The Korean War began on June 25, 1950 when North and South Korea erupted into conflict. The once united state was split between America and Soviet influence following WWII. The conflict totaled over 5 million casualties, and was the first "Hot War" of the Cold War.
In groups, read the documents and answer questions in the graphic organizer. Apply what the source says to the graphic organzier and figure out what went wrong in Korea. Be sure to put your groups opinions in the opinion section to form your own view on the topic.
Armed forces from communist North Korea smash into South Korea, setting off theKorean War. The United States, acting under the auspices of the United Nations, quickly sprang to the defense of South Korea and fought a bloody and frustrating war for the next three years.
Korea, a former Japanese possession, had been divided into zones of occupation following World War II. U.S. forces accepted the surrender of Japanese forces in southern Korea, while Soviet forces did the same in northern Korea. Like in Germany, however, the "temporary" division soon became permanent. The Soviets assisted in the establishment of a communist regime in North Korea, while the United States became the main source of financial and military support for South Korea.
On June 25, 1950, North Korean forces surprised the South Korean army (and the small U.S. force stationed in the country), and quickly headed toward the capital city of Seoul. The United States responded by pushing a resolution through the U.N.'s Security Council calling for military assistance to South Korea. (Russia was not present to veto the action as it was boycotting the Security Council at the time.) With this resolution in hand, President Harry S. Truman rapidly dispatched U.S. land, air, and sea forces to Korea to engage in what he termed a "police action." The American intervention turned the tide, and U.S. and South Korean forces marched into North Korea. This action, however, prompted the massive intervention of communist Chinese forces in late 1950. The war in Korea subsequently bogged down into a bloody stalemate. In 1953, the United States and North Korea signed a cease-fire that ended the conflict. The cease-fire agreement also resulted in the continued division of North and South Korea at just about the same geographical point as before the conflict.
The Korean War was the first "hot" war of the Cold War. Over 55,000 American troops were killed in the conflict. Korea was the first "limited war," one in which the U.S. aim was not the complete and total defeat of the enemy, but rather the "limited" goal of protecting South Korea. For the U.S. government, such an approach was the only rational option in order to avoid a third world war and to keep from stretching finite American resources too thinly around the globe. It proved to be a frustrating experience for the American people, who were used to the kind of total victory that had been achieved in World War II. The public found the concept of limited war difficult to understand or support and the Korean War never really gained popular support.
From History.com
History may be written by the victors, but in the cold war the losers' tails have retained a powerful sting. The newly opened archives of the Soviet Union are exposing the secrets of the communist world - and in the process casting the conventional wisdoms of western history in a new light.
The archive on the Korean war is one such example. The war was unique - the only "hot" war of the cold war period directly involving all the superpowers. The three-year conflict, from 1950 to 1953, cost at least two million lives and set the tone for the apocalyptic tension that only broke in 1990.
For four decades, historians have been embroiled in dispute over the Korean war, unable even to agree who started it. Traditionalists believed the war was Stalin's prelude to world domination, and that North Korea's leader, Kim II Sung, was Stalin's puppet, ordered to start the war to confront the west. Other historians, labelled "revisionists", said it started as a civil war, and it remains an open question whether North or South Koreans attacked first. At the time, and for the next 40 years, Moscow denied any involvement, and the Soviet Union's true role was kept secret even from the Russian public.
The opening of the state archives has provided an opportunity to compare the theories of every historian of the period over the past 40 years. Some now have egg on their faces.
From 1992, the Russian government allowed specialist historians access to the files. They reveal much about Stalin's mendacity. But almost more interesting is the light that contemporary Soviet documents throw on western policy-making. We can see that western leaders - the hawkish military in particular - were so locked into their own communist conspiracy dogma that they misread Soviet intentions as well as capabilities.
The communists always claimed that the war was started by the South. In the Soviet archives are a number of documents, including this telegram, sent to Stalin by his ambassador in North Korea, General Shtykov, two days after the start of the war, which conclusively show that the North attacked the South with Stalin's full knowledge:
The troops went to their start position by 24,00 hrs on 24 June. Military activities began at 4-40 local time ... The attack by the People's Army took the enemy completely by surprise.
Historian and Korean Pow General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley says: "The new material has exposed beyond question the extent to which Stalin and the Soviet Union were involved in the war. Hitherto we've had direct evidence that they were there, on the periphery. And we've had good reason to suspect they had political influence. Now we know beyond question."
The documents show that Stalin was behind the war. But there are unexpected twists.
Lashmar, Paul, "Stalin's 'Hot' War," New Statesman & Society, vol. 9, no. 388, Feburary 2, 1996
The Korean War, which began on June 25, 1950, when the North Koreans invaded South Korea, officially ended on July 27, 1953. At 10 a.m., in Panmunjom, scarcely acknowledging each other, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. William K. Harrison, Jr., senior delegate, United Nations Command Delegation; North Korean Gen. Nam Il, senior delegate, Delegation of the Korean People's Army and the Chinese People's Volunteers, signed 18 official copies of the tri-language Korean Armistice Agreement.
It was the end of the longest negotiated armistice in history: 158 meetings spread over two years and 17 days. That evening at 10 p.m. the truce went into effect. The Korean Armistice Agreement is somewhat exceptional in that it is purely a military document—no nation is a signatory to the agreement. Specifically the Armistice Agreement:
- suspended open hostilities;
- withdrew all military forces and equipment from a 4,000-meter-wide zone, establishing the Demilitarized Zone as a buffer between the forces;
- prevented both sides from entering the air, ground, or sea areas under control of the other;
- arranged release and repatriation of prisoners of war and displaced persons; and
- established the Military Armistice Commission (MAC) and other agencies to discuss any violations and to ensure adherence to the truce terms.
The armistice, while it stopped hostilities, was not a permanent peace treaty between nations.
President Eisenhower, who was keenly aware of the 1.8 million American men and women who had served in Korea and the 36,576 Americans who had died there, played a key role in bringing about a cease-fire. In announcing the agreement to the American people in a television address shortly after the signing,
Source: Ourdocuments.gov
Groups share results with class.
Was it necessary to go to war in Korea?
Who ordered the invasion of Korea? Koreans? Stalin? Truman?
What caused this war?
How many people died?
What is South Korea like now?
What is North Korea like now?
