The War in Korea

As you can see from the map, Korea was a divided land.  Like the partition of Germany, the division of Korea was a war-wound: in 1945 the Japanese forces in the north of the peninsula had surrendered to Soviet armies, while those in the south had surrendered to the Americans.  The two great powers had then set up two separate regimes—a Communist dictatorship under Kim II Sung in the north, and a form of democracy, corrupted and misgoverned by President Syngman Rhee, in the south.  The USA and the USSR had then removed their own occupying forces, and left behind weapons and ‘military advisers’. 

In May 1950 there were small raids across the artificial border, in both directions.  Early in June the Northern government proposed the reunification of the country after a general election and at the same time strengthened their army with more Russian-built tanks.  Neither the USA nor the Soviet Union did anything to stifle the mounting risk of serious conflict in the peninsula.  Whatever the final cause, the friction between the two Koreas erupted into war on 25 June when the Northern armies invaded across the 38th parallel. 

If the South Koreans were surprised by the North’s determined offensive, it was clear that the US government was fully prepared to act the moment it began.  Within twenty-four hours President Truman re-affirmed that his Doctrine applied to Asia as well as to Europe; sent the US Seventh Fleet to patrol the sea between China and Taiwan; extended military aid to the French in their fight against the Vietminh in Indo-China; ordered General MacArthur in Japan to send supplies to South Korea; and put a resolution before the UN Security Council demanding that the North Korean aggressors should pack up and go back home.  The resolution was passed unanimously: the Russian delegate was keeping up his boycott.  Two days later, on 27 June, the Security Council passed another American resolution, by seven votes to one, recommending that members of the United Nations should help South Korea in restoring the peace: the odd man out was Yugoslavia, and she did not have the right of veto (see page 207).  By that time the USA was already involved in the war: her bombers were being used in an attempt to slow down the North Korean advance. 

On 30 June Truman ordered American troops stationed in Japan to move into South Korea.  It was a unilateral action: the Americans did not consult their allies before the event.  But one by one in the months that followed sixteen non-communist nations, including the UK, followed their leader and committed forces to the conflict.  Their contributions made it look, provided you didn’t get too close, as if South Korea was being rescued by a collective effort of the United Nations.  In reality, it was a US — not a UN - operation.  Douglas MacArthur had a new, additional rank as ""Commander-in-Chief, United Nations Command"’: he would later admit that during the war he had "‘no direct connection with the United Nations whatsoever".  Altogether, the USA provided half of the ground forces (South Koreans made up most of the rest), 86 per cent of the naval power, and 93 per cent of the air power. 

As you can see from the map, the North Korean offensive was halted before it could sweep all the South’s troops into the sea.  As American forces poured into the bridgehead around Pusan, the US government considered not just pushing the invaders back to their border but advancing beyond it to ‘liberate’ the people of the North.  The Cold War was about to enter a new, and risky, phase.  The invasion of a Communist country in Asia might provoke Russian retaliation in Europe.  On 12 September Dean Acheson, the new American Secretary of State, proposed strengthening NATO by sending more US troops to Europe-—and by re-arming the West Germans! After their first astonishment at this proposal, the members of NATO agreed to eventual German participation; but meanwhile, in December 1950, an integrated European force was set up temporarily with General Dwight D.  Eisenhower as Supreme Commander. 

On 15 September 1950 MacArthur’s troops outflanked the North Koreans by an amphibious assault at Inchon, far up the west coast of the peninsula.  In a little more than a week they had taken the capital, Seoul, and trapped large forces of North Koreans in the south.  On the 27th Truman instructed MacArthur to move through the North if there were no signs of Russian or Chinese resistance.  On 7 October US troops crossed the 38th parallel, and on the same day the UN endorsed the American action.  (Note that the UN "endorsed" the invasion: they did not authorise it.)

Three days after the invasion, on 10 October, the Chinese government stated that their armies would enter the conflict if the Americans continued to advance north.  Later that month Truman met MacArthur at Wake Island in the Pacific, where the General assured the President that there was no danger of large-scale Chinese intervention.  On 24 October MacArthur launched what he believed would be the last offensive of the war, towards the Yalu River. 

