XIII. The Cold War
Learning Objective:
Understand the development of hostilities between the Soviet Union
and the Western Allies after World War II.
Many of the issues that divided the post-war world were decided
at the World War II summit meetings at Tehran (November, 1943),
Yalta (February, 1945), and Postdam (July-August, 1945).
President Roosevelt knew of the weaknesses of the League of
Nations and believed that only the great powers could insure
peace in the postwar era. In his view, the "Four Policemen"—the
United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and China—should
assume the responsibility of preventing aggression after subduing
the Axis. The movement to found a new league based upon the
concept of collective security gathered strength, however, especially
in Congress, and the President had little choice but to embrace
the scheme. He did succeed in incorporating some of his views
in the United Nations: the five great powers (France was added)
would become permanent members of the Security Council, the
UN's principal executive organ, and they would possess a veto
over its actions. The Senate of the U.S. approved membership
in the U.N. in July, 1945, by the vote of 89 to 2.
When the "big three" met at Yalta the main outlines
of the conference had been agreed to at Tehran. The three leaders
generally agreed to deNazify and demilitarize postwar Germany
but not about how to achieve these goals. Disagreement existed
not only between the Allies but also within the American government.
Some leaders believed that while Germany deserved rather drastic
treatment, the Allies should not reduce its sixty-odd millions
to a semi-starvation level. They believed that Germany should
have a sufficient economic base to feed itself and to play a
constructive role in the revival of the European economy. Others
believed that the only wise and safe course was to partition
Germany and reduce her as close as possible to a pastoral agricultural
economy, depriving her of the industrial sinews of war. Roosevelt,
while initially favoring the harsh stand, came around to the
idea of allowing Germany to rebuild its economy.
Stalin favored a drastic policy toward Germany. He particularly
wanted heavy reparations in capital equipment, goods, and labor,
to rebuild his devastated country, and referred to a total of
$20 billion as reasonable (Germany's World War I reparations
had been set at $33 billion), with one-half going to the Soviet
Union. At Yalta the amount of reparations was left open (a reparations
commission would decide) and the question of dismemberment was
also postponed. The Allies did agree to divide Germany into
zones of occupation with Berlin jointly occupied. At British
wishes primarily, France received an occupation zone carved
from the British and American zones. Churchill, unsure of the
future U.S. involvement on the continent, thus sought French
help in curbing Germany and in watching closely the Soviet Union.
The three leaders spent a disproportionate amount of time at
Yalta in debate about the future of Poland. To the Soviets,
a friendly Poland was absolutely essential. They had been attacked
through Poland in 1812, 1914, and 1941 with devastating results
each time. Yet Poland was a corridor that ran both ways; the
West would not feel comfortable with the Red Army sitting on
Poland's western border. In addition, Poland had great psychological
significance. Great Britain had gone to war in 1939 over Hitler's
invasion of Poland, while many Americans recalled Wilson's role
in the creation of the state during World War I and millions
of Polish-Americans voters had an intense interest in its fate.
Unfortunately for the West, geography and military realities
meant that only the advancing Soviet armies would free Poland
of Nazi control. A Polish government in exile existed in London,
and the Soviet government had recognized it after Hitler's attack
on the Soviet Union. Stalin insisted, however, that Poland return
the area it had taken from the Soviet Union by force in 1921.
Churchill and FDR urged the Polish government in vain to recognize
the realities of Soviet power and the imperative necessity of
quickly striking an agreement with Moscow. The Poles would be
compensated with German territory from the west to make-up for
the territory they lost to the Soviet Union in the east. When
the Poles refused to agree to the Soviet demands, Moscow broke
relations with the exile government in 1943 and subsequently
installed in Warsaw a Communist-dominated Polish government.
Even before the defeat of Germany a rift had begun to emerge
within the Grand Alliance. When Italy surrendered in 1943 the
Soviets were excluded from any participation in the peace talks
and subsequent terms. Thus the Italian government was allowed
to surrender with conditions, to stay in power, to retain administrative
control of non-battlefield areas in Italy, to keep the monarchy,
and eventually to join the Allies as a co-belligerent. The end
result was that by 1945 the same groups that had run Italy before
the war were still in power, backed by an Allied Control Council
from which the Soviets had been systematically excluded. Stalin
had protested initially, but did not press the point, for he
seems to have recognized the value of the precedent — those
who liberated a country from the Nazis could decide what happened
there. He was more than willing to allow the Allies to shape
the future in Italy in return for the same right in Eastern
Europe.
