An End to the Fighting

The year 1952 was an election year in the United States. President Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) had decided not to run for another term. The Democrats nominated the governor of Illinois, Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965), to run for president. The Republicans nominated Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969), supreme commander of the NATO forces in Europe. (NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an alliance of nations in Europe and North America formed in 1949 primarily to counter the threat of Soviet and communist expansion.) Eisenhower returned home from Europe to campaign in June 1952, leaving his NATO command position open.

When Eisenhower won the Republican nomination, General Matthew B. Ridgway (1895–1993)—still fighting the Korean War in battle and at the negotiating tables as the commander of the Far East Forces and the United Nations (UN) Command—was given the NATO command. He immediately left Korea for Europe. Mark W. Clark (1896–1984), a four-star general and commander of U.S. forces in Italy during World War II (1939–45), replaced him just as the Koje-do prison takeover erupted (see Chapter 12).

"I shall go to Korea"

In his campaign for the presidency, Eisenhower promised to try to end the Korean War quickly and fairly. A month before the elections, he won great public favor by say ing simply "I shall go to Korea." He easily beat Adlai Stevenson in the elections and in early December made his promised trip to Korea. There, General Clark and Eighth Army commander James A. Van Fleet (1892–1992) presented Eisenhower with plans for an all-out war on the communists, including the use of atomic bombs and Chiang Kai-shek's (1887–1975) Chinese Nationalist troops. (Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Nationalists were driven to the island of Taiwan [formerly Formosa] after being defeated by Mao Zedong [Mao Tse-tung; 1893–1976] and the Communists in 1949 following the Chinese Civil War.) Eisenhower, who had certainly considered using atomic bombs to end the war, did not appear interested. He was an advocate of a limited war, preferring, if possible, to end the war in Korea with negotiation rather than resorting to extreme military means that could lead to world war. However, early in his administration, Eisenhower let it be known among the communist leaders that nuclear weapons would be considered if the peace talks were not resumed. In this "get-tough" position, Eisenhower also removed an order issued by Truman in 1950 prohibiting Nationalist China (whom the United States was supporting) from taking military action in mainland Communist China. Other than these gestures, the new president followed fairly closely in Truman's footsteps regarding Korea.

More changes in command

On March 5, 1953, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) died. Replacing him as the head of the Soviet Union was Georgy M. Malenkov (1902–1988), who, promptly after taking over, broadcast a speech expressing the Soviet Union's desire for peace in Asia. Eisenhower responded favorably to Malenkov's speech. Earlier, the International League of Red Cross Societies had arrived at a resolution that both sides in Korea should repatriate (send home) the sick and wounded prisoners of war (POWs). The United States approved of this resolution. Perhaps as a result of the change in Soviet leadership or due to international pressure, the North Koreans and Communist China announced their wish to exchange sick and wounded POWs with the UN Command. Almost immediately after this announcement, they expressed a desire to exchange all POWs, agreeing to allow a neutral nation to interview those communist POWs who did not wish to return to their home countries. These statements did not take place in the truce talks, which had not resumed, but the communists were publicly agreeing to the compromises proposed in earlier truce talk meetings.

"Little Switch": A step forward

On April 20, 1953, the first exchanges of Korean War POWs began with a transfer of the sick and wounded. The operation was called "Little Switch." By May 3, the United Nations had returned 5,194 North Korean and 1,034 Chinese POWs and 446 civilians. The communists returned 684 prisoners: 471 South Korean, 149 American, 32 British, 15 Turkish, and 17 other UN POWs. There were no difficulties in the exchange.

Bombing the North Korean food supply

The war had continued throughout the talks and cessations of talks, at times very violently and with many casualties on both sides. Truce talks resumed on April 26, as the sick and wounded POWs found their way home. The talks focused on forming a commission of neutral nations to oversee the armistice and repatriation of POWs. There was little agreement across the tables about which nations were neutral. In May 1953, the truce talks once again threatened to stall. General Clark wanted to launch another massive bombing of North Korea to push the communists to negotiate.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff—the president's and the secretary of defense's advisors on matters of war—agreed to another bombing of North Korea, but the plan was held up because, at this point in the war, North Korea had almost no buildings left standing to bomb. The North Korean capital of Pyongyang was leveled, as were the villages and cities in the north as well as the factories, plants, and industrial complexes. After consideration, the U.S. strategists decided to bomb the North Korean dams along the Yalu River, near the border with China. By destroying the dams, they hoped to flood the rice crops that would feed the nation through the year. Their intention was to starve the civilian population of North Korea in order to force the communist delegates to come to terms. The air force went to work, bombing the area for two weeks, successfully ruining the all-important rice crops. It is not known exactly how much starvation this caused, but there is no doubt that it caused much suffering in the year to come. Whether it had any effect on the communist delegates at Panmunjom is not determined, but the Chinese forces on the front followed the bombings with a fierce attack, gaining a few hills and killing many UN troops.

