The Korean War had its origins in negotiations among the leaders of Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China, and the United States as they considered how the German and Japanese empires should be dismantled after World War II. As early as March 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden met in Washington and agreed that Korea should be governed by a "multipower trusteeship" after the defeat of Japan. President Roosevelt believed the people of Asia needed to be taught the ideals of democracy before they could be independent, and he had 30-40 years of such schooling in mind. This ethnic policy would have a hard time standing up to modern concepts of government, but it was a central factor leading to the Korean War. It certainly was not what the Koreans were anticipating after many years under Japanese rule.
On 1 December 1943 in Cairo, Egypt, President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek of China announced the "Cairo Declaration," which proclaimed that "in due course" Korea would be free and independent. The "due course" aspect frustrated many Koreans. In a 28 November-1 December conference in Tehran, Iran, between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, President Roosevelt again suggested that the international trusteeship schooling should last perhaps up to 40 years. At the Crimea (Yalta) Conference in February 1945, with the same leaders in attendance, Roosevelt reduced his figure from 40 to 20-30 years, with Stalin endorsing the shorter time period. And there, the discussion ended. In the protocol of the Yalta Conference, Japan is mentioned as the last item of business. Here the three leaders agreed, "in two or three months after Germany has surrendered and the war in Europe is terminated, the Soviet Union shall enter into war against Japan on the side of the Allies." The agreement laid out conditions that dealt with the disposition of Japanese territory. Korea was not mentioned.
Following Roosevelt's death in April 1945, President Harry Truman became the leading U.S. diplomat and negotiator. At the Potsdam Conference near Berlin from 17 July until 2 August 1945, Truman met with Churchill, Stalin, and Churchill's successor, Clement Atlee. The focus of the conference was Germany, the United Nations (U.N.), and a European peace settlement. Poland, Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Iran, and even Tangiers were on the agenda—but not Korea.
At the conference, the U.N. provisions addressed territorial trusteeship (the Roosevelt concept), stipulating that such trusteeship would apply only to "territories detached from the enemy as a result of the present war." Again, Japan was the last item addressed, and Korea was not mentioned. But it is obvious the Roosevelt idea of keeping Korea under such a governmental restriction also was the intent of the world leaders. Here was an international situation that would figure prominently in the future of Harry Truman, and it was not even mentioned in the deliberations.
This lack of attention to Korea provides a significant lesson for future U.S. diplomats. We may be superior in our technology and ability to generate wealth, but we seem to have much to learn in the field of foreign relations. Attention to detail is an old military maxim, but it is equally significant in negotiating international agreements. It is hard to lay the blame on President Truman for the Korean War. He was new in the job and had not been kept well informed on international events. But what a difference there might have been had he insisted that Korea receive as much attention by the negotiating leaders as some other nations had.
The first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, just four days after the completion of the Potsdam Conference. On 8 August, the Soviets declared war on Japan, as agreed at Potsdam. The rapid collapse of the Japanese war effort and the surrender with no specific reference to the future of Korea left the door open for the Soviets to take over the entire peninsula. As if in desperation, the U.S. State Department came up with a plan to divide it in half. The Soviets would control the territory north of the 38th parallel, and the United States would occupy the remainder of the peninsula to the south. To the surprise of many, the Soviets agreed to the division, which remains to this day.
With the demarcation established, the Soviets moved swiftly to occupy all the major cities north of the 38th parallel. The Americans arrived in Inchon Harbor on 8 September 1945, almost a full month after the Soviets crossed the border into Korea. Here was a homogeneous society with a traditional culture, closely integrated but living under Japanese control. One could have divided the United States between east and west at the Mississippi River and then again in the East along the Mason/Dixon Line with a greater chance of a workable peace settlement. The neglected Korea negotiations at Yalta and Potsdam, coupled with Roosevelt's concept of an international trusteeship for many years, set the stage for what rapidly became and continues to be a major world trouble spot. The Koreans were unhappy because they were not to be an independent nation, and political demonstrations erupted.
After training and equipping a formidable North Korean army, the Soviets withdrew their troops from the North in 1948 at the suggestion of the U.N. The United States withdrew its troops in 1949, leaving behind a lot of material and about 500 military "advisers." The South Koreans were far behind the North in the development of a security force, and the United States had not helped them very much.
