Some had labeled Eisenhower’s statement, “I will go to Korea” as a mere pre-election gesture. The general intended to act on this pledge and, following his election, began a four-day visit to Korea on 2 December 1952. Part of the President-elect’s brief tour in Korea was spent at General Pollock’s command post. Here, on 3 December, the Marine ground chief briefed his future Commander in Chief on current Marine division operations. Generals Clark, Van Fleet, and Kendall accompanied Eisenhower and his party. This included General of the Army Omar Bradley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as Charles E. Wilson and Herbert Brownell, Jr., the new designates for Secretary of Defense and Attorney General, respectively. Though General Eisenhower’s promise to visit Korea personally to see the situation first-hand and his subsequent election had renewed American hopes for an early peace in Korea, negotiations there had been deadlocked since 1951 on the exchange of prisoners. Disagreement on this issue thus became the major obstacle which was not overcome until the truce was signed nearly 20 months later. The Communists insisted on repatriation to their native land of all NKPA and CCF prisoners held by the United Nations Command. More than 60,000 of the 132,000 enemy captives held by the UNC in South Korean POW camps did not wish to return to Communism, a fact which had been borne out by a UN survey. To draw attention from this unpopular position the Communists, through the civil and military links existing in the POW camps, had staged a series of riots in the spring of 1952. The worst, at Koje Island (just off the coast of Pusan) lasted six days, largely because the Communist prisoners planned for, and successfully carried out, the capture of the UN camp commander. His release, on 12 May, was effected only after the new commander signed, under duress, a statement which the Communists immediately exploited in an effort to discredit the validity of the prisoner survey. The propaganda gains had enabled the Communists to occupy a commanding position at the truce talks. In the meantime, the UN had offered several plans until, on 28 April, Admiral Joy presented “what we called our final package proposal.”[308] By instituting the tactic of calling a recess whenever the Communists had nothing constructive to offer, a recommendation of Admiral Joy’s, the UN regained the advantage of the conference table. The talks continued but with no appreciable progress. On 8 October 1952, after continued Communist intransigence, Brigadier General William K. Harrison, who had become the senior UN delegate in late May, took the initiative in recessing the truce talks. This unexpected action, which caught the enemy off-guard, followed three separate proposals made by Harrison for ending the POW controversy. All had been promptly rejected by the Communist delegation. As General Harrison had informed one of its spokesmen, the North Korean General Nam Il: