State of Mind

State of Mind Warned General Ridgway: "There is a truckload of minutiae still to be discussed." Communist truce mechanics, equipped with monkey wrenches, seemed determined to keep the truck stalled. Last week they: 1) threatened to make a truce issue of Peking's charge that U.S. planes had bombed Manchuria; 2) accused the U.N. of "barbarously massacring" Korean civilians at the Koje Island prison camp (see above); 3) said that they would hold out forever, if necessary, against the U.N. proposal for the voluntary repatriation of prisoners of war; 4) continued to insist that Russia be accepted as one of the six "neutral" nations on the truce commission.

Said Ridgway's headquarters: "So the cycle continues. Every step forward will be followed by a step backward until Moscow is convinced that the final decision for Korea must be made without delay." This statement, designed to put all the onus on Moscow, unintentionally revealed the state of mind that now prevails in Tokyo and in Washington: the U.S. no longer has the initiative. Peace, stalemate or war--and how much or how little of either--is Moscow's choice, to be made at Moscow's convenience.

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