On May 11, 1945 after the German surrender, President Truman
order a drastic curtailment in lend-lease aid to the Soviet
Union. Ships were even recalled that were already enroute with
cargoes of aid for Russia. Although Truman countermanded the
order (the Soviet Union still had to fight Japan), this action
deeply offended Stalin who viewed it as an example of American
bad faith and an attempt to coerce the Soviet Union into following
policies favorable to the United States if it wanted to continue
to receive aid for a post-war recovery program.
After the war ended the Soviet Union began to organize and
dominate the areas along its boarders. In Eastern and Central
Europe this meant a sphere of influence in countries that the
Red Army controlled: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Hungary,
Bulgaria, and East Germany. With the exception of Czechoslovakia,
prior to the war these countries had been ruled by right-wing
dictatorships hostile to the Soviet Union (Rumania, Hungary,
and Bulgaria had declared war on the Soviet Union and their
troops had helped in the German invasion). Probably Russia under
czarist, Communist, or any other form of government would have
pursued rather similar goals after 1945. Security and traditional
national goals were more important than ideology in the Soviet
take over of Eastern Europe.
Probably at no time did Stalin plan a Communist take-over of
all Europe, much less the whole world. Apparently he viewed
foreign Communist movements with much skepticism and distrust,
fearful they might escape his control, and he was cynically
prepared to use them and to sacrifice their interests for the
good of the Soviet Union. He looked askance upon Josip Tito's
Communist government in Yugoslavia and Mao Zedong's Communist
movement in China. He refused to directly help the Greek communists
in their attempt to overthrow the Greek government.
Stalin apparently was ready to accept the existence of Western
spheres of influence in return for the acceptance of his own.
He probably believed that the negotiations at Tehran and Yalta
had arrived at an agreement or understanding about the Soviet
sphere in Eastern Europe. FDR and Churchill had conceded the
desirability of "friendly governments" along the Soviet
Union's borders, but they had not conceded the complete Soviet
dominance and communization of the countries of Eastern and
Central Europe. The Americans especially thought that it was
possible to have East European governments that were both capitalistic
and friendly to the Soviet Union. As Secretary of State James
Byrnes put it, "our objective is a government in Poland
both friendly to the Soviet Union and representative of all
the democratic elements of the country." It was an impossible
program. The division of East European society into elites and
masses precluded democratic capitalism, and no capitalistic
government in the region could be any other than anti-Soviet.
The West was shocked and felt betrayed by the Soviet take-over
of Eastern Europe. Although it was obvious that Stalin was cooperating
in the attempt to restore world-wide stability by refusing to
aid the Communists in Greece, Italy, France, China, and elsewhere,
Americans came to believe that he was a would-be world conqueror.
He was seen as another Hitler, and Americans remembered how
appeasement had failed in preventing Hitler's expansion. Time
and again Stalin emphasized the Soviet Union's desire for security,
her need to protect herself from Germany and the capitalistic
West by controlling the nations on her border, but increasingly
Americans dismissed his statements as lies and denounced him
as a paranoid whose aim was world conquest. The flames were
fed by millions of American voters of East European origin,
aided by the Catholic Church, businessmen who wanted access
to the region's markets, anti-Communists in the State Department,
and military men who were sincerely worried about the new strategic
balance in Europe. A kind of panic swept over the U.S. One of
the first of those to feel the panic was President Truman.
In January, 1945 Stalin requested a $6 billion post-war recovery
loan for the Soviet Union. The U.S. State Department refused
to discuss the matter unless Stalin became more receptive to
U.S. demands in Europe. Later in 1945 the Soviets asked for
a $1 billion loan. The official U.S. government explanation
to this day was that they lost the request. When it was "found"
months later, the State Department offered to discuss the loan
if the Soviets would pledge "non-discrimination in international
commerce," allowing U.S. investment and goods into the
Soviet sphere of influence. At the same time the U.S. loaned
Great Britain nearly $4 billion and France $1 billion for recovery
measures. Stalin rejected the U.S. conditions and instead announced
a new 5 year plan to rebuild the Soviet Union.
