Runaway Horse

While the prospects of peace in Korea steadily dwindled, the Communists took the position that they would resume the truce talks if General Ridgway would assume the guilt for things he had not done --and promise not to do them again. The Reds were riding their propaganda campaign like a man on a runaway horse.

In their attempt to prove that a U.N. plane had attacked Kaesong, the Reds had shown themselves up as clumsy bunglers (TIME, Sept. 3). Obviously angry and humiliated by the U.N.'s surgical exposure of their fraud, the Communists last week launched a new torrent of invective, began calling Ridgway a "liar" and "criminal." They declared that a second U.N. plane had bombed the Kaesong area by night. Again U.N. investigators were dispatched to the scene and the Reds showed them the "evidence." This time there were two fairly respectable holes in the ground, craters about ten feet across. Said Colonel Andrew J. Kinney, U.S. Air Force: "There are two ways to make a hole such as this. One way is to plant a bomb in the earth and then detonate it. The other is to drop it from an aircraft."

"Don't try to be funny," said the North Korean colonel. "Just investigate."

Prior to this, the Reds had charged other violations, by U.N. ground forces, of the Kaesong neutral zone. They also charged that a U.N. night-flying plane had dropped a flare over Kaesong--a "threat to the city."

The endless stream of Red accusations made it seem that something more than mere face was involved. In Western councils the belief was growing that Communist monkeyshines in Korea were linked to the Japan treaty conference in San Francisco. The Russians might have told their stooges in Korea to stall and act tough until Gromyko had shot his bolt at San Francisco. Another belief was growing, especially in Tokyo and among U.S. troops at the front, that the Communists had never intended to make peace; that they were stalling in order to protect the buildup for another massive offensive.

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