Sputtering Out

General of the Army Omar Bradley, on his first visit to the Far East since the Korean war began, flew to Tokyo last week to talk--in closest secrecy--with General Ridgway. He was accompanied by the State Department's handsome Russian-speaking expert on the Communist mind, Counselor Charles E. ("Chip") Bohlen. In effect, the move put the Pentagon and the State Department in Tokyo, by proxy, for a quick decision if one should prove necessary.

There was plenty to talk about. Communist strategy is fixed and crystal-clear--to win Communist domination of Asia--but Communist tactics are growing more obscure every day. Currently, Communist propaganda is truculent, violent and fanciful. It accuses the U.S. of wrecking the peace talks (broken off by the Reds on Aug. 23); it claims to have uncovered a U.N. plan for amphibious landings on both coasts of North Korea; it avers that a captured Mustang pilot had in his possession target maps of Manchuria, which proves that alleged U.N. invasions of "Chinese air space" were planned and not accidental.

U.N.-Communist talks were still going on, but at a kind of third remove--between junior officers who discussed where senior negotiators would meet if they could agree to meet. The Reds demanded resumption of talks at Kaesong.

General Ridgway, over the juniors' heads, appealed directly to Kim II Sung and Peng Teh-huai for a change of site to Songhyon, a mud-hut village eight miles southeast of Kaesong. Songhyon, said Ridgway, would have the advantage of being "approximately midway between the battle lines" and "it would, of course, be agreed by both sides that this meeting place would be kept free of armed troops and that both sides would abstain from any hostile acts . . ."

Early this week the Reds had not replied. Hope for peace in Korea, once a flame, had almost sputtered out. The question now seemed to be, not how much peace, but how much war.

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