a conference in this first battle over the order of discussion of items. Quite often, they are correct.

The Communists did their best to put the onus of world opinion on the United States for holding up the talks at Panmunjom over the precise order of the agenda before they would even begin to negotiate the political conference. People unfamiliar with negotiations with the Communists often ask, "What difference does it make which item you take up first?" The answer is that if you once agree to the Communist order you cannot go on to the next item until you have yielded to the Communist wishes on the first.

The United Nations side quite logically pointed out that the date, the place and other matters to be discussed at the "political conference"but not its membership-were the proper subjects for the discussions. The Korean Armistice Agreement itself had already determined the question of membership.

Although it was generally known that the Soviets were the planners of the Communist attack on South Korea, Peking proposed that the Soviet Union be invited to the conference as a "neutral." So it wanted. the United States to admit before the world that the Soviet Union was "neutral." Eleven consecutive meetings at Panmunjom were spent in arguing whether "neutrals" including the Soviet Union could come to the political conference and take part in all its activities. I pointed out that if neutrals were to participate as full members they would be in a position to exercise great influence over the course of the conference but would not be responsible for implementing its decisions. I also suggested several alternative sites for the conference but the Communists held out for Panmunjom despite its inaccessibility and lack of facilities.

I then proposed that the chief delegations of each side agree to turn the matter over to their deputies. Six of these second-level meetings were held-in secret, without propaganda or provocation, in a pragmatic and businesslike way with some give and take.

A new agenda, combining the issues of composition and date and place of the conference, was put forward by the U.N. Again the Communists rejected the proposal. After several days of denunciation, the Communists submitted their revised agenda. In fact, the two versions were almost identical. A compromise was soon reached.

Thereupon, the talks spent the next four weeks, for five or six hours a day, in an attempt to reach agreement on the three simple matters we had started with: the date, the location and the make-up of the political conference.

Military and civilian advisers of General Thimayya could, of course, lunch or dine with the Communists. Some of them, in fact, went to Peking to see Premier Chou En-lai. One night at dinner, General Thimayya told me that some of his staff had been informed by the Communists that they never intended to come to an agreementthat they intended to change their position, as soon as an agreement was reached, so that the burden of not bringing about a lasting peace in Korea would be on the United States. This was reported to Washington and caused great concern,

It is exceedingly interesting, in view of the current Sino-Soviet split, to note in retrospect the intense argument that the American and Chinese Communist representatives conducted for many days in 1953 at Panmunjom on the role of the Soviet Union in the proposed political conference on Korea. While the United Nations could not accept the idea of the Soviet Union's being designated as a "neutral," the Communists vehemently rejected the U.N. proposal that the Soviet Union attend as a full voting participant on the Communist side. It seemed apparent that the Chinese Communists did not wish the Soviet Union actually to be at the political conference as a "participant."

Indeed, the representatives of Peking contended that the Soviet Union could not come as a participant on either side, but must come as a neutral with no vote and remain unaccountable to the conference for its past or future actions with regard to Korea. This seemed to be a peculiar, uncharacteristic and unrealistic role for the Soviets at a political conference of this importance.

Originally, the United Nations delegation thought this demand was prompted by a desire to help Moscow conceal its actual role in the Korean war. Later, we came to believe it showed Peking's preference for keeping the Russians at arm's length. We decided to probe this possibility, and submitted many scholarly-even satirical-definitions of the word "neutral" in order to ridicule the Soviet role and twit the Chinese.

Huang Hua, the Chinese chief negotiator, and Pu Shouch'ng, his Harvard-educated official interpreter, both understood instantly everything that was said in English. They thus had some advantage over me, although Colonel Ekvall, who sat at my elbow, gave me a minute-by-minute translation of what was being said.

Huang Hua habitually called me a capitalistic crook, rapist, thief, robber of widows, stealer of pennies from the eyes of the dead, mongrel of uncertain origin, and so on and so on.

If Huang had used one epithet it is possible that I might have lost my temper. But when one is called 50 or 60 filthy names in rapid succession it becomes ludicrous rather than annoying.

One day, after making many charges of murder, etc., against President Syngman Rhee, President Eisenhower, Secretary of State Dulles and me, he said in Chinese that I had blood on my hands and was a murderer lying in the gutter with filthy garbage, wallowing in the filth of a ram-that there was a saying in Chinese that a man was known by the company he keeps, and that my South Korean companions were execrable, filthy, bloody, etc.

Huang's translater, Pu, became very embarrassed and declined to translate the tirade. At that, Huang's face became purple, the cords of his neck distended and he ordered Pu to translate. After much give and take between them (all of which Colonel Ekvall translated for our benefit) and to the great amusement of the Communist side, Pu finally translated into English that if a man eats lamb chops his breath smells of mutton.

As the tirades went on, I began to write out my replies so that Colonel Ekvall and Lieutenant Campen could begin to put them into workable Chinese and Korean. When the charges ran thick and fast, and replies had to be made on the spot, the translators on both sides of the narrow table became noticeably strained. Their throats became dry and their tongues seemed to thicken until they could not go on.

The talks finally broke down after approximately six weeks. On Dec. 8, 1953, I tabled a "Draft Over-All Agreement" which tried to meet many of the Chinese demands. The Communists instantly rejected it and left it lying on the table across the crease in the green baize. They continued to attack it for several days.