Syngman Rhee sabotages peace efforts

Although there were many details that provoked argument in the truce talks—particularly as to which nations were to be chosen as neutral—progress was being made. Both sides wanted to end the fighting. Unfortunately, South Korean President Syngman Rhee (1875–1965) did not. He had never been a willing participant in the armistice process. Rhee had proclaimed it unacceptable to create a peace that would leave the nation divided, with Chinese troops in the north to prevent the south from taking control of the whole country. He had done what he could to turn public opinion against the truce by staging mass rallies and making radio broadcasts and press releases.

In the spring 1953 negotiations, the UN made a concession to the communists, agreeing to send North Koreans who did not want to be repatriated to neutral nations (earlier they had said they would release them in South Korea). Rhee let it be known that he would not allow any Koreans to be released to a neutral nation, and that he did not believe India (the designated neutral nation) to be neutral. Further, he said he would not allow Indian troops into South Korea.

Despite the continuing and often vicious military conflicts at the battlefront, by June 1953 the armistice was nearing completion. Rhee stepped up his anti-armistice campaign in South Korea. He announced that South Korea would not go along with the terms of the truce and that he would remove the South Korean (ROK) Army from the UN forces and continue the war on his own. In his usual manner, he went after anyone in his own country who did not agree with him. Sydney Bailey described this in his book The Korean Armistice: "Opponents of the regime were being persecuted, alleged collaborators executed without trial, governmental 'goon squads' were at large, ministers with unsavory reputations had been appointed, corruption was rife, Rhee and his supporters were threatening to subvert the constitution, and the campaign against an armistice was gaining momentum." Rhee also threatened to shoot the Indian troops that were to come into South Korea to supervise the prisoner exchange.

Knowing that the UN armistice provided for North Korean prisoners who did not wish to be repatriated to be sent to neutral nations for interviewing and processing, on June 18 Rhee ordered the ROK officers at the prison camps to release these prisoners. He did this with the help of some high-ranking American officers. That night, prison guards sent about twenty-five thousand North Koreans out of the prison camps and into the population of South Korea. Then Rhee ordered all South Koreans, army and civilian, to cease working for the UN forces. He began to prepare his troops for fighting on their own.

The UN delegates and General Clark immediately gave the North Koreans and Chinese a written apology for Rhee's actions. Although the communists accepted the apology, they reasonably asked how the United Nations could comply with the terms of the peace in Korea if South Korea was not included in it. The truce was at a new impasse.

Eisenhower sent a team to try to reason with Rhee. On July 11, with promises of enormous economic aid and the continued presence of U.S. troops to provide security in South Korea, Rhee agreed not to obstruct the armistice. Two days later the Chinese concluded a brutal assault directed almost entirely at the ROK troops at the battlefront. Whole ROK divisions were shattered and the casualties were in the tens of thousands by the time the fighting ceased. Rhee then publicly promised to cooperate with the terms of the armistice.

The armistice is signed

On July 27, 1953, at 10:00 p.m., the delegates to the peace talks at Panmunjom filed into the Peace Pagoda to sign the armistice agreement. No one spoke during this stiff and uncelebrated ending of the war. The delegates simply signed their names in eighteen different places. The armistice agreement then went to the supreme commanders of the armies for signing. At 10:00 p.m. that day the fighting stopped. (The delay was set to give the Chinese, who had poor communications systems, time to let all their troops know of the cease-fire.) There was celebration in North Korea when North Korean Premier Kim Il Sung (1912–1994) announced the end of the war. In South Korea, it was quiet. In the United States, too, there was little fanfare upon news of the end of the war. Although few wanted to put it into such terms, many felt that the United States had suffered a true defeat, its first lost war. Eisenhower was criticized by many for not using nuclear warfare to bring about a victory in Korea, but for the rest of his life Eisenhower remained proud of getting the United States out of a dangerous and miserable war, viewing it as one of his greatest accomplishments while in office.