Learning Objective:
Understand the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan.
After World War II a vicious civil war broke out in Greece
between the Communists and the right wing monarchy that had
been re-established after the war. Although the Greek Communist
Party was legally recognized, the party was finding it hard
to gain strength by political action. At the UN Security Council
in January, 1946, the Soviet Union condemned persecutions of
leftists in Greece — 1,219 of them had been assassinated and
18,767 arrested — and the Greek Communists mistakenly took
this as proof that the Soviets would support them in their revolution
which they began in March, 1946.
Over 600,000 Greeks were killed during the years of war that
swept Greece from 1940 to 1949. In addition, during the Civil
War the Communists took 38,000 Greek children away from their
parents to camps throughout Eastern Europe for "re-education."
Many of them never returned. The Greek struggle, like most civil
wars, dealt with internal, not external issues, but the West
interpreted it as the first step toward world conquest by the
Communists.
The Greek government was aided by the British and the Communist-led
rebels were assisted by the Communist regimes in Yugoslavia,
Albania, and Bulgaria. Stalin sought to discourage the Greek
Communists, but the western powers did not know of Stalin's
views and attributed the Greek civil war to his machinations.
On March 5, 1946, in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill, with
President Truman present, warned that from "Stettin in
the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended
across the continent." East of that line, Churchill claimed,
the Soviet Union exercised a brutal rule and cut off ancient
countries from their historic ties with Western Europe. According
to Churchill, the Soviets respected strength, and he urged an
Anglo-American alliance to preserve the free world.
Truman already had decided that he was "tired of babying
the Soviets." In February, 1947 the nearly bankrupt British
government informed Washington that it could no longer assist
the Greek government in its civil war and that it would pull
out at the end of March. Truman was prepared to take up the
burden, to begin a policy that would continue for fifty years.
To sell the program to the American people, Truman, as Republican
Senator Arthur Vandenberg recommended to him, would have "to
scare the hell out of the American people." Truman realized
that he could never get the economy-minded Republican controlled
Congress to spend tax dollars to support a right-wing monarchy
in Greece. Truman had to describe the Greek situation in universal
terms, good versus evil, to get support for containment.
After first getting bipartisan support for his proposal, Truman
addressed a joint session of Congress on March 12, 1947, and
the nation over the radio. He asked for immediate aid for Greece
and Turkey (which was included because of its strategic location
in blocking Soviet access to the Mediterranean and the Middle
East), then he explained his reasoning. "I believe that
it must be the policy of the United States to support free people
who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities
or by outside pressures." In a single sentence Truman had
defined United States' post-war policy toward the Soviet Union.
Whenever and wherever an anti-Communist government was threatened,
by indigenous insurgents, foreign invasion, or even diplomatic
pressure (as with Turkey), the United States could be counted
on to supply political, economic, and military aid. In May,
1947 Congress appropriated $400 million in aid for Greece and
Turkey. With this aid the Greek government was able to defeat
the Communist rebels. By later standards the sum was small,
but nevertheless America had taken an immense stride. For the
first time, the U.S. had intervened in a period of general peace
in the affairs of a country outside of the Western Hemisphere.
The Truman Doctrine came close to shutting the door against
any revolution, since the terms "free people" and
"anti-Soviet" were assumed to be synonymous. The new
policy in practice offered aid to even Communist governments,
such as Tito's Yugoslavia after his break with Stalin in 1948.
The "free world" came to mean merely free from Moscow's
influence, as the United States extended support to a variety
of regimes that were not democratic. Security, therefore, and
not ideology, guided the application of the Truman Doctrine.
The American policy became known as "containment"
since Soviet expansion would be contained throughout the globe.
The Truman Doctrine cleared the way for the Marshall Plan—a
massive U.S. aid program to Western Europe. In January, 1947,
the distinguished wartime Army Chief of Staff, George Marshall,
became Truman's Secretary of State. Europe remained in ruins
after the war. European countries could not afford to purchase
U.S. goods and Communist parties were showing impressive gains
on the continent. It seemed quite possible that native Communist
parties, which already polled one-third of the popular vote
in Italy and one-fourth in France, might capitalize upon the
general misery to capture political power through peaceful elections.
