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The “Forgotten War” in Korea, 1950-1953

The “Forgotten War” in Korea, 1950-1953. Bombing of Wonsan, North Korea Korean War Memorial, Washington D.C. (July 1951) (dedicated in July 1995). National Security Council Paper No. 68 (NSC-68),1950.

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The “Forgotten War” in Korea, 1950-1953

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  1. The “Forgotten War” in Korea, 1950-1953 Bombing of Wonsan, North Korea Korean War Memorial, Washington D.C. (July 1951) (dedicated in July 1995)

  2. National Security Council Paper No. 68 (NSC-68),1950 “… 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. Conflict has, therefore become endemic and is waged, on the part of the Soviet Union, by violent and non-violent methods in accordance with the dictates of expediency. 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. They are issues which will not await our deliberations. As for the policy of ‘containment,’ it is one which seeks by all means short of war to (1) block further expansion of Soviet power, (2) expose the falsities of Soviet pretentions, (3) induce a retraction of the Kremlin’s control and influence and (4) in general, so foster the seeds of destruction within the Soviet system that the Kremlin is brought at least to the point of modifying its behavior to conform to generally accepted international standards.” Source: "A Report to the National Security Council - NSC 68"

  3. WHY WAS NSC-68 SO APOCALYPTIC? • NSC-68 classified top secret until 1975 • Context: Soviet atomic bomb (1949) Communist victory in China (1949) McCarthyism (1950-55) Berlin Blockade (1948-49) Korean War (1950-53) • Result: US defense spending jumped from $13 billion in 1950 to $50 billion in 1953 (hydrogen bomb, 1952) • Kennan opposed: NSC-68 as shift in goals from “creating strength in the West” (defensive containment strategy) to “destroying strength in Russia” (offensive liberation strategy) • Even Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson opposed: fear of bankruptcy • Secretary of State Dean Acheson and his aides later agreed, “Korea came along and saved us.” [quoted from LaFeber’s America, Russia, and the Cold War]

  4. The Korean War, 1950-53 January 1950: Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s National Press Club speech declared South Korea outside U.S. “defense perimeter” June 25, 1950: North Korean surprise attack on South Korea June 25-27, 1950: Truman’s surprise--2 UN resolutions to send U.S. armed forces to Korea, but no U.S. declaration of war from Congress October 7, 1950: UN forces crossed 38th parallel into North Korea (based on U.S.-written UN resolution) October 8, 1950: Mao Zedong mobilized Chinese troops October 19, 1950: 260,000 Chinese troops moved into Korea November 30, 1950: Truman mentioned potential use of atomic bomb in press conference; Mao was reportedly not impressed January 4, 1951: Communist forces captured Seoul March 1951: fighting stabilized roughly at prewar boundary April 11, 1951: Truman dismissed General MacArthur; MacArthur called for the impeachment of Truman and Acheson July 27, 1953: cease-fire agreement ended the Korean War Casualties: 54,260 US soldiers died 600,000 Chinese soldiers died in combat 2 million Korean soldiers and civilians died Map: CNN - Cold War

  5. The Korean War Debate Causes Gaddis: Stalin started Korean War by authorizing North Korean invasion LaFeber: both superpowers trapped in a bloody civil war between left-wing and right-wing Koreans (that had claimed 100,000 lives between 1946 and 1950) Significance Gaddis: U.S. refrained from using atomic weapons; both super-powers covered up direct military engagement of Soviet and American fighter planes over Korean peninsula LaFeber: U.S. invaded North Korea replacing ‘containment’ with ‘liberation’; Cold War turned global (shift from Europe to Asia) Consequences Gaddis: shock of North Korean attack almost as great as Pearl Harbor, its consequences for Washington’s strategy at least as profound LaFeber: NSC-68, U.S. defense spending tripled, Germany rearmed, US military commitment to Vietnam and Taiwan, McCarthyism, increase in presidential power, change in UN mobilization (“Uniting for Peace”) Sources: John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: Penguin Press, 2005); Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-2006 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006).

