Everybody Bowed

Last week thousands of Korean Communist soldiers scampered over the 38th parallel which had divided Korea since 1945. There the Reds hoped to sit in safety while Washington and Lake Success argued over a decision which should have been made weeks before.

Home Base. The strange thing about this argument was that it should have occurred at all. Rarely in history had anyone questioned the right of a nation under attack to strike at its enemies’ home base. One of the few historical situations similar to that facing the U.N. had developed during the U.S. Civil War when President Abraham Lincoln believed that some of his generals shared a widespread Northern belief that Union armies should confine themselves to defending Northern territory. Lincoln was dismayed first by the delaying tactics of General George McClellan, later by the sluggishness of General George Meade who allowed Lee’s defeated Confederate army to slip safely across the Potomac River after Gettysburg. Said Lincoln of Meade’s performance: “I’ll be hanged if I could think of anything but an old woman trying to shoo her geese across a creek.”

In the world’s free nations last week there were men who urged that U.N. forces content themselves with shooing North Koreans across the 38th parallel. Leading spokesman for this group was Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India. Nehru’s avowed reasons for opposing the crossing: fear that invasion of North Korea would bring Communist China, possibly even Russia, into the war; the prospect that by following North Korean aggressors across the parallel the U.N. forces might themselves become guilty of aggression. Nehru revealed another, less far-fetched motive when he snapped, “I am no great admirer of [South Korean] President Rhee anyhow.”

The U.S. and its allies in the U.N. offered positive reasons why U.N. troops should cross the parallel. Their arguments:

¶ North Korea’s war potential must be destroyed.

¶ The U.N. must demonstrate that international crime does not pay.

¶ The U.N. had repeatedly declared that Korea must be united. If Korea is treated as a single nation, said Britain’s Ernest Bevin, “the 38th parallel automatically disappears.”

¶ No one had ever recognized the 38th parallel as a permanent political frontier.

¶ Communist Premier Chou En-lai’s threat that China “will not stand aside should the imperialists wantonly invade” North Korea was only propaganda.

¶ If Russia or China intended to intervene in Korea, they should have done so earlier when they could have pushed U.N. forces into the sea.

Stop Short? In Washington a State Department spokesman neatly summarized the U.S. position. Said he: “The whole [Korean] operation would be a bust if we stopped at the 38th parallel. If we stop short we might as well have stayed out to begin with.”

A majority of U.N. delegates seemed to agree with the U.S. But when it came time for action everybody bowed toward somebody else. Harry Truman announced that the decision was up to the U.N. State Department officials said that the broad language of the original U.N. resolutions on the Korean question gave MacArthur all the authority he needed, left the decision up to him. In the U.N., eight nations jointly proposed a British-written resolution which would by implication authorize MacArthur’s troops to cross the 38th parallel.

Over the Line. By week’s end MacArthur had also received more concrete instructions. From the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff came orders permitting him to send his forces well above the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, provided they stayed out of the mountains south of the Korean-Manchurian border. In short: invade but don’t get too close to Vladivostok.

MacArthur promptly issued a proclamation calling on the North Korean armies to surrender. The same day, the general took steps to hasten the North Korean decision. The 3rd R.O.K. Division, one of six poised along the line, crossed the 38th parallel.

Even while R.O.K. forces drove deep into North Korea, the argument over the 38th parallel continued. The ever-present compromisers suggested that the invasion should be made by South Korean troops alone. It was a suggestion sure to please the Russians who had always maintained that the war was simply a dispute between Koreans. At week’s end no U.S. ground forces had crossed the parallel.