ARMED FORCES: Four-Star Blunder

Throughout the uproar over Colonel James Hartley's atrocity figures, General Matt Ridgway has maintained the superior air of a commander who deplores but understands a subordinate's little errors of judgment. He made it clear that he disapproved Hanley's rushing into print before "accumulated evidence warranted," and he deprecated Hanley's tendency to exaggerate. The U.N. command, said Ridgway last week, with the air of a responsible man speaking responsibly, has positive proof of only 365 atrocity killings of captured U.S. fighting men—not 5,500 to 6,000, as listed by Hanley.

Scarcely were the words out of his mouth than Ridgway was proved a greater exaggerator and hastier reporter than Hanley. In Manhattan, a reporter picked up a report which had lain for two weeks in U.N.'s Manhattan headquarters. It had been submitted by Ridgway on Nov. 12—two days before Hanley made his announcement. As U.N. Commander for Korea, Ridgway reported not 6,000 U.S. atrocity victims (a figure he had indicated was unwarranted by solid evidence), nor 365 (the number he had said in Tokyo was proved), but "approximately 8,000 U.S. military personnel . . . reported killed as war crimes victims."

There were other contradictions. Hanley reported that 3,610 were killed by North Koreans, 2,513 by Chinese. Ridgway's report estimated 7,000 reported killed by North Koreans, only 1,000 by Chinese.

The blunders in atrocity figures meant cruel anxiety to the wives and parents of U.S. men captured or missing in action. Ridgway's staff had handled these figures with the very negligence and carelessness he had condemned in Hanley, and apparently had not even checked back on Ridgway's reports to U.N. before issuing the correction scaling down Hanley's figures. Result: a large part of the public is convinced that no one really has any idea whatever how many atrocities have been committed, or by whom.