For two years Russia has stalled U.S. efforts to plan jointly the freedom of a united Korea. But in her zone north of the 38th parallel, Russia has quietly built up a one-party, Communist-led government, trained and armed a big native Korean army (more than 100,000 men). In the South Korean U.S. zone the big Russian delegation (more than too “experts”) to the joint U.S.-Soviet Commission in Seoul was supposed to be helping the U.S. to plan Korean unity. Instead, the Russians have spent most of their time organizing South Korean Communists, and setting up an elaborate espionage system headed by Anatole Ivanovich Shabshin, who was Russian vice consul in Seoul for eight years before the war. U.S. experts wondered when the Russians would feel that their North Korean puppets were strong enough to engulf South Korea without open Soviet help.
Last week the Russians apparently felt that the moment was near. Colonel General Terenty F. Shtykov, chief Russian delegate to the Joint Commission, said that if U.S. forces would withdraw from their zone at the beginning of 1948, “then the Soviet troops will be ready to leave Korea simultaneously.” Translated from the Russian, this was another way of saying: Let us both leave the lamb to the butcher. Cried Moderate Leader Kim Kyh Sik, chairman of the Korean Interim Legislative Assembly: if the U.S. withdrew, “North Koreans would sweep down like red lava, cover South Korea and end Korea’s existence.” The U.S. Government, which last fortnight asked the U.N. General Assembly to help end the Korean stalemate, thought the same.
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