The Korean War: The Untold Truth

Chapter 114: Unable to Disagree (1)
For most of December 1951, the UN Army and the Communists engaged in a back-and-forth haggling, a war of words that sometimes showed signs of success but ended with both sides standing firm.The goal of the United Nations was to prevent the Communists from rebuilding their forces and attacking the South again, so they insisted on monitoring and prohibiting the increase of military strength and equipment in the North and South.At the outset, the Communists immediately rejected these demands, and then, on December 12, they unexpectedly moved towards a compromise: both sides brought in troops and weapons "without any pretext", and observer missions from "neutral countries" monitored the ports.However, in this "compromise" also planted the seeds of disaster.Upon questioning, Communist Party representatives said that what they said was a ban on bringing in troops would prohibit the rotation or replacement of troops or weapons.The U.N. position is that rotation must be allowed on a one-to-one basis, otherwise the normal rotation of U.S. forces would not be possible and U.N. forces would soon be weakened.UN policy stipulates that each soldier serves in North Korea for one year, and about 12 soldiers need to be rotated every month.That is to say, a force of 3 people can be rotated within one year.But the Communist Party originally proposed a rotation ratio of only 1 men per month, meaning that an American soldier would serve in North Korea for seven years, and a Chinese soldier would serve about 3.5 years (their army number is about 42 million).While Admiral Turner Joy denounced the plan as "obvious nonsense," the Communists persisted for months.

Another part of the Communist Party's new proposal includes the reconstruction of facilities such as airports and railways by both parties, which have become secondary issues.Admiral Joy believed that reconstruction would increase the combat effectiveness of the Communist Party, which ran counter to the demands of the United Nations in the ceasefire, so he opposed it.The Communist Party does not have a usable airfield in North Korea, and the MiG planes operating along the Yalu River have to take off from "Manchuria", and these bases cannot be attacked by the US military.If the bases in North Korea were re-established, the Communists would be able to strike deep into South Korea. "We at the United Nations see no reason to allow the Communists to develop an important military capability during ... the truce," Joy said.But the Joint Chiefs of Staff overruled Joy, and they sent Truman a draft telegram accepting the Communist Party's proposal.Truman is on vacation in Key West, Florida.He was not so easygoing, he opposed the communist reconstruction of North Korea, even if it might mean leaving South Korea in a state of ruin forever.In a telegram reflecting the President's intentions, Truman said: "We have expended lives, tons of bombs, and vast quantities of equipment to force these men to accept our terms." The Communist Party continues to operate effectively even without airports, why Should these facilities be rebuilt?Truman asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff for an explanation.

When the joint chiefs responded on December 12, they expressed such a "strong feeling" that a military truce "may be the only agreement we will be able to reach for a long time."The economies of both Koreas depended on the reconstruction of facilities, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff said to Truman: "We do not think it is feasible to leave the whole of Korea in a state of severe devastation." it, they will break off the talks.

The chiefs of staff convinced Truman. On December 12, he approved a new directive from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Ridgway, which included four points: continue to insist on troop rotation; repair the airfield; withdraw troops from coastal islands north of the demarcation line; not sent by belligerents).

Now the Communist Party has become uncompromising again.Reconstruction of the airport was not a negotiable issue; the "neutral" observer mission was not accountable to any higher committee; and aerial observations were prohibited.In Li Qiwei's view, this is very clear: the Communist Party is preparing to plan another truce without any monitoring agency, and "the two sides are going further and further apart."He warned the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the 30-day deadline set out in the demarcation line agreement, which was due to expire on December 12, could not be extended any further. On Dec. 27, he noted that any extension would have a "detrimental effect" on the "mental state" of his soldiers and possibly on American public opinion.He urged Washington to establish a "final position" and break off the talks if the Communists showed intransigence. “Every time the U.N. Army delegation abandons a position that it had strongly held,” he said, “its subsequent positions and bargaining power are correspondingly weakened.”

According to Ridgway, the fate of the armistice hinges on a key question: whether the other side accepts a ban on increasing its military capabilities during the armistice. "If the enemy is unwilling to accept (or protractedly delays) a truce that includes a ban on rebuilding airfields," he said, "then the question needs to be asked: Why is the enemy so concerned about the airfield problem?" The only way to determine that answer is, It is to force the Communist Party to "make the final decision and choice: whether to have an armistice or an airport."

