NO VICTORY IN KOREA

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27569, 28 January 1955, Page 13

NO VICTORY IN KOREA

Reasons Advanced By U.S. Committee

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) c, WASHINGTON, January 26. A Senate Sub-Committee reported today on an investigation into why the United Nations failed to gain a decisive victory m Korea, and suggested the reasons be kept in mind in developing a Formosa policy. The report, from the Senate Internal Security Sub-Committee, said that five senior military commanders in the Korean war all believed “possible subversion wishful thinking, European orientation and Allied pressure denied them victory.” The unanimous report was based on testimony taken from General Mark Clark, Lieutenant-General George Stratemeyer, General James Van Fleet, Lieutenant-General Edmond Almond, and Admiral Charles Joy, all of whom held top command post in the Korean war theatre. All of the officers, now retired, testified at public hearings between August and December last year. The sub-committee said that the testimony of all the five showed they believed that victory in Korea had been possible and desirable, and that the action required to achieve victory would not have, resulted in a third world war.

Also, the sub-committee said, the former military commanders believed that “political considerations were permitted to over-rule military necessities,” and that failure to win in Koroea had jeopardised the position, of the United States in the Far East. The sub-committee recommended that its report and the record of the hearing be brought at once to the attention of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees, now considering President Eisenhower’s request for Congressional backing of his policy to fight if necessary to defend Formosa and the Pescadores Islands.