KOREA: Sin of Omission

For two labyrinthine years, the U.N. held out at Panmunjom for the right of prisoners of war to refuse to go back behind the Iron Curtain. That question finally became the central issue of the truce talks. The truce agreement conceded the U.N. view: it specifically ruled that no P.W. should be forced to return home.

To get this agreement, however, the U.N. did agree that P.W.s should spend 90 days in neutral custody while representatives of their governments "explained" their positions. Furthermore, the U.N. omitted to negotiate the details of this procedure. That was left to the Neutral Nations Repatriation...