The Road Back

Skill, suffering and valor were making history and legend in Korea this week; the U.S. forces and their U.N. allies, suffering heavy casualties, had fought free of the threat of annihilation and were as safe as soldiers could expect to be while the battle still raged. But the cold end-fact was that the U.S. had met defeat in Korea--a defeat that would have to be retrieved somehow, somewhere, if the world-wide march of Communism was to be halted.

In Washington, nearly a week was lost in getting started on the new drafts of manpower and the wrenching of the economy that would be necessary to meet the new crisis. The President spent most of the week conferring with Britain's Prime Minister Clement Attlee (see below). Their muted communique was the only authoritative word heard out of Washington in answer to the black headlines from the front.

But all week long came hints of radical increases in draft demands: an Army of 4,500,000 men by the end of '51, stepped-up production of the sinews of war, controls on prices and wages. Across the nation employers and unions had been getting together to give workers quick pay boosts; manufacturers and retailers were raising prices sharply--in each case anticipating possible action from Washington, and responding to the rumors of something about to happen.

The period of grey mobilization, as it was complacently called, could not go on much longer. So long as sacrifices were not being demanded of everybody, the Administration was finding it hard to demand them of anybody. Top men in industry and the professions had been turning down Government posts; no automaker wanted to abandon his market or toe a price line if no one else had to. And so it went.

If the war was so grave that the good soldier's best was retreat, it seemed high time for "the works" at home. This week Harry Truman seemed to agree, summoned his economic advisers and told them to get to work on a price-and wage-control order even though they had no adequate machinery to enforce it properly. Then the President sent out a call for congressional leaders of both parties to meet at midweek for a conference "concerning the proclaiming of a national emergency and related matters."

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