Trainman News

The NEW YORK TIMES declared in a Page 1 story Nov. 16:

"The unauthorized publication of a report that Communists have killed more than 2,500 U. S. prisoners of war in Korea during the last year caused more trouble and confusion in official quarters here today than any development since the dismissal of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur."

"Families of men missing or taken prisoner in Korea besieged the Pentagon for information on the authenticity of the atrocities report, put out yesterday from Pusan by Col. James M. Hanley, chief of the War Crimes Section of the Eighth Army Judge Advocate General's office."

"Representatives of other Allied nations with troops in Korea appealed to the State Department for an explanation of the report and why it had been published at a critical moment in the armistice negotiations in Korea."

Continuing, The TIMES observed:

"Ever since the Communists agreed to abandon the 38th Parallel as the cease-fire line and to meet the United States demand that the cease-fire line should be roughly where the battle lines now stand (considerably north of the 38th Parallel), there has been some feeling, not only within other Allied Governments, but within the U. S. Government, that the U. S. military negotiators were quibbling over details and prolonging the discussions unnecessarily."

"Several days ago, it appeared that a compromise finally had been arranged on the cease-fire line, at which time Secretary of State at United Nations meetings in Paris, attacked the Chinese Communists for conduct below the level of 'barbarians.'"

"When this attack was followed during the critical moment of the armistice negotiations by the publication of Colonel Hanley's atrocities report, even officials here conceded that it might look to the world as if the United States was purposely trying to avoid a cease-fire in Korea."

For a long time it has appeared that those who represent the United States in the long, drawn-out, fruitless negotiations in Korea were getting nowhere because they were devoid of Know How. Military men around a peace table are as out of place as would be a priest pleading for more and faster divorces.

It would appear also that the whole thing has been carelessly handled, needlessly disturbed and complicated by ill-timed, tactless, uncalled for blasts by men in high places in Washington who will not go down in history as great conciliators.

While all this goes on, we can't forget that more than 1,350 members of the Brotherhood are serving in the armed forces of the United States and Canada and many sons and daughters and other relatives of BRTers are in service. Some Brotherhood members have given their lives in Korea.

Of this one thing we are very sure, the American people are united in their heartfelt desire to have this blundering halted.

They want the undeclared war concluded one way or the other - on the battlefield or at the peace table and NOW.