The Evening Star (February 10, 1946)
Editorial: Speedup in Korea?
Now that a joint Russian-American military commission has been established in Korea, there seems some reason to hope for a much-needed speedup in coordinating the administrative and economic affairs of that sorely tried country. Ever since the defeat of Japan, the Koreans have seen their land split in two, with the Red Army occupying the industrial north, with our forces occupying the agricultural south, and with an impassable barrier between. The effect of this arbitrary division – which the Russians apparently have been reluctant to dissolve – has been to impede reconstruction and create suspicion. It is heartening, therefore, that the new commission has just announced a decision to start putting an end to this unfortunate situation, in accordance with the agreement reached last December at the Moscow meeting of the Big Three foreign ministers.
A second function of the commission – as also set forth in the Moscow agreement – is to help form a provisional native government of representative democratic elements, and to work with that government in drawing up proposals for a trusteeship to be controlled by Britain, China, the Soviet Union and the United States “for a period up to five years.” Economically and politically, very little can be accomplished in Korea until these matters are acted upon. Up to now there has been too much slow motion in handling the whole problem, and certainly the Koreans, after their long and bitter experience under the Japanese, have a right to believe that the time has come when their liberation should be less of a promise and more of a fact. The new Russian-American commission, if the Moscow agreement means what it says, ought to lose no time in taking all possible steps to this end.