Download COLD WAR

KOREAN WAR
KEY DATES
1910 Korea annexed by Japan – heavy industry forced on the northern part of Korea, people corralled
into slave labor gangs to construct factories, mines, buildings, and roads – two resistances groups
(in the North, communist guerrilla around Kim II Sung; in the South, right wing resistance around
Syngman Rhee)
1945 August: First atom bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki
August: Korean divided along the 38th parallel where American and Soviet forces had met at the
end of the war – South run by the American, North become a communist state
December: conference convened in Moscow to discuss the future of Korea – joint Soviet-American
commission established
1948 June 24: Beginning of the Berlin blockade – blockade of all access to the city by the Soviet Union
June: beginning of the US and British planes airlift
August 15: creation of the Republic of Korea in the South supported by the Americans
September 9: creation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (D.P.R.K.) headed by thenPremier Kim Il-sung supported by the U.S.S.R
1949 Withdrawn of Soviet and US occupying armies leading to a steadily deterioration of the border
situation
May: end of the Berlin blockade
September: explosion of the first USSR atomic bomb
October 1: Victory of the communist forces in China – China = the Republic of the People
1950 February: beginning of Mac Cartism in the US
February: Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance
June 25: invasion of South Korea by North Korea with the sanction of Stalin – start of the Korean
War
June 28: United Nations’ resolution recommending that "the members of the United Nations
furnish such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to repel the armed attack and
to restore international peace and security to the area."
June 30: beginning of the American intervention in the Korean War
July: domination of the North Korean army
August-September: American and South Korean forces regaining control of the Peninsula under the
command of general MacArthur – pursue of the enemy into North Korea
November: 250,000 Chinese soldiers crossed the North Korean border overwhelming the U.N.
force
1951 March: Chinese and the North Koreans pushed back by Americans to areas above the 38th parallel
Korean war becoming a bloody stalemate with each side dug in around the 38th parallel
October: beginning of tug-of-war armistice negotiations
1952 December:
November 1: explosion of the first US hydrogen bomb at a test site in the Marshall Islands.
1953 January 20: General Eisenhower, new American president on a anti-communist agenda
March 3: death of Stalin
July 27: Korean war armistice signed
1954 Division of Vietnam at the 17th parallel
1955 Warsaw pact formed
1956 November: USSR crushed Hungarian revolution
1957 October 4: the Soviet Union launches Sputnik, the first man-made satellite to orbit the Earth.
1958 Foundation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration – beginning of the space race
1961 April: CIA-backed bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba failed
August : Berlin wall erected
1962 October : Cuban missile crisis
DOCUMENTS
Doc. 1:
June 25, 1950: North Korea invasion
August-September 1950: American
counter attack
1951: Stalemate
Doc. 2:NSC 68: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security, 7 April 1950
TOP SECRET
I. Background of the Present Crisis
[…The Soviet Union, unlike previous aspirants to hegemony, is animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own, and seeks to
impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world… With the development of increasingly terrifying weapons of mass destruction,
every individual faces the ever-present possibility of annihilation should the conflict enter the phase of total war…The issues that face
us are momentous, involving the fulfillment or destruction not only of this Republic but of civilization itself...
II. Fundamental Purpose of the United States
The fundamental purpose of the United States is laid down in the Preamble to the Constitution: ". . . to … secure the Blessings of
Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." In essence, the fundamental purpose is to assure the integrity and vitality of our free society...
Three realities emerge as a consequence of this purpose: Our determination to maintain the essential elements of individual
freedom..; our determination to create conditions under which our free and democratic system can live and prosper; and our
determination to fight if necessary to defend our way of life…
III. Fundamental Design of the Kremlin
The fundamental design of those who control the Soviet Union and the international communist movement is to retain and solidify
their absolute power, first in the Soviet Union and second in the areas now under their control…The design, therefore, calls for the
complete subversion or forcible destruction of the machinery of government and structure of society in the countries of the non-Soviet
world and their replacement by an apparatus and structure subservient to and controlled from the Kremlin. To that end Soviet efforts
are now directed toward the domination of the Eurasian land mass...