To compound the situation, the United States undertook a massive demobilization of its own armed forces after World War II, with an aggressive reduction program directed by Louis Johnson, President Truman's appointee as Secretary of Defense. Johnson did all he could to reduce the size and cost of the newly created Department of Defense, attempting to build a case for himself to become Truman's successor as President. Again, little attention was paid to Korea. Thus, a personal political agenda by an individual with great authority placed the United States in a precarious position for engaging in military operations.
In a most unfortunate speech in January 1950, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson gave the impression that the United States did not consider Korea to be a factor in its strategic plans. The communists interpreted that to mean they could take military action to unify Korea under communist rule. With approval from the Soviet Union, vastly superior North Korean forces launched a massive military attack against the South on 25 June 1950. A disaster was under way.
The resulting warfighting story has been told countless times. First came the Pusan Perimeter fights for survival. Then came the Inchon amphibious landings, the U.N. march to the north with hopes of being home by Christmas, and the South Koreans believing their nation would be unified with a democratic form of government. Next was the surprise entry of the Chinese forces, the U.N. withdrawal to the south with the Chosin Reservoir action, and eventual evacuation of thousands from the port of Hungnam. This became one of the most massive amphibious operations in the history of warfare—in this instance, leaving the beachhead, rather than capturing it.
After a year of fighting, Jacob Malik, the Soviet delegate to the U.N., delivered a worldwide radio address on 24 June 1951 proposing cease-fire negotiations between the communist armies and U.N. forces in Korea. His speech launched a stalemate and static war that lasted two more years. The bloody and costly fighting that followed convinced the civilian leaders—Truman, China's Mao Tse-tung, and Stalin—that
[I]t was no longer in their respective national interests to try and win a total victory in Korea. . . . For soldiers at the front and the people back home, the commencement of negotiations raised hopes that the war would soon be over, but such was not to be. While desirous of peace, neither side was willing to sacrifice core principles or objectives to obtain it. The task of finding common ground was further complicated by the communists' philosophy of regarding negotiations as war by other means. This tactic significantly impeded the negotiations. And while the negotiators engaged in verbal combat around the conference table, the soldiers in the field continued to fight and die.1
Army General Matthew Ridgway, the U.N. military commander, was tasked to formulate plans for armistice talks. That planning action, although not anticipated, prevented operating forces from taking any serious aggressive offensive actions aimed at winning the war. Holding the line in the proximity of the 38th parallel evolved as the objective for both sides. That objective might have been satisfactory, except no armistice was in place. Both sides agreed to continue the fighting, with the South Koreans hoping to become a unified nation. Soldiers and Marines were being killed on the ground. Air Force and Navy aircraft were being shot out of the sky. Navy pilot losses hovered around 10% for every deployed air group. And for what purpose? It was not traditional combat with clear objectives. Had those participating realized the war would go on for at least two more years, the demonstrations that came to be associated later with the Vietnam War easily could have occurred during the Korean War. Some combat commanders, losing troops they were charged to safeguard, began to question their leaders, both civil and military, who were prescribing the rules of engagement with no clear objective. It was not a happy time, particularly for those veterans of World War II who knew what winning was all about.
The truce talks that began in July 1951 followed a successful U.N. offensive that had cleared most of South Korea of communist forces and captured parts of North Korea as well. The front line was not exactly along the 38th parallel, but it was more defensible. And the U.N. forces wanted to hold that line, not the parallel itself. Manning this line reflected the huge buildup in forces that had taken place during the first year of the war. Of the 554,000 U.N. troops, approximately 253,000 were U.S. soldiers and Marines, 273,000 were South Korean, and 28,000 were from 18 other U.N. countries. Communist forces numbered 459,000—more than half Chinese.
