"A Hard Doctrine"

The Congress in joint session stood up and cheered when Syngman Rhee, 79, made his way through the crowded House last week. For Rhee, a longtime back-street resident of Washington, it was a triumphal return. But the flinty, wrinkled President of Korea took no time to savor his personal triumphs; he had a somber message for the Congress and for the free world.

Rhee began his speech on a note of gratitude. "You saved a helpless country from destruction," he said, "and in that moment the torch of true collective security burned brightly as it never had before. The aid you have given us . . . is an unpayable debt of gratitude." Then Rhee turned to more controversial matters.

"The essence of the Soviet's strategy for world conquest," he said flatly, "is to lull Americans into a sleep of death by talking peace until the Soviet Union possesses enough hydrogen bombs and intercontinental bombers to pulverize the airfields and productive centers of the United States by a sneak attack . . . The Soviet Union will not stop of its own volition. It must be stopped."

But how? To blunt Syngman Rhee, there was only one answer. "The way to survival . . . is not the way of wishfully hoping for peace where there is no peace; not by trusting that somehow the Soviet government may be persuaded to abandon its monstrous effort to conquer the world . . . but by swinging the world balance of power so strongly against the Communists that, even when they possess the weapons of annihilation, they will not dare use them.

"There is little time. Within a few years the Soviet Union will possess the means to vanquish the U.S. We must act now. Where can we act?"

Korean Answer. Again Syngman Rhee had a Korean answer: a serious military effort, never made during the Korean war, to defeat and overthrow Chinese Communism. Twenty divisions of R.O.K. troops, he reminded the Congress, are ready in Korea; 20 more could be mustered, with military aid from the U.S., and another 630,000 troops, according to Rhee, are available in Formosa. From the U.S., only naval and air units, said Syngman Rhee, would be needed.

Communist China, a "monster with feet of clay," would be an easy target in Rhee's military estimate. "It is hated by the masses. Although the Reds have murdered 15 million of their opponents, thousands of Free Chinese guerrillas are still fighting in the interior of China . . . Red China's army numbers 2,500,000, but its loyalty is not reliable, as was proved when 14,369 members of the Communist Chinese army captured in Korea chose to go to Formosa, and only 220 chose to return to Red China. The return of the Chinese main land would automatically produce a victorious end to the wars in Korea and Indo-China, and would swing the balance of power so strongly against the Soviet Union that it would not dare to risk war with the U.S. Unless we win China back, an ultimate victory for the free world is unthinkable."

And would the Russians enter such a war to save their Chinese allies? "Perhaps," said Syngman Rhee. "But that would be excellent for the free world, since it would justify the destruction of the Soviet centers of production by the American Air Force before the Soviet hydrogen bombs had been produced in quantity. I am aware that this is a hard doctrine. But the Communists have made this a hard world, a horrible world, in which to be soft is to become a slave."

American Objections. A silent Congress listened to Syngman Rhee's proposals. But when he stepped down from the speaker's rostrum and made his way from the chamber, a prolonged ovation echoed after him.

This applause did not mean that many Congressmen or other influential Americans agreed with Rhee's specific proposals. The speech was widely regarded as "provocative" and "ill-timed," and the New York Times wrung its hands so hard over it that its editorial knuckles almost cracked.

But if Rhee's speech did not persuade, it at least impressed. Its impact came from the realistic logic of the essential world situation, stripped of diversionary details. There are weighty objections to Rhee's plan, but its general argument is difficult to dispute: there will be no better time than the present to take the offensive against Communism, and no better place than Asia. Those who did not like the specifics of Rhee's proposal were faced by this speech with the requirement of finding other specifics that fitted the hard logic of his general theme.

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