The Chinese had already interpreted the movements of American ships and troops in June 1950 as acts of war against them.  Had it not been for the US Seventh Fleet, Mao’s forces would have crossed the Straits to Taiwan in an attempt to destroy Chiang Kai-shek’s remaining base and "‘re-unite"’ the island with the rest of China.  Now in October the US forces in Korea were driving towards the Yalu River, which was not only the border with China, but just a short march or bomber flight away from the only industrial region in Mao’s republic.  Chinese armies themselves crossed the Yalu on 26 October.  Within a fortnight the Chinese had overrun US positions in much of North Korea; by mid-January 1951 the humiliated Americans had been thrown back well beyond the 38th parallel. 

The US government was profoundly shocked.  At the end of November Truman had lost enough of his cool to suggest that he might use nuclear weapons against the Chinese —a remark that brought the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, flying over to Washington.  In the end the president didn't use the fearful weapons: he merely increased American spending on defence from $13.5 billion to $50 billion, Fastly expanded the US Air Force, and raised the number of men in the army by 50% to three and a half million!

At the beginning of 1951, in the second half of January and in February, MacArthur pulled together his forces and pushed the Chinese back to the 38th parallel.  Truman prepared to negotiate a cease-fire, but MacArthur sabotaged that by crossing the border again and demanding that the enemy surrender.  Truman, never a patient man, was livid.  And then, in early April, the General called loud and clear for new initiatives in American policy.  He wanted to reunify Korea, and help Chiang Kai-shek to mount an attack on mainland China.  He declared:

"It seems strangely difficult for some to realise that here in Asia is where the Communist conspirators have elected to make their play for global conquest.  ..  that here we fight Europe’s war with arms while the diplomats there still fight it with words; that if we lose the war to Communism in Asia the fall of Europe is inevitable....  There is no substitute for victory."

There was a substitute, and Truman, whose attempt to ‘liberate’ the North Koreans had come badly unstuck, was determined to have it.  That substitute was the containment of communism within its then present boundaries — and one obstacle in the path of that policy was a loud-mouthed general who’d spent so long playing God in Tokyo that he believed he could ignore the orders of his Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States of America.  On 11 April 1951 Truman sacked MacArthur. 

Many Americans felt somehow cheated of the prospect of "victory" that MacArthur had held out.  He had proposed simple military answers to political problems that worried them, sometimes baffled them, and cost them money in the form of aid to unreliable allies.  The General returned home to the greatest popular reception in American history.  Joseph McCarthy, the redbaiting Senator from Wisconsin, enjoyed a new wave of popularity.  Leading government officials, university lecturers and school teachers, journalists, film directors and actors —indeed, anyone whom McCarthy felt like accusing of "commie" leanings—were hauled before his investigating committee and faced with unsubstantiated charges of treason.  Dealing in half-truths and smears, he and his accomplices ruined men and women's careers and broke up families.  For President Truman they had only one recommendation: "the son of a bitch ought to be impeached!"

Thanks to both McCarthy and MacArthur, Truman was out of favour with the American people.  But his policy of containment, which MacArthur attacked as cowardice, was beginning to pay off in Asia. 

To all intents and purposes the Korean War was over: the great ambitions of 1950 had been abandoned.  It was now a tired, bitter struggle around the 38th parallel.  The difficulty lay no longer in fighting it, but in getting out of it.  Peace talks began in July, promptly broke down —and that pattern was repeated for the rest of the year.  Early in 1952 the talks broke down again, this time over the repatriation of prisoners-of-war.  The Chinese wanted all their men back: the USA would agree only to send back those who wanted to go.  The fighting continued. 

For the Presidential election of November 1952 the Republicans ran two men who together presented an unbeatable combination of a popular war-hero and an unscrupulous mud-slinger: Dwight Eisenhower for President and Richard Nixon for Vice-President.  They won by a landslide.  For his Secretary of State the new President chose John Foster Dulles, a man absolutely convinced that he was always right, that his country was morally superior to any other, and that all communists were utterly wicked. 

Eisenhower had promised the electorate he would end the war.  In early 1953 Dulles fulfilled that promise for him by making cold-blooded threats.  Unless the Chinese agreed to a peace formula, he declared, the USA would use atomic weapons against them.  The Chinese suddenly changed their attitude to the repatriation of prisoners.  Only Syngman Rhee in South Korea objected to peace: as long as American troops were in Korea the safety of his regime was guaranteed against the Communists.  In the end the Americans, the British and the French promised to support South Korea if the North attacked again, and a military armistice was finally signed on 27 July 1953.  The war was over, although negotiations for a final peace were to drag on for many years at Panmunjom.