  6. The Rosenberg Case July/August 1950: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg arrested, charged with passing nuclear weapons secrets to the Soviet Union, charged for conspiracy to commit espionage March 1951: conviction and death sentence under Section 2 of the 1917 Espionage Act, which prohibits transmitting or attempting to transmit to a foreign government information "relating to the national defense" June 19, 1953: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed despite worldwide protests (including Pope Pius XII’s clemency appeal to President Eisenhower)—the only two American civilians executed for espionage during the Cold War 1953: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter characterized the Rosenberg trial as “the most disturbing single experience … during my term of service on the Court” and concluded that the Rosenbergs “were tried for conspiracy and sentenced for treason.” Controversy: Venona transcripts support espionage allegations for Julius Rosenberg, but not for Ethel Rosenberg; political climate of the time prevented fair trial; sentence too harsh (in comparison to atomic spy Klaus Fuchs)

  7. Judge Irving Kaufman's Statement Upon Sentencing the Rosenbergs “Citizens of this country who betray their fellow-countrymen can be under none of the delusions about the benignity of Soviet power that they might have been prior to World War II. The nature of Russian terrorism is now self-evident. Idealism as a rational dissolves ... I consider your crime worse than murder ... In committing the act of murder, the criminal kills only his victim … But in your case, I believe your conduct in putting into the hands of the Russians the A-bomb years before our best scientists predicted Russia would perfect the bomb has already caused, in my opinion, the Communist aggression in Korea, with the resultant casualties exceeding 50,000 and who knows but that millions more of innocent people may pay the price of your treason. Indeed, by your betrayal you undoubtedly have altered the course of history to the disadvantage of our country …The evidence indicated quite clearly that Julius Rosenberg was the prime mover in this conspiracy. However, let no mistake be made about the role which his wife, Ethel Rosenberg, played in this conspiracy … She was a full-fledged partner in this crime. Indeed the defendants Julius and Ethel Rosenberg placed their devotion to their cause above their own personal safety and were conscious that they were sacrificing their own children, should their misdeeds be detected--all of which did not deter them from pursuing their course. Love for their cause dominated their lives--it was even greater than their love for their children.“ Sources: Judge Kaufman's Sentencing Statement in the Rosenberg Case Government Views of The Rosenberg Spy Case

  8. Julius Rosenberg: “This death sentence is not surprising. It had to be. There had to be a Rosenberg Case because there had to be an intensification of the hysteria in America to make the Korean War acceptable to the American people. There had to be hysteria and a fear sent through America in order to get increased war budgets. And there had to be a dagger thrust in the heart of the left to tell them that you are no longer gonna give five years for a Smith Act prosecution or one year for Contempt of Court, but we’re gonna kill ya!” Source: Robert and Michael Meeropol, We Are Your Sons (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1975), p. 326.

  9. W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) • Activist for racial and social justice • Sociologist, historian, novelist, playwright, and cultural critic • First black student to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1896; “Talented Tenth” • Co-founder of Niagara Movement and NAACP • Founder and Editor of The Crisis, 1910-1934 • Chairman of Peace Information Center in New York and candidate for U.S. Senate for New York Progressive Party (1950) • Indictment, trial, and acquittal of subversive activities charges (1951) • Member of Communist Party, U.S.A. (1961) and citizen of Ghana (1963)

  10. Du Bois Spoke at Rosenberg Rallies • October 23, 1952: “The Rosenbergs are not accused of betraying secrets to an enemy of their country. At the time of the alleged deed we were friends and allies with the Soviet Union. […] How fortunate it would have been for us and for the world if at the time the Rosenbergs were accused we had in fact freely given to the Soviet Union and to the whole world the secret of the atomic bomb. […] But we did not do this, on the contrary, we set ourselves not to only fight the Soviet Union but to conquer the world. […] Most Americans who are not carried away by the hysteria of the Korean War cannot believe that the Rosenbergs committed a crime or had a just trial.” • January 8, 1953: “I know what it is to stand accused before my fellowmen of a crime of which I knew I was absolutely innocent and yet coerced to prove this innocence. Such proof was impossible. […] Here at last in the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg we reach the zenith of deliberate injustice. We are set to kill a mother and father and orphan their little children because we think that they believe in social remedies for evident ills which many others do not believe. […] This awful crime we threaten to commit in order to protect a nation which thinks it needs this sacrifice of blood to save its soul. Such a soul is not worth saving.” Source: Du Bois Papers (Microfilm, Reel 81, Frames 488 and 536)

