The Korean War: The Untold Truth

Chapter 13 Whale Fighting Shrimp (7)
So, a few days later, these North Koreans were arranged to take a jeep for a sightseeing tour of Seoul. They saw a situation that was completely different from the poor, backward and fear-shrouded city that Pyongyang radio usually portrays.They voluntarily recorded radio speeches describing a more comfortable life in South Korea.They also told their interrogators that the Fatherland Front was just a propaganda ploy to disrupt Seoul.One of them, who turned out to be a sergeant in the North Korean People's Army, volunteered to say that he was unaware of any "major military action" that foreshadowed the imminent southward invasion.

This is where Harold Noble felt duped by the South Korean army and his own embassy. "They made almost everyone believe what we wanted to believe: that they saw the free South, that they had chosen liberty over communism. We believed that, and so we believed what they said about the military Yes. They got the job done, fooling the South Korean military, the government, and foreign observers like us."

intelligence failure
The work of predicting the dynamics of Asia in the spring and early summer of 1950 was shared between two intelligence organizations: General MacArthur's Far East Command G-2 (Military Intelligence Service) in Tokyo and Central Intelligence in Washington, D.C. Bureau.For different reasons, both agencies are understaffed and unable to carry out their mandates.

Created under the National Security Act of 1947, the CIA, a mere three-year-old offspring of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II, had few friends in Washington officialdom and was under attack from military intelligence agencies. gnashing of teeth.The CIA consisted mainly of two types of personnel: academics who had been involved in OSS's "cloak and dagger" espionage work, and some unsuitable mediocrity who had been dismissed by other agencies.Dr. Ray Klein (of the former category) joined the CIA in 1949 as an analyst, "mainly responsible for drafting the monthly reports, four to five printed pages per issue, and putting on a nice cover, with a resounding title of 'Assessment of the World Situation'".North Korea is one of the countries frequently mentioned in the report.Klein acknowledged that the CIA was too far from the scene. "I base my analytical commentary mostly on the basis of newspaper and magazine articles I read, adding as much analyst jargon as I can."

In Klein's view, the Far East was an extremely tricky region. "We had very little intelligence to work with, very little concrete intelligence. MacArthur had been at odds with the Strategic Services, which kept the CIA from recovering in the Far East. He never allowed the Strategic Services to touch him The same is true of his approach to the CIA. He will never let the CIA get involved in Japan and North Korea, and the CIA is not an agency of his command."

Its insignificance in Washington can also be seen from the original three directors of the CIA.Sidney Souls, a reserve admiral, was a civilian executive at the Piggray-Wigley supermarket chain in Truman's hometown of Missouri.He gained influence with Truman, but he knew nothing about intelligence work.He was replaced by General Hoyt Vandenberg of the Air Force, chiefly because he was the nephew of the powerful Senator Arthur Vandenberg.Still, even Hoyt Vandenberg realized there was no way out in the CIA, and within a year he left to become chief of staff of the Air Force. In June 1950, the director was headed by Rear Admiral Roscoe Hillencott, who, one CIA insider said, was "a third-rate guy in the Navy who just happened to be in the Navy this time." people." (Truman thought of Hillencott and the CIA so seldom that the director was not invited to meetings during the first few days after the North Korean invasion. The CIA was apparently considered unhelpful in these discussions beneficial.)
The CIA's assessment of the possibility of a war breaking out in North Korea is good at analysis but lacks specific predictions, and it pays too much attention to global macro issues and ignores specific analysis of specific situations.No wonder, then, that the CIA didn't have a deep foothold in Asia, and the Tokyo "station" consisted of just three people working out of a hotel room.MacArthur's Far East Command even refused to provide an office space.It is not difficult to understand why North Korea has not received widespread attention:

-- North Korea was not mentioned in the CIA's daily roundup from March 3 until the war broke out.

-- During the same period, the CIA's weekly roundup mentioned North Korea six times, and three reports touched on the National Assembly elections in May. A March 6 report on the volatile political and economic situation accused President Rhee of going his own way and insisting on expanding the military to resist invasion. On June 3, the CIA commented on the rumors that Chiang Kai-shek would go into exile in South Korea if he was forced to leave Taiwan. "North Korea is too close to the Soviet Union and Communist China for even the most temporary and uncomfortable refuge," the CIA commented. On June 5, a small paragraph in the CIA report mentioned that North Korea was launching a "peaceful" reunification movement.

——On May 5, the CIA predicted in its monthly "World Situation Review" that if Syngman Rhee's power was weakened in the general election that month, "the chances of the Communist Party taking advantage of the situation in South Korea will be significantly reduced." The June World Situation Review made no mention of North Korea.

——Before the outbreak of the war, the Central Intelligence Agency mentioned North Korea for the last time in a regional intelligence report entitled "The Strength of the Current North Korean Regime." The report was dated June 6, but the material used was only Deadline is May 19.The report stated that North Korea "has the ability to achieve limited goals against South Korea, including the capture of Seoul, with short-term military operations."The report mentioned North Korean tanks near the demarcation line, but said nothing about the evacuation of villagers along the line.Although the report was approved by the CIA, the military portion of it was prepared by the military's Military Intelligence Service and included in the report "over the objections of the CIA."

All in all, the CIA was unable to warn the Truman administration that South Korea was on the brink of war for the simple reason that it lacked intelligence-gathering capabilities.

