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Korean War (view source)

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=== Prelude ===

A [[Japan]]ese colony until the end of [[World War II]], Korea was then divided by the [[Yalta agreement]] into two administrative zones in 1945, along the 38th parallel, occupied by the Soviet Union and the [[United States]]. In both zones competing government organizations were created to rule a unified Korea, and military forces raised.

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August 31, 1946, Harold J. Noble wrote an article in the ''Saturday Evening Post'' entitled, "Our Most Dangerous Boundary." The author pointed out that