Build Up & Wait

Over the Kaesong talks fell an ominous shadow; it was cast by a massive Red buildup. Allied airmen reported as many as 1,000 Red trucks a night moving down the coastal roads. The Reds were increasing their number of antiaircraft guns (which have been shooting down an average of three to five U.N. planes a day). U.N. air crews spotted an estimated 300 tanks 55 miles north of Kaesong, poised to swoop down on Seoul along the same invasion route they used 13 months ago.

Heavy steel bridging equipment, the first of its kind seen in North Korea, was lashed to freight cars and headed south. A possible use: to bridge the Han on a drive to Seoul.

At week's end, Communist combat strength was estimated at 620,000 men, with 300,000 of them on the ready along the 100-mile battlefront--the best Red military showing since the abortive May offensive.

The Red buildup at the front was not necessarily a sign that the Reds were using the truce talks only as a screen for preparing an offensive or that they expected the talks to fail. The U.N. was also diligently plugging away at a buildup of its own. The Air Force was diverting the 116th Bomber Wing, originally earmarked for NATO, to Korea. The Navy was sending over the carrier Essex, two cruisers, a complement of destroyers. Though the Army and Marine Corps were rotating personnel rapidly, the flow of replacements made sure that there would be no weakening of ground strength.

Meanwhile, both sides kept a cautious sparring stance. U.N. radar-guided planes flew through blinding rains, hammered at Red airfields, railroad yards, bridges, troop concentrations, supply dumps. U.N. warships ranged north of the parallel, shelled Red supply lines. Patrols slogged through quagmire roads, encountered enemy units on the same mission, felt out their strength and retired.

The U.N. army was waiting for word from Kaesong, and ready for anything. So, too, apparently, were the Communist armies beyond the Imjin.

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