In contrast, Far East Command's military intelligence branch, or G-2, is in charge of intelligence in Asia. Everything is collected, so that the officers have little time to conduct calm analysis and sort out valuable intelligence.The crux of the problem is a lack of effective leadership. In 1950, the head of Far East Command's intelligence agency was Maj. Gen. Charles Willoughby, who had been in MacArthur's saddle since 1941. In 1950 he was 58 years old.Willoughby, who was born in Germany, kept his parentage deliberately ambiguous, sometimes claiming that he was the son of a German nobleman who had become a refugee from vague political persecution (a reporter for The Reporter in 1951 It turns out that Willoughby is actually the bastard son of a rope maker).Willoughby came to the United States in 1910 at the age of 18 and enlisted in the Army as a private under the name "Adolph Charles Weidenbach".He finally got an appointment and changed his name.Willoughby was an expert at writing flamboyant reports, a style MacArthur appreciated very much.Colleagues noted that he seemed to spend as much time ghostwriting as he did intelligence work.Indeed, in 1949 and 1950, Willoughby had little interest in intelligence work, and MacArthur appointed him to write and publish a four-volume history of the Pacific War.According to a former intelligence official: "Willoughby was ideal for MacArthur's military intelligence service. He knew what MacArthur wanted to hear, and he said it, that's all."

Willoughby shared MacArthur's views on intelligence work: Both of them refused to trust intelligence obtained by extraordinary means, especially the intelligence collected by pirate organizations such as the Office of Strategic Services and its successor, the Central Intelligence Agency.During World War II, MacArthur's attitude towards the Strategic Service Bureau was very clear.He does not allow the agency's operatives to operate in his theater and obstructs them if found.Both Willoughby and MacArthur only believed in information obtained through military attaches, interrogation of prisoners, and seized documents. They rarely believed in secret information collected by "deep-lurking" spies using favorable positions or channels.

Willoughby's main intelligence "product" in Tokyo is a "Daily Intelligence Summary" covering the entire Far East and more than 40 pages a day. Reading these voluminous compilations 30 years later is like listening to the chatter of old ladies at a bazaar: a mishmash of gossip, wild ideas, too irrelevant to assess.Much of Willoughby's "intelligence" came from disgruntled Chinese Nationalist officers, who were predicting the impending collapse of Mao Zedong's communist regime by the hour.The Military Intelligence Service has no spies operating in North Korea, and has to rely on sporadic second- and third-hand intelligence from defected low-level officials, refugees, and a handful of Western diplomats stationed in Pyongyang.Nonetheless, a careful review of Willoughby's Daily Intelligence Review does reveal a certain pattern of events that clearly foreshadowed an imminent North Korean offensive.

The clearest evidence—all of which is admittedly second-guessing, but the pattern is clear—is the rapid build-up of North Korean tank forces near the demarcation line. An intelligence report in late May gave unusually detailed reports of the formation of a new tank brigade by the North Korean People's Army: an estimated 5 medium and light tanks, 180 officers and men, and additional equipment such as anti-tank guns, field artillery , motorcycles and other supporting equipment.However, Willoughby's team rejected this intelligence as valid in a commentary in the Daily Intelligence Roundup on 1 May."The total number of men and weapons is extraordinary," the report said, making it impossible for the North Korean People's Army to form such a large tank force. G-5 stated: "Setting aside the difficulties normally encountered in deploying, say, a tank division, it feels economically and militarily impractical to form such a force in North Korea ’” Less than a month later, tanks of the North Korean People’s Army smashed South Korea’s defenses with a thunderbolt.

In early 1950, G-2 detected and shelved another sign of impending war: the relocation of all households within two miles of the 2th parallel.A seemingly obvious reason was to provide a staging area for the invading army, but Willoughby's G-[-] said otherwise: some farmers may have been trying to avoid the North Korean People's Army "laying landmines near the demarcation line. Danger".Any forced withdrawals were "driven by the need to make room for troops to live, the impracticality of farming in areas where border clashes sometimes occur, and the fear of North-South armed conflict".

There are other situations: the railway line connecting the 2th Parallel to Sariwon, a transportation hub outside Pyongyang, has been closed and is only open to military trains; a large arsenal factory has opened and will independently meet North Korea's needs for small arms ammunition; women have been recruited to work in Communications and nursing work; urgent call-up of teenage and adult men who had served in the Japanese Army. G-[-] dubbed the changes "war-type controls," adding: "These steps are reminiscent of similar activities in Germany before World War II."

But with regard to the prospect of invasion, Willoughby always said these words: Yes, G-2 has been hearing reports of the threat of invasion; yes, the North Korean People's Army is capable of attacking; There are signs of their army gathering.But none of these factors were considered sufficient for G-2 to issue any specific warning of an intrusion.

A lack of forethought was a common practice in the Truman administration. Dean Rusk, assistant secretary of state for far eastern affairs, was questioned at length about the strength of the South Korean military and the use of force by the North Koreans to take the South when he testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on a bill to aid South Korea on Tuesday, June 6 question of possibility."We don't see any current intention to suggest that people on the other side of the line want to fight a big fight for that," Rusk said. Even if the North Koreans attacked, the South Koreans "could be reliable," Rusk continued. to deal with the kind of military power that the North Koreans have built."

What Rusk didn't know was that two days earlier, on June 6, the North Korean People's Army had issued an order to the combat troops: prepare to invade South Korea.

(End of this chapter)