Operation Big Switch

Operation Big Switch, the exchange of all prisoners of war between the opposing sides, took place from August 5 to September 6, 1953. The communists returned a total of 12,773 UN prisoners. Of these, 7,862 were South Koreans; 3,597 were Americans; nearly 1,000 were British; and the rest were from the other UN contributing nations. From this POW population, there were 359 prisoners who did not wish to be repatriated. Of these, 335 were South Korean, 23 were Americans, and 1 was British.

The UN Command released 75,823 POWs directly to the communists in the demilitarized zone in Korea. Of these, 70,183

were North Koreans and 5,460 were Chinese. They released to the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission another 22,604 POWs who did not wish to be repatriated. Of these, 14,704 were Chinese and 7,900 were Koreans. (There had been 25,000 more North Koreans who refused repatriation that had escaped into South Korea due to Rhee's release order.) The repatriation committee, headed by Lieutenant General Timaya of the Indian army, heard the stories and decided the futures of the voluntary exiles and in many cases sent them to live in neutral nations like Argentina, Brazil, and India. The Chinese who refused repatriation, however, were most often sent directly by the UN to Taiwan.

Casualties

The tally of dead, missing, and wounded from the Korean War is still, more than half a century later, in question. The Pentagon (headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense) estimate of casualties from the war was 996,937 UN casualties. Of these, 850,000 were ROK (South Korean) soldiers; 17,000 were non-American UN troops; and 157,530 were Americans. Of the American casualties, 33,629 were killed and 103,284 were wounded. There were another 20,617 deaths within the military during the years of the Korean War, but not necessarily in Korea. Although a figure of 54,000 deaths—which includes the deaths of people who did not die or necessarily serve in Korea—has been used for many years and is engraved on the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., the Pentagon revised these numbers in 1994. The new estimate of battle deaths in Korea is 33,652, with "other deaths"—those occurring in Korea during the war due to illness, accidents, and other nonbattle causes—at 3,262. Thus, 36,914 American troops died in the Korean War. During the last two years of the war, while the delegates argued at the truce meetings, there were 62,000 American casualties, with 12,300 killed.

On the communist side, the Pentagon estimated 1,420,000 casualties. There were 520,000 North Korean casualties and 900,000 Chinese casualties. Some recent historians find these figures too high.

The worst of the casualties occurred among the civilians in North Korea and South Korea. Although the figures are not precise, there were probably significantly more than four million civilians killed during the Korean War. With the cities and towns of the nation flattened by bombing, millions of civilians also found themselves homeless and without means of survival; the suffering on both sides of the newly drawn demarcation line was vast and terrible.

After the armistice, North Korea and South Korea were still at war (and still were at the start of the twenty-first century). In 1954, the Geneva Conference raised the issue of unification of Korea. No progress was made in two months of discussion and none has been made since then. North Korea has remained staunchly communist and isolated from Western trade and culture. South Korea has modernized under a sometimes wildly successful capitalist economy. Both countries have experienced considerable turmoil.

South Korea after the armistice

Within six months of the armistice, most of the UN troops that were going home had flocked out of Korea. The United States, however, was far from done with its role in Korea. Rhee had made sure of this before he accepted the terms of the truce. The United States had promised to leave significant numbers of U.S. troops and provide military aid indefinitely in South Korea; it also agreed to help expand the ROK Army to twenty divisions and to provide long-term economic aid, with an initial installment of $200 million and $9.5 million in food to the Korean people.

In his memoirs From Pusan to Panmunjom, ROK General Paik Sun Yup (1920–) said "Once the armistice was a fait accompli [a done deal], President Rhee accepted it almost casually." Rhee had other things to worry about. The end of his second term as president came in 1954. He amended the constitution, which allowed only two terms, to allow him to stay in office indefinitely. Rhee was facing a different kind of opposition than he had before. After the war, South Korea opened its schools and had its own independent education system for the first time. With more education, people were less inclined to accept his strong-arm tactics. By 1960, the public was in an uproar about the corruption and violence within Rhee's government. Civil disorder, particularly among students, raged out of control, and Rhee was forced to resign at the age of eighty-five. He and his wife moved to Hawaii.

Democracy did not come easily for the Republic of Korea (South Korea). A democratic government followed Rhee's, but within one year, in May 1961, the military staged a coup d'etat (pronounced coo-day-tah; the overthrow of an existing government through force or violence). A military government under Park Chung Hee (1917–1979) remained in power until 1979. During those years, healthy economic progress was made, with a rapid buildup of business and industry. But the booming economy was not stable. In 1979, as inflation raced out of control, students took to the streets in powerful demonstrations against the increasingly repressive government.

