Major Policy Shift

The world witnessed the most dramatic proof yet of a remarkable change in U.S. policy in Korea. The U.S. now seemed prepared to fight a MacArthur war, instead of the cautious war once advocated by Dean Acheson and George Marshall.

Douglas MacArthur, in his messages to the enemy, never matched the harshness of the words General Matthew Ridgway used last week. Calling Communist charges that U.N. forces had violated the neutrality of Kaesong "malicious falsehoods," Ridgway poured towering scorn on the Communists in a historic verbal nose-twisting. More significant than words were Ridgway's deeds: at week's end, through the hot skies of Korea roared a force of B293 to plaster the once-untouchable North Korean port of Rashin "(see WAR IN ASIA). Throughout the period of his command, MacArthur urged the bombing of Rashin. On Aug. 12, 1950 he did bomb it, but further attacks on Rashin were forbidden by Washington. "It was a question of the risk involved," Secretary Marshall explained later, "in an operation so close to the Soviet frontier."

Rashin is no farther from the Russian border than it was a year ago. There is still the danger that the Russians will come in. But now Washington applauds the act that it formerly condemned.

Reason: The MacArthur firing and the MacArthur hearings have moved Washington toward a more decisive policy. The Rashin raid could be interpreted by the stalling Chinese only as a taste of Mac-Arthur policy--a pointed hint that if the truce talks fail, the U.S. will no longer play by the old confining ground rules.

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