The Communist-inspired invasion of South Korea by the North Korean Communists was a trial balloon let loose by the Soviet and Chinese Communists to determine how far the United States and the United Nations would go before buying an all-out Asiatic war. It was a trick from the start, to draw U. S. and UN forces foremost into the area from which the U. S. had withdrawn in 1949. Once committed, and once having dispatched American—and a trickle of UN soldiers into South Korea, the chances were that they could be kept there indefinitely. We were permitted, early in the conflict, to cross the arbitrary 38th parallel, and to proceed at great difficulty and even greater loss of life, to the borders of Manchuria. Then, in typical Communist fashion, they struck back in the evening, almost, of our declaration of all but total victory. One need only to glance at a map of Korea to realize that the Communists, Soviet and Chinese, are in a position to pour millions of men into North Korea, dressed as Koreans or otherwise, at their will. How could we hope to do anything of a permanent nature in unifying Korea against the Communists? The Korean patriot Kim Koo, shortly before his assassination and replying to a question put to him by Representative Walter Judd said: “It doesn’t make any difference what you (the U. S.) do now. There just isn’t any way to get Korea so that she can be independent and secure and self-sustaining, until you solve the Communist problem across the border in Manchuria.” We solved that problem by giving that prize to the Soviets. It was Russia’s price for entering the war, the last six days of it, as an ally, even though it was rather generally known that Japan was ready to surrender. For every life that may have been spared by the signing of the questionable Yalta agreement, thousands of American and Korean GI’s, and Korean civilians are now dead, dying and maimed. This little Florida-shaped country of Korea, cut up by outsiders, is a tragic example of failure to think beyond military objectives. We cannot defend Korea from Russian attack without an all-out war. We can only prolong the agony. If it was right for us to leave Korea in 1949, can we, honestly, justify our re-entry there in 1950—at the price we have paid? There yet remain other fates to be decided—Formosa, the Philippines and numerous islands of the Pacific, whether we occupy them or not. Have we not already proven that, “It is fantastic to imagine that we can convert our enemies into our friends by treating our friends as if they were our enemies”?