IV. The Underlying Conflict in the Realm of ideas and Values between the U.S. Purpose and the Kremlin Design
The Kremlin regards the United States as the only major threat to the conflict between idea of slavery under the grim oligarchy of the
Kremlin, which has come to a crisis with the polarization of power and the exclusive possession of atomic weapons by the two
protagonists. The idea of freedom, moreover, is peculiarly and intolerably subversive of the idea of slavery…The implacable purpose
of the slave state to eliminate the challenge of freedom has placed the two great powers at opposite poles.
Thus unwillingly our free society finds itself mortally challenged by the Soviet system. No other value system is so wholly
irreconcilable with ours, so implacable in its purpose to destroy ours, so capable of turning to its own uses the most dangerous and
divisive trends in our own society, no other so skillfully and powerfully evokes the elements of irrationality in human nature
everywhere, and no other has the support of a great and growing center of military power…
IX. Possible Courses of Actions
D. THE REMAINING COURSE OF ACTION--A RAPID BUILD-UP OF POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND MILITARY STRENGTH IN
THE FREE WORLD
A more rapid build-up of political, economic, and military strength and thereby of confidence in the free world than is now
contemplated is the only course which is consistent with progress toward achieving our fundamental purpose. The frustration of the
Kremlin design requires the free world to develop a successfully functioning political and economic system and a vigorous political
offensive against the Soviet Union. These, in turn, require an adequate military shield under which they can develop…
Conclusions and recommendations
…The whole success of the proposed program hangs ultimately on recognition by this Government, the American people, and all free
peoples, that the cold war is in fact a real war in which the survival of the free world is at stake.
Doc. 3: Telegram n° 75021 from Stalin to Pyongyang Soviet Ambassador- 28 August 1950
Verbally transmit the following to Kim Il Sung. If he demands it in written form--give it to him in written form, but without my signature.
1. The CC VKP(b) [Central Committee, All-Union Communist Party (bolshevik)] salutes Comrade Kim Il Sung and his friends for the
great liberational struggle of the Korean people which comrade Kim Il Sung is leading with brilliant success. CC VKP(b) has no doubt
that in the soonest time the interventionists will be driven out of Korea with ignominy.
2. … The greatest success of the Korean people is that Korea has now become the most popular country in the world and has turned
into the banner of the movement in Asia for liberation from the imperialist yoke. The armies of all enslaved peoples will now learn from
the Korean People's Army the art of bringing decisive blows to the Americans and to any imperialists. Moreover, Comrade Kim Il Sung
should not forget that Korea is not alone now, that it has allies, who are rendering and will render it aid.
Doc. 4: Images of the war – an American cemetery in Korean – Refugees fleeing
Doc. 5: Communist leaflet dropped to American troops – cover and the text on the back
AMERICAN
GI'S,
DO
YOU
THINK
OF
YOUR FATE FOR THE MORROW
U.S. GI's in South Korea!
You are now standing arms in hand, on the soil that
belongs to Koreans, an alien land thousands of miles away from
your own land, the United States.
For what purpose and for whom do you waste your dear
youth in the land of other people?
The rulers who have sent you to South Korea are
clamouring about "communist aggression" which never exists,
and about "protection of the Free World," a jargon bankrupt long
ago, to cover up their aggressive crimes….
Why should you die?
Each of the corpses of the American GI's who fall in the
battlefield is the very source of profits for the U.S. ruling circles
and the Wall Street warmongers.
American GI's! Rise up and demand the withdrawal of the
U.S. troops. If you do not want to die a dogs death in an alien
land for a few dollars as American mercenaries fighting against
the Korean people!
If you want to live a life worthy of a human being with true
human reason, refuse to level your guns at the innocent
Koreans and return at once to your dear parents, wives, and
children! Resolutely oppose the aggressive schemes of the
present rulers of your country!
This is the only way for you to save your lives and secure
happiness.
KOREAN WAR
Issue: To what extend was the Korean war symptomatic of the Cold War?
Proposition of ideas’ organisation
Introduction
A) A war symbol of the bipolarisation of the world.
1) A war between two blocks.
2) A war between two ideologies.
B) The impossible direct war but nevertheless a war
1) The nuclear fear.
2) Superpower-proxies at war.
Conclusion: strengthening a bipolar world
Introduction
Context:
- Korean war – forgotten war : from June 25, 1950 to July 27, 1953
- Context: Korean war = when the Cold war became hot for the first time  contradiction?