The truce talks became more significant. The communists dropped their demand for a return to the 38th parallel and accepted the U.N. position that the cease-fire line be drawn along the current line of contact. In exchange, the U.N. bowed to communist demands that a truce line be agreed on prior to resolution of other outstanding issues. The Americans, prodded by the South Koreans still hoping for a military victory and a unified nation, insisted that both sides be permitted to continue fighting until all outstanding questions had been resolved. The willingness of the U.N. (minus the South Koreans) to accept the existing line of contact as the final line of demarcation represented a significant windfall for the communists. It served as a fairly strong indicator that the U.N. had no desire to press deeper into North Korea.
Although a number of issues separated U.N. and communist negotiators, the chief stumbling block to an armistice concerned exchange of prisoners. At first glance there appeared to be no problem, since both sides had pledged to abide by the Geneva Convention, which called for the immediate and complete exchange of all prisoners on the conclusion of hostilities. This seemingly straightforward principle, however, disturbed many Americans. More than 40,000 South Koreans were being held in U.N. POW camps. Many of them had been impressed into communist service and had no desire to be sent north after the war. Moreover, a considerable number of North Korean/Chinese prisoners also had expressed a desire not to return to their homelands. This was particularly true of the Chinese POWs, some of whom were anticommunists who had been forcibly inducted into their army. Many Americans, particularly President Truman, recoiled at the notion of returning such men to the hands of their oppressors. For several months, U.S. policymakers wrestled with the POW question. In February 1952, Truman made repatriation a cornerstone of the U.S. negotiating position. The stalemate continued. The world might be different today if Truman had acquiesced on the POW issue.
In steady succession, replacement units crossed the Pacific, took their turns at combat, then departed on schedule. Career personnel struggled to train replacements, as qualified technicians completed their duty tours and took industrial jobs in the private sector. Maintaining leverage against the enemy became more and more frustrating.
Part of the frustration stemmed from the increasingly volatile POW issue. The communists accused the U.N. of violating the Geneva accords, even as they violated their most basic precepts regularly. As a result, the main ground action of the war shifted to Koje Do, an island 30 miles southwest of Pusan where POW camps had been erected to hold the more than 100,000 prisoners. Screening of these "enemy" prisoners was conducted to separate civilians from bona fide soldiers. Thousands of the former were culled and then moved by sea to mainland ports in South Korea. Organized prisoner groups resisted violently, but the U.N. moved ahead with actions to allow anticommunist prisoners to avoid involuntary repatriation. The U.N. reclassified the more than 40,000 South Koreans being held as "civilian internees," a categorization that would allow them to be released eventually to the south.
The screening process aggravated tensions inside the POW camps, which already were sites of frequent altercations. Guided by communist agents who deliberately had allowed themselves to be captured so they could infiltrate the camps, pro-communist prisoners staged a series of increasingly violent uprisings, much to the embarrassment of U.N. officials.
[They] scored a stunning coup when they succeeded in capturing Brigadier General Francis T. Dodd, the commandant of the U.N.'s main POW camp. To achieve his release, American authorities pledged to suspend additional repatriation screenings in a poorly worded communiqué that seemed to substantiate communist allegations that the U.N. had heretofore been mistreating prisoners. The episode humiliated the U.N. command and handed communist negotiators and propagandists alike a new weapon that they wielded with great zeal, both within the negotiating tent and on the larger stage of world public opinion.2
Reinforcements were provided. New POW camps on other islands were constructed, and on 10 June 1952 a new camp commander imposed control on his charges, with some 37,000 being moved to their then-decentralized homes.
U.N. officials disclosed the results of the screening. Only 70,000 of the 170,000 civil and military prisoners held by the U.N. wished to return to North Korea and China.
The results of the initial survey stunned communist and U.N. officials alike. While the communists were willing to accept the reclassification of South Koreans who had served in their ranks as civilian internees, the sheer number of POWs who purportedly wished to avoid repatriation represented an affront that they dared not ignore. The report thus drove the communists to dig in their heels even further on the repatriation question, and they refused to accept anything short of a complete return of all of their nationals to their control. Conversely, the survey also served to lock the United Nations into its position. Having asserted the principle of voluntary repatriation and demonstrated that a large number of individuals wished to take advantage of it, any retreat would represent a major political and moral defeat for the U.N. With neither side willing to compromise, the armistice talks became hopelessly deadlocked over the POW question.3
Meanwhile, casualties continued to mount on both sides.