  11. Some Connections • August 1950: on the same day the Rosenbergs were indicted of espionage, the Department of Justice ordered Du Bois to register the Peace Information Center “as an agent of a foreign principal within the United States” • In 1951 Du Bois was arrested as a foreign agent and his passport was revoked for eight years; Color and Democracy was removed from overseas libraries • Du Bois signed the petition by the Civil Rights Congress, entitled “We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Government against the Negro People,” delivered to the United Nations on December 17, 1951 by Paul Robeson and William L. Patterson • Du Bois submitted an amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the Rosenbergs; it was denied • Du Bois on Truman: “He ranks with Adolf Hitler as one of the greatest killers of our day.” • Shirley and W. E.B. Du Bois placed the Rosenberg children with Anne and Abel Meeropol during a Christmas party at their house; Abel Meeropol had written the anti-lynching song “Strange Fruit” in 1937 • Radosh/Milton: West European communists used the Rosenberg case to deflect attention from the anti-semitism of the Rudolf Slansky Trial (executed in Czechoslovakia in December 1952)

  12. Strange Fruit Southern trees bear strange fruitBlood on the leavesBlood at the rootBlack bodies swinging in the southern breezeStrange fruit hanging from the poplar treesPastoral scene of the gallant southThe bulging eyes and the twisted mouthThe scent of magnolia sweet and freshThen the sudden smell of burning fleshHere is a fruit for the crows to pluckfor the rain to gatherfor the wind to suckfor the sun to rotfor the tree to dropHere is a strange and bitter crop Composed by Abel Meeropol (aka Lewis Allan)Originally sung by: Billie Holiday YouTube - Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit

  13. Du Bois on the Rosenbergs (1953): “Crucify us, Vengeance of God As we crucify two more Jews, […] We are the murderers hurling mud We the witchhunters, drinking blood To us shriek five thousand blacks Lynched without trial And hundred thousands mobbed The millions dead in useless war. But this, this awful deed we do today This senseless blasphemy of birth Fills full the cup! […] For yonder, two pale and tight-lipped children Stagger across the world, bearing their dead […] Rise then the Bearers of the Pall Sacco and Vanzetti, old John Brown and Willie McGee. […] We the murderers Groan and moan: […] “Red Resurrection, Or Black Despair?”

  14. Robert Meeropol, An Execution in the Family: One Son’s Journey (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003) “I WAS SIX YEARS, ONE MONTH, AND ONE DAY OLD ON MONDAY, JUNE 15, 1953—four days before my parents’ execution. That hot June my ten-year-old brother, Michael, and I were living with friends of my parents […] in Toms River, New Jersey […] I was finishing my kindergarten year at Toms River Elementary School […] I played a lot of Monopoly while I lived in New Jersey […] I have surprisingly sharp memories of much of what I did and even of some of the world-shaking events that swirled about me during the week of June 15 […] We’d been watching a ball game on TV around suppertime when news flashed across the screen that plans for the executions were going forward. I could not read the words and do not recall Michael’s reaction, but he remembers moaning, ‘That’s it, good-bye, good-bye.’ Michael’s reaction and the urgency behind the adults’ decision to send us outside gave me the sense that something especially bad was happening […] I doubt I fully comprehended that my parents had just been killed, but I feigned complete ignorance to avoid the commotion, and went to bed […] I pretended not to understand what was going on so adults would not fuss over me.” (pp. 1-6) “My eighth-grade class visited W.E.B. Du Bois at his Brooklyn Heights home in the spring of 1961. If I had a flicker of memory about my previous visit to his house seven years earlier when I first met Anne and Abel Meeropol, I repressed it. This time Du Bois had an enormous impact on me. I sat in awe, literally at his feet, while he described his school experiences in a quiet melodious voice.” (p. 42)

  15. Sources and Resources • Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, 2 vols. (1981-1990) • John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage (1999) • Gerald Horne, Black and Red: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War, 1944-1963 (1986) • Gerald Horne, Race Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois (2002) • David Levering Lewis, W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963 (2000) • David Levering Lewis, ed., W.E.B. Du Bois: A Reader (1995) • David Margolick, Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Café Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights (2000) • Robert Meeropol, An Execution in the Family: One Son’s Journey (2003) • David Oshinksy, A Conspiracy so Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy (1983) • Michael Parrish, “Cold War Justice: The Supreme Court and the Rosenbergs,” American Historical Review (1977): 805-842 • William L. Patterson, The Man Who Cried Genocide (1971) • Ronald Radosh, The Rosenberg File (1997) • Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (1998) • William Stueck, Rethinking the Korean War (2002) • Documentary: “Heir to an Execution: A Granddaughter’s Story” (2004) • Websites: President Eisenhower Library and Archives, National Security Archive, Rosenberg Fund, W.E.B. Du Bois "Central" at University of Massachusetts Amherst

  16. THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS:“THE GREATEST INTERNATIONAL CRISIS IN ALL OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE”?

