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Map of Korea. Click to enlarge

Communist occupied Seoul, 1950.

The Changjin ("Chosin") Resevoir

"Heartbreak Ridge"

U.S. 7th Infantry, July 7, 1963

Chinese soldiers welcomed home,
October 1954

The U.S. and Soviet Union in Korea

The Allies had declared in December 1943 that Korea was to become "free and independent," and it was agreed that the Soviet Union was to occupy northern Korea, to the 38th parallel, and that the United States was to occupy southern half of Korea - to disarm the Japanese. That the Koreans were capable of dealing with a defeated Japan by itself was not considered. The result was a divided Korea and a center of world conflict.

The Koreans had already organized a substantial resistance movement against Japanese rule. By 1945 they also had their own government in exile in China - at Chongqing. As the day of Japan's surrender neared, Japan's governor-general in Korea, Nobuyuki Abe, was looking forward to saving lives and property of the Japanese in Korea and looking forward to an orderly withdrawal from Korea, and he invited Korean leaders to meet with him to make this possible.

Soviet troops entered Korea on August 12. Three days later Japan surrendered, and the whole of Korea erupted in joyous celebration. Japanese flags came down, and Korean flags went up. The Koreans expected their government to arrive from Chongqing shortly. They were in contact with world news enough to expect the arrival of the Americans, who came on September 8, at Inchon, near the capital, Seoul. And in a ceremony in Seoul on September 9, Japanese forces in Korea surrendered to the Americans, marking the end of three and a half decades of Japanese rule in Korea.

The northern zone, occupied by the Russians, was more heavily industrialized than the southern zone, and, concerned with the devastation of their own homeland, the Russians were interested not only in the north's machinery but also its coal. The Russians were taking machinery and whatever else they thought had belonged to the Japanese, which the Koreans could have used. And Soviet troops were stealing what they could from the Koreans.

Korea's economy had been integrated with Japan, and with that relationship now broken, so too was its economy. The Russians made matters worse by sealing their zone of occupation from the southern zone, halting coal deliveries to southern Korea, halting also railway traffic, mail deliveries and the transfer of electrical power southward across the 38th parallel. Through the autumn, the Russians refused to discuss their policies in Korea, and Soviet officers were surprised to learn of the American view that some of the coal they now controlled in the north should be delivered to the south.

The Russians wished to protect their interests in northern Korea through a joint administration with the Koreans, and working under the Russians in their zone was the Korean "Provisional People's Committee" dominated by Communists but consisting also of liberal democrats." At a conference in Moscow in December, the foreign ministers of the Soviet Union and Britain, and the U.S. Secretary of State, met and discussed a five-year trusteeship for Korea. Across Korea, enraged people demonstrated against any such foreign intrusion. Communists in the northern zone were a part of the demonstrations. Then they shifted suddenly in support of the trusteeship, the Russians having decided that for them recognition of a trusteeship would be beneficial.

The Russians were moving into North Korea people originally from Korea who had fled Japanese colonial rule - some of them had been guerrilla fighters against the Japanese. During their years in the Soviet Union they had absorbed the Soviet Union's version of Communist ideology. In February 1946, in North Korea a new governing body was created, called the People's Committee for North Korea, and heading this body was Kim Il Sung, a young man in his thirties who had been a celebrated anti-Japanese guerrilla and had spent considerable time in the Soviet Union.

In May 1946, talks between the Russians and the U.S. regarding Korea broke down. The Americans continued to rule their zone directly - a military government which refused to recognize the government that had been in exile in Chunking. But they were allowing a profusion of political parties to flourish, including a Communist party.

Many Koreans from the north were now moving by night, avoiding main roads and traveling through forests and mountains, with the few worldly possessions they were able to carry, crossing from the Soviet zone into the southern zone.

President Truman was no longer interested in a trusteeship for Korea. In early 1946 he was looking forward to turning Korea over to the Koreans. In May, talks between the Russians and Washington regarding Korea's future broke down. Talks resumed the following May, 1947, the U.S. demanding that elections be held in both zones for the creation of a government across both zones. The Russians demurred. The U.S. turned to the United Nations for help, and an overwhelming majority of the U.N. General Assembly agreed to general elections for Korea.

