FRANKFURT, Germany, Dec. 1, 1950 (UP) - Gen. of Army Douglas MacArthur said today that his United Nations forces are fighting in Korea against "military odds without precedent in history" and warned that failure to meet the issue there will leave it to "be fought, and possibly lost, on the battlefields of Europe."
Gen. MacArthur cabled me from Tokyo in response to a message I had sent him on Tuesday from Paris.
I told the general that after conferring with European statesmen I had found they saw war in Asia as a nightmare regarding the successful organization of European defense.
In his reply Gen. MacArthur declared that from the beginning every effort had been made to "further the universal desire that the (Korean) war be localized." He said that throughout the war against the North Koreans "we meticulously respected and held involate the international boundary, and I at no time even recommended that authority be granted to retaliate behind it."
As to the opinion in Europe the general said:
"There appears to be a general failure, intentional or from misinformation, to comprehend the mission prescribed for this command by resolutions of the United Nations of which their governments were joint architects and directors, or fairly recognize that in success or adversity this command has proceeded unerringly in compliance with controlling policies and directives."
Gen. MacArthur said he could only attribute such comments to a "somewhat selfish, though most short-sighted viewpoint."
"To the European," he said, "the welfare and security of Europe is naturally paramount. He has no fear of attack from the west, solely from the east.
"It is not unusual, therefore, that he sees in every dedication of friendly resource toward the stabilization of Asia, a subtraction from that available for the betterment and security of Europe.
"This, of course, is fallacious reasoning.
"Any breach of freedom in the East carries with it a sinister threat to freedom in the West.
"The issue is a global one and failure to comprehend this fact carries the germs of freedom's ultimate destruction. If the fight is not waged with courage and individual determination to meet the challenge here, it will indeed be fought, and possibly lost, on the battlefields of Europe.
"Every strategic and tactical movement made by the United Nations command has been in complete accordance with United Nations resolutions and in compliance with the directive under which I operate, every major step having been previously reported and fully approved."
He said he had received no suggestion from any authoritative source that United Nations troops should stop at the 38th parallel, at Pyongyang or any other line short of the Manchurian border.
"It is historically inaccurate," he said, "to attribute any degree of responsibility for the onslaught of the Chinese Communist armies to the strategic course of the campaign itself."