Marshall announced his proposal for economic assistance to
Europe on June 5, 1947. Most Americans approved wholeheartedly
of the Marshall Plan. The policy appealed to their humanitarian
instincts as well as to their desire to halt the inroads of
Communism, nicely harmonizing ideals with self-interest. If
Western Europe collapsed and fell under Communist domination,
the U.S. would be cut off from traditional markets and dangerously
isolated in an increasingly Soviet-ruled world. Moreover, a
generous program of aid to Europe would greatly stimulate the
American economy (most of the aid money had to be spent in the
U.S., and the purchased materials had to be carried to Europe
on U.S. ships).
A Soviet coup in Czechoslovakia in February, 1948 helped convince
members of Congress to appropriate the initial $5 billion in
April, 1948. By 1952, when military aid began to supplant economic
assistance, the U.S. had expended nearly $14 billion to promote
European recovery. The program was very successful, checking
the growth of Communism and laying the basis of Europe's future
economic success — Europe's economic productivity increased
by nearly 200 percent between 1948-1952.
Learning Objective:
Understand the Berlin Blockade and the formation of NATO.
During the war each side believed that a divided Germany was
essential for a peaceful post-war world. If Germany were unified,
no matter what the guarantees, both the Soviets and the Western
Allies feared that the other would sooner or later control it.
The country that controlled Germany controlled the heartland
of Europe. In the circumstances, the only thing to do was divide
it, with the Soviets controlling the eastern third, and the
Western Allies the western two-thirds. Berlin, the capital of
Germany, located 200 miles inside Eastern Germany, was also
divided into equal zones of occupation.
At the beginning of the summer of 1948, the Soviet Union was
faced with a whole series of what they considered threatening
developments. The Marshall Plan and the aid to Greece and Turkey
under the Truman Doctrine began to draw the Western European
nations closer together. In March, 1948, Great Britain, France,
the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg formed a defensive
alliance. The United States had encouraged its formation and
had indicated it intended to join.
In June, 1948 the Western powers indicated that they intended
to go ahead with the formation of an independent West German
government. Soviet foreign policy, based on an occupied and
divided Germany, a weakened Western Europe, and tight control
of East Europe, faced serious problems. To Stalin it must have
seemed that the victor in the war was being hemmed in by the
West, with the vanquished Germany (and Italy) playing a key
role in the new coalition. The Soviets viewed West Berlin as
a Western intelligence and military outpost in the heart of
the Soviet security belt. On June 23, 1948 the United States
introduced West German currency into West Berlin (implying that
it was an integral part of West Germany) and Stalin responded
immediately. He argued that since the West had abandoned the
idea of German reunification, there was no longer any point
to maintaining Berlin as the future capital of a united Germany.
The Western powers, through the logic of their own acts, ought
to retire to their own zones.
The Soviets clamped down a total blockade on all ground and
water traffic into Berlin. The Anglo-Americans set up a counter-blockade
on the movements of goods from the east into West Germany. Like
Stalin, the Americans believed that they could not give an inch—to
retreat from West Berlin might be perceived in Western Europe
as a lack of resolve by the United States to "stand up"
to the Soviet Union, and encourage the Western European countries
to try and accommodate Stalin. The Americans supplied Berlin
with an around the clock airlift, flying in 5,000 tons of goods
a day. In July, 1948 the U.S. sent two groups of B-29s (the
planes that had dropped the atomic bomb on Japan) to Britain
thus establishing the principle of forward American bases. The
Berlin crisis induced the U.S. Congress to reintroduce the draft,
something it had refused to do earlier. In April, 1949 the U.S.
and 11 other nations (Canada, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Great
Britain, France, the Benelux countries, Portugal, and Italy)
formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), pledging
that "an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe
or North America shall be considered an attack against them
all." President Truman moved four divisions of U.S. troops
to Europe to join the American occupation forces in Germany
as part of the United States' commitment to the common defense.
On May 12, 1949 the Soviets lifted the Berlin blockade. The
counter-blockade by the west was hurting them more than they
were injuring the West and they realized that there was no longer
any hope of stopping the movement toward a West Germany Government.
On May 23, 1949 the Federal Republic of Germany was created.
In 1955, over French objections, West Germany was allowed to
recover full sovereignty and to raise 12 divisions of troops.
