Slow Progress at Kaesong •
The ineradicable distrust with which each delegation regards the other continues to prolong fatiguingly the truce talks at Kaesong. The Communists are holding out for a demilitarised zone, twelve and a hall miles wide, along the 38th Parallel ; the representatives of the United Nations want a wider zone, to be established along the front as it exists at present. For the greater part of its. length this front runs well to the north of the Parallel, so that the U.N. proposals envisage the continued occupation of some North Korean territory after the cease-fire has been sounded. The Communists are unfortunately com- mitted to maintaining in the eyes of their own people the fiction that they are negotiating from strength and not (as is in fact the case) from weakness ; and it is certain that any compromise in- volving the withdrawal of U.N. forces from ground which they had won in battle would be energetically exploited in support of this pretence by the Chinese and North Korean, propaganda ser- vices. It is probably this consideration, rather than the tactical- topographical reasons officially advanced, which is, the principld reason for the obduracy of Admiral Joy and his colleagues. This obduracy is well justified, and the fact that it is bound to lead to delay, frustration and impatience is probably Worth accepting. Although the negotiations are going (as they generally do in the East) very slowly, they have at least produced an agreed agenda ; and the Fifth Air Force daily and nightly reminds the enemy that he is losing more from the delays than we are.
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