"Like an Easter Parade"

General Wu Hsiu-chuan and his eight comrades from Peking said goodbye to the U.N., checked out of the Waldorf-Astoria after a 26-day stay, headed for Idlewild airport and a British Overseas Airways Stratocruiser that would fly them to London on the first leg of the long trip home, via Russia, of course.

General Wu solemnly read a farewell statement to the press. First, he wished "the American people . . . a merry Christmas and a happy New Year." Then he denounced "Anglo-American ruling circles" for aggression, etc., and for proposing a cease-fire in Korea that was "nothing but a trickery and a plot." Otherwise, the Red Chinese smiled, waved and comported themselves like a company of bourgeois tourists.

Three Orchids. They had come to the U.S. with 16 pieces of luggage. They were leaving with 54, weighing 2,627 pounds and including cartons full of kitchenware, radios, cameras, record players and other good things made in the U.S.A. The airline's excess baggage charge was $1,621, which the comrades paid off in two U.S. $1,000 bills. They tipped their two U.N. chauffeurs a handsome $100 apiece.

U.S. customs officers, eying the party, remarked that it was "just like an Easter parade." The men in General Wu's group all sported new Fifth Avenue suits. Miss Kung Pu-sheng, third in the delegation's rank, wore two orchids on her mouton coat. Miss Chou Yen, probably No. 8 in the group, rated only one orchid on the worn fur coat she had brought from Peking. Newsmen asked who gave them the flowers. The women answered: "Does it matter? Is it vital?"

Three Wires. As Wu & Co. took off, the U.N. still refused to believe that he had given Red China's final rejection of a truce in Korea. The General Assembly's three cease-fire commissioners had not yet received an answer to their message asking the Peking government to stop hostilities and meet with them anywhere, even in the Red capital. Undaunted, the commissioners wired again; they assured, Wu's bosses that no "trickery" was intended, implied that a cease-fire order would be rewarded with a discussion of Red China's far-reaching demands in the Far East. Still meeting silence, they tried a third message ". . . Would appreciate an early reply from you."

The reply came at last. Over Radio Peking, Red Premier Chou En-lai flatly brushed aside the cease-fire proposal. Like Wu, he spurned it as a trick designed to shield U.S. aggression. Like Wu, he insisted that U.N. forces be withdrawn from Korea. He added that the cease-fire resolution was null & void anyway, because Red China did not take part in the U.N. debate or vote on it. "Therefore," proclaimed Chou, "neither the Chinese government nor its representatives are prepared to have any contact with this illegal three-man committee."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.