A) A war symbol of the bipolarisation of the world
1) A war between two blocks
- Confrontation between two blocs dominated by two superpowers :
 Division of the world into blocs acknowledged by the two superpowers in the world
• March 1947: Truman doctrine of containment – “at the present moment in world history nearly every
nation must choose between alternative ways of life”
• October 1947: Andrei Zhdanov’ report to the first conference of Cominform “The more the war
recedes into the past, the more distinct becomes two major trends in postwar international policy, corresponding to
the division of the political forces operating on the international arena into two major camps: the imperialist and
anti-democratic camp, on the one hand, and the anti-imperialist and democratic camp, on the other.”

A political division reinforced by an economic division  “Marshall plan” lesson
- United States’ bloc:
 Behind South Korea: the United States which supported the presidency of Syngman Rhee
 Behind the United Nation multinational force also known as UNO expeditionary corps sent to
counter attack the north Korean invasion in 1950: the United States
• 16 nations in the expeditionary corps, among which more than 10 000 British ground and
naval troops, commonwealth countries such as 17,000 Australians, Canadians, Indians, New
Zealanders and South Africans - but out of those 300,000 UN troops, 260,000 were
Americans
• American command with the US Second World War hero, General Douglas MacArthur
- Soviet bloc:
 Behind North Korea: “The CC VKP(b) [Central Committee, All-Union Communist Party (bolshevik)] salutes Comrade
Kim Il Sung and his friends for the great liberational struggle of the Korean people which comrade Kim Il Sung is leading
with brilliant success” = the USSR

• Creation of the North Korean People’s army with the support of the USSR: army equipped
with Russian tanks and artillery
• Stalin’s agreement on the invasion and technical support: USSR officers sent to help
Pyongyang finalize plans of invasion - Soviet pilots flew missions against U.N. forces in
Korea - Soviet intelligence officers interrogated U.S. personnel taken prisoner – on the whole
20,000 Soviet military personnel were estimated to have taken part in the Korean War,
although never on the front lines.
Behind North Korea: China, a new communist country since October 1, 1949
• 250 000 Chinese soldiers took part in the war
- Confrontation between two blocs attempting to assert their areas of influence and to contain each other
expansion world wide
 Expansionism of both sides denounced
• American denunciation: NSC 68 underlines: USSR “to seek to impose its absolute authority over the
rest of the world” - Harry Truman’s speech in April 11, 1951: “the aggression against Korea is the
boldest part of a greater plan for conquering all of Asia”
 Korean war perceived as a USSR plot to take over the world and impose
communist domination over the free world.
 Domino theory: if one country was to fall to Communism, then others would
follow, like a line of dominoes – worry that, if Korea fell, the Communists would
capture Japan, Indo-China, Philippines
• USSR denunciation: telegram of Stalin to Pyongyang Soviet Ambassador : “the imperialist
yoke”
 American intervention: attempt to spread American values and model all over the
world
 American intervention: threat to the USSR security
2) A war between two ideologies
- Fighting to assert the superiority of one ideological model: “No other value system is so wholly irreconcilable with
ours, so implacable in its purpose to destroy ours, so capable of turning to its own uses the most dangerous and divisive trends in our
own society”
 American model : “to secure the Blessings of liberty” - to assure the integrity and vitality of our free society” - “to
maintain the essential elements of individual freedom, to create conditions under which our free and democratic system
can live and proper” – “to defend our way of life”  “American way of life” lesson

• Free society in which the freedom of one individual is only limited by the freedom of another
individual
• Democratic society based on free elections – bipartisanships - a constitution which clearly
separate executive and legislative power
• Capitalist society resting upon free enterprise and free circulation  aspect denounced by the
communist leaflet airlifted over the UN troops during the Korean war, underlining the fact
that soldiers wee victims of some capitalists who were engrossing themselves over their
deaths
• American way of life: individual success – consumerism -comfort based on a wide range of
products made available to all such as cars, suburbs, commercial, television
Russian model : “communism” – “liberation from the imperialist yoke”
• Defender of the working class
• Political aspects:
 Highly centralised and omnipotent state run by one-party system: only members of
the communist party were allowed to hold government position – during elections,
all candidates were communist party members.
