Ready to Confer

Six months ago, as U.N. forces swept up the Korean peninsula in the wake of a shattered North Korean army, General Douglas MacArthur summarily called on the enemy "forthwith to lay down your arms and cease hostilities." The Red reply was the massive Chinese assault from Manchuria which divided the U.N. forces and drove them south of the 38th parallel.

Last week MacArthur spoke to the enemy again. He threw down no ultimatum. Instead, he proposed negotiations for a truce on the field of battle. With the offer went a warning that the fight might be carried to the Chinese mainland if it was unduly prolonged. Said MacArthur:

Ready to Cross? "We have now substantially cleared South Korea of organized Communist forces . . . The enemy's human wave tactics definitely [have] failed . . . With the development of existing methods of mass destruction, numbers alone do not offset vulnerability inherent in . . . deficiencies . . . [in] tanks, heavy artillery and other refinements science has introduced into the conduct of military campaigns . . . Red China . . . has been shown its complete inability to accomplish by force of arms the conquest of Korea.

"The enemy, therefore, must by now be painfully aware that a decision of the United Nations to depart from its tolerant effort to contain the war to the area of Korea through expansion of our military operations to his coastal areas and interior bases would doom Red China to the risk of imminent military collapse . .

"There should be no insuperable difficulty arriving at decisions on the Korean problem if the issues are resolved on their own merits, without being burdened by extraneous matters not directly related to Korea, such as Formosa and China's seat in the United Nations . . .

"Within the area of my authority as military commander . . . I stand ready at any time to confer in the field with the commander in chief of the enemy forces, in an earnest effort to find any military means whereby the realization of the political objectives of the United Nations in Korea, to which no nation may justly take exceptions, might be accomplished without further bloodshed."

MacArthur's statement was issued in Tokyo just before he flew off for his 14th visit to the front. Later, on the same day, just after his return from Korea, he told newsmen:

"Regarding the 38th parallel, the status of which has been thoroughly discussed in . . . Washington, London and other capitals . . . it never had any significance. Our naval and air forces cross it at will, and ground forces have done so in the past.

"I have directed the Eighth Army to do so again if and when its security makes it tactically advisable."

Ready for More? London and Washington cautiously agreed with MacArthur that the 38th parallel should be crossed if he and his fellow generals deemed it tactically necessary. But the statesmen of Whitehall and Foggy Bottom objected to the political implications of the supreme commander's statement, and questioned whether he had not exceeded his military authority by discussing political matters (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).

The enemy's reaction seemed ominously familiar. The Chinese were again on the march from Manchuria with sizable reinforcements.

Such Chinese reinforcement would drive home the big question raised again by MacArthur. If the Chinese committed another huge army to Korea, the prospect of a settlement of the Korean war would fade still more. And such a Chinese commitment would mean that the coast of China was more open to attack and pressure than it had been before. Chinese policy seemed to be forcing the U.N. toward a major political decision: U.N. policymakers would have to decide whether to try to win the war by striking directly at Red China, e.g., by naval blockade and air assault, or to face the certain prospect of a long, bloody stalemate in Korea.

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