  17. Cuba and Fidel Castro • 1898: U.S. took de facto control of Cuba • By 1956: Americans owned 80 percent of Cuba’s utilities, 40 percent of its sugar, 90 percent of its mining wealth, and its key strategic location of Guantanamo Bay • 1959: Fidel Castro took control of Cuba; he suppressed free speech and opposition parties, pushed for land reform and decreased dependence on U.S.; he confiscated American property and courted Cuban Communist Party; • Feb. 1960: Russians signed trade agreement to exchange Cuban sugar for Soviet oil, machinery, and technicians; American refineries refused to refine Soviet oil and Castro nationalized U.S. refineries • July 1960: U.S. cut Cuban sugar imports into U.S. and Castro seized more American property • Early 1961: Eisenhower approved a CIA plan for training Cuban exiles who desired to overthrow Castro • Was Castro a nationalist first and a communist second? [Sources: Castro’s Address at United Nations, Sept. 1960, How I Became A Communist]

  18. Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961) • April 17, 1961: JFK launched Bay of Pigs invasion; 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles waded ashore without projected American air cover; the supposedly secret invasion failed [Source: A. Schlesinger Jr. on Bay of Pigs] • American Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson was caught lying about U.S. support of the operation • Robert McNamara said later: “We were hysterical about Castro…” • Now we know: the Soviets and the Cubans knew about the planned attack, the CIA knew they knew—and still went ahead • JFK publicly accepted complete responsibility for Bay of Pigs; in private he appointed his brother Robert Kennedy to oversee a $100 million CIA plan, Operation Mongoose, to assassinate Castro and to sabotage the Cuban economy [Sources: Lansdale on Mongoose, Economic Embargo Against Cuba, and Church Committee Report] • Castro feared another American invasion and moved closer to the Soviets: Khrushchev sent Soviet troops to Cuba; Soviets secretly began to install nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba in summer of 1962 [Sources: CWIHP Virtual Archive: Cuba in the Cold War]

  19. The “Missile Gap” • As 1960 Democratic nominee JFK charged Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee, with allowing a “missile gap” in the Soviets’ favor—it turned out to be in U.S. favor [Source: Campaign of 1960] • Oct. 14, 1962: U-2 plane filmed medium-range missiles (1,000 miles) on Cuban launching pads; a few days later it filmed intermediate missiles (2,000) under construction. • Khrushchev’s motives: to prevent U.S. invasion of Cuba; to surround U.S. with nuclear weapons (just as U.S. had done to S.U.); and to give Castro nuclear protection against U.S. • EXCOM: special committee of top administration officials met around the clock to advise JFK: Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Maxwell Taylor and Dean Acheson argued for an air strike; Undersecretary of State George Ball slowly won support for blockade; Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Special Counsel Theodore Sorensen doubted that missiles “significantly alter[ed] the balance of power.” • Oct. 22, 1962: JFK’s televised speech announcing the naval “quarantine” of Cuba, demanding the removal of the missiles, threatening a retaliatory strike against the Soviet Union, and appealing to remove missiles under UN supervision [Source: JFK's Radio and TV Address] • U.S. and Soviet nuclear forces went on full alert

  20. Whose 13 Days? • October 25, 1962: Russian ships did not challenge blockade • October 26, 1962: Khrushchev offered removal of the missiles in return for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba • October 27, 1962: Khrushchev demanded the dismantling of American short-range Jupiter missiles in Turkey; Soviet officer in Cuba shot down a U-2 plane; EXCOM began to plan for a military strike • In public, JFK accepted Khrushchev’s first offer (from Oct. 26) and in private, he consented to his second demand (to withdraw U.S. missiles in Turkey) [Source: RFK-Dobrynin Meeting] • October 28, 1962: Khrushchev accepted JFK’s offer; he knew U.S. was prepared to strike on October 30; but Castro refused to allow UN inspectors and refused to return Soviet long-range bombers • November 20, 1962: highest alert for U.S. forces ended as Castro returned the bombers

