The Korean War: The Untold Truth

Chapter 125 The Last Peace (5)
Peace: Postscript
America ended a war it could not declare victory for the first time, without celebration.News of the signing of the Armistice Agreement flashed on illuminated news boards in Times Square, and people stopped to read the announcement, shrugged and walked on.Unlike VE Day and VE Day, there were no cheering crowds gathered.Public statements from the White House have been toned down for fear of offending Syngman Rhee's dignity.General Mark Clark told reporters: "I cannot be joyful at this moment." Eisenhower apparently fulfilled his campaign promise to end the war, but the outcome did nothing to lift the American spirit.

Criticism was quick to come, even from the president's own side.Senator William Jenner of Indiana called the armistice "the last gift to appeasement."Rep. John Martin of Massachusetts, Speaker of the House, said: "You can't go on a military campaign and hope to succeed unless you have victory as your goal." Senator William Nolan of California declared the war to Eisenhower He disputed that "collective security" was victorious, noting that the United States and South Korea provided 95 percent of the manpower for the war.

Perhaps Harry Truman was the most unhappy American, masking his immediate anger with wily, uncharacteristic silence.He knows that this country is so happy about peace that any criticism will be dismissed as attitude.But years later, he discredited the "Republican Charm Doll" in front of his friends, saying that if he agreed to a truce on the terms Ike accepted, "they [the Republicans] would rip me off." Eight dollars."Truman didn't quibble about the terms of the armistice, which were essentially what he had sought when the talks began in 1951.But he believes that he was pulled down because the Republican Party accused him of a "no win" war policy, and now Eisenhower accepted the "no win" ending without blinking an eye.Other Democrats were free to speak up.Lyndon Johnson, a young senator from Texas, denounced the armistice as "a deceitful agreement that simply leaves the invading army free to attack everywhere".But liberals who supported Truman and Acheson's defense of South Korea saw the defense treaty as a bright spot for the Democrats.These liberals were loyal to the Roosevelt-Truman idea of ​​"peace through collective action," and Richard Rowell summed up their beliefs as follows:
In North Korea, the U.S. has demonstrated that it walks the talk and abides by constraints, if not more than that, because there are no constraints.History will cite North Korea as a testing ground for collective security, which until now was only a specious theory.North Korea will go down in history as a turning point in the world's anti-communist struggle.

Rowell's last statement was a bit of a stretch, but North Korea did offer the West a brief respite from armed conflict with communist expansionism.One of these factors is that the United States issued a stern warning through the United Nations on August 1953, 8, regarding the Communist Party's attempt to revive the Korean War: "The consequences of violating the armistice agreement will be very serious, and it is very likely that it will Leading to hostilities will not be limited to the borders of North Korea."

Only one part of the armistice agreement was implemented, namely the disposal of prisoners of war. On August 8, the "Great Exchange Operation" began at Panmunjom, and a month later, the UN forces had returned 5 prisoners of war (75 North Koreans, 823 Chinese).The Communist Party also handed over 70 people, including 183 Americans, 5 South Koreans, and the rest from various other countries.

Dealing with those prisoners who refused to be repatriated took even more time and effort. On September 9, the UN forces handed over 23 prisoners of war (including 22 Chinese and the rest North Koreans) to the Neutral Nations Repatriation Committee in the Demilitarized Zone.The Communist Party handed over 604 people who did not want to be repatriated, mainly South Koreans.As the UNF expected, Chinese representatives had little success in "explaining" to their former soldiers why they should return, with only 14 opting to repatriate.When the communists wanted to delay the talks for signs of more soldiers returning home, the UN forces simply released the prisoners.Most of the Chinese immediately went to Taiwan, and many joined the Nationalist army; the Koreans went to South Korea.

在359名不愿遣返的联合国军战俘中，只有10名选择了回国——2名美国人，8名朝鲜人。其余的325名朝鲜人和21名美国人、1名英国人仍留在共产党那里。

On the issue of stabilizing armaments, the Communist Party flatly refused to allow observers to visit North Korea's 10 designated ports of entry.At the same time, Poland and the Czech Republic in the Committee of Neutral Nations demanded strict implementation of the surveillance agreement on South Korea.This one-sided situation continued for several years until the United States announced in 1957 that it intended to modernize the South Korean military.

According to the armistice agreement, a political conference on the future of North Korea should have been held on October 1953, 10, but it did not (surprised no one).At the United Nations, the Communist camp called for a large round table, including the Soviet Union, to discuss a wide range of Asian issues.The United States pointed out that the armistice agreement clearly stated that a meeting should be held with the participation of "both sides" of the Korean War, and asked whether the Soviet Union agreed to this positioning.The Soviet Union did not want to.Finally, the North Korean issue was discussed at a multinational conference in Geneva in April 27, but to no avail.At a time when the importance of North Korea in the public mind had waned, much of the meeting was devoted to the partition of Vietnam, a move supposedly aimed at ending what was then known as the Indochina War.

