Digging In

In the midst of cramming for his Moscow tests, Secretary of State Marshall took an hour and a half last week to go over a new U.S. policy for Korea. It was high time.

Ever since V-J day, Korea had been a sore spot. The damage had started at Yalta, where an illogical division of Korea between U.S. and Soviet occupations had been decided upon. It had been worsened by bad administration in the U.S. zone and by the fond U.S. hope that the Russians would somehow come to be reasonable. Now the State Department frankly recognized the failure of both U.S. policy and its execution, and saw that the time had come for more radical remedies. After consultation with Marshall, it was ready with a new program.

The Department's specialist in military government, Major General John H. Hilldring, gave the outline in Detroit this week. Said he: "The sincerity of the U.S. . . . is on trial in Korea. . . . We have dug in. We shall stay until our mission is accomplished." The military figure of speech was apt. In Korea the U.S. faced the Soviets across a steel line bisecting the country--the 38th parallel. This was the outgrowth of Yalta. To the north were 10,000,000 Koreans under Soviet rule, with nearly all the nation's industrial resources but little agriculture. To the south were 20,000,000 Koreans under U.S. rule, with nearly all the nation's agricultural resources but little industry, fuel or power.

Going It Alone. Up to now, despite utter failure of negotiations a year ago, the U.S. had clung to the hope that Russia would carry out its moral obligation to junk the steel wall across Korea and set up an overall provisional government under a five-year trusteeship. But now, said Hilldring, "we are forced to go it alone. . . . We must take independent action in our zone pending unification."

This action will consist of building up Korean participation in running the southern half of the country until a provisional government evolves. Then it will be up to the Russians to show that they have done as much for the northern half, and merge the two. But as long as the steel wall remains, the truncated economy of the south must be made to grow new industrial limbs. The U.S. will ship in equipment and supplies. For this year, at least, it will also have to ship in food because of crop failures and lack of fertilizer.

All this will cost the U.S. taxpayer money--perhaps $150 million a year for four years. But the cost of doing nothing might be greater. In Korea, more sharply than in Germany, the U.S. system is pitted against Soviet totalitarianism. The Russian strategy is to sit it out and wait for U.S. impatience and renascent isolationism to call the G.I.s home. This would be the signal for a Communist underground in the south to emerge, combine with the Communist puppet government in the north and make all Korea into a Soviet satellite.

Korean Choice. The revised U.S. policy would by no means satisfy pro-American leaders in Korea. They had been ready with spontaneously formed people's councils to take over their own government as soon as Japan surrendered. In Dr. Syngman Rhee, long an exile and Korea's most distinguished and provocative spokesman, they had a man qualified to head an interim regime. But in Washington last week Rhee complained that Lieut. General John R. Hodge, head of the occupation forces, had prematurely insisted on an all-embracing coalition. Liberation from the Japanese, said Rhee, had not brought liberty. Instead it had left Koreans in a worse plight physically than under 40 years of Japanese misrule. Though he wanted U.S. troops to stay in Korea, Rhee wanted Hodge's heavy military hand lifted off the country's budding political life so that a sovereign, independent government could be formed. Nothing less would satisfy him.

Such a regime, Rhee thought, could then go before the United Nations to have Russia forced out of northern Korea and have the country unified.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.