Summary
The Kaesong talks dragged on through the summer of 1951 without much
progress. In late July, the US started bombing Pyongyang in an effort to
speed up the negotiating process, but the bombings had little effect. On August
19, the Communists complained to the UN that UN forces had illegally entered the
neutral Kaesong area. Matthew Ridgway called the Communist delegates liars,
and refused to apologize for the supposed violation of the Kaesong zone.
Following this insult, the Communists stopped negotiating and the talks at
Kaesong ended without any compromises having been worked out.
By October, the Communists were ready to resume talks, but both sides agreed to
move them to a new location, at Panmunjom. The talks initiated there on
October 25. Some concessions were immediately made. For instance, the
Communists gave up demanding a dividing line directly on the 38th
Parallel and accepted a line slightly to the north.
The US, for its part, agreed that North Korea would get Kaesong, important
symbolically as an ancient capital of Korea.
The talks bogged down, however, over the issue of what to do with POWs
(Prisoners of War), and even by 1952 the issue wasn't resolved. The Communists,
whose forces had suffered a severe disease epidemic, accused the US of using
"germ bombs" to make them sick. Tensions soared and little progress was made in
the first half of 1952. Admiral C. Turner Joy, an American negotiator at
Panmunjom, became so sick of the negotiations that he asked to be replaced.
On April 28, the US finally decided to offer new terms to the Communists. If
the USSR would drop its claim of neutrality and the Communists would allow the
US/UN/ROK to give their POWs a choice as to whether to return to the Communist
bloc, the US was prepared to allow North Koreans to repair and maintain air
bases. When the negotiations remained slow, the US started more bombing in
June, this time against hydroelectric power plants on the Yalu River. In
July, the US sent bombers against Pyongyang again. Nonetheless, by October of
1952, a peace treaty seemed as far off as ever.
The 1952 Presidential election in the US, which pitted Democrat Adlai Stevenson
against World War II hero and former NATO
commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, was seen as a
referendum on Korea. Truman, who had by now
served almost 8 years as President, had decided not to run again. In November,
Eisenhower won by a landslide, and took his easy victory as a mandate to "get
out of Korea" as soon as possible.
Why did the negotiations take so long? By the time talks at Kaesong began,
Truman wanted to end the war. However, some people in his administration may
have wanted to see the war drag on, so that they would have further reason to
push for military budget increases as suggested by NSC-
68. The Communists also contributed to the
deadlock, partially because they did not want to back down from their initial
demands for fear of losing face. Since neither side wanted to make concessions
and appear weak, both sides were responsible for drawing out the talks.
