Eisenhower: Peace with Honour

Abstract

The immediate effect of the Republican victory was to encourage those who hoped for a military solution. Rhee had distrusted Truman ever since the removal of MacArthur. He disliked the truce talks which threatened his country with a new partition and hoped that Republican rhetoric about liberation would be translated into action. According to Rhee, Truman was a leader with ‘cold feet’ who had pursued a ‘cowardly policy’ in Korea. The only real alternatives were for the US to advance to the Yalu or else to withdraw. He hoped that Eisenhower would begin his first term by bombing Manchuria.¹ The possibility of escalation was also entertained by Clark, who had experienced his own frustrations since his appointment in April 1952. Clark inherited Ridgway’s problem of maintaining pressure on the enemy without incurring unacceptable costs. He attempted to solve it by intensified bombing and by a larger Asian contribution to the ground war. In July 1952 he recommended the expansion of the ROK army beyond the ten divisions agreed in 1951 and the introduction of two Chinese nationalist divisions to the battlefront.² Guomindong forces were politically unacceptable, but in October 1952 the authorised strength of the ROK army was increased to twelve divisions — after US losses had become an issue in the election campaign.³