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42
something of what is in our minds
regarding the política! factors.
"l.
A successful resistance in Korea
would serve the following important
purposes:
"(a) To demonstrate that aggression
will not be accepted by us or by the
United Nations and tó provide a rally–
ing point around which the spirits and
energies of the free world can
be
mobi–
lized to meet the worldwide threat
which the Soviet Union now poses.
"(b) To deflate the dangerously
exaggerated political and military pres–
tige of Communist China which now
threatens to undermine the resistance of
non-Communist Asia and to consolidate
the hold of Coromunism on China
itself.
"(e) To afford more time for and to
give direct assistance to the organization
of non-Communist resistance in Asia,
both outside and inside China.
"(d) To carry out our commitments
of honor to the South Koreans and to
demonstrate to the world tbat the
friendship of the United States is of
inestimable value in time of adversity.
"(e) To make possible a far more
satisfactory peace settlement for Japan
and to contribute greatly to the post–
treaty security position of Japan in rela–
tion to the continent.
"(f)
To lend resolution to many
countries not only in Asia but also in
Europe and the Middle East who are
now living within the shadow of Com–
munist power and to let them know
that they need not now rush to come to
terms with Communism on whatever
terms they can get, meaning complete
submission.
"(g) To inspire those who may be
called upon to .fight against great odds
if subjected to a sudden onslaught by
the Soviet Union or by Communist
China.
"(h) To lend point and urgency to
the rapid build-up of the defenses of
the western world.
"(i) To bring the United Nations
through its first great effort on collective
security and to produce a frec-world
coalition of incalculable value to the
national security interests of the United
States.
The
PLAIN TRUTH
"(j)
To alert the peoples behind the
Iron Curtain that their masters are bent
upon wars of aggression and that this
crime will be resisted by the free world.
"2.
Our course of action at this time
should be such as to consolidate the
great majority of the United Nations.
This majority is not merely part of the
organization but is also the nations
whom we would desperately need to
count on as allies in the event the Soviet
Union moves against us. rurther, pend–
ing the build-up of our national
strength, we must act with great pru–
dence in so far as extending the area of
hostilities is concerned. Steps which
might in themsclves be fully justi.fied
and which might lend sorne assistance
to the campaign in Korea would not be
beneficia! if they thcreby involved Japan
or Western Europe in large . scale
hostilities."
W hat Wasn't Accomplished
Viewed in the Jight of circumstances
in
1951,
those words sound pragmatic,
cxpedient, even promising.
But viewed in the light of 1970, and
Vietnam, they appear tragic.
Shockingly, the same basic goals
could be stated for the Vietnam con–
flict, and the widening U. S. involve–
ment in Indochina. After nearly two
solid decades - we're still buying time
with American lives.
Review that all-important telegram,
and analyze it carefully.
We
did
achieve, at terrible cost, a
"successful resistance" in Korea. But it
hardly demonstrated that "aggression
will not be accepted by us or by
the United Nations ..." America has
proved she is quite capable of accepting
aggression in limited amounts. Aggres–
sion in degrees, and in isolated areas,
piecemeal, is aggression, nevertheless.
The Hungarian revolution was
"acceptable." So was the scrapping of
the Monroe Doctrine, and the Bay of
Pigs.
So
was the Pueblo, Gary Powers,
the brutalization of Czechoslovakia,
and so are daily incidents along the
same ugly, barren cease-fire line in
Korea after all these years.
Far from
deflating
"the dangerously
exaggerated política! and military pres-
March 1971
tige of Communist China," the Korean
war enormously enhanced it. Today,
Red China and its growing nuclear arse–
nal present cogent cause for a vastly
expensive ABM system, in the thinking
of American policymakers. Even Soviet
Russia looks nervously over her shoul–
der at the growing "política! and mili–
tary prestige" of Red China.
The Korean lesson, then, when seri–
ously considering these stated aims, has
to be "Mission, unaccomplished."
Certainly, Korea did "afford more
time"
f
or organizing resistance to Com–
munist expansionist aims. Yet that time
did not
prevmt,
or even seriously
impede
the gradual spreading of Com–
munism into Southeast Asia, or even
into the Western Hemisphcre, 90 miles
from the United States, in Cuba.
Under sub-paragraph
(j),
Prcsident
Truman said he hoped the struggle
being waged by MacArthur's forces in
Korca would alert the poor peasant folk
of the
Taehun Minkttk
(Korea) and
China that their masters were "bent
upon wars of aggression."
It did nothing of the sort, of course,
but it did succeed in accomplishing the
exact opposite. Communist peoples
behind the Iron Curtain believe in their
hearts that the United States of America
is a war-loving, violence-embracing,
expansionist, imperialistic power.
We know we're not. We know we
could never be.
Americans looked with righteous
indignation at the "Chinese bordes"
(we scem to think all Chinese run about
in "bordes") swarming over the borde:rs
of North Korea, to enter the battle
against the United States. We scoffed
at the "trumped-up" term, "Peoplc's
Volunteers."
But to the peasant boys from China,
it secmed more logical, somehow, for
thcm to enter battle with "foreign
devils" on an adjacent península on
behalf of peoples who looked much the
same, than to see the tall Americans
fighting on that same península thou–
sands of miles from home. The same
parallels may be drawn, for the sake
of understanding the Southeast Asían
equivalent of barbcrshop philosophy, in
I ndochina.
Americans grew sick of Korea. They