KOREAN WAR
The KOREAN WAR was a conflict fought on the
Korean Peninsula from June 1950 to July 1953.
Initially the war was between South Korea
(Republic of Korea) and North Korea (Democ-
ratic People’s Republic of Korea), but it soon
developed into an international war involving
the United States and 19 other nations. The
United States sent troops to South Korea as part
of a UNITED NATIONS “police action,” which
sought to repel the Communist aggression of
North Korea. Before the war ended in a stale-
mate, the People’s Republic of China had inter-
vened militarily on the side of North Korea, and
the Soviet Union had supplied military equip-
ment to the North.
At the end of WORLD WAR II, in 1945, the
Soviet Union occupied the Korean Peninsula
north of the thirty-eighth degree of latitude,
while the U.S. occupied the territory south of it.
In 1947, after the United States and the Soviet
Union failed to negotiate a reunification of the
two separate Korean states, the United States
asked the U.N. to solve the problem. The Soviet
Union, however, refused a U.N. proposal for a
general election in the two Koreas to resolve the
issue and encouraged the establishment of a
Communist regime under the leadership of Kim
Il-sung. South Korea then established a demo-
cratic government under the leadership of Syng-
man Rhee. By 1949, most Soviet and U.S. troops
had been withdrawn from the Korean Peninsula.
On June 25, 1950, North Korea, with the
tacit approval of the Soviet Union, launched an
attack across the thirty-eighth parallel. The U.N.
Security Council passed a resolution calling for
the assistance of all U.N. members to stop the
invasion. Normally, the Soviet Union would
have vetoed this resolution, but it was boy-
cotting the Security Council in protest of the
U.N.’s decision not to admit the People’s Repub-
lic of China.
Sixteen nations joined the U.N. forces,
including the United States. President HARRY S.
TRUMAN immediately responded by ordering
U.S. forces to assist South Korea. Truman did so
without a declaration of war, which until that
time had been a prerequisite for U.S. military
involvement overseas. Though some Americans
criticized Truman for this decision, generally the
country supported his action as part of his strat-
egy of “containment,” which sought to prevent
the spread of COMMUNISM beyond its current
borders. Korea became the TEST CASE for con-
tainment.
The North Korean forces crushed the South
Korean army, with the South Koreans holding
just the southeastern part of the peninsula. U.N.
forces, under the command of General Douglas
MacArthur, stabilized the front. On September
15, 1950, MacArthur made a bold amphibious
landing at Inchon, about one hundred miles
below the thirty-eighth parallel, cutting off the
North Korean forces. The North Korean army
was quickly crushed, and more than 125,000
soldiers were captured.
MacArthur then sent U.N. forces into North
Korea, proclaiming, on November 24, that the
troops would be home by Christmas. As U.N.
forces neared the Yalu River, which is the border
between North Korea and Manchuria, the
northeast part of China, the Chinese army
attacked them with 180,000 troops. The
entrance of China changed the balance of forces.
U.S. troops took heavy casualties during the
winter of 1950–51 as the Chinese army pushed
the U.N. forces back across the thirty-eighth
parallel and proceeded south. U.N. forces finally
halted the offensive south of Seoul, the capital of
South Korea. A U.N. counteroffensive in Febru-
ary 1951 forced the Chinese to withdraw from
South Korea. By the end of April, U.N. forces
occupied positions slightly north of the thirty-
eighth parallel.
It was during this period that President Tru-
man became concerned about the actions of
MacArthur. The general publicly expressed his
desire to attack Manchuria, blockade the Chinese
coast, and reinforce U.N. forces with troops from
Nationalist China, with the goal of achieving vic-
tory. Truman, however, favored a limited war,
fearing that MacArthur’s course would bring the
Soviet Union into the war against the United
States. When MacArthur continued to make his
views known, Truman, as commander in chief,
relieved the general of his command on April 11,
1951. The “firing” of MacArthur touched off a
firestorm of criticism by Congress and the public
against Truman and his apparent unwillingness
to win the war. Nevertheless, Truman maintained
the limited war strategy, which resulted in a dead-
lock along the thirty-eighth parallel.
In June 1951, the Soviet Union proposed
that cease-fire discussions begin, and in July the
representatives of the U.N. and Communist
commands began truce negotiations at Kaesong,
North Korea. These negotiations were later
moved to P’anmunjom.
The Korean War affected U.S. domestic pol-
icy. In April 1952, President Truman sparked a
constitutional crisis when he seized the U.S. steel
industry.With a labor strike by the steelworkers’
