"Isn't It Clear?"

Anybody but a Communist would have been embarrassed by the Communist invasion of Korea right in the middle of Communism's trumpeted "World Peace Appeal."

Even the Daily Worker, published in New York, U.S.A., admitted that some comrades were "confused." But it briskly set them straight. The North Koreans were not conducting aggression but "a struggle of liberation." June 26 became "the date Truman ordered the invasion of Korea" and the U.S. effort became "the Wall-Street-conceived and Truman-Dulles-engineered attack on the Korean people." Every North Korean success was another town "liberated," every U.S. reverse was gloated over ("The People's Army pushed the invading forces back all along the line"). Cried the Worker: "Today, under the orders of our Southern President, U.S. planes are bombing and strafing COLORED PEOPLE in Korea."

"Halt the War." The Worker got its war news from the Moscow and Pyongyang radio, reported solemnly that U.S. correspondents were trying to "soften U.S. responsibility for atrocities."

Gus Hall, national secretary of the U.S. Communist Party, announced that the "Hands Off Korea" movement and the peace drive must be "linked." It promptly was. Orated the Worker: "The world peace movement is mankind's greatest hope in this hour. It asserts: "Korea for Koreans . . . Isn't it clear there would be no fighting whatsoever in Korea if the U.S. invaders left Korea?"

"Who Isn't for Peace?" Petition collectors, who had experienced a moment's dismay, swarmed over the U.S. with renewed zeal. The document they flourished was whomped up at a meeting of a Communist-sponsored something called the "World Committee of Peace Partisans" in Stockholm last March. Innocently worded, it simply condemned atomic bombing as aggression; it did not mention other kinds of aggression--like the Korean. At ballparks, in subways and factories, on street corners, the partisans solicited signatures. "Who isn't for peace? I'll sign," was the reaction of the guileless, the dupes, the muddled. Day after day, the Worker whooped it up, ran advertisements ("The Celebrated Soviet Novelist Alexander Fadeyev Has Signed the Stockholm Peace Appeal"). Those who refused to sign were pictured snarling: "No, I don't want peace; I'm a fascist beast."

Workers from party-line unions--the Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers, the United Office and Professional Workers, the United Electrical Workers, the Marine Cooks and Stewards--canvassed busily for "peace" signatures. U.A.W. Communists in the big Ford local circulated petitions on the assembly lines. At the Kaiser-Frazer plant, angry U.A.W. unionists flung one peace collector out bodily. Earnest youths turned up on campuses in New York, Chicago and Austin, Texas. In some states, impatient cops, out of sheer exasperation, arrested canvassers on charges of disorderly conduct.

Docile Totals. In Seattle, the peace partisans claimed 20,000 signatures, in Los Angeles 5,000 for a start, in Houston 3,000, in Chicago 200,000, in New York more than 500,000. Last week the "New York Labor Conference for Peace" boasted that the U.S. total had reached more than 1,000,000, the world total 350 million. The plan is to present the petition to the U.N. Assembly meeting in September.

Secretary of State Dean Acheson branded the petition a "propaganda trick," pointed out that more than half the population of North Korea was reported to have signed just before they launched their attack.

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