Park was assassinated by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, and a short period of democracy followed. In 1980, however, another military coup placed the Republic of Korea in the hands of dictator Chun Doo Hwan (1931–). Under his ironfisted government, spectacular economic strides were made in Korea, but freedom and democracy were lacking. The

South Korean public rose up against the rigid dictatorship. The Korean people wanted democracy, and a new constitution was drawn up in 1987, calling for a popular election for the presi dent and five-year term limits. Roh Tae Woo was elected in 1988, but it was not until 1998 that former dissident Kim Dae Jung (1924–), the first South Korean president ever to be elected from the political opposition, brought some muchdesired freedom and democracy to the country.

North Korea after the armistice

In the meantime, Kim Il Sung remained premier of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and leader of the Workers' Party until his death in 1994. The nation never veered from its communist economy. (Communism advocates the elimination of private property. It is a system in which goods are owned by the community as a whole rather than by specific individuals and are available to all as needed.) The government revolved strictly around one man, its leader. Kim instituted a "cult of personality" in which he, the "great and glorious leader," was the center of adoration for all his people. His picture and statue were visible all over North Korea for this purpose. Free speech, the right to practice religion, and freedom of movement were almost nonexistent in his country. Outside of North Korea, knowledge of Kim's rule and his nation remain sketchy. After the war, North Korea returned to its position from previous centuries as the "Hermit Kingdom" (see Chapter 1). It held out against Western intrusion long after the other former communist nations opened their countries to world trade or diplomacy.

North Korea was faced with a monumental task in rebuilding its cities, factories, and facilities, which were frequently described as "rubble," after the war. With the help of the Soviet Union and China, the country succeeded in rapid reconstruction in the first ten years after the armistice. Its nationalized (owned by the state) industry was held up as a model among communist nations. Until the mid-1970s, it is believed that North Korea's gross national product (GNP; a measurement of the output of goods and services) was similar to South Korea's.

In 1994, Kim Il Sung died and his son Kim Jong Il (1942–) took his place as premier of North Korea. It was a difficult time to step into power. In the early 1990s, the Soviet Union and China, which had assisted North Korea to that time, withdrew necessary support. The North Korean economy collapsed. Problems with floods and collective farming added to the growing crisis. There was a dire food shortage and the nation faced widespread famine. From 1994 to 1998, between two to three million people died from starvation or from diseases due to hunger—as many North Koreans as were killed in the war.

At the end of the twentieth century, the two leaders of the Koreas, Kim Jong Il and Kim Dae Jung, began a new era of communication between the two estranged nations. They held meetings to try to relax tensions and arranged for a few Koreans to travel across the border to meet with relatives they had not seen or heard from in fifty years. South Koreans were anxious to send aid to North Korea when they learned of the famine. Although it was clear that the Korean people on both

sides of the border wanted reunification, the divisions set in 1945—when the 38th parallel was arbitrarily (randomly) carved across the peninsula—were too deeply entrenched for any short-range resolution.

The demilitarized zone (DMZ) remained at the turn of the century where negotiations left it in 1953, partly at the 38th parallel and partly just north of it. The armies of the two nations, greatly strengthened after years of military buildup, continued to face each other across the DMZ. Included in South Korea's military were thirty-seven thousand U.S. troops, the legacy of a fifty-year-old promise to Syngman Rhee to coerce him to accept the armistice.

Where to Learn More

Alexander, Bevin. Korea: The First War We Lost. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1986, revised edition, 2000.

Blair, Clay. The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950–1953. New York: Times Books, 1987.

Bailey, Sydney D. The Korean Armistice. London: Macmillan, 1992.

Eisenhower, Dwight D. The Eisenhower Diaries. Edited by Robert H. Ferrell. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981.

Goulden, Joseph C. Korea: The Untold Story of the War. New York: Times Books, 1982.

Paik Sun Yup. From Pusan to Panmunjom: Wartime Memoirs of the Republic of Korea's First Four-Star General. Dulles, VA: Brassey's, 1992.

Shinn, Bill. The Forgotten War Remembered: Korea, 1950–1953; A War Correspondent's Notebook and Today's Danger in Korea. Elizabeth, NJ: Hollym International, 1996.

Toland, John. In Mortal Combat: Korea, 1950–1953. New York: William Morrow, 1991.

