Word: truce
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Syngman Rhee, Korea's veteran fighter for freedom, sat on a stone bench in his garden at Seoul. He still spoke against the truce, but his talk now was dull and resigned. There had been some fear that his ROK troops might refuse to withdraw from the buffer zone-but they ceased fire along with their U.N. comrades in arms (see below). Syngman Rhee, whose opposition might have wrecked the truce if the Communist hunger for a truce had not been voracious, now declared: "My desire is strong not to follow unilateral policy if it can be avoided...
...last, irritations and uncertainties had persisted.. General Mark Clark, who flew from Tokyo to Seoul in his Constellation, had expected to sign the truce at Panmunjom, with Kim II Sung and Peng Teh-huai (the North Korean and Chinese commanders) as the other signatories. But for this, the Reds made unacceptable conditions: no South Koreans or reporters could be present...
...Clark signed alone in a tin-roofed movie hall at Munsan, the allied truce base, three hours after the Panmunjom signing, and Kim and Peng presumably signed in their own lair at Pyongyang. Behind Clark, ramrod stiff, jaws clamped tight, sat ROK Major General Choi Duk Shin. Spotting him after the signing, Clark said, "I'm glad you came." "Thank you," said General Choi...
...across the front, hours after the : truce agreement was signed, the big guns roared. U.N. artillerymen were under orders not to shoot unless shot at. The Reds, however, wanted to slug it out until the 10 p.m. bell. The Communists fired round after round at U.N. trenches; the Eighth Army guns fired back at the Red cannon. Said one marine wounded on the last day: "I guess those fellows on the other side didn't get the word...
EACH side made important concessions. The Communists suffered their first setbacK at the truce table even before the agenda was adopted in July 1951. The enemy wanted to discuss withdrawal of all "foreign" (U.N. and Chinese) troops from Korea. The U.N. negotiators refused, and the matter was left off the agenda for possible solution at a post-truce political conference. The second defeat of the Communists was the breaking down of their demand for a truce line on the 38th parallel. The third-and greatest-was their failure to win repatriation of prisoners unwilling to return to Communist control...