In January 1948, the Russians refused the U.N. commission entry into its zone to prepare for nationwide elections. The U.N. General Assembly authorized elections in those areas where its commission members were allowed, and on May 10 the first general elections in Korea's history took place. The winners formed a National Assembly, and by July 12 the new government created a constitution. On July 20 an election was held for the government's president. Winning the election was Syngman Rhee, a 73-year-old Christian and an old fighter for independence venerated by the Koreans. He had been imprisoned by the Japanese when a young man and had then fled to the United States, where he had earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Georgetown, Harvard and Princeton universities.

The Russians blamed the United States for imposing its will on the United Nations and on South Korea. They saw American capitalism and imperialism at work, and they countered with single slate elections. In their zone a constitution was created and, on September 8, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was proclaimed.

The Soviet Union was presenting North Korea as an independent nation, and the Soviet Union announced that it was withdrawing completely from the northern zone. But it would not allow a United Nations commission entry into its zone to verify the withdrawal.

In December, 1948, the U.N. General Assembly recognized the government in the south - the Republic of Korea - as the only lawfully constituted government in Korea. The Truman Administration also recognized it as such, as did some fifty other nations.

Road to War

In Tokyo, General Douglas MacArthur, commander of the U.S. forces in the Pacific, wanted Washington to give more importance to developments in Asia. He saw communism as more of a threat in Asia than it was in Europe. And in March 1949, seven months before Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China, MacArthur described the U.S. defense parameter in the Far East as starting in the Philippines, running through Okinawa and the other Ryukyu islands to Japan and then to the Aleutian Islands and Alaska. MacArthur had left China and Korea - the Asian continent - outside this perimeter. [note]

The U.S. was training and supplying South Korea's military. But Washington did not want the south making trouble by invading the north, and it kept South Korea's military capacity limited in hope that it would discourage Syngman Rhee from trying, while leaving Rhee's government with enoughmilitary strength to combat the leftist guerrillas in the south fighting his government. And in Congress, Republicans were not disagreeing with the Truman administration by calling for and funding a build up of South Korea's forces.

The Truman administration was eager to pull its troops out of Korea, to give the Republic of Korea an aura of independence. The Russians in late 1948 had announced that they had pulled their troops out of North Korea, and, on June 29, U.S. military units withdrew from Korea, leaving behind an advisory group of about 500 Americans.

Kim Il Sung, North Korea's leader journeyed to Moscow to meet with Stalin and requested aid so he could unite Korea by force. Stalin asked him some blunt questions. Kim replied that he was confident that he could defeat the forces of South Korea. But Stalin advised against it - in keeping with his preferring to avoid provoking the West. He told Kim tht it was important that the 38th parallel remain peaceful.

Truman's secretary of state after his 1948 election victory was Dean Acheson, an anti-Communist who also believed in patience. Communists acquired power in China in December 1949, and Acheson said it was something that Americans would need to accept for at least awhile. He said that people should learn to live with evil and observed that it had been around since the fall of Adam and Eve.

On January 12, 1950, at a National Press Club briefing, Secretary of State Acheson spoke of American interests in the Far East and described a defense parameter that was similar to MacArthur's. Acheson said nothing about defending South Korea from an attack by North Korea, but he felt he did not have to any more than he had to include New Zealand or Australia in the U.S. defense parameter.

A document fundamental to the Truman Administrations foreign policy was the National Security Council (NSC) 48/2, which focused on stopping Communist expansion by giving economic and military aid to various countries: to the French in their fight against Ho Chi Minh, to the Philippines government in its fight against the Huk guerrillas, and to the British in their fight against guerrillas in Malaya. There was in the document no mention of U.S. military intervention anywhere, including defending Chiang's forces on Taiwan.

The Communists in Moscow and in North Korea apparently foresaw no quick move by Washington to send troops to defend the Republic of Korea. Kim Il Sung was complaining to the Soviet Union that peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula was impossible. He was encouraged by the communist victory in China and said that the Korean people want liberation and would not understand why the opportunity to have it was missed, Stalin also was impressed by the victgory of the communiss in China and perhaps by his possession of the atomic bomb, and he wanted more success for his side in the class war as compesation for failures in Europe. On January 30, Stalin informed Kim Il Sung in a telegram that he was now willing to help Kim in his plan to unify Korea. In the discussions with Kim that followed, Stalin suggested in return for his support he would like a yearly minimum of 25,000 tons of lead. He advised Kim to minimize risk, the cautious Stalin apparently believing that it was possible to win a quick victory and present the world with a fait accompli.

Mao and his associates concurred in this, Mao having told Stalin that it was his opinion that the U.S. would not intervene in Korea. Mao had been looking forward to furthering his advance against his enemy Chiang Kai-shek, now in Taiwan, which Mao saw as a part of China, and Mao believed that the U.S. would not intervene there.

