Evening star., 1953-04-13
The Choice in Korea

HS SHOICS III NOISU
Now that formal agreement has been
reached on exchanging sick and wounded
prisoners of war, the chances are that the
United Nations Command will accede to the
Communist request for resumption OF full
scale armiStice talks at Panmunjom. These
talks, when and if they take place, presumably
will be confined to military questions bearing
upon the repatriation of all the POWs held
by both sides and upon the mechanics of calling
halt to the hostilities. After that, assuming
a settlement of such questions, there will be
a special political conference to deal with the
larger and more difficult issues involving the
long-term future of Korea.
What is that future to be? Can the entire
country be unified under a single overall
governments genuinely free and democratic
government? And is it possible that the unfit
cation can be achieved through talks at
post-armiStice political conference? There are
many Americans who respond gloomily-and
with good reaSon-to all such questions. One
of them is General Van Fleet, former COM
mander of the 9Th Army in Korea. In his
opinion, which can be defended with consid-
cradle cogency, neither truce nor negotiations
after a truce can bring about satisfactory
peace. The only thing that will do that, he
says, is smashing military victory" by the
that the U. N. undertake to inf1ict decisive
defeat on the North Korean and Chinese
Communists.
BY way of contrast, off -the-record remarks
attributed to Secretary of State Dulles suggest
that the Eisenhower administration is strongly
inclined to favor a compromise settlement that
would fall substantially short of unifying the
country. The White House has emphasized
that no conclusions have been reached on the
subject but apparently-judging from the
views aScribed to Mr.. DulleS-our Government
has been giving serious consideration to the
idea OF striving for peace agreement whose
terms would include, among other highly i'm
portant things, provision for a partition
boundary at the narrow waist" of the Korean
peninsula about 80 miles north of the present
battle line. Everything to the south would be
free; the rest would be kind of buffer area
or truncated satellite land-controlled by the
Red totalitarianS.
The mere suggestion of an agreement along
such lnes-which the Communists of course,
might refuse even to consider, and which the
South Koreans might never concur in-has
moved many Americans, including newspaper
commentators, to raise quite howl Although
a settlement at the waist" would be better
one than the Truman administration seemed
willing to accept, it would constitute retreat
Of sorts from the ultimate goal advocated by
the U. N. General Assembly in its resolution
Of October 7, 1950-namely, the creation of
unified independent and democratic" country
unhampered by any kind of partition. Hence
because of the remarks attributed to him. Mr..
Dulles has been aSsailed as a fumbling appeaser
ready to assent to gigantic sell-out. His
critics, it appears, want an armistice, want
peace, and they want it in hurry, but they
do not want our Government to attain 1t
through compromise solution.
However, if there is to be no compromise,
then there is only one other choice that the
United States and its U. N. allies can make,
and that is to follow the stern course urged by
General Van Fleet Conceivably, as far as the
long-term future is concerned, that may be
the wiser thing to do. But are the American
people willing to do it? Are allied peoples
willing to do it? Are we all prepared to accept
the immense expenditure of blood that it might
we'll entail? And would the end-result-the
victory and the subsequent unif1cation of far
away Korea-be worth the risk of precipitating
a much larger war, perhaps war on a global
scale? The critics. the people who cry out
against "appeasement," seem to ignore such
questions. Not being burdened with the grave
responsibility of decision, they do not have to
worry about the answers
But responsible leaders like President Eisen-
hover and Secretary Dulles do have to worry.
They cannot afford the luxury of letting their
emotions get the better of their heads. Their
decisions, for the sake of the Nations safety
and the lives of its young men, must not be
impetuous or reckless. Accordingly if they can
find way to reasonably sound Korean peace
through compromise, they should by all means
follow that course, no matter how loudly certain
people may inveigh against "fumblers" and
"appeasers" Compromise, after all, can be
honorable and wise; in the course of history,
it has often served the best interests of man
kind.
Sensible Compromise