withdraw several miles from the line of contact to create a buffer zone, the Eighth Army must be well forward of Line Kansas at the time an agreement was reached. Ridgway agreed that Line Kansas would be the best location for the Eighth Army if armistice negotiations started soon and assured Van Fleet that if possible he would advise him of forthcoming negotiations in time to allow him to move at least part of his forces to a line of contact above Kansas. At the same time, since remaining behind a self-imposed line could prove exceedingly costly if the PVA/KPA leadership refused to negotiate or if they protracted negotiations while they prepared a major offensive, Ridgway directed his own planning staff to explore, as a long range matter, the feasibility and possible profits of penetrating more deeply into North Korea. The staff considered various schemes of maneuver, selecting objective lines on the basis of whether they could be held as cease-fire lines and weighing in particular the logistical problems that would attend advancing to them. Of several concepts developed, Ridgway favored one posing a three-phase offensive to occupy the Pyongyang-Wonsan line. The first phase called for an advance on Wonsan in two columns, one moving up the east coast road, the other over the Seoul-Wonsan axis. In the second step, an amphibious force was to land at Wonsan to assist the overland advance. In the finale, Eighth Army forces would drive northwestward and seize Pyongyang. Ridgway passed the outline to Van Fleet and instructed him to submit detailed plans for the operation by 10 July. Ridgway had had his planning staff plot an outpost line above Line Kansas and a "cease-fire" line another ten miles forward. By occupying the deeper line the Eighth Army would be able to make a ten-mile withdrawal from the line of contact, a withdrawal that an armistice agreement might require and still retain its Kansas positions and a suitable outpost line of resistance. On 25 June Ridgway sent a staff officer to Korea to get Van Fleet's views on seizing the proposed cease-fire line. Two weeks earlier Van Fleet had considered such an Eighth Army advance essential, but now, in view of the recent hard fighting to reach the Iron Triangle and the Punchbowl, he advised against the deeper move as potentially too costly. On 26 June Ridgway went to Korea, where after further discussing