Web sites

Savada, Andrea Matles, ed. "North Korea: A Country Study." The Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. [Online] http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/kptoc.html (accessed on August 14, 2001).

Savada, Andrea Matles, and William Shaw, eds. "South Korea: A Country Study." The Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. [Online] http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/krtoc.html (accessed on August 14, 2001).

Words to Know

atomic bomb: a powerful bomb created by splitting the nuclei of a heavy chemical, such as plutonium or uranium, in a rapid chain reaction, resulting in a violent and destructive shock wave as well as radiation.

casualties: those who are killed, wounded, missing, or taken prisoner in combat.

civilian: someone who is not in the military or any other security forces.

collaborator: someone who cooperates with, or helps out, enemies to his or her own nation.

coup d'etat: the overthrow of an existing government through force or violence.

gross national product (GNP): a measurement of the output of goods and services of a nation.

impasse: the position of being faced with a problem for which there seems no solution; a stalemate.

limited warfare: warfare with an objective other than the enemy's complete destruction, as in holding a defensive line during negotiations.

nationalize: to place ownership, usually of a factory or a business, in the hands of the government.

Pentagon: the headquarters of the Department of Defense and therefore of all U.S. military activity.

repatriation: the act of sending someone (often a prisoner of war) back to his or her own country.

unification: the process of bringing together the separate parts of something to form a single unit; in Korea, the hopedfor act of bringing North and South Korea together under a single government.

unlimited war: a military conflict in which a combatant nation uses every means within its power to pursue the goal of completely defeating the enemy.

Limited War versus Unlimited War

In 1945, near the end of World War II, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Nearly 130,000 people were killed or injured and 90 percent of the city was leveled. Two days later in Nagasaki, Japan, 75,000 were killed or injured and about 35 percent of the city was destroyed when the United States dropped a second bomb. The bombs quickly brought an already weakened Japan to surrender, but the use of this destructive new weapon horrified people throughout the world.

The United States tested the first atomic bomb in 1945. The Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb in 1949. Atomic bombs have a powerful explosive force that can destroy large areas and cause tremendous death and pain. They also create powerful radiation that damages living tissue. Unlimited nuclear warfare could destroy great portions of the planet, perhaps even making it uninhabitable for human and other life. After the two world powers had this tremendous capacity to destroy, the nature of warfare and the concept of war itself began to change. In wars prior to the atomic bomb, the use of all possible force to defeat an enemy was standard. After 1945, some limits would always be necessary.

Throughout the Korean War, the U.S. president, the State Department, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff all considered using the atomic bomb as a military solution. After consideration, they consistently returned to the idea of a "limited war," one in which the enemy was not thoroughly destroyed. Unfortunately, in Korea this limited war stretched on and on, leaving thousands dead and showing no sign of ending. Several of the military commanders in Korea, notably commanders of the United Nations (UN) forces Douglas MacArthur and Mark W. Clark, were advocates of an "unlimited war" in which the United States would use everything in its power, including atomic bombs, to defeat the enemy. They wished to fight China, who supported the communist North Koreans, on the Chinese mainland and to use the remaining Chinese Nationalist troops, who were exiled on Taiwan since the Chinese Civil War. Advocates of an unlimited war were generally called "hawks."

With the brutality of the atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and World War II within such recent memory, there was a great deal of international resistance to the idea of unlimited war in Korea. In the United States, no one seemed greatly concerned, and few were even aware, that the air attacks on North Korea had virtually wiped out whole cities and villages and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. But President Dwight D. Eisenhower wrestled with the consequences of unlimited versus limited warfare, according to his biographer Stephen E. Ambrose, as quoted by Hugh Deane in The Korean War: 1945–1953: "The truth was that Eisenhower realized that unlimited war in the nuclear age was unimaginable, and limited war unwinnable." Privately horrified by the idea of nuclear war, Eisenhower was able to speak calmly about it with his staff and the press and did not hesitate to scare the enemy with the prospect. After his visit to Korea in December 1952, Eisenhower wrote in his memoirs, as quoted by Ambrose: "My conclusion as I left Korea was that we could not stand forever on a static front and continue to accept casualties without any visible results. Small attacks on small hills would not end this war." Although he saw the need for a quick end to the killing, he still sought peace without all-out destruction. In a speech in the spring of 1953 called "The Chance for Peace," Eisenhower pushed for "the conclusion of an honorable peace in Korea."