The Joint Chiefs of Staff replied that they wanted to avoid setting "last conditions" because of many unpredictable variables, such as allied support and public opinion.They believed that the public supported a truce and only grew impatient when the UN Army appeared to be nitpicking about some detail.They told Li Qiwei bluntly again that the United States did not want to be in a position where the United States actively interrupted the talks.

On December 12, the 27-day period expired with no sign of a truce. During the first few days of January 30, the UN Army made several small concessions, including dropping its demand for aerial observation, but every attempt was rebuffed by enemy negotiators, who wanted to negotiate with the staff. Attempts to find common ground at the same level have also failed. On January 1952, Admiral Joy gave an overview of the situation.He said that if the Communist Party expects the United Nations Army to make further concessions, "they will sit at the negotiating table and waste their time."

America and Britain's War Cry

Although Washington did not inform Ridgway of the details, they did not insist on a tough negotiating position. This seemingly "weak" performance is because they believe that no monitoring process can ensure that the Communist Party does not launch new attacks.As mentioned earlier, Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed in a joint Anglo-American declaration in Paris in November 1951 that any expansion of the war after the armistice would result in the United Nations forces attacking mainland China direct attack.This issue was discussed again at a November meeting in Rome between Acheson, Bradley, Robert Lovett (who had succeeded the ailing General George Marshall as Secretary of Defense in September) and the British General Staff. There was a discussion.Acheson believed that a truce that would provide a truly adequate system of surveillance might not be possible.Lovett added that since the main Communist base is north of the Yalu River, any surveillance confined to North Korea cannot guarantee that war will not recur.Acheson demanded that the British issue a joint declaration threatening retaliation if the Chinese broke the armistice.The British seemed more in favor of bombing "Manchuria" than a naval blockade. On December 11, the Joint Chiefs of Staff asked Ridgway what he thought of a warning to the Chinese that "a new round of aggression in Korea will lead to a new war which will give China brings sweeping penalties that the United States and its allies believe are militarily enforceable."

Ridgway didn't think his troops could do much of this "total punishment."Once a truce was signed, the Chinese certainly intended to strengthen their air power, and he had been told that the United Nations could not expect any major reinforcements.Ridgway asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff whether the State Department understood the implications of the warning.He telegraphed on January 1th: "In my opinion, unless the full consequences of the outbreak of World War III are prepared and the use of atomic weapons is authorized, the possibility of United Nations military forces punishing Red China will be null and void. of."

Li Qiwei was ignored again. On January 1952, 1, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent him an even weaker version of the US-British "Declaration" drafted by the State Department, asking for his comments.The draft said the consequences of breaking the truce "would be so severe that, nine times out of ten, the belligerent would not be confined to North Korea's borders."Ridgway felt more than ever that this approach was pointless. "Under the existing capabilities, our army cannot pose a sufficient threat to China...to prevent it from launching new aggression." He said that the only realistic way is to solve the entire ceasefire in one package and not leave any problems for later solve.

In the end, the two sides tacitly agreed to temporarily suspend the reconstruction of the airport and turn to other issues.For several days in early January, the UN Army and the Communists quarreled again over the issue of prisoners of war, an issue that had dominated the peace talks for 1 months.

prisoner of war problem
During 1951, the enemy showed little interest in discussing the disposal of prisoners of war.This issue raises a conflict between the different requirements of international law and humanitarianism.In this regard, it is clearly playing into the hands of an opponent who is keen to delay negotiations by continually raising new and extraneous issues.

To put it in perhaps too simple a sentence, the question is: what prisoners of war should be released to whom under what circumstances after the armistice.On the face of it, international law is clear: Article 1949 of the 118 Geneva Conventions (which the United States signed immediately but did not ratify until mid-1951) puts it plainly: "After the cessation of hostilities, prisoners of war shall be Delayed repatriation." This provision was designed to directly prevent a recurrence of the situation in which the Communist Party kept tens of thousands of prisoners of war in labor camps long after the end of World War II.The drafters of this provision did not foresee that a large number of prisoners of war might not be willing to be repatriated.Soon after the Korean War began, the three main belligerents, the United States and the two North Korean governments, declared that they would abide by the Geneva Conventions.Indeed, during the first months of the war, both North Korean regimes routinely violated the rules governing the treatment of prisoners of war.The South Koreans routinely shot and killed North Korean prisoners of war rather than go to the trouble of tending to them; the North Koreans did the same, binding and killing large numbers of American soldiers.The North Koreans also disregarded the Geneva Convention's express provision for the exchange of lists of prisoners of war, providing only the names of 110 UN servicemen, while their prisoner-of-war camps held more than 6.5 UN prisoners of war.