Germany joined NATO and placed its divisions under NATO (not
German) command. Greece and Turkey entered NATO prior to 1955,
and Spain joined in 1983 (even though Spain had U.S. airbases
on its soil for years, the fascist leader Franco had to die
before Spain was allowed to join). In response to NATO the Soviet
Union tightened its control over Eastern Europe and later formed
a rival armed alliance, the Warsaw Pact (disbanded in 1991).
Learning Objective:
Understand the Communist success in China.
There were many reasons for the triumph of communism in China,
however Japanese aggression was the most important single factor
in Mao Zedong's rise to power. When the Japanese armies advanced
rapidly in 1938, Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government moved
its capital to Chungking deep in the Chinese interior and the
war settled into a stalemate.
The war enabled the Communists, aided by their uneasy "united
front" alliance with the Nationalists, to build up their
strength in guerrilla bases in the countryside behind Japanese
lines. Mao avoided pitched battles and concentrated on winning
peasant support and forming a broad anti-Japanese coalition.
By the end of the war the Communists controlled a vast slice
of China with about 116 million people. Mao and the Communists
emerged in peasant eyes as the true patriots, the genuine nationalists.
The promise of radical redistribution of the land strongly re-enforced
their appeal.
The long war with Japan exhausted the Nationalist government.
The United States had little influence in China, but it wished
to use China as a counter-balance to Soviet and Japanese expansion
in the area. The U.S. put terrific pressure on Chiang to root
out corruption, to introduce some meaningful land reform, and
to make an accommodation with Mao and the Communists. United
States' policy rested on the false assumption that Chiang wanted,
and would initiate, reform. Most Americans viewed the Chinese
communists with horror and there seemed to be no alternative
between Mao and Chiang.
The U.S. sent huge loans to Chiang, often in the form of direct
cash. In actuality these were bribes since the Chinese threatened
to quit the war against Japan if their palms were not crossed.
Fully half of Japan's overseas armies were pinned down in China,
and the Chinese had suffered 3 million casualties in fighting
the Japanese. The possibility that the Chinese might surrender,
thus freeing the bulk of the Japanese army for deployment against
U.S. troops, frightened Washington sufficiently to keep the
money flowing.
In early 1942, Washington sent General Joseph W. Stilwell (Vinegar
Joe) to China as Chiang's Chief of Staff. Stilwell fumed because
of Chiang's undeclared truce with the Japanese—whenever the
enemy advanced, Chiang's forces fell back without offering resistance—Chiang
was using his best forces to fight the Communists and he wanted
a strong army left after the war. Chiang and Stilwell hated
each other. Stilwell reported to Washington that "Chiang
Kai-shek believes he can go on milking the United States for
money and munitions by using the old gag about quitting if he
is not supported. . . .I believe he will only continue his policy
of delay, while grabbing for loans and postwar aid, for the
purpose of maintaining his present position, based on one-party
government, a reactionary policy, and the suppression of democratic
ideas with the active aid of his gestapo." Finally, the
antagonism between Stilwell and Chiang became so great that
Stilwell was removed from his position.
During the last stages of the war, Chiang also received Soviet
promises, basically honored, not to support the Chinese Communists.
In return Chiang leased Port Arthur to the Soviets and recognized
their control of Outer Mongolia.
When Japan collapsed in August 1945, Communists and Nationalists
both rushed to seize evacuated territory (Chiang's troops were
transported to key areas by the Americans). Heavy fighting broke
out in Manchuria and the civil war resumed in earnest in April,
1946. During 1945-48 Chiang received more than $3 billion in
U.S. aid, large quantities of U.S. military equipment, and the
weapons of 1.2 million defeated Japanese. American influence
was so strong that by 1946 the United States was responsible
for 51 percent of all Chinese imports (as opposed to 22 percent
in 1936) and 57 percent of all exports (compared to 19 percent
in 1936). At first Chiang had the upper hand, but the Communists
resorted to guerrilla warfare and refused to be defeated.