On Dec. 11 and 12 Huang Hua carried out a long and calculated harangue against my authority, reliability and sincerity. He read from carefully prepared, typewritten texts. The Communists denigrated the trustworthiness of the United States Government, accused it of "conniving" to violate agreements on the prisoners of war, and charged it with "treacherous designs" and "perfidious actions."

Several times, I proposed an adjournment to clear the air and end the harangue, but Huang Hua refused to grant the usual recess at 2 P.M., and insisted that the meetings should go on. He intensified his barrage of hostile statements, and the prepared attacks which he read appeared to grow in rudeness, vulgarity and ferocity. Tension mounted. The Chinese exchanged uneasy glances. Then, in the late afternoon, as the cold and dampness in the hut intensified and the shadows lengthened, Huang Hua branded the United States as perfidious, unfaithful, untrustworthy, and screamed pejoratives over and over again.

Calmly, I warned Huang that he was serving notice of an indefinite recess unless the charge of perfidy was instantly withdrawn. Then I added a significant new concession which could have guaranteed the holding of a conference. It was that South Korea would agree to attend a political conference-and abide by its decision-provided that the Soviet Union would also attend as a full participant. This statement was ignored and ridiculed.

Washington itself had begun to have serious doubts as to the advisability of continuing the talks, and had asked me to return to the United States for consultations-a fact Huang Hua undoubtedly knew from statements repeated on the Pyongyang radio. But it also had been suggested to me by Washington that if a fair and proper opportunity occurred I could adjourn or break off the meetings.

Huang's tirade increased. So I picked up my papers, walked out and thus unilaterally recessed the talks.

So ended the publicized talks at Panmunjom. By the end of January, 1954, all the Chinese, Korean and American prisoners held in custody by the United Nations Repatriation Commission were released without furor. After my departure, second-level discussions continued; official letters were exchanged. But within weeks, the Big Four-America, Russia, Britain, and France had agreed to discuss Far Eastern problems at Geneva. Thereupon, the Communist negotia

tors abandoned their pressed-mud hut in Panmunjom. At Geneva. East and West argued inconclusively about Korea-unification and nationwide free elections under U.N. supervision, and all that-for nearly two months. Then they turned to Indochina-where the French had just been defeated at Dienbienphu-and the matter of its partition into North and South Vietnam as regrouping zones for the military withdrawal purposes of both sides.

Now the United States is deeply involved in Vietnam. The over-all political conference for Korea never has been held. North and South Korea remain separated. An uneasy truce prevails. All other nations which contributed troops to the United Nations Command except Thailand have withdrawn, and Republic of Korea and American soldiers continue their uneasy patrol of the 38th parallel-15 years after the cease-fire talks began.

[From The First Vietnam Crisis: Chinese Communist Strategy and United States Involvement, 1953–1954. Copyright © 1967 by Columbia University Press. Reprinted by permission.]

CHINA'S PERCEPTION OF THE INDOCHINA CRISIS

1953-1954

By Melvin Gurtov

(Staff Member, Social Science Department, The RAND Corporation, specializing in the international relations of Communist China and Southeast Asia)

The collapse of American plans for involvement in Indochina at the eleventh hour provided a sharp contrast to the success of Communist China's trial run in the strategy of indirect aggression. Throughout the conflict, the Chinese seem to have followed a remarkably consistent and rational course designed to obtain important gains at minimal risks. In assuming the role of an active sanctuary, and then in pushing for negotiations at the moment of maximum advantage, Peking demonstrated that its fundamental re-evaluation of the world situation in the latter phases of the Korean War very definitely applied to Indochina.

Although, in the broadest sense, China's strategy in the Indochina war was guided by the overall shift to perception of a third, nonaligned world, and consequently to appreciation of the tactical uses of diplomacy, several immediate considerations were influential and deserve mention. Primarily, the maintenance of an active sanctuary status was dictated by the obvious fact that at no time after 1952 was the Vietminh in need of Chinese troop support. China's military assessment all along seems to have been that so long as American forces stayed out of the fighting the Vietminh guerrillas, technologically inferior but tactically superior, could win a hit-and-run war of attrition on the basis of Chinese advice and logistical support alone. Dulles was undoubtedly correct when he spoke of the deterrent effect of American warnings; but he omitted the essential point that the CPR [Chinese People's Republic], while doubtless impressed with United States preparedness to back its threats with deeds in the event of overt Chinese intervention, recognized the illogic attending direct involvement. As the Assistant Secretary for Far Eastern Affairs, Everett F. Drumright, observed in a marginal comment on a Dulles speech:

Note: The Viet Minh have been doing well without Chinese troops.
It is doubtful that Chinese would send their troops in when they are
not needed.
FE-EFD2

1 In his May 7, 1954 address, for example, Dulles observed that the Chinese "have, however, stopped short of open intervention. In this respect, they may have been deterred by the warnings which the United States has given that such intervention would lead to grave consequences which might not be confined to Indochina." Address by Dulles, May 7, 1954, in Dulles Papers [File I.B.].

The comment was made in response to the above-quoted statement on deterrence of the Chinese. See the copy of the May 7 address marked for Livingston J. Merchant (Assistant Secretary for European Affairs), "Draft-5/6/54," p. 21, ibid. Eden made essentially the same comment in 1952. See Anthony Eden, Full Circle (Boston, 1960), p. 92.