Word: 38th
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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What is the U.S. willing to settle for in Korea? Testifying before the MacArthur investigating committee, Secretary of State Dean Acheson gave a surprising answer: the U.S. will be content to stop the fighting at the 38th parallel. It will be willing to leave North Korea in Communist hands, so long as there are "reliable assurances" that the Communists will not renew their aggression. A "unified, free and democratic Korea" is not one of U.S. war aims...
Asked New Jersey's Senator H. Alexander Smith: "Does that suggest the possibility of a cease-fire at or near the 38th parallel?" Said Acheson: "If you could have a real settlement, that would accomplish the military purposes in Korea...
...truce. Echoing Dean Acheson (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), U.N. Secretary General Trygve Lie said in a speech at Ottawa: "The time has come for a new effort to end the fighting in Korea." Now that the aggressors had been thrown back, said Lie, a truce might be arranged at the 38th parallel. "The way is open for a cease-fire if the North Koreans and their supporters . . . are ready to join with the United Nations in stopping the bloodshed." (He added that if the Communists refused, U.N. members would have to contribute additional forces for continued...
Only the week before, Van Fleet had spoken far more boldly about disregarding the 38th parallel and stabbing into North Korea. Was he now trying for a truce with the enemy? Van Fleet hastily issued a second statement asserting that he had only outlined a tactical situation. His remarks, which may or may not have been suggested by Washington, would in fact fit in with various efforts on the international scene to obtain a truce (see above). But the plain military fact in Korea was that the Chinese Communists themselves, not the U.N. forces, had ended the "pursuit phase...
While U.S. forces are trying to hold Western Europe and Asia, Communism might turn the flank from Iran. An American engineer, an old Iran hand, put it this way: "The 38th parallel runs right through Iran. We wouldn't even have to learn a new name...