After Acheson's comments on January 12, came signs of Washington changing course in its strategy regarding the Far East. On January 25, General Omar Bradley of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in off-the-record testimony, that a potential enemy (Communist China) possessing Taiwan would be a threat to America's position in the Pacific. In February, the alliance between China and the Soviet Union, signed that month, alarmed strategists in Washington. A revised bill on Korean aid reached Congress and was signed into law by Truman later that month. Acheson spoke of the importance of supporting pro-Western South Korea. And in early June, reflecting an increased concern over Korea, the Acheson State Department sent its Republican operative, John Foster Dulles, to South Korea, Dulles visiting the 38th parallel on June 17, where he spoke of America's determination to stand by South Korea.

But Kim Il Sung and Stalin were not about to reverse themselves. They either dismissed the new signs as insignificant or were delaying analysis. Kim remained confident and unaware, not unlike the Athenians before the Peloponnesian War.

Kim Il Sung Sends His Troops South

A few dissident students have described North Korea's invasion of the South as a response to the South's aggression. The fact is that Kim Il Sung, in the North, wanted to unite Korea - just as Rhee wanted to unite Korea - and Kim chose to invade. Kim Il Sung sent his military south across the 38th Parallel on June 25, 1950.

Kim attacked with many World War II Russian tanks, and Rhee's forces were no match against Kim's. Rhee's forces fell back, and in three days Kim's forces entered the Republic of Korea's capital: Seoul. Hoping to stop or at least slow the Communists at the Han River, just south of Seoul, the river's bridges were blown - unfortunately while packed with refugees fleeing southward.

In Washington, news of the invasion created excitement and dismay. And the invasion was assumed to be Stalin's design. On the Senate floor, Lyndon Johnson of Texas spoke of Moscow being on the march again. Speaking after Johnson, and agreeing with him, was the liberal Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, Johnson's future vice president.

Truman was not about to respond to the invasion with anything but a show of strength. He told his daughter, Margaret, that "We are going to fight." The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Omar Bradley, called the invasion a moral outrage. He spoke against "appeasement" and said Korea was as good a place as any "for drawing the line" against Communist expansion. By June 27, Truman had ordered America air and naval units into action. Troops on occupation duty in Japan were rushed to Korea.

The U.S. appealed to the United Nations, and there they had luck. The Soviet Union was staying away from its seat on the UN's Security Council to demonstrate its frustration over the UN's refusal to seat the People's Republic of China. On June 27, the UN condemned Kim Il Sung's invasion, and without the Soviet Union there to veto such a move, the United Nations joined the war against Kim's invasion, to defend the Republic of Korea - the only government in Korea that the UN had recognized. The United States was to fight in Korea under the aegis of the UN, and the UN Security Council asked the U.S. to appoint a supreme commander for the UN force, and Washington appointed General MacArthur.

On June 29, eighteen B-26 bomber aircraft struck against the North's airfield near Pyongyang. On July 3, the aircraft carriers USS Valley Forge and the British carrier, HMS Triumph, sent aircraft again against this base and other airbases in the North. In early July, U.S. troops dug in fifty miles south of Seoul. The North Koreans overran them and inflicted heavy casualties on the Americans, and a U.S. major-general, William F. Dean, was ordered to hold Taejon (about a hundred miles south of Seoul) until July 20 in order to buy time necessary for deploying more units to Korea from Japan. But his force, the 24th Infantry Brigade, was also overrun, and decimated, and Dean became one of the most senior U.S. generals ever to be taken prisoner.

As the North Koreans pushed south they rounded up and killed people who had been civil servants. Also, rather than trouble themselves with the maintenance of prisoners of war, the North Koreans were killing their prisoners. On August 20, MacArthur sent a message warning Kim Il Sung that he would be held responsible for further atrocities committed against UN troops. And on August 22, Pyongyang radio claimed that air raids on Pyongyang and five other cities between July 2 and August 3 had killed 11,582 civilians.

B-29 aircraft were bombing targets in North Korea - the Air Force rejecting the use of incendiary bombs in its continuing effort to avoid civilian casualties. Meanwhile, U.S. warships were shelling targets in the North Korea's coast, the Navy claiming to have destroyed 137 locomotives.

In the South, U.S. air power was slowing the North's advance, and, by September, Kim's forces were stalled at what became known as the Pusan Perimeter, around the cities of Taegu (Daegu) and Pusan, defended by determined U.S. and Republic of Korea (ROK) troops.

