South to Freedom

In 55 barbed-wire compounds at Panmunjom sit more than 22,000 defiantly anti-Communist Chinese and North Korean prisoners of war whose determination not to go home was the main issue that hung up a Korean truce for a year and a half. If all goes well next week at 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 23, the 22,000 will walk south to freedom. To bring about this event--which will liquidate the blood-stained prisoner problem once and for all--the

U.S. last week had to deal forcefully with three troublemakers: 1) India, 2) South Korea, and 3) Red China.

India's Jawaharlal Nehru, who hesitates to do anything that would vex Red China, has already communicated his misgivings about the Jan. 23 release to able Lieut. General K. S. Thimayya, who is responsible for the Indian troops guarding the prisoners. Nehru thinks that the prisoners should be held at least 30 days beyond the release date set in the armistice agreement. But last week U.S. observers on the scene believed that Thimayya had convinced his boss in New Delhi of another proposition: India cannot try to hold the prisoners beyond the deadline without risking a mass breakout and bloodshed, and India would be held responsible for it before the world. The U.S. has told Thimayya flatly that responsibility of the Indian troops for holding P.W.s in custody ceases at 12:01 a.m. Jan. 23. Thimayya, cooperative but cautious, is devising a formula that would seemingly call for a delay in liberating the prisoners while actually allowing them to go free as scheduled.

South Korea's embittered old Syngman Rhee, angry because a last-minute head count by the Indians had sent 135 more prisoners (who presumably had changed their minds) back to the Communists, threatened to attack the Indian guards. The U.N. command told Rhee, in effect, that if this happened the Eighth Army would have to repel the assault.

Red China last week demanded that India hold the prisoners beyond the deadline so that more "explanations" could be undertaken. The Eighth Army's General Maxwell D. Taylor warned that any Communist attempt to interfere with the release would be met with force.

If there is no struggle, on Jan. 23 the prisoners will walk south under the control of the compound leaders. Searchlights, loudspeakers and barbed-wire lanes marked with white tape will guide them. At the edge of the demilitarized zone, the North Koreans will be met by South Korean officials, whisked aboard trains and taken to Kunsan and Pohang, where they may (if they choose) be inducted into the ROK army. The Chinese prisoners will be met by Nationalist officials, trucked to Inchon and loaded on U.S. Navy LSTs bound for Formosa.

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