WAR IN ASIA: Not Too Late?

It was 4 a.m. Sunday in Korea; it was still only 3 p.m. Saturday in Washington. Just before a grey dawn came up over the peninsula, North Korea's Communist army started to roll south. Past terraced hills, green with newly transplanted rice, rumbled tanks. In the rain-heavy sky roared an occasional fighter plane. Then the heavy artillery started to boom.

All along the 38th parallel—the boundary between North and South Korea—the invaders met little resistance.

In a six-pronged drive the Communist troops swept south. One North Korean force seized the isolated, virtually indefensible Ongjin...