On 8 October 1952, U.N. negotiators walked out of the talks in frustration. With the negotiations officially suspended, a demonstration of U.N. resolve seemed in order. So it was back to the ground war with action to take a frequent site of combat, Triangle Hill. Its capture would make a political statement, if nothing else. Action started on 14 October 1952 with an estimate that the battle would cost about 200 U.N. casualties. Several weeks later, when the smoke cleared, U.N. forces had suffered more than 9,000 casualties. Estimates of Chinese casualties exceeded 19,000. The communists had the manpower (and will) for such fights. The U.N. did not. Finally, in November, a significant event took place that eventually affected the war. Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected President of the United States, supported in his election by many servicemen who exercised their right to vote (many by absentee ballot) for the first time in their lives.
When Eisenhower was campaigning for the presidency in 1952, he promised that if elected he would go to Korea. In early December he kept his word, meeting with U.N. troops and their leaders. Soon after his inauguration in January 1953, word came out that his national security strategy would be based on a superior nuclear weapons capability. That message was not lost on the communists, who probably began to speculate, along with many others, that a nuclear weapon might be used to end the Korean War. Again, people began to hope that this miserable Korean experience would end.
By March 1953 when Stalin, the leader of the communist world, died, the Soviets were embroiled in troubles in several regions, and the Korean flap was beginning to be a drag on their resources. Stalin's successors were ready to back out of the fracas. Chairman Mao, the Chinese leader, felt the same. So the stage was set for a cease-fire. The communists would give on the POW issue and let prisoners elect their destinations following repatriation. On 26 April 1953, truce talks resumed.
When it became evident that a truce was imminent, the communists made one last effort at a more favorable division of Korea. Their attacks were massive and ferocious. During June and July 1953, one source cites more than 100,000 communist casualties and 53,000 for the U.N. The fighting was some of the most intense of the war.
Finally, a truce was announced, effective 27 July 1953. That was the last day of the fighting, but not the end of the war. In fact, the Korean War is still unofficially under way, with thousands of U.N. (mostly U.S.) forces still present in Korea, 50 years later.
About 76,000 communist and 13,000 U.N. prisoners, including 3,600 Americans, returned home. About 46,000 communists elected to remain with the U.N., including about 23,000 whom President Syngman Rhee of South Korea allowed to escape in a "prison break" prior to the repatriation. About 600 U.N. prisoners, including 21 Americans, elected to remain with the communists.
The troops fighting that last year and a half were unaware of the nature of the POW issue, yet they were intimately involved in combat. Targets for air attack had been depleted. Engagements with antiaircraft batteries were losing situations. MiGs were destroyed but so were many U.N. pilots fighting the aerial war. And the sporadic raids on the ground had no long-range purpose. What was the objective? And in the vernacular of today, what was the exit strategy? There seemed to be none.
Had the troops been aware that they were fighting and sustaining many casualties to guarantee the enemy the freedom to choose their future, the U.N. response might not have been so patriotic. But there was no Cable News Network to keep the troops or the general public informed. Even the senior leaders of combat units seemed to have no answer to the question: What is the objective?
Throughout its history, the United States has paid a price, mostly in lives, to guarantee freedom of choice, freedom of speech, freedom from coercion. In Korea, it paid that terrible price. In this instance, however, the sacrifice was more for the enemy's freedom than freedom for the people of this nation.
The people of the United States subscribe to some wonderful principles for existence in a civilized world, principles embodied in their Constitution. The Korean War tested their resolve to adhere to those principles, and they delivered. With all of its tragedies, starting with its cause, the Korean War was a true test of the American way. We may forget the bloody fighting, but we should never forget how it came to be.
1. Andrew J. Birtle, The Korean War: Years of Stalemate, July 1951-July 1953 (Washington, D.C.: The U.S. Army Center for Military History, 2000), Internet Web site, http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/brochures/kw-stale/stale.htm, p. 2.
2. Birtle, The Korean War, Internet Web site, p. 19.
3. Birtle, The Korean War, Internet Web site, p. 18.
See also http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~korea/origins.html for material on the origins of the Korean War.