 Cult of personality
• Economical aspects
 Abolition of private ownership of propriety
 Centrally planned economy in total opposition to the capitalism system: economy
focused on heavy industry (coal, steel, oil) – use of prisoners of war, increase of
women workers and abandoning of the legal restrictions on the employment of
child labour to overcome the loss of young men during the war and therefore the
shortage of labour
 Collective farming: difficult work condition – lack of reward leading to apathy and
disillusions
• Cultural uniformity
 Writers, painters, composers instructed to heap praise on the Soviet system, the
success of farm collectivisation, of the glorious progress of Soviet industry:
socialist realism
• Repression: no freedom of speech - state control over newspapers, radio - KGB and Gulag to
reduce dissenters to silence – purging policy
- Psychological warfare – Korean war = war of the mind : propaganda at home, in each bloc – subversion,
attempts at destabilisation on the battle field - to encourage mass defections from Soviet or American
allegiance – to lower the moral of the troops – to spread the “true” battle picture
 All means used: audio visual means (cinema, television) – audio media (radio or loudspeaker) –
visual media (leaflets, newspapers, books, magazines and/or posters).
 Denunciation of the violence of the enemy and of its values
• American themes: "happy POW" - "good soldier-bad leaders" - "surrender and you will be
well-treated"- "we can crush you” - communists are lying to you
• Communist themes: unjust war – South Korea puppet of capitalism – dying in Korea = dying
for nothing – communist society a just society
B) The impossible direct war but nevertheless a war
1) The nuclear fear.  “Nuclear age” lesson
- A nuclear world: weapons of mass destruction – possibility of annihilation
 Both sides equipped with the nuclear bomb
• Atom bomb: 1945 for the US, 1949 for the USSR
• H-bombs : 1952 for the US
- Using nuclear weapons in Korea
 General Douglas MacArthur considered the use of the bomb until he was fired in 1951
• "a unique use of the atomic bomb--to strike a blocking blow" in case China entered the war
(17 july 1950)
• "requests commander's discretion to use atomic weapons." (9 december1950)
• sends a list of targets to the Pentagon and asks for 34 atomic bombs to create "a belt of
radioactive cobalt across the neck of Manchuria so that there could be no land invasion of
Korea from the north for at least 60 years." (24 December 1950)
 President Truman approved the use of atomic weapons on Manchuria if large numbers of Chinese
troops joined in the fighting or if bombers were launched from Manchurian bases
2) Superpower-proxies at war.
- Korean war = second real conflict where each side fight each other in order to create a unified country under
each other domination and control
 First real conflict : German blockade from June 24, 1948 to may 1949
• Soviet attempt to control Berlin by blockading all land access to the city
• Context:
 Berlin divided in two zones after the merging of the French, English and American
zones in June 1948 : West Berlin controlled by the occidental countries situated
150 km inside the Soviet zone, accessible by road, rail and along specific air
corridors through the Soviet controlled part of Germany – East Berlin controlled by
the USSR
 Occidental policy enforced from 1948 on: rebuilding a strong economic Germany
to lead to unification and to stop communism expansion in Europe – introduction of
a new currency, the deutschmark, in the western zones  trigger to the blockade
• The blockade: closure of all land and water routes between the western part of Germany and
Berlin
• The airlift or operation Wittles
 From June 1948 to May 1949, U.S. and British planes airlift 1.5 million tons of
supplies to the residents of West Berlin using the trhee air toutes from Hamburg,
Hanover, Frankfurt
 Landing of plane every three minutes delivering 4,760 tons of food and fuel per day
 Consequences of the German blockade: war impossible in Europe but any dispute between the two
superpowers could lead to a real war somewhere else in the world
-An indirect confrontation but a bloody confrontation: “The whole success of the proposed program hangs ultimately on
recognition by this Government, the American people, and all free peoples, that the cold war is in fact a real war”
Korean War = hot war showing that the confrontation expanded to peripheral arenas starting with
Asia - superpower at wars through proxies
 Korean war = a real military operation
• June 25, 1950, North Korea sent an invasion force across the 38th parallel into South Korea.
The Northern forces rapidly advanced southward against the ill-equipped defenders, taking
the Southern capital Seoul three days after the invasion began. The four U.S. divisions, rushed
to the Korean peninsula to stop the Northern attack, could do little against a superior force.
