In his book “In Mortal Combat,” a fascinating account of the Korean War published two decades ago, author John Toland describes the frustration that drove United Nations Command negotiators nuts as they attempted to forge an armistice agreement with their North Korean and Chinese communist counterparts.
After more than 10 months of negotiations during the three-year war that ended in stalemate in July 1953, Adm. C. Turner Joy, senior United Nations Command negotiator at the talks, was convinced that it was hopeless to negotiate with the communists.
“It has been increasingly clear through these long-drawn-out conferences that any hope your side would bring good faith to these meetings was forlorn indeed,” he told the grim-faced crowd across the bargaining table. “From the very start, you have caviled over procedural details; you have manufactured spurious issues and placed them in controversy for bargaining purposes; you have denied the existence of agreements made between us when you found the fulfillment thereof not to your liking; you have made false charges based on crimes invented for your purposes; and you indulged in abuse and invective when all other tactics proved ineffective. … You impute to the United Nations Command the same suspicion, greed and deviousness which are your stock in trade. You search every word for a hidden meaning and every agreement for a hidden trap.”
So much for the niceties of diplomacy when dealing with an adversary that understands only tough talk. As I read the passage, it struck me that if you were to eliminate the reference to the United Nations Command and ask a dozen people off the street the source of the quotation, the prevailing guess might be that it belonged to some politician campaigning for public office in the pending Nov. 2 election.
Had you asked me, I might have speculated that it was one half of an exchange in the continuing unpleasantness involving President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader John Boehner, the Ohio Republican who aspires to become speaker of the House should Republicans regain control of that legislative body.
The sentiment expressed in Adm. Joy’s broadside would seem to be a good fit in Delaware, where the Republican candidate for a U.S. Senate seat has had to deny she is a witch, while her Democratic opponent fights insinuations arising from his self-description as a bearded Marxist back in the heady revolutionary days of his youth. That race has become somewhat of a circus, as have bitter campaigns in Nevada, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, California and elsewhere in this year of voter unhappiness.
The admiral’s line about the enemy having made false charges based on fictitious crimes, indulging in abuse and invective when all other tactics had failed, could have come from the mouth of almost any wronged candidate in this era of rampant negative advertising in which truth has often taken a holiday.
Republican Rand Paul, who is running for the U.S. Senate from Kentucky against Democrat Jack Conway, has made essentially the same points in that headline-grabbing brawl — the result of Conway casting accusations against Paul concerning a college prank that Paul was involved in decades ago.
Closer to home, Adm. Joy’s zinger painting the communists as imputing to United Nations negotiators “the same suspicion, greed and deviousness which are your stock in trade” has not yet been borrowed by any of the five candidates running for governor. But with nine days remaining until the election, there is still time for one of them to raise the level of debate by co-opting the phrase. Considering the allegations of campaign finance law violations, lies, distortions, half-truths and character assassination that are floating around, there should be ample opportunity.
After Adm. Joy had critiqued the job performance of his communist counterparts six decades ago, he announced that he was turning over the “unenviable job of further dealings” with them to Maj. Gen. William K. Harrison. “May God be with him,” Joy said, as he bid his tormentors adieu.
And with the rest of us, as well, in our unenviable job of first surviving the tsunami of saturation political advertising, charges and counter-charges that will be our lot until Nov. 2, and then picking a winner from this shopworn gaggle.
BDN columnist Kent Ward lives in Limestone. Readers may reach him by e-mail at olddawg@bangordailynews.com.