British commandos had gone ashore and attacked a radio station near Inchon on August 23. On September 15, 1950, MacArthur came with a much larger force - a daring amphibious invasion given the tides in the area and the timing required. It was more of MacArthur's strategy from the Second World War: striking "where the enemy ain't." Kim Il Sung's forces began pulling back to avoid entrapment. South Korean forces moved in behind them. There was one and perhaps more incidents of people being rounded up and killed - people who were reported to have welcomed or to have supported the Communist forces - with the dead being thrown into mass graves on the outskirts of town. [note]

The Republic of China Intervenes

President Truman responded to Kim Il Sung's invasion of South Korea by giving additional support to the French in Vietnam and by sending the Seventh Fleet to defend Taiwan. Mao Zedong and his associates in Beijing, China, were concerned. Their regime was less than a year old, and they were concerned that the new aggressiveness by the U.S. would encourage Chinese "reactionaries." Concerning Taiwan, they saw what they called U.S. imperialism interfering in China's internal affairs. They wanted to demonstrate to China's masses that they were able to protect China's prestige and interests, but they decided to put on hold their plans to "liberate" Taiwan.

After the Inchon landings and North Korea's reversals, two high-ranking representatives from North Korea arrived in Beijing and asked China to send troops to Korea. And, after the Inchon landing, debate erupted in the U.S. over whether the UN forces should move north of the 38th parallel. George Kennan thought this too risky, but others in the State Department disagreed, John Foster Dulles arguing, correctly, that the 38th parallel was never intended as a permanent political boundary. The Pentagon agreed and argued that stopping at the 38th Parallel would leave military instability on the Korean peninsula. MacArthur wanted to cross the 38th parallel, and Rhee was ecstatic over the opportunity to unite Korea.

Truman agreed to the UN forces moving into North Korea, despite his worry that it might bring the Soviet Union or China into the war. Some others were worried that the war in Korea was just a feint by Moscow to divert energies - that the Communists might be planning a bigger assault elsewhere.

Entering the Korean war and facing up to the military might of the United Nations forces was an issue over which Mao and the Chinese Communist leadership agonized. They were leaning toward intervention, and on October 3, through India's ambassador to Beijing, K.M. Panikkar, China informed the world-at-large that if the United States crossed the 38th parallel China would intervene. Confident people in the U.S. State Department, Dean Rusk among them, believed that the Chinese would not dare attack U.S. forces in Korea. Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, believed it was a bluff and was concerned that a greater risk would arise if the U.S. showed any "hesitation or timidity." A report by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), dated September 28, held that China had missed its opportunity to intervene. That opportunity was described as when UN forces were almost defeated and within the Pusan Perimeter. The report claimed that China was not about to intervene now. In a report on October 12, the CIA argued further that intervention by China was unlikely because it would jeopardize China's domestic program and economy, encourage China's anti-Communists and endanger the Communist regime. Acheson agreed, saying it would be "sheer madness" for Beijing to enter the Korean war when they had numerous other problems.

By October 9, 1950, China had massed four armies and three artillery divisions on the Yalu River - the force's commander, Peng Dehuai, complaining that he could use 700 more trucks and 600 more drivers. On October 10, in Moscow, Stalin and representatives from China met and discussed Korea. The purpose of the Chinese was to get as much help from the Soviet Union as possible. Stalin complained that North Korea was about to be defeated. The Chinese pretended hesitation about intervening, but Stalin encouraged them, countering that the U.S. was a menace to China's security and would be especially so if UN forces reached the Yalu River. Stalin said that the Soviet Union could not send troops because the Soviet Union had already committed to withdrawal from North Korea. Besides, he claimed, his border with Korea was too small. But, he said, the Soviet Union would provide the Chinese sufficient military equipment and war material - weapons and ammunition left over from World War II. The People's Republic of China was, however, to pay the Soviet Union for all military supplies, which created some bitterness among the Chinese Communist leadership that was to last for years to come.

Asked about the Soviet Union supplying air cover for the Chinese, Stalin held that the Soviet Union was not ready for this. [note] Mao had been expecting the Soviet Union to supply air cover for China's forces, and after receiving a telegram from Moscow informing him of developments there, Mao sent an urgent telegram of his own, ordering that his armies on the Yalu river put their operations on hold and concentrate on training. And when the commander of China's forces, Peng, learned that the Soviet Union would not be supplying air cover he threatened to resign.

