The Mess in Korea

In Washington, Secretary Dulles turned his harassed attention, momentarily, to the mess in Korea. In that forlorn country, the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission--composed, under the truce terms, of Swiss, Swedish, Polish and Czech members--is causing concern to the conscientious neutrals, more concern to the U.S. Aside from any real spying that they may manage incidentally, the Communist Poles and Czechs of the N.N.S.C. are gathering much useful information for their side merely by legal, above-board snooping around the docks and airfields of the designated towns in South Korea. But when it comes to inspecting Communist installations north of the truce line, the N.N.S.C. always runs into roadblocks, and the Reds manage to prevent the neutrals from learning anything of importance.

Obviously leaning more on U.S. intelligence reports than on N.N.S.C. returns, Foster Dulles confirmed last week that wholesale violations are going on north of the line. They are not massive enough, he added, to justify resuming the war. Dulles said that the N.N.S.C. was hamstrung, that the disgusted Swiss and Swedes would like to pull out. He also revealed that exploratory talks had been held at Geneva on abolition of the N.N.S.C. (a move which would make the struggle for information a straight contest between the intelligence services of both sides). Since the present N.N.S.C. operations are a substantial net benefit to the Reds, they are most unlikely to agree to any proposals to abolish it.

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