TRUCE TALKS: The Standpatter

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The U.N. was trapped between an enemy who was willing to settle and a principal ally who saw the settlement as ruinous. At Panmunjom, the Communists were presumably all set to sign an armistice. But in Seoul, stubborn old Syngman Rhee postponed a cease-fire indefinitely by setting free 27,000 North Korean war prisoners that the U.N. had promised to turn over to a neutral commission (see below). By his act, Syngman Rhee all but solved the problem of forced repatriation so far as North Koreans were concerned. He certainly proved that they did not want to go back. But he also struck a heavy blow at U.N. hopes for an end to the war. The talks at Panmunjom came to a halt.

In releasing the prisoners, Rhee violated the agreement that placed his troops under the U.N. Command in 1950. He also broke repeated promises to General Mark Clark and U.S. Ambassador Ellis Briggs that he would take no "unilateral action with reference to ROK forces . . . until after full and frank discussion" with Clark. Said an angry U.S. soldier: "We came over here to help him, and now he's kicked us in the face." Said Mark Clark: a "precipitous and shocking action."

But Syngman Rhee did only what he had warned he would do. The U.N. Command, and the rest of the world, had long regarded Rhee as an obstreperous but powerless old man who might threaten but would be brought to heel. Now an awful realization dawned: maybe the old man meant what he said. For Rhee, the release of the prisoners was entirely consistent. In more than half a century of fighting for a free and united Korea, he had made it clear by his acts that he was prepared for anything, from torture to an open break with his allies of 1953.

Pertinent Questions. Had Rhee killed all chances for a truce? One sign that some sort of cease-fire might still be possible came from Red Commanders Kim II Sung and Peng Teh-huai. In a surprisingly mild letter to Mark Clark, Kim and Peng accused the U.S. of "conniving" with Rhee to release the prisoners, but did not even threaten to break off the talks. Instead, they asked General Clark some pertinent, practical questions:

"Is the U.N. Command able to control the South Korean government and army?

"If not, does the armistice in Korea include the Syngman Rhee clique?

"If it is not included, what assurance is there for the implementation of the armistice agreement on the part of South Korea?"