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"No earnest attempt has been made to seek a basic political solution," Bevan roared. He had his own formula for peace in the Far East, and he announced it without giving credit to the Russian and Chinese Communists who have been mouthing it since the truce talks began. Its sum: call off the American jingo-dogs and give the Communists what they want. "If the American Administration will . . . give effective assurances to the Chinese People's government that they accept the Chinese revolution as an accomplished fact; that they are prepared to accept China on the [U.N.] Security Council; that they are prepared to disband Chiang Kai-shek's forces in Formosa and not connive...in a counter-revolutionary movement...the armistice could succeed quite easily."
What was most jarring about the Bevanite accusations and innuendoes was that they seemed to be a more outspoken expression of what a lot of other Britons were thinking, including many who should know better. "I cannot possibly support [Eden] on his lying down to the contempt with which he is treated by the U.S.," cried onetime Defense Minister Emanuel Shinwell, who as Laborites go is often ranked as a moderate. "To take action of this particular kind in this particular place and at this particular time without any consultation," said the Economist in a hand-wringing editorial, "is a capital blunder. It will revive (however unjustly) all the suspicions of the other free nations that the Americans are trigger-happy." The anti-American New Statesman and Nation, which talks habitually from the far left of Labor, called the Yalu River raid "a crime." "Unfortunately," cried the New Statesman, "this is not the first occasion on which this kind of sinister intervention has taken place. We recall General MacArthur's offensives...each delicately timed to scotch peace talks and provoke Chinese intervention...For two years the British have shown exemplary patience and loyalty to an ally. That patience and loyalty have been exploited while the purposes for which the United Nations entered the Korean war have been confused and perverted."
The Defense. Only a few Britons rose to give their ill-informed countrymen a straight picture. Just back from a tour of the Korean battlefronts with Defense Minister Lord Alexander, Minister of State Selwyn Lloyd retorted with annoyance: "This idea of a collection of bellicose, irresponsible Americans thirsting to extend the war is a gross injustice to a very fine body of men." Tory M.P. Fitzroy Maclean, who parachuted into Yugoslavia in 1943 to head the British mission to Tito, spoke up in the House. "Many honorable members," he snapped "...were extremely censorious in 1938 and 1939 about the policy of appeasement which was followed by the then government. . . Why do they feel differently about it when [aggression] is committed by a Communist country?"