The Voice of Syngman Rhee
As the United N'ations makes new and more peaceable proposals to General Nam 11 in Panmunjom, President Syng- man Rhee is hotting up the background to these weary negotiations. Korea, he says, must be united; any agreement based on division anywhere short of the Yalu river is a betrayal of Koreans generally, and a certain danger to South Koreans in particular. From time to time, he also says that the South Koreans will carry on the fight for unity alone if the United Nations deserts them. It would be wrong not to have some sympathy with Mr. Rhee's views if not with him- self. Whether the division falls at the waist of the peninsula or on the 38th parallel, it is obvious that South Korea will be in danger of renewed attack so long as there is any division at all. After 35 years of Japanese occupatioh, Korea was promised, at the Moscow conference of 1945, that its inde- pendence would be restored. In the course of being liberated, it was occupied in separate zones by Soviet and American troops. When the troops finally withdrew, it was left—one more victim of the Great Powers' quarrel—divided into two hostile camps. After the invasion of South Korea by North Korea, the United Nations intervened; but President Eisen- hower has made it clear that South Korea itself must ultim- ately do all the fighting that has to be done, and it is being armed and supplied with that in view. So Mr. Rhee has both the right, and to some extent the might, to insist on a hearing. But he can expect nothing more. He is demanding what is for the moment impossible, since it would involve the outright defeat of China. Nor are his prospects quite as black as he paints them. He would not be defenceless, as he was last time, if he was again attacked; he may even be strong enough to discourage such an attack from being made. This is, admittedly, a highly imperfect state of affairs. But then nobody would suggest that the Western Powers should deliberately provoke a war with Russia to unite Berlin or Vienna; and they would just as certainly provoke an extension of the war with China if they attempted forcibly • to unite Korea.
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