Syngman Rhee clung to the position of president of South Korea until 1960, and the regime became more authoritarian.He continued to clamor for renewed war (no one took him seriously).When the 50s came to an end, even his followers thought he was getting old. In 1960, protests and student riots eventually drove him into exile in Hawaii, where he died in 1965.

From the most objective point of view, the Republic of Korea is still a politically terrible country.Successive presidents either came to power through military coups or were elected as the only candidate.Freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of political activity were all unheard of, and South Korean CIA agents routinely tracked down and killed dissidents, even those living abroad.From a positive point of view, South Korea is considered to be the "economic garden" of Asia, with an annual trade volume of US$100 billion with the United States, but there are quite a lot of hidden dangers in this garden.When President Jimmy Carter failed to withdraw the more than 4 American troops who remained there as a security force, as he had promised on his campaign, he found that South Korea continued to enjoy broad political support among American conservatives.

In North Korea, Kim Il Sung, despite his advanced age, was an unassailable strongman.From time to time, he declared that "North Korea will be unified in my lifetime", and he also persuaded South Koreans who were suspicious to come to the conference table.Troops from the two North Koreas are still on either side of the DMZ, where representatives of the United Nations Army and the Communist Party meet here and there for meaningless "peace" talks.A State Department official described the two countries this way: "Two scorpions separated by some ditches and barbed wire."

personal observation

The end of the Korean War has clearly displeased many North Koreans, especially the country's leaders, because the United States has failed to achieve its once-proclaimed goal of unifying Korea.As mentioned earlier, to achieve this goal, we must bear political and military costs, which the two US administrations are unwilling to pay.In the first few years after the war, however, North Korean discontent was strong.Syngman Rhee, for example, likes to harp on an old North Korean proverb: When whales fight, shrimp suffer.

However, South Korea is a country that believes in the United States (although the South Korean leaders clearly do not see any advantages in the US system of governance, such as free elections and political activities).The South Korean troops fought side by side with the Americans in Vietnam, and their bravery and skill make everyone who has been to their troops unforgettable.For China, South Korea remains a bone in its throat, a constant reminder that the United States responded militarily to aggression in this particular part of the world; and if ever the target is another, more important country—Japan, the United States There will be a comeback.For most Americans, however, North Korea remains an unknown world.Much of what they imagine and hear about North Korea is negative: the monstrous sect of Moon Myung Unification Church that harass people in the streets and airports, South Korea is their homeland; the money from the "Koreagate" scandal Abyss, the South Korean government used this to buy the support of countless members of Congress; a regime that is on the blacklist of Amnesty International.

In August 1979, I saw another side of the hearts of South Koreans.A friend arranged for me to be with a group of retired South Korean generals in New York for what is officially called the Condolences to Hospitalized Korean War Veterans/Korea-US Goodwill Mission.A South Korean woman in charge of public relations explained that the purpose of the event was "to express gratitude to American veterans who fought in the Korean War and are now hospitalized." (South Koreans really need goodwill: "Koreagate" hits the headlines, and President Carter is still talking about withdrawing U.S. troops from South Korea.)
In any case, the Koreans gathered a group of chicken-skinned, gray-haired, octogenarians, old generals in civilian clothes, Korean businessmen and professionals from the New York area, as well as several propagandists, to the Veterans Hospital in the East Side of New York. Jinfa, it is said that some of the patients there are veterans of the Korean War.

No one thought to tell these veterans: this is all about honoring them.The group, perhaps dozens, poured over and over again into a ward or room that housed a veteran.The leading general, a former chief of staff of the South Korean army, stepped forward, bowed, and read a long statement in fluent Korean (the veteran didn't know what to say).Some veterans, apparently exposed to the alcohol used to disinfect them, recoiled as if they had suddenly entered an Asian version of a Fellini horror film; crimes committed while they listened to the police's "Miranda rights" admonition about the suspect's rights.Although many people immediately appeared tense, no one got up from the bed and fled.When the reading was finished and the general pinned a medal to the patient's pajamas, an interpreter came to the rescue and told the veterans what was going on.

After seeing a few of these scenes, I fell behind in line to talk to a veteran, hoping to get some anecdotes to use in my book.One of them said, "Korean war, man, you know, I was there for 8 months, almost 9 months. I'll have to think for half a day to tell you which unit I'm in." He paused and said, "But , these North Koreans, they must not have forgotten, have they?" Yes, they have not.

(End of this chapter)