The Korean War: The Untold Truth

Chapter 9 Whale Fighting Shrimp (3)
Independence "in due course"

The State Department was not at all coy when it told Syngman Rhee that he was not qualified to represent any "government."North Korea is one of many abandoned countries whose future will be resolved peacefully.In 1942, North Korea wasn't on anyone's priority list.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt shared the same lack of respect his relative Theodore had for the nationalist Koreans.At the Tehran conference in 1943, he told Soviet leader Joseph Stalin that the Koreans were "not yet capable of exercising and maintaining an independent government, and that ... they should undergo 40 years of tutelage".At a meeting later that year, Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and China's Chiang Kai-shek issued an official communiqué that reflected Roosevelt's pessimistic tone: "In memory of the enslaved Korean people, the aforementioned The three major powers (the United States, the United Kingdom and China) decided to grant North Korea freedom and independence in due course (emphasis added by the quoter).”

In the eyes of Rhee and other North Korean nationalists, the term "in due time" is a blatant insult, and the North Korean shrimp is caught in the middle of a whale fight.Syngman Rhee angrily asked the U.S. State Department, what power do the allies have to prevent North Korea from becoming independent?
Roosevelt's lack of enthusiasm for North Korea did not change his intention to prevent the Soviet Union from exerting a dominant role in North Korea after the war.According to secret State Department documents, Roosevelt pursued a broad diplomatic strategy to achieve this end.For example, he told Secretary of State Cordell Hull that North Korea "could be placed under international trusteeship with China, the United States and one or two other countries involved."Other State Department planning documents go even further, calling for postwar American rule over North Korea, implying a U.S. role in liberating North Korea by force. In March 1944, a State Department planning document stated: "United States participation in military operations in and around Korea will greatly strengthen its primary role in the internal affairs and international supervision of the Provisional Government." The report estimated that the United States The military occupation of North Korea is likely to be carried out "for a considerable period of time", and it may be carried out jointly with the Soviet Union, which will occupy a "substantial part" of the country.Two months later, in May 3, another document warned that if the Soviets took over North Korea alone, "the United States will consider this a danger to the future security of the Pacific."This document, among others, proposes that any occupation must be carried out through a central, all-participating government, rather than divided among several regional governments.

North Korea was finally included in the strategic planning of the vast Pacific theater as a bait to attract the Soviet Union to fight against Japan.A little background is needed here.Because the Soviets were fighting the Germans on the Eastern Front, the Soviets were still legally at peace with Japan even after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war on Japan by the USSR's main allies, the United States and Great Britain.Both Japan and the Soviet Union had no intention of starting a war. The former was held back to fight in other parts of Asia, while the latter had no intention of opening up a second front.But early in the war, General Douglas MacArthur, commander of US ground forces in the Far East, had urged his Washington bosses to try to persuade Russia to join the Pacific War. On December 1941, 12, the third day after Pearl Harbor, MacArthur sent a telegram from his headquarters in the Philippines to Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall:
The enemy has invested a large amount of sea and air power in the Philippines and the areas east of it in this theater, thereby weakening the Japanese mainland. The definite information obtained here shows that the enemy is most worried about Russia's entry into the war.Now is a good time to attack Japan directly from the north. This will not only inflict heavy damage on the enemy, but also immediately ease the momentum of the Japanese going south. ...

This is my golden opportunity to launch a general attack while the enemy is busy with his overstretched early air operations.

Such a request was unrealistic, partly because the Germans were approaching Moscow, and partly because Marshall would not consider it.But at the end of 1944, before the tri-power strategic conference to be held in Yalta, Crimea, Russia, early the following year, the question arose again.The State Department's planning document endorsed the need for the Soviet Union's entry into the war, but worded it carefully.At this moment, the War Department was busy formulating a series of plans to attack the Japanese mainland, and it feared that it would pay a terrible price (some estimates put the United States at a million sacrifices).Two years earlier, at the Tehran Conference, Stalin had vaguely promised to take part in the Pacific War "in due course".Now the Joint Chiefs of Staff urged Roosevelt to let Stalin keep his word.War Department intelligence officials declared that Russia's participation in the war was "vital" to destroying the main force of the Japanese army.The Joint Chiefs of Staff estimated that the war against Japan would continue for 100 months after Germany surrendered, and that the Allies could have saved 18 casualties had the Soviets entered the war before the United States attacked the Japanese homeland.

