細節
TRUMAN, Harry S. Typed letter signed ("Harry S. Truman"), as President, to Rep. Edith Nourse Rogers, Washington, 10 December 1951. 1 page, 4to, on White House stationery.
TRUMAN ANSWERS AN ANGRY CONGRESSWOMAN'S DEMAND FOR ACTION AGAINST THE PERPETRATORS OF WAR CRIMES IN KOREA: "I appreciated your telegram of December eighth very much," Truman tells the Massachusetts Republican, "and nobody is more anxious to see justice done with regard to the reported atrocities in Korea than I am but it is not possible to punish people when you have no way of obtaining possession of them for the purpose of punishment. I hope before we get through with the situation that we will be in a position to mete out justice to those who perpetrated those terrible atrocities." The Korean War was filled with all too many ghastly stories of killed and tortured prisoners and civilians. A postwar study of POW atrocities by Senator Charles E. Potter (a double amputee World War II vet) found that "Approximately two-thirds of all American prisoners of war in Korea died due to war crimes." An even higher percentage of South Korean troops died in captivity, over 80 percent, comprising some 15,000 victims.
General MacArthur set up a War Crimes Division back in July 1950, when the first reports of atrocities reached the U. N. Command. He hoped to compile evidence that could be used in prosecuting offenders. But, as Truman notes here, there was little to be done while the fighting raged. Just a few weeks after this letter, in January 1952, Truman made a fateful decision: no North Korean prisoners would be repatriated back to the North against their will. "We will not buy an armistice by turning over human beings for slaughter or slavery," he said. This complicated efforts to achieve a peace settlement, but in light of the proven record of atrocities by Communist captors, and recalling the brutality which Stalin meted out to his own returning Soviet POWs after World War II, Truman would not change his position on this issue.
TRUMAN ANSWERS AN ANGRY CONGRESSWOMAN'S DEMAND FOR ACTION AGAINST THE PERPETRATORS OF WAR CRIMES IN KOREA: "I appreciated your telegram of December eighth very much," Truman tells the Massachusetts Republican, "and nobody is more anxious to see justice done with regard to the reported atrocities in Korea than I am but it is not possible to punish people when you have no way of obtaining possession of them for the purpose of punishment. I hope before we get through with the situation that we will be in a position to mete out justice to those who perpetrated those terrible atrocities." The Korean War was filled with all too many ghastly stories of killed and tortured prisoners and civilians. A postwar study of POW atrocities by Senator Charles E. Potter (a double amputee World War II vet) found that "Approximately two-thirds of all American prisoners of war in Korea died due to war crimes." An even higher percentage of South Korean troops died in captivity, over 80 percent, comprising some 15,000 victims.
General MacArthur set up a War Crimes Division back in July 1950, when the first reports of atrocities reached the U. N. Command. He hoped to compile evidence that could be used in prosecuting offenders. But, as Truman notes here, there was little to be done while the fighting raged. Just a few weeks after this letter, in January 1952, Truman made a fateful decision: no North Korean prisoners would be repatriated back to the North against their will. "We will not buy an armistice by turning over human beings for slaughter or slavery," he said. This complicated efforts to achieve a peace settlement, but in light of the proven record of atrocities by Communist captors, and recalling the brutality which Stalin meted out to his own returning Soviet POWs after World War II, Truman would not change his position on this issue.