The United Nations Security Council is the world's most important decision-making body on issues of international peace and security. This book by Bailey and Daws is the definitive study of its procedures, now in a third edition. It is well-written and based on superb scholarship. Anyone who works on Council issues must refer to this important volume.

This book is a breezy and very readable discussion of the Korean War and the political maneuverings of the combatants at the truce negotiations. Bailey's discussion of the talks makes them appear quite dynamic and productive until the introduction of the POW/Repatriation issue. This is the author's main focus and makes the book worth reading.

Article 118 of the 3rd Geneva Convention of 1949 states that POWs shall

BE RELEASED AND REPATRIATED WITHOUT DELAY AFTER CESSATION OF ACTIVE HOSTILITIES.

It was this position that suggested to some, such as Turner Joy, chief US negotiator the the talks, that the repatriation issue should not be on the agenda at the truce talks since a truce was exclusively an agreement to stop the fighting. Repatriation occurred after, not during, truce discussions. However, quoting from a British Gov't White Paper analyzing article 118, Bailey continues...

"THE LANGUAGE CANNOT MEAN MORE THAN IT ACTUALLY SAYS. THE TERM USED IS 'RELEASED AND REPATRIATED' AND THIS DOES NOT MEAN FORCIBLY REPATRIATED, WHICH WOULD BE FOREIGN TO THE WHOLE SPIRIT OF THE CONVENTION. IT WAS TRUE THAT THE CONFERENCE AT WHICH THE POW CONVENTION HAD BEEN ADOPTED...."

considered this possibility. But they felt it could only be a rare occurence. The Convention was intended to help POWs and ...

AS LONG AS OBJECTION TO REPATRIATION WAS GENUINE, THE RIGHT TO ASYLUM COULD BE HELD TO PREVAIL OVER THE NORMAL OBLIGATION TO REPATRIATE. "

Sorry for the legalese but Bailey's book is a good attempt to make clear the basis for the UN/US stand on refusing to repatriate unwilling Chinese and NKPA forces. Bailey suggests that in a conflict of rights--repatriation vs. asylum-- the latter is controlling.

Nonetheless it does not address Joy's primary objection: the purpose of the truce is just to stop the fighting No matter how uncomfortable or uncertain the post truce outcome on the POW issue might be, it had no business on the agenda as an item. The language in Article 118 is quite clear that repatriation--of ANY KIND-- does not occur until the hostilities have stopped. In short we put the cart before the horse. In the endless months the negotiations bogged down on this issue, countless casualties and deaths resulted. In a war with far more than its share of tragedies and arrogance on the part of both sides, this was perhaps the greatest.

While many people will read this book and use it as an analysis of the pros and cons of coalition warfare/coalition diplomacy, it is somewhat less than that. Before a country or an alliance can begin negotiations, it must have clearly stated objectives and a clear sense of what it feels is worth fighting for and what it feels is worth negotiating away. Thus in Desert Storm a military decision was reached not to go all the way to Baghdad, and we stuck to it. The Korean War, in contrast, is an example of pragmatism run amok: Truman discards years of JCS analysis that 'Korea isn't strategically important to the US.' Along the way he tramples congress' exclusive right to declare war. Acheson abandons his own claim six months before that 'Korea is outside the US Sphere of influence.' MacArthur says the NKPA will run from the sight of Americans, then suddenly he needs every soldier in the Far East. First we won't cross the parallel..then its up to the UN, then its up to MacArthur, then we're in deep doo-doo (as a latter day pragmatist president might say, in his own little undeclared venture) 200 miles inside enemy territory.

I remember once hearing a Korean War vet say he left to ragtime and came home to rock'n roll. Of course the real tragedy is that 35,000 never came home at all. Within a decade another war, again undeclared, ultimately to claim 56,000. The real danger of coalition warfare, and fighting under the UN umbrella, is that it provides the Chief Executive with political cover so he can avoid seeking congressional approval. Dangerous...very very dangerous. Those who distrust coalition warfare and placing US forces under a UN flag are not neo-isolationist radicals. They simply ask that a President who feels the blood of American men (and women) is worth the dignity of a Congressional Declaration of War.