U.S. Military intelligence was aware of the Chinese troops across the Yalu River and described them as five divisions probably intending to protect China's hydroelectric generating plants. On October 15, 1950, MacArthur met President Truman on Wake Island. He assured Truman that victory was won in Korea and that the Chinese would not intervene. The Chinese, he said, have 300,000 men in Manchuria, "but only 50 to 60 thousand could be gotten across the Yalu River." They have no air force, he said, "and if they tried to get down to Pyongyang there would be the greatest slaughter." And from Truman, MacArthur received his fifth Distinguished Service Medal.

United Nation forces entered Pyongyang on October 15. Mao and his associates worried that the UN forces would soon be at the Yalu River, and they decided to send their armies across the river, near the Chinese city of Dandong and a hundred miles upriver, near Manpo. It was a hush-hush operation, with the first of the Chinese troops dressed in North Korean uniforms.

MacArthur could have halted his troops at Korea's narrow neck - around 100 miles wide - which would have left the UN forces with 90 percent of the Korean population and Pyongyang. This is what Winston Churchill would have liked MacArthur to do. A demilitarized zone could have been proposed between this line and the Yalu River. But MacArthur was in no such cautious frame of mind. He headed for a 400-mile wide border. He split his forces, sending U.S. troops up the west side of the peninsula and other U.S. troops up the east side, with mountains between them. The Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon had ordered that only Korean forces be sent to the Yalu. MacArthur was doing it his way. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were acquiescing, and MacArthur was sending what he thought were spare supplies and ammunition back to Japan.

First Contacts between the Chinese and the UN

On October 25, South Korean forces were approaching the Yalu River, around the city Chosan, eager to send Syngman Rhee a bottle of water taken from the Yalu. Eight miles east of Chosan a South Korean battalion was destroyed by an enemy force. That force moved farther south that same day and skirmished with U.S. troops. The Americans took a few prisoners and discovered that they did not understand Korean. Within hours it was reported to command-center that U.S. and ROK forces in the area had come into contact with about 20,000 Chinese troops.

After several days of intermittent contact with the UN forces, the Chinese force withdrew into the mountains. In Tokyo, MacArthur clung to his belief that China would not enter the war, at least in significant number. He still believed that the war would be over by Christmas. In late October, U.S. Marines landed at Wonson, unopposed. They marched northward and inland, arriving on November 15 at the Changjin Reservoir, familiar to Americans as the Chosin Reservoir. On November 21, the 17th Regiment of the U.S. 7th Division reached the town of Hyesan on the Yalu River, the second contact by UN forces with the Yalu River. On November 24, MacArthur's troops reached the city of Chongjin on the northern east coast.

Meanwhile, Stalin had relented and given the Chinese some air cover for the crossing of bridges on the Yalu River. North Koreans were flying combat aircraft from Manchuria, and the U.S. bombed these bases without publicity. U.S. and Russian planes clashed from the first of November. According to Russian documents, by November 15, the Russians had shot down 23 U.S. aircraft. On November 15, Mao thanked Stalin for the heroism of the Soviet pilots.

The Soviet Union was to continue to send its planes to cover Communist forces, but it began to train Chinese pilots as fast as it could to replace the Russians, and it began supplying the Chinese with MIG. Also, the Soviet Union began sending advisors to accompany the Chinese in Korea.

By now some Greek and Australian troops had joined the UN forces in Korea. On November 20 a much valued Field Ambulance and Surgical Unit had arrived from India, and on November 23 a battalion of Dutch troops had arrived.

China Moves into South Korea

On November 26 the Chinese invaded in earnest, with approximately 300,000 men - against a UN force numbering 423,000 (224,000 ROK troops, 178,500 U.S. troops, 11,000 United Kingdom forces, and 1,000 Australians. On both sides were officers experienced in combat against the Japanese during World War II.

It was the beginning of an unusually cold winter. Many of the Chinese movements were at night, out of sight of UN airpower. They were not well equipped with radios, and during their assault they communicated to an extent with bugles and other instruments.

The Chinese enveloped the U.S. 2nd Division near Anju on the west side of the peninsula. Troops from Turkey stood their ground and fought until forced to surrender. The Chinese, holding the sides of a pass, mauled UN forces retreating southward, the dead mixed with shattered trucks, and napalm from U.S. air strikes trickling down from the hillsides. This was the Battle of Chongchon, which ended on November 28. The U.S. Commander in Korea, General Walton Walker called for a renewed drive to the Yalu, but MacArthur, in Tokyo, realized that "an entirely new war" had begun, and he informed the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington that his plan was now "to pass to the defensive."

