This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.
Today marks the 40th anniversary of Kim Il Sung's attack on South Korea, after which the cold war turned hot for Americans.
Within a week American air, sea and ground forces had been committed. Over the next three years, in a conflict that came to engage us with China too, almost six million Americans served and 54, 000 died. Harry Truman's quick decision to fight against the North Koreans belongs in our national memory.
China Crosses The Yalu. The Decision To Enter The Korean War. Allen S. Whiting. Macmillan, New York, 1960. X + 219 Pp. $7.50.
There were American mistakes before and after that decision, but I share the prevailing American judgment, both at the time and in later years, that the decision was right.
South Korea was kept out of the hands of a ferocious totalitarian. More important, there was a timely reinforcement of anti-Communist strength, especially in Europe. This would have been much less likely if North Korea had been allowed a quick and uncontested success. Truman's prompt response to the attack helped to make a reality of the American-led defense of the West that had been only a matter of political alliance and secret planning papers before June 25.
We often forget that without the Korean War, General Eisenhower might never have been called from the presidency of Columbia University to be NATO's first commander. And the cold war we now call won might well have been lost long since.
The Korean War In Pictures
It is traditional and correct to salute Harry Truman for the courage and speed of this basic decision. But it is well also to remember his Administration's mistakes. There was a failure to make plain ahead of time that such aggression would indeed be resisted. There was also a mistaken assumption, when the aggression came, that it must be the product of Stalin's own master plan for worldwide Communist conquest.
We later learned from Khrushchev's memoirs that, far from initiating the attack, Stalin only slowly consented to Kim Il Sung's overconfident plan for a campaign that would be over before the Americans could react. Khrushchev's version has been reinforced by other Soviet witnesses in the years of glasnost.
Thus, along with the needed stimulus to allied defenses, there came a mistaken intensification of the belief that all Communist actions everywhere were part of a single, implacably aggressive, worldwide war against freedom itself.
The Korean War; Drive To End Korean War Is Begun By U.n. Troops In Northwestern Sector
The defense of the free world was indeed strengthened by Truman's basic choice to fight in Korea. But by misunderstanding the causes of that war, our Government also strengthened men like Joseph McCarthy. Even more important, this view of the Communist menace as monolithic played a major role in our progressive overcommitment in Vietnam. However, as one who had a part in much later and larger decisions about Vietnam, I have no intention of suggesting that it was all the fault of earlier Administrations.
I believe that there were other mistakes: that it was right to decide to fight, but wrong not to share that decision with a ready and willing Congress; that it was right to fire Gen. Douglas MacArthur, but wrong not to control him or fire him sooner; that it was right to go somewhat beyond the 38th Parallel, but wrong to approach the Yalu River in the face of Chinese warnings; that it was right not to use the bomb, but wrong not to be steadily clear about that choice.
Many South Koreans blame Truman for more - for allowing their country to be divided in the first place, or for failing to impose its unification later. Both criticisms neglect the realities of power on the spot, but they have a claim on our attention.
Don Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize Winner For Dispatches On Korean War
Yet on this anniversary, it is wrong to focus on particular criticisms. The Korean War, like all wars, remains a treasury of choices for historians to review, and we shall be debating its lessons for generations. What deserves our respectful attention is that Harry Truman's basic decision, with its human cost, especially to us and to the South Koreans, was right.
Despite all their differences, South Koreans and Americans have remained friends. As the waning of the cold war brings near the prospect of constructive change in North Korea, that friendship can have great impact on the prospect for peace and freedom in a newly united Korea.
A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 17 of the National edition with the headline: The Korean War, 40 Years Later; The Right Decision. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | SubscribeThis is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.
Pentagon Suspends Major War Game With South Korea
WASHINGTON, Aug. 3—Newly declassified documents show that the United States gave high‐level consideration during the Korean war to staging a coup against President Syngman Rhee of South Korea.
The plan which called for Dr. Rhee's arrest, was known as Operation Everready. It was never put into effect on the two occasions it was under active study, the documents show. Dr. Rhee made concessions that, in the view of the Americans involved, made his overthrow unnecessary and undesirable.
The American military officers and diplomats who conceived the operation said before and after that they had high regard for Dr. Rhee's leadership and respected his deep anti ‐ Communist convictions, even though they often sharply disagreed with his policies.
The Korean War, 70 Years Ago, The Morning News, Danville Pa — Pennsylvania Military Museum
The declassified documents were provided to The New York. Times by John B. Kotch, candidate for a Ph.D. in political science at Columbia University, whose doctoral dissertation is on the American security commitment to South Korea.
The documents were declassified by the Defense and State Departments at Mr. Kotch's request under the Freedom of Information Act. Some documents were obtained independently by The Times.
The documents underscored the frustration and irritation that American leaders apparently felt about the dictatorial and often implacable policies of President Rhee.
Overlooked No More: Kim Hak Soon, Who Broke The Silence For 'comfort Women'
It is well known that Dr. Rhee and, his American allies often disagreed during the Korean war from 1950 to 1953, but it was not known that the United States had a plan for his ouster from power.
Dr. Rhee called it his life ambition to end the occupation of Korea by foreign powers and to unite the North and South. He was forced from power by student protests and riots in 1960 and died in 1965 in exile in Honolulu at the age of 90.
The American plans to overthrow Dr. Rhee arose in the spring of 1952 when the President arrested numerous Opposition leaders during an election campaign and imposed martial law.
The Korean War
The documents disclosed that the Joint Chiefs of Staff began, to worry that Dr. Rhee's repressive policies might provoke civil unrest and undermine the war effort being carried out under the over‐all United Nations Command of Gen. Mark W. Clark, who also was commander of American forces in the Far East.
On June 25, 1952, the Joint Chiefs sent a top‐secret cablegram to General Clark informing him that both the State and Defense Departments feared that the situation “may deteriorate to point where, in order to prevent interference with U.N. military operations, direct intervention in situation cannot be avoided.”
General Clark was asked to develop in highest secrecy a “detailed political and military plan” on what to do in case of a crisis.
Tunnel Discovery At The Dmz, A Monumental Achievement By The Far East District
The plans were not put into effect because soon after they had been made Dr. Rhee yielded to pressure from the United States and released the detained Opposition leaders.
The Joint Chiefs again became concerned about Dr. Rhee a year later when Washington worried that he might refuse to accept the armistice then being worked out with North Korea and China.
If he dissociated himself from the accord, the Americans reasoned, an armistice would be meaningless. Likewise, if he withdrew the South Korean forces from the United Nations Command, it would be a severe blow to the American forces.
Korea Intelligence: Eyes Seem Everywhere
The 1953 crisis was finally resolved when the United States agreed to sign a mutual defense treaty with South Korea and to grant important economic aid in return for Dr. Rhee's compliance.
But before Dr. Rhee agreed, high Defense and State Department officials again considered his ouster as an option to be presented to President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Facing a possible showdown with Mr. Rhee, State and Defense Department officials met on May 29, 1953, at the Pentagon to discuss alternatives, the documents reveal.
A Korean War Parade, Decades Late
The minutes of that session seem to give the flavor of the concern in Washington. Gen. J. Lawton Collins, the Army Chief of Staff, outlined the over‐all situation.
“In the last analysis we have, generally speaking, three alternatives, ” General Collins said. “One is to give Rhee a security pact; the second is to take Rhee and any other ROK [Republic of Korea] intransigents into custody, and third is to get an agreement from Rhee to cooperate with us until we could get U.N. forces out of Korea.”
Walter S. Robertson, then Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, said
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