To Roosevelt's inner circle, reducing so many sacrifices justified the political risk that the United States would take by giving the Soviet Union the opportunity to expand into areas controlled by Japan.State Department officials preparing for the Yalta meeting see North Korea as a bargaining collateral.According to the Yalta working paper, the United States was willing to occupy Korea after the war with Britain and China (and the Soviet Union, but it had to participate in the Pacific War), but the document emphasized that the United States should "play a leading role in the occupation and military government."The United States has no long-term interests in Korea, and all it wants is to deter any Russian meddling in Japan.

North Korea has once again become a "shrimp" caught in a whale's fight.

Yalta deal

In February 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt was seriously ill when he sailed for Yalta.A stroke had damaged his brain the previous summer, and his last fatal attack was only a few weeks later.He stayed in his cabin during the ten-day transatlantic and crossing the Mediterranean.The official explanation was that the president had a "bad cold", but when British Prime Minister Winston Churchill waved to his old partner at a stopover in the port of Malta, he instinctively sensed otherwise.Churchill felt that the president looked "weak and sickly".

Roosevelt's physical condition during the Yalta conference and the agreement he reached dragged down American foreign policy for 30 years.Republicans blasted a disorganized Democratic president who had "sold out" swaths of Eastern Europe and Asia to the scheming Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.From meeting to meeting, the Soviet dictator kept changing his face: he was as charming and lovable in public as he was ruthless in private.He also repeatedly emphasized eternal friendship."Our alliance ... will not lose the intimacy that characterizes it ... may this alliance be strong and firm," he said in a toast to a vodka-heavy feast.

Both Stalin and the Allies came to Yalta with paramount self-interest.Stalin wanted to create "buffer zones" in Asia and Europe, i.e., subservient satellite states to Moscow.The details of Europe are too complex to be exhausted here.The "rights" given to the Soviet Union in Europe were basically what the Red Army had already seized or could seize before the end of the war, and no one had sufficient reason to change this fait accompli.

In a private meeting, Stalin and Roosevelt identified the Asian buffer zone.Earlier, Stalin had told the U.S. ambassador to Moscow, Avril Harriman, that what he wanted in the Pacific War was the "return" of southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, which he claimed were captured by Japan in the 1904 war. (in fact, at that time Japan only took the southern part of Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands were acquired by Japan under a treaty freely negotiated in 1875).Stalin told Roosevelt that the Soviet Union should have "privileges" in "Manchuria", so he hoped that Dalian Port would be internationalized, and the Soviet Union could use Lushun Port as a naval base to jointly manage the Chinese railway in "Manchuria".In exchange, the Soviet Union would participate in the war against Japan "within two or three months after the surrender of Germany".

Roosevelt avoided answering, saying that he must negotiate with Chiang Kai-shek first, otherwise it would be difficult to make commitments on port and railway matters.But he said yes to the rest (much to the dismay of Roosevelt's adviser, Charles Pollan, who disapproved of the president's dealings with "Manchuria" "behind our Chinese allies'' back. The powerful attack of the Chinese, allowing the Soviet Union to rule "Manchuria" will only jeopardize Chiang Kai-shek's cause).

However, those who hold Pollan's opinion are only a minority.The U.S. military, especially General Douglas MacArthur, commander of the Pacific theater, strongly advocated for the Russians to enter the war.A few days after the Yalta Conference, the War Department sent Colonel Paul L. Freeman Jr. to MacArthur's headquarters to brief him on these decisions.MacArthur was busy formulating plans to attack the Japanese mainland. He expressed concern about the "stamina of the Japanese army" and the possibility of Japan drawing troops from "Manchuria" and China to defend the mainland.Freeman quoted MacArthur in a telegram to the War Department on February 1945, 2: "He emphasized that we will never attack the Japanese mainland unless the Russian army takes action in 'Manchuria' first." The political price to be paid later.Freeman also said in the memo:
He (referring to MacArthur) was very clear about Russia's intentions. They wanted all of "Manchuria", North Korea, and possibly some territory in North China.Occupying these lands is inevitable, but the United States must insist that Russia pay for this, that is, enter "Manchuria" as soon as possible after defeating Germany.

A few days later, MacArthur spoke in the same tone with Brigadier General George Lincoln, another War Department representative. On February 1945, 2, Lincoln telegraphed back to his superiors:
General MacArthur pointed out that, politically, they (the Russians) hoped to have an ice-free port, Port Arthur.He believes it would be impractical not to allow them to have such a port, given their strong military.Therefore, the only right thing is to let them also share in the blood cost of defeating Japan.

In June 1945, when the War Department was thinking hard about whether to issue the final order to invade Japan, MacArthur once again asked the Soviet Union for support.He sent a telegram to General George Marshall, and the Army chief of staff read it at a meeting at the White House.MacArthur called his invasion plan "the most economically viable in terms of material and manpower."Again he asked for help from the Russians."If the Soviet Union attacked from Siberia long enough before our target date for decisive engagement with the enemy, our danger and losses would be greatly reduced," he said.