U.S. Marines fought their way from the Changjin (Chosin) Reservoir area, some U.S. Army troops helping the 1st Marine Regiment withdraw to Hagaru, their last point before leaving the reservoir area. The 1st, 5th and 7th regiments of the 1st Marine Division, with Army and British Marine Commandos, marched and fought their way south, reaching the port city Hungnan in mid-December, where they were picked up by the U.S. Navy.

On December 6 the Chinese overran Pyongyang, the UN forces leaving the city in a bumper to bumper column of vehicles, with a massive number of refugees and a mile-high column of smoke rising above the city from burning supplies and fuel.

Responding to the first news of China's massive entry into the Korean War, President Truman at a press conference stated that the United States would take "whatever steps are necessary to meet the military situation." Asked if this meant the use of nuclear weapons, Truman replied that it included "every weapon we have."

Europeans were aghast. Prime Minister Atlee of the United Kingdom came rushing to Washington, arriving on December 4. (Churchill would not become Prime Minister until the following year.) After four days of talks with the Truman Administration it was agreed that extending the war against the China was to be avoided. Atlee was interested in taming China, suggesting that Communist China be recognized and brought into the United Nations. The Truman Administration and U.S. public opinion was not prepared for that, but Truman was ready to return to his strategy of containment of communism, which in Korea meant holding the Communists at the 38th Parallel - in other words, fighting a war with a limited objective. On December 16, Truman coupled this with a declaration of a State of National Emergency.

By December 16, 1950, the U.S. Eighth Army had reached the 38th Parallel, after covering 120 miles southward in ten days. The Chinese drive was now weakened because of their slow supply system - the Chinese moving by foot, oxcart, pack horse and camel.

Calls could now be heard from unaligned nations for talks between the warring sides. China's foreign minister, Zhou Enlai claimed that only by a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Korea and from around Taiwan could a ceasefire be realized. He stated that China would reunite Korea by force. In the Soviet Union, meanwhile, the Communist Party newspaper, Pravda, was gloating over the U.S. pullback in Korea, and an editorial announced that the paper was looking forward to the "American aggressors" being "totally defeated and annihilated."

On New Year's Eve, Chinese forces moved across the 38th Parallel to accomplish their goal of uniting Korea, and with them were North Korean units. On January 4 they reached Seoul. Disturbed by the war, rats were running through streets jammed with people trying to flee southward. At the Han River a U.S. force halted refugees at gunpoint to prevent them from jamming the U.S. withdrawal. U.S. troops destroyed their pontoon bridges across the Han River and as they withdrew they torched the port of Inchon.

American Strategies, MacArthur and Truman

In the United States 50 percent of those surveyed believed that World War III was imminent. In the Mediterranean, the U.S. Sixth Fleet had put to sea. A total embargo had been put on trade with China and China's assets in the U.S. frozen. Congress had loosened its purse strings and voted more money for defense. A economic boom was beginning in the U.S. and Japan. The U.S. was sending more troops to Europe, along with Dwight Eisenhower, who had been appointed Supreme Commander of NATO.

Republicans were criticizing the Democrats and President Truman. Among the Republicans was a mix of isolationism and revulsion for communism. The party's senior member, former U.S. President Herbert Hoover, now seventy-six, claimed that it would be best for the nation to withdraw to Fortress America and become the "Gibraltar of Western Civilization."

In the Congressional elections of 1950 the Republicans campaigned against inflation and Truman having lost China. They were supporting Truman's war efforts but criticizing him for having made numerous mistakes. In November, the Republicans gained eight seats in the Senate and fifty-two seats in the House of Representatives, leaving the Democrats with only a two-seat advantage in the Senate and an advantage of thirty-six seats in the House of Representatives - a drop from the gains the Democrats had made in 1948. Senator Eugene Millikin of Colorado, who had been charging that Americans were dying in Korea because of spies in the State Department, won his election. The Senator who had been leading the fight against hysteria and wild charges, Millard Tydings of Maryland, lost his re-election bid. A Republican from Illinois, Everett Dirkson, who had called the Marshall Plan "Operation Rathole," won a Senate Seat. Congressman Richard Nixon, running for a California Senate seat, defeated his incumbent opponent, Helen Gahagan Douglas, a Cold War liberal who had supported Truman against Henry Wallace. During the campaign, Douglas was portrayed as a Communist sympathizer.