The huge influx of U.S. money caused inflation to grip the
country, the government's money became worthless. The ruling
classes panicked, and the rising prices caused terrible hardships
among the people. Violent strikes became widespread. The Nationalists
faced serious problems—their supply lines were extremely long,
American equipment was ill suited for guerrilla warfare, and
internal rivalries split the high command. In addition, most
workers and peasants hated the Nationalists for their oppressive
policies. Throughout the Communist controlled areas a hundred
million peasants had received land. American economic inroads
blocked the expansion projects of many of the Chinese bourgeoisie
and a large portion of them were pushed toward political collaboration
with the Communists. Beginning in the spring of 1948 the Communists
began their final offensive and by December, 1949 they had defeated
the Nationalists. Chiang and 1 million of his followers fled
to the Island of Taiwan under U.S. protection, and on the mainland
Mao proclaimed the People's Republic of China.
After their victory the Communist government seized the holdings
of landlords and rich peasants — 10 percent of the farm population
owned between 70 to 80 percent of the land — and distributed
it to 300 million poor peasants and landless laborers. The Communists
consolidated their power by dealing harshly with their foes.
Mao admitted in 1957 that 800,000 "class enemies"
had been executed between 1949 and 1954. By means of mass arrests,
forced-labor camps, and, more generally, re-education through
relentless propaganda and self-criticism sessions, all visible
opposition from the old ruling groups was destroyed.
Finally, Mao and the Communists reunited China in a strong
centralized state. They demonstrated that China was indeed a
great power. This was the real significance of China's intervention
in the Korean war. In 1950, when the American-led United Nations
forces crossed the 38th parallel and appeared to threaten China's
industrial base in Manchuria, the Chinese attacked, advanced
swiftly, and fought the Americans to a bloody standstill on
the Korean peninsula. This struggle against "American imperialism"
mobilized the masses, and military success increased Chinese
self-confidence. It was the Communists who realized many of
the fondest dreams of Chinese nationalism.
Learning Objective:
Understand the Korean War, 1950-53.
After Japan's surrender, Soviet armies had occupied north Korea
and Americans the south, with the 38th parallel as the dividing
line. North Korea, was larger in area (48,000 square miles,
slightly smaller than New York) and possessed most of the relatively
few industrial plants. It is mostly mountainous, and in 1950
had a population of 9 million. South Korea (37,000 square miles,
a little smaller than Virginia) had 21 million people, and the
best agricultural land. The two powers evacuated Korea in 1948
and 1949 respectively. The Soviets left behind a Communist regime
in the north that refused to permit a U.N. supervised election
to unify Korea. Elections were held in South Korea in May 1948;
Syngman Rhee became President of the Republic of Korea.
Each Korean government claimed the whole of the peninsula,
and each was itching to fight for it. Because Korea had little
significance in the complex contest between the Soviet Union
and the United States, neither power closely supervised its
dependent government before 1950. At a January 1950 press conference
Secretary of State Achenson stated that he did not regard Korea
as having any great strategic importance.
On June 25, 1950, North Korea attacked across the 38th parallel
with 7 divisions and 150 tanks. Because the South Korean army
had no armor at all, the North Korean attacks were stunningly
successful. At this time, the Soviets were boycotting the UN
for its refusal to seat Communist China (because of U.S. policy,
the Nationalists on Formosa represented China in the UN until
1972). Within hours of the attack President Truman ordered supplies
dispatched to the South Koreans, then he ordered the U.S. Seventh
Fleet to sail between China and Formosa to prevent an invasion.
He also promised additional assistance to counter-revolutionary
forces in the Philippines and Indochina. On June 30, U.S. ground
forces were committed to the Korean fighting.
The U.S. pushed a resolution through the UN Security Council
branding the North Koreans as aggressors, demanding a cessation
of hostilities, and requesting a withdrawal behind the 38th
parallel. The resolution was a brilliant stroke, for without
any investigation at all it established war guilt and put the
UN behind the official American version. Although 16 nations
did make small contributions to the UN forces, the UN commander,
General Douglas MacArthur, reported to, and took his orders
from, the U.S. Joint Chiefs. MacArthur later declared that:
"even the reports which were normally made by me to the
United Nations were subject to censorship by our State and Defense
Departments. I had no direct connection with the United Nations
whatsoever."
Truman responded to the Communist attack for several reasons:
the administration believed that the Korean attack was a major
test for the policy of containment—if the U.S. allowed Korea
to "fall" to the Communists it might send a message
to the Soviet Union that the U.S. would not back up its commitments
to Western Europe; Chiang could not hold on in Formosa nor Rhee
in South Korea without an American commitment; the U.S. Air
Force and Navy needed a justification to retain their bases
in Japan; and, the Democrats had to prove false the Republican
charges that Senator Joe McCarthy and others were making that
they "were soft on Communism." The administration
also used to war as the rational for a massive rearmament program;
the defense budget rose from $13.5 billion in 1949 to $71 billion
in 1952.