  21. The Berlin Connection • JFK stood firm when Khrushchev threatened to incorporate West Berlin in July 1961 • August 13, 1961: Khrushchev built Berlin Wall to seal off East Berlin (and East Germany) from the West; to stop emigration by East German skilled workers • Was JFK’s refusal to tear down the Berlin Wall “cowardice” or prudent statesmanship (to avoid a nuclear war in Europe)? • In JFK’s mind, Cuban Missile Crisis was about Berlin (E. May): U.S. threat to use nuclear weapons against S.U. was West Berlin’s only safeguard; if JFK had allowed missiles in Cuba, it would have threatened U.S. first-strike capability and may have forced JFK to surrender West Berlin or initiate global nuclear war • June 1963: JFK’s Berlin address: “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man I take pride in the words, ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’.” [Source:JFK in Berlin]

  22. A Victory for JFK? • Myth of Brinkmanship: Secretary of State Dean Rusk: "We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked." Until 1992, it was thought that Khrushchev surrendered unconditionally; JFK’s willingness to trade missiles in Cuba for missiles in Turkey was kept secret. • Near-Tragedy: EXCOM had planned an airstrike for October 30, 1962 to prevent Soviets from placing nuclear warheads on missiles in Cuba; Soviet officials revealed in 1991-1992 that 42 intermediate-range and 9 short-range nuclear missiles were in place during crisis. A stunned Robert McNamara commented in 1992: “This is horrifying. It meant that had a U.S. invasion been carried out … there was a 99 percent probability that nuclear war would have been initiated.” [Source: Declassified Documents] • Kennedy-Khrushchev correspondence, released in 1992, showed that on December 14, 1962 JFK maintained free reign to intervene in Cuba: “The other side of the coin, however, is that we do need to have adequate assurances that all offensive weapons are removed from Cuba and are not reintroduced, and that Cuba itself commits no aggressive acts against any of the nations of the Western Hemisphere.” [Source: Kennedy-Khrushchev Exchanges]

  23. Fallout • Republican Senator Barry Goldwater attacked JFK for selling out the Monroe Doctrine with his non-invasion pledge • JFK: “Domestic issues can only lose elections, but foreign policy issues can kill us all.” • McNamara: “… a missile is a missile … it makes no great difference whether you are killed by a missile from the Soviet Union or Cuba." • Rift in Western Alliance: Europeans had come “close to annihilation without representation”; De Gaulle built his own nuclear arsenal and rejected British entry into European Common Market • JFK began secret talks with Castro (cut short by assassination of JFK on Nov. 22, 1963) • Khrushchev was replaced by Leonid Brezhnev even though he had launched a massive military build-up in the Soviet Union • 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (prohibited aboveground nuclear testing): first arms-control pact in the midst of nuclear build-up • Hot-Line versus “rush into Vietnam”

  24. Historians Comment on “Thirteen Days,” Roger Donaldson’s Movie (2000) • Ernest May (Harvard historian, author of the Kennedy Tapes): -movie succeeds as thriller, mixed success as history -role of Kenneth O’Donnell overstated -JFK’s advisers do not resemble real-life men -role of military misrepresented -leaves out Cuban and Soviet angles -conveys truths of real crisis, JFK’s predicament (Berlin, not Cuba), and JFK’s statesmanship • Philip Brenner (Prof. of IR, American University): -movie fosters myth of U.S. as victim -movie’s time frame too narrow: leaves out Cuba, S.U. -movie leaves out causes of crisis: Soviets feared U.S. aggression against Cuba and U.S. first-strike against S.U. -contrary to movie, JFK did NOT know Soviets had deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba -movie credits American resolve for crisis resolution; in reality Soviets refrained from nuclear war and U.S. ignorance was most dangerous

  25. Recommended Readings • Cuban Missile Crisis 40th Anniversary Site, National Security Archive and George Washington University • Kennedy Administration Documents, U.S. Department of State • White House Tapes, Miller Center of Public Affairs • Laurence Chang, Peter Kornbluh, The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962—A National Security Archive Documents Reader (1992) • Aleksandr Fursenko, Timothy Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble”: Khrushchev, Castro & Kennedy, 1958-1964 (1997) • Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days (1969) • Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War: 1945-2006 10th ed. (2008) • Ernest May, Philip Zelikow, eds., The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis (1997) • Don Munton, David Welch, The Cuban Missile Crisis (2007) • Philip Nash, The Other Missiles of October: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Jupiters, 1957-1963 (1997) • James Nathan, ed., The Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited (1992) • Sheldon Stern, The Week the World Stood Still (2005)

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