Senator Robert Taft of Ohio won his re-election by a wide margin, and conservatives were looking forward to running him for President in 1952. Taft began the new session of Congress in January, 1951, by criticizing President Truman for sending troops to Korea without the approval of Congress. The Communists in Korea, he declared, can be stopped by air and navel forces instead of ground forces. Taft wanted to take the Republican Party away from Eastern Establishment internationalists - men like Dewey. He declared against U.S. troops fighting in Europe. The NATO alliance, he said, was a mistake. And Russia, he said, should either be kicked out of the UN or the UN should be dissolved and reorganized without Russia.

From his command post in Tokyo, MacArthur was opposed to a negotiated settlement. MacArthur wanted to bring Chiang's Kai-shek's troops to Korea from Taiwan, to bomb Chinese cities and use atomic bombs if necessary. MacArthur declared that there was "no substitute for victory." Many in the United States agreed with him. The concept of limited war was winning few adherents. MacArthur's position was easier to understand. Many people saw the U.S. not as limiting its goal to defending South Korea but as trying to fight with one arm tied behind its back. And demoralized American troops were writing home and wondering what they were fighting for.

Turn Around and MacArthur versus Truman

Across a front from the west to east coasts the Chinese in January pushed more than fifty miles south of Seoul. Then in February the Communist advance collapsed. The new commander of UN forces in Korea was General Matthew Ridgway, a bright, energetic and determined man. He talked his troops into standing their ground and attacking. He began employing the UN's superior firepower, using heavy artillery ten miles from the Chinese and then lighter weapons closer in, while aircraft swooped down on the Chinese, firing rockets and dropping napalm.

In Tokyo, Ridgway's commander, MacArthur, still favored some sort of complete victory - beyond saving South Korea. MacArthur wanted to bomb bases in China. He would not refrain from making public statements about the war, and, on April 10, Truman fired him for insubordination.

Two days later, Senator Taft attacked what he called Truman's "appeasement of the Chinese." This appeasement, he said, "makes a larger war more likely in the future." Taft spoke in favor of bombing China and helping Chiang Kai-shek's forces invade the mainland.

MacArthur got a hero's welcome in the United States, and telegrams poured into Congress demanding Truman's impeachment. MacArthur made an emotional farewell address to Congress, which the public liked and Truman, in private, denounced. Polls described Truman's popularity as having dropped to the mid-thirties in percentage, and there his popularity would stay for the remainder of his term in office.

Stand-off and Settlement

On March 14, 1951, UN forces retook Seoul. In April, UN forces were again crossing the 38th Parallel, not to take possession of the North but in pursuit of the enemy. Mao, meanwhile had been amassing more troops for a spring offensive. The Communist forces in North Korea at this time has been described at 700,000, and they had more artillery and sub-machine guns than before.

Matthew Ridgway had been appointed Supreme Commander of NATO, and the new UN commander in Korea, Lieutenant General James Van Fleet, had approximately 230,000 troops on his front line.

Mao's spring offensive began on April 22. Within a week his forces were on the outskirts of Seoul. Casualties on the UN side were heavy, but they turned the drive around. The Communists lost 90,000 in one week of fighting. Many were killed by napalm. The UN forces started driving the Communist forces back across the 38th parallel. The UN forces tried to be scrupulous about taking prisoners, and in the last two weeks of May they took 17,000 - men destined for a camp on Koje Island on Korea's southern coast.

In the United Nations meanwhile, delegates were becoming impatient with Communist China's intransigence and were moving closer to the embargo on trade against China advocated by the United States. In June, China proposed negotiations. Washington responded by ordering an end to its offensive and allowing the Chinese to dig nearly impregnable positions across mountainous terrain north of the 38th Parallel.

The War Drags On

General Mark Clark replaced Van Fleet as UN commander in Korea. Clark was opposed to a negotiated settlement of the war, and he believed in throwing everything at the enemy he could. He chose to bomb reservoir dikes in the North, flooding the North's sparse agricultural lands, threatening the North Koreans with starvation. He bombed North Korea's hydroelectric plant just south of the Yalu River, and he gave the Air Force permission to strike again at North Korea's industrial and population centers. Pyongyang was bombed again, including the use of napalm, and the burning to death of civilians was extensive. The Air Force was after military targets, but distinction between military targets and civilians was blurred and was recognized as such by Air Force commanders.

