Evening star., 1953-07-27
This Is Not the End of 1t

THE fighting and the dying and the deStruc-
ton will now come to a halt in Korea.
That is the chief immediate gain and promise
of the armiStice that has just been signed at
Panmunjom after more than three years of
terrible warfare and more than two years of
off-again- n-again negotiation. Still, despite
the brightness of this particular prospect, there
is good reason why the free world is filed with
a sense of Sobriety, and even somberneSs today
good reason why our church bells are not
ringing out joyouSly good reason why we are
not throwing hats in the air and dancing in
the streets, as in a moment of great victory.
For this is really not a moment of great
victory 1t is moment in which we can look
forward to an end to bloodshed in Korea. 1t
is a moment in which say, not without
pride, that the United States and its allies
in the United Nations have accomplished what
they originally set out to do-namely, to stop
and repel the aggreSsorS who struck southwark
across the 38th Parallel in June, 1850. 1t is
moment in which we can hope that the Com
munists-particularly the men of the Krem-
lin-have been taught lesson that will deter
them from future criminal adventures of the
same kind in other parts of the world. 1t is a
moment, in short, in which we can comfort
ourselves with the thought that our action in
this instance may have ayerted, for generations
the danger of an all-out global war by DEM
onstrating, as President Eisenhower declared
last night, that both men of the West and
men of the East can fight and work and live
together side by side in pursuit of just and
noble cause" But it is also moment in which
we can be sure of none of these things-a
moment of highly dubious compromise in
which the only certainty is a rather bleak
uncertainty.
This uncertainty exists because the Ameri-
can-led United Nations Command deliberately
refrained-in keeping with political decisions
made here in WaShington-from undertaking
an unlimited offensive effort to crush the North
Korean and Chinese Communists. If such an
effort had been made, the enemy conceivably
would have surrendered Internationally long
ago. BY the same token however, the Kremlin-
which has military alliance with Peiping-
might have reacted in a manner that would
nave uIduc d IIl1u WOIIO Wal l1lCflLdUlC III Jul
atomic age, with results that could have been
indescribably frightful for all parties concerned.
But nobody in the free West can be sure of
this, for the poker-playing Reds have held their
cards close to their chests, and they still hold
them that way-So much so that their strengths
and weaknesses (which actually may be very
great remain obscure and debatable enough
to enable them to carry out fateful bluffs and
act as tough bargainers at the post-truce polit-
cal conference on Korea and the Far East in
general.
And that is how we must expect them to act
We must be ready for them. We must be pre-
pared not merely for propaganda designed to
make it appear to non-Soviet Asia that the
truce amounts to an American and Western
surrender, but also for propaganda aimed at
converting the political conference into an
exceptionally virulent extension of the cold war;
For example, despite Secretary Dulles apparent
rejection of the idea, there can be little doubt
that the conference will reverberate with de-
mands that the free world end it's embargo
against the Chinese Communists, grant them
membership in the United Nations, and
change the present status of Formosa Such
demands, very probably, will be tied in with
seemingly reasonable proposals for Koreas uni
fication and the withdrawal of all foreign
troops from the now-partitoned country, and
it is not hard to see how that kind of line
regardless of its phonineSs-could lead to
interminable haggling and stir up a lot of ILL
informed sentiment against the United States
and the U. N.
In the circumstances, one can readily
understand and sympathize with the doubts and
fears of President Syngman Rhee of the Re-
public of Korea. Together with the key mem
berS of his valiant government he has made
clear that his agreement not to obstruct the
truce does not mean that he has any faith in
the truce. On the contrary-and time may
prove him right-he is of the firm opinion that
the Communists have signed this document
only because they have been sorely in need of
it and that they will use it to nf1ltrate ROK
territory and lay the groundwork for subversion
or renewed aggression regardless of what may
or may not be decided upon at the political
conference. He may be wrong but the Red