Let's not talk about these legal issues for a moment.A large number of "communist" prisoners of war held by the UN forces were former South Korean soldiers or Chinese Nationalist soldiers who were forced to serve in the North Korean army.Additionally, tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers have told Allied interrogators that they wish to go to Taiwan rather than return to China.Forcibly repatriating these soldiers means that they may be enslaved or even die.An inevitable problem: In the first few weeks of the war, thousands of South Korean civilians were captured by the North Korean army and forced to work as laborers.In a legal sense, these ordinary people are not prisoners of war, but they are imprisoned and cannot be ignored.

Generally speaking, since November 1951, when the Communist Party first expressed its interest in discussing the issue of prisoners of war, the complex situation faced by the United Nations Army was as described above.

In early 1951, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the United Nations Command discussed a number of approaches to this problem.One idea that has been attractive from the outset has been "doing it by the law" and letting prisoners choose where they want to be returned.The idea came from Brig. Gen. Robert A. McClure, the Army's head of psychological operations.In a July 7 memorandum to General Lawton Collins, McClure proposed sending to Taiwan those Chinese prisoners who were former Nationalists and who feared Communist punishment for surrendering.Taiwan is legally part of China (a position strongly maintained by the communist government), a tactic that would ensure that the United States, at least in a legal sense, complies with the Geneva Conventions and avoid forcibly sending prisoners of war to a country they Go to a country or region where you do not want to live.McClure even felt that some Chinese prisoners of war would be willing to be secretly sent to the mainland to land and then return to their homes or areas occupied by the Kuomintang guerrillas.

However, Li Qiwei believes that this is an "unrealistic approach."He favored a one-for-one exchange of prisoners, which would mean the earlier return of UN prisoners in Communist hands.This plan would give the UN Army a large numerical advantage, since it held far more prisoners of war than the Communists.Ridgway will first screen and then release about 4 South Koreans detained by the UN forces to the South Korean government, most of whom were forced to join the North Korean army.After a one-on-one exchange, the remaining POWs will choose where they go.But once a formal peace agreement is signed, Ridgway will have no choice but to return all Communist prisoners of war.To do otherwise (even if the motives were humanitarian) would set a dangerous precedent for violating the Geneva Conventions and would conceivably prevent the repatriation of American POWs in future wars.

Throughout most of the fall, the debate continued in Washington, with frequent shifts in the positions of the parties involved (Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lovett, Acheson).The Joint Chiefs of Staff initially believed that if the United Nations offered sanctuary to Communist soldiers who did not want to return to China or North Korea, it might be a major propaganda success.But they also conceded that treating prisoners of war as part of an "ideological struggle" would lead to the Communist side breaking off talks and refusing to return the UN prisoners.Dean Acheson took a legal view, calling for "fulfillment of the terms of the Geneva Conventions".Lovett wanted an all-for-all exchange to avoid "bargaining with the welfare of our own prisoners of war."

On October 1951, 10, President Truman joined the discussion.He has grown increasingly impatient with the lack of progress in the peace talks and believes that UN negotiators must stand firm on the prisoner of war issue despite obligations under international law.Because of the disparity in the number of POWs being held by the two sides, the exchange of all for all was unfair.If those prisoners of war who "voluntarily surrendered to the United Nations forces" were returned to the Communist Party, they would "finish immediately."No matter how complicated the situation, Truman would not accept an all-for-all exchange unless the UN Army got "some significant concession" that would not have been available otherwise.His position was communicated to General Ridgway at the end of November as the official U.S. negotiating position.

American investigators immediately scrutinized prisoners of war living south of the 37th parallel before the war broke out, and within days 000 were identified as civilian internees and housed in separate barracks.At the meeting table, the United Nations Army proposed that before releasing the prisoners of war, a "joint team" formed by the belligerent countries would first screen all prisoners of war, and those prisoners who did not want to be exchanged would remain under the control of the capturing party.But Ridgway still does not believe that the Communist Party will accept any exchange other than "all for all".He argued that it was "simply impossible" for the enemy to agree to an exchange "by personal choice," which would likely have sparked a massive defection of communist prisoners of war.He saw "the exchange of all for all as the last stand, which also included the forced exchange of those prisoners who would not return to Communist control".

(End of this chapter)