The U.S. Navy joined in the overkill by attacking North Korean fishing vessels, crippling this source of food for the Koreans. General Curtis LeMay, of Tokyo firebombing fame, agreed with the Air Force's plan to flatten North Korea's cities, and in retirement was to describe the U.S. as having "burned down every town in North Korea." [link] An estimated 2 million civilians died in North Korea. The bombings created hatred for Americans, and U.S. airmen downed in North Korea were beaten to death.

A few people wrote letters of protest against the bombing, among them the Archbishop of New York, Methodist leaders, and the Free Church of Scotland. Winston Churchill, again Prime Minster in Great Britain and his nation involved in the UN effort in Korea, said he would not take responsibility for napalm being splashed "about all over the civilian population." [note]

No matter how intensive the bombing, the Chinese were able to move their supplies south, largely through deep and narrow trenches. That the extended bombing by the U.S. Airforce contributed to a quicker end of the war is doubtful. The North Koreans were no more inclined to give in to terror bombing than had been the British or the Germans.

In hope of winning a favorable and quick end to the Korean War, the United States let it be known that it was considering the use of atomic weapons. Perhaps more than the atomic bomb, China, was concerned about the economic costs involved in continuing the war. Zhou Enlai met with Stalin in late 1952, and they agreed that the war should be ended.

Stalin died in March 1953, and the new Soviet Premier, Gregori Malenkov, made overtures for peaceful coexistence between the superpowers and for peace in Korea. Two days after Zhou Enlai returned from Stalin's funeral he announced China's new effort to end the war in Korea. The U.S. had a new president, Dwight Eisenhower, with John Foster Dulles as his Secretary of State. Dulles remained opposed to ending the war, wishing to appeal to those in the U.S. opposed to anything that could be construed as appeasing communism. And General Clark was also opposed, and he wished to extend the war to China to end communism there.

Between March 27 and July 7, the Chinese and U.S. fought over what was called Pork Chop Hill, and in June the Chinese launched attacks against ROK forces. A sticking point in the negotiations, meanwhile, was the return of prisoners to Communist areas who did not want to return, the U.S. adamant that they should not have to return.

Syngman Rhee was opposed to a compromise armistice. He favored using nuclear weapons for a quick and complete victory. Others fighting alongside the Americans in Korea protested the U.S. inflexibility. Canada, which had troops in Korea, was especially upset with the U.S. position, and Churchill was opposed to Dulles' preference for escalating the war. President Eisenhower, who had suggested during his 1952 campaign that he could end the war in Korea, defied the wishes of Dulles and moved to an agreement with the Communists.

An armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. A peace treaty was not signed, and South Korea did not sign the armistice. North and South Korea remained technically at war. North Korea was to remain under Communist rule and China intervening in Indochina was not forbidden. Eisenhower's prestige as a soldier was great enough that only a very few hardliners accused him of appeasement. Senators Willam Jenner of Nevada and George Malone of Nevada called the settlement a victory for communism. Senator William Knowland of California spoke of the U.S. losing Asia. But rather than the public attacks that Truman and Acheson had received, the public praised Eisenhower for ending the war. Eisenhower had achieved what Truman had set out to achieve in late 1950.

Casualties

Rather than having appeased communism, Truman had saved South Korea from from Kim Il Sung. But the U.S. had suffered 54,246 dead in Korea, and South Korea military dead has been counted as 415,004. Other UN nations fighting in Korea suffered a total of 3,221 war dead::

Australia 340 Belgium 97 Canada 309 Colombia 140 Ethiopia 120 France 288 Greece 169 Netherlands 111 New Zealand 31 Norway 3 Philippines 92 South Africa 20 Thailand 114 Turkey 717 United Kingdom 670

The Soviet Union is said to have lost 299 dead in Korea. China claims to have lost 112,000 - a figure not readily accepted by U.S. intelligence - but in the view of Mao and his associates they had gained something, having driven "the imperialists" back toward the 38th parallel.

North Korea and Kim were the big losers. Their military dead is said to have been around a half million. With civilian dead they lost more than a million people, and Kim Il Sung, hailed as a Great Leader in North Korea, had gained nothing. North Korea had lost its industrial capacity and was to remain a poorly developed agricultural society.

In 1945, North Korea's population is estimated to have been 10 million and South Korea's population to have been 21.45 million. In 1997, North Korea's population was estimated at 25 million, and, in the year 2000, South Korea's at 44.6 million. Valuing education and industry, South Korea had become one of the world's economic success stories. And by the year 2001 a thaw was developing between the governments of the two halves of Korea - as new leaders had risen to power and old emotions had faded.

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