TRUCE TALKS: Final Offer

However humiliating the U.S. posture was on Koje Island the U.N. position at Panmunjom continued strong and rocklike. With firm backing from Washington (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), the U.N. negotiators at Panmunjom stood resolutely by their package offer. Said Matt Ridgway, on the eve of his departure: "We cannot and shall not retreat."

For the first time in months, the enemy negotiators showed some signs of irresolution, even of alarm. North Korea's General Nam Il complained that the U.N. was trying to impose its plan by threats, that the U.N. stand left no room for "negotiation." The Peking radio said the U.N. attitude amounted to a "sitdown strike."

The Reds dropped their insistence on Russia as a member of the truce commission. With grudging satisfaction they noted U.N. willingness to forgo a ban on the building of North Korean airfields during the truce. But they still fiercely disputed the U.N.'s right to keep 100,000 military and civilian prisoners who had voted against a return to Communist control. Admiral Joy then coolly suggested that the truce talks be indefinitely suspended until the Reds were ready to accept the U.N. plan.

Joy carefully avoided any phrasing which would threaten a final break, but the Reds, who had suffered from temporary interruptions before, seemed anxious that the daily meetings continue. They did continue—in the form of 10-to-20-minute token sessions, mostly given over to Red stalling and propaganda. Perhaps the Communists were afraid that a breakoff would lead to heavier fighting, and that the defections in the U.N. prison camps—which had obviously surprised them—might spread to their fighting armies.