clear enough that if they are not resisted
to the full right here and right now, 1t will be
only matter of time before they do precisely
the same thing elsewhere-against Iran, for
instance.
What we are up against, in short, is much
more than a situation confined to Southern
Korea, whose downfall could easily shatter the
United Nations and gravely undermine American
influence throughout the world. What we are
up against is exactly what we were up against
in the 1930s when Hitler was on the march, He
could have been checked then, and the Second
World War probably averted, by resolute action,
and the same may be said now of the Russians.
They should be stopped; they must be stopped.
For it seems virtually certain that If they are
allowed to get away with this latest of their post
war crimes, they will grow progressively more
criminal in the future
True enough, any complete effort to have
showdown with the Kremlin at this stage involves
grave risks. But those risks must be measured
in relation to the much graver risks that would
confront us later on as result of failure to act
resolutely now. The future of the free world is
at stake. We have a chance to stop the Russians
today without war; If we fail to make the most of
that chance, then on some future day, as surely
as the sun rises and sets, we shall have to try to
stop them with war that could end in the ruin
of our civilization.