Carve up North Korea
In August 1945, the fireball of two atomic bombs made all plans to attack the Japanese mainland meaningless.The first nuclear attack was on August 8th.Two days later, the Soviets finally entered the Pacific War, but it was too late, having lost any real military value beyond fulfilling the promises they had made at Yalta. On August 8, the Japanese begged for peace.At the same time, several Russian divisions began to advance rapidly across "Manchuria" towards Korea.

God knows where they stop.Despite numerous meetings over the Soviet invasion, it was never determined where to draw the line in North Korea.Nearly a month earlier, at the Potsdam Conference in eastern Germany, American military advisers had suggested to General Marshall that the border be drawn along the [-]th parallel, which roughly divides the country in two.But the Americans apparently did not discuss this matter with the Soviets, because there was no record of demarcation in the minutes of the Potsdam Conference.

With peace at hand, the question suddenly took on urgency.The nearest U.S. ground force to North Korea is 600 miles away on the island of Okinawa. In the middle of the night from August 8th to 10th, the Coordination Committee of the State Department-Army Department-Navy Department, which had been established as early as World War II and performed coordination functions, held an emergency meeting in the Pentagon. The main topic was the issue of Japan's surrender in Korea.Out of political considerations, the representatives of the State Department hoped that the area where the United States would accept Japan's surrender would go as far north as possible.However, a young Colonel Dean Rusk, one of Marshall's staff at the time, pointed out that the military "lacked the troops that could be put into use immediately, coupled with factors such as time and space, and rushed northward before the Soviets entered the area. It will be difficult to advance further."Assistant Secretary of the Army John McCloy asked Rusk and another colonel, Bonistier III, to go to another anteroom to see if he could come up with a compromise that satisfied the State Department's political will and military status quo Program.Rusk later commented: "The military felt that if we made a surrender proposal that greatly exceeded our military strength, then the Soviet Union would have a hard time accepting it. Speed ​​is the key to this issue."

After the discussion, Rusk and Bonistier still proposed to draw the border along the [-]th Parallel, "although in case the Soviet Union turned its face, the [-]th Parallel was too far north, far away from where the US military power could actually reach."They chose the [-]th parallel because "we think it is important to include the North Korean capital, Seoul, within the sphere of responsibility of U.S. forces."

To Rusk's surprise, the Russians accepted the proposal without hesitation. On September 9, Japan signed its surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.On the same day, MacArthur officially issued an order: Japanese soldiers north of the 2th parallel surrendered to the Russians, and Japanese soldiers south of the [-]th parallel surrendered to the Americans.

The line is 190 miles long, and while it looks neat on Dean Rusk's map, it makes little economic sense.The South covers an area of ​​3.7 square miles and has a population of about 2 million, two-thirds of whom are agricultural.Although the south is home to 100 of the country's 20 largest cities, including the capital of 12 million, Seoul, it is largely an agricultural region that has historically supplied food to the nation.Although the Northern Territory covers an area of ​​200 square miles, its population is only 4.8 million.Because the north has highly developed hydropower resources, the north owns most of North Korea's factories, including chemical, steel, cement and fertilizer factories, and supports the agricultural economy in the south with its products.Neither side is economically self-sufficient.

While Rusk's line of demarcation was somewhat flawed, it served the desired political purpose at the time.When the order to accept the surrender was transmitted to the battlefield, the attacking Soviet troops had already crossed the [-]th parallel and moved along the road to Seoul, but they quickly withdrew as soon as they received the order about the demarcation line.This was the last genuine cooperation between the Soviet Union and the United States in North Korea.

Units of the 7th Infantry Division were the first U.S. troops to reach North Korea, landing at Incheon on Sept. 9 in an operation code-named Blacklist 8.The next day, they drove into Seoul amid wild cheers from the North Koreans. For 40 years, North Koreans have longed for independence and dignity, and now they believe that these are firmly in hand.

However, they are still empty-handed.MacArthur appointed Major General John Hodge as commander of the occupying forces.Hodge was a valiant field commander (he had directed the attack on Okinawa) but also a dull character, unfit for any foreign affairs, though expert in military affairs.He caused trouble on the first day of the occupation.After the surrender, the commander of the Japanese forces in North Korea asked for permission to retain a Japanese armed police force to protect his personnel and the 60 Japanese nationals in North Korea from reprisals as perpetrators on the streets of North Korea began to attack foreign countries they hated. The occupiers threw stones and rubbish away.

(End of this chapter)