NEWS OF THE WEEK
Korean War and Peace
The determined drive, the air and sea predominance and the large reserves of the United Nations forces do not leave the final issue, after the capture of Pyongyang, in much doubt, but it would be unwise to assume that there will be no diffi- culty whatever in the hills which cover the frontier between Korea and Manchuria and the Soviet Union. Yet it still remains doubtful whether the most difficult tasks facing the United Nations are military. On the political' side there exists only the skeleton of a plan in three stages. In the first there will probably be a temporary administration, largely preoccupied with questions of relief and military security, and no doubt under the close supervision of General MacArthur ; in the second there will be elections controlled by the Unified Nations, and, if common sense is followed, covering both North and South Korea ; and in the third the Koreans will take over the government of their own country, with a mini- mum of outside advice. This scheme has already been dis- cussed by an interim committee of the General Assembly. Since its first phase can " hardly be disentangled from the last phase of the war, and Since the last phase of the war was the subject at the head of the list in President Truman's Wake Island meeting with General MacArthur, it is safe to assume that it will be handled with firmness. A little firmness certainly would be appropriate in dealing with the pretensions' of Mr. Singman Rhee, who, apparently unaware of the flaws in his writ in South Korea is asserting that it should now run in North korea.