By September, 1950 the North Koreans had pushed the Republic
of Korean (ROK) and American troops southward to a small perimeter
around the port of Pusan. MacArthur then made a daring and dangerous
landing behind enemy lines at Inchon and pushed out from the
Pusan perimeter. The UN forces trapped and almost annihilated
the North Korean armies, liberated Seoul, and drove the enemy
north of the 38th parallel. In Washington the idea of containment
turned to one of liberation. The administration believed that
if the Soviets and Chinese were going to intervene in the war
they would have done so when the North Koreans had almost won
at Pusan. Thus, the administration and the Joint Chiefs assumed
that they would not interfere if the U.S. "liberated"
North Korea. And they believed that if Communist China did intervene
American air power would destroy its troops as they tried to
enter Korea.
When MacArthur crossed the 38th parallel the Chinese issued
a series of warnings, culminating with a statement to India
for transmission to the U.S., that China would not "sit
back with folded hands and let the Americans come to the border."
When America discounted this statement the Chinese broadcast
a warning on October 10, 1950, that if the Americans continued
north, they would enter the conflict. MacArthur assured Truman
that the Chinese would not interfere. MacArthur was wrong. Fearing
the prospect of a powerful enemy army on the borders of Manchuria
(The Japanese had invaded China from Korea), Mao Zedong threw
200,000 Chinese troops across the border in November. Within
two weeks the Americans were driven below the 38th parallel.
By March, 1951 the Americans had fought their way back to the
38th parallel. The administration, having been burned once,
was ready to negotiate. MacArthur smarted from his defeat at
China's hands, and he genuinely believed that the time was fast
expiring for an effective challenge to international Communism
and that Korea provided the best and perhaps the last chance.
He urged the nuclear bombing of the Chinese "sanctuary"
in Manchuria, blockading its coast, and "unleashing"
Chiang Kai-shek to invade the mainland. The administration rejected
his advice as likely to lead to a hopeless war in Asia, thereby
freeing the Soviet Union for new ventures in Europe and perhaps
igniting a third world war. A number of Republicans, angered
by Truman's 1948 presidential victory, and hoping to discredit
the Democrats, rallied to MacArthur's cause.
Failing to win his case within the government, MacArthur began
to appeal to the American public and particularly to elements
within the Republican party. He ignored orders to clear his
statements with the Defense and State Departments. On April
5, 1951 Representative Joseph Martin, Republican Minority Leader
of the House of Representatives, read to the House a letter
from MacArthur calling for a new foreign policy. "Here
in Asia" he said, "is where the Communist conspirators
have elected to make their play for global conquest. . . .Here
we fight Europe's war with arms while the diplomats there still
fight it with words." The issue involved was containment
versus liberation. On April 11, 1951 Truman removed MacArthur
from his command in Korea and Japan. After an intense, but brief,
furor over his recall, MacArthur faded from sight.
The war then settled into a bloody war of attrition resembling
the horrible years of trench warfare on the Western Front in
Europe in World War I. When it appeared to Syngman Rhee that
the United States would not protect his position he released
over 50,000 North Korean prisoners thereby delaying the peace
process until he could get U.S. assurances. After nearly two
years of negotiation, an armistice was signed on July 27, 1953
which for all intents and purposes re-established the status
quo ante-bellum (newly elected President Dwight D. Eisenhower
privately threatened to use atomic weapons to end the stalemate).
The Korean War lasted three years and one month. During that
time 54,246 Americans died and 103,284 were wounded. The war
cost the U.S. $54 billion. About 4,500 from other UN countries
died, along with over 113,000 South Korean military. Total Communist
battle deaths were estimated at 740,000. More than two million
civilians in North and South Korea were killed or injured. In
addition, much of South Korea and practically all of North Korea
were shattered. It took many years to repair the damage. Today,
South Korea is a pro-American ally under a conservative democratic
government. North Korea is a strict Communist dictatorship.
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Courtesy of George Burson, Aspen School District,
Aspen, Colorado.