The U.N. forces were soon forced back to a perimeter around the southern port city of Pusan
by early August.
• In late October 1950, U.N. forces began encountering Chinese troops at that time. On
November 25, a Chinese force estimated at between 130,000 and 300,000 attacked the U.N.


forces -- quickly pushing them southward in a disorderly retreat. Some 20,000 U.S. Marines
and Army infantry fought their way out of a Chinese encirclement at the Changjin Reservoir.
The U.S. Navy evacuated tens of thousands of refugees and U.N. personnel from the ports of
Hungnam and Wonsan.
• Communist forces invaded South Korea for the second time in the war on December 31,
1950. Seoul was recaptured on January 4, 1951. U.N. forces stopped the Chinese-North
Korean advance about 30 miles south of Seoul and began a counteroffensive by month's end.
• N. forces reoccupied Seoul in March 1951.
• Truce talks began on July 10, 1951. By that time, the war had become static -- with neither
side making any real advances.
Korean war = a bloody war:
• Heavy aerial bombardment of cities and industrial plants
• 4 million military and civilian casualties, including 33,600 Americans, 16,000 UN allied,
415,000 South Koreans (among which 46 000 soldiers), 520,000 North Koreans, 400 000
Chinese including Mao Tse-Tung’s son
• Destruction of half of Korea industry, of a third of all homes
Conclusion:
- Korean war  reinforcement of the cold war
 Truman’s containment policy replaced by John Foster Dulles’ roll-back and massive retaliation :
• Roll-back : ontaining communism + liberating countries from communist control policy
• Massive retaliation also known as “brinkmanship": threat to turn the Soviet Union into a
smoking, radiating ruin at the end of two hours – making nuclear war too destructive to fight,
eliminating war itself.
We want, for ourselves and the other free nations, a maximum deterrent at a bearable
cost. Local defense will always be important. But there is no local defense which alone
will contain the mighty landpower of the Communist world. Local defenses must be
reinforced by the further deterrent of massive retaliatory power. A potential aggressor
must know that he cannot always prescribe battle conditions that suit him…The way to
deter aggression is for the free community to be willing and able to respond vigorously at
places and with means of its own choosing.
Source: John Foster Dulles, "The Evolution of Foreign Policy," Before the Council of Foreign Relations, New
York, N.Y., Department of State, Press Release No. 81 (January 12, 1954).
Escalating into an arms race:
• Massive rise in defence spending: in the US from 14 billion to 44 billion
•  “Nuclear age” lesson
 Strengthening each other sphere of influence
• Occidental bloc
 1951: alliance between Japan and the US
 1955: creation of the OTASE equivalent of the OTAN but in Asia
 Bagdad pact: safety net against communism in the middle east
• USSR bloc
 1950: USSR and China Sign a Thirty Year Pact, a Treaty of Friendship, of alliance
and mutual assistance.
 1955: Warsaw pact
- Cold war could be hot war in peripheral environment = scheme followed until the détente period : best
examples = the Cuban missiles crisis

Further documentation:
Films
Korean war seen from France
http://www.learningcurve.gov.uk/focuson/film/film-archive/player.asp?catID=3&subCatID=3&filmID=9
 Korean war seen from North Korea
http://www.learningcurve.gov.uk/focuson/film/film-archive/player.asp?catID=3&subCatID=3&filmID=10
 Korean war see by the US
http://www.archive.org/details/CrimeofK1950

Documents
 List of Korean war websites
http://www.kimsoft.com/kr-war.htm
Official website of the 50th Anniversary of the Korean War
http://korea50.army.mil/welcome.shtml
 Website dedicated to the involvement of Australia in the Korean War
http://www.awm.gov.au/korea/intro.htm
 British recollection of the Korean War
http://www.iwm.org.uk/upload/package/24/korea/koreaintro.htm
 PBS website dedicated to MacArthur
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/macarthur/index.html
 PBS website dedicated to Truman
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/truman/index.html
 Korean War Commemoration web site produced by the American ministery of Defense
http://korea50.army.mil/welcome.shtml
 Korean war veteran memorial
http://www.nps.gov/kwvm/home.htm
 Website dedicated to the psychological warfare
http://www.psywarrior.com/links.html
 Website dedicated to Chinese propaganda
http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/ec.html
