contents - Description: Description: Description: Description ...

pro-Western government under Syngman Rhee in the South.
An officers training school, and a small arms plant was set up by the United States. They
gave the country $100,000,000 worth of military hardware to arm the 96,000 soldiers of the
South Korean armed forces. On July 17, 1949, Owen Lattimore said: “The thing to do is let
South Korea fall, but not to let it look as if we pushed it.” In a memo to the State Department, he
wrote: “The United States should disembarrass itself as quickly as possible from its
entanglements in South Korea.” In 1949, the American troops were withdrawn from South
Korea, and in a January 12, 1950 speech, U.S. Secretary of State, Dean G. Acheson publicly
stated that South Korea was “outside of (the U.S.) defense perimeter.”
The North Koreans, heavily equipped by the Russians, considered Acheson’s statement an
invitation to attack, in order to unify the country under communism. Gen. Douglas MacArthur
had received military intelligence reports from Gen. Charles A. Willoughby, that North Korea
was preparing for an invasion, and John Foster Dulles of the State Department went to
‘investigate,’ and covered up the activity he viewed at the 38th parallel.
On June 24, 1950, the North Koreans swarmed across the 38th parallel, and proceeded to
overrun the country. Rhee appealed to the United States, and the United Nations for help, as the
communists closed in on the South Korean capital of Seoul.
Truman called for an immediate meeting of the United Nations Security Council, who
convened the next day, and called the attack a “breach of the peace,” ordering the North Koreans
to withdraw to the border. Two days later, the Security Council called upon the UN members to
furnish assistance. Immediately the U.S. sent in ground troops and began air strikes. On July 7,
the Security Council urged 15 of the countries to put their troops at the disposal of the United
States, under the UN command of Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
With the UN being involved in the war, all U.S. battle plans had to be submitted for
approval, in advance, to the Under Secretary for Political and Security Council Affairs. Due to a
secret agreement made by Secretary of State Edward Stettinius in 1945, this position was to
always be filled by a Communist from an eastern European country. During the war, it was filled
by Russia’s General Constantine Zinchenko. It was later revealed, that Russian military advisors
were actually directing the North Korean war effort, and one of those advisors, Lt. Gen.
Alexandre Vasiliev, actually gave the order to attack. Vasiliev was the Chairman of the UN
Military Staff Committee, who along with the Under Secretary for Political and Security Council
Affairs, was responsible for all UN military action. Vasliliev had to take a leave of absence from
his position, to command the communist troops. So, what it boiled down to, was that the
Communists were controlling both sides of the war, and Russia was able to receive vital
information concerning all troop movements within the UN forces in Korea, which was passed
on to the North Koreans and Chinese.
General MacArthur realized what was happening and planned one of the most daring military
assaults in the history of modern warfare. To execute the engagement he hand-picked a group of
trusted and loyal officers so the initial stages would be kept a secret. MacArthur did not submit
the strategy to General Zinchenko. The resulting amphibious assault on September 15, 1950, at
Inchon Bay, turned the tide of the war by enabling UN forces to recapture Seoul, destroyed large
supply dumps, and began to push the North Koreans back across the border. In October, they
captured the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, and many communists retreated into
Manchuria and Russia.
The Taiwan government was planning to move against China, and Truman warned Chiang
Kai-shek not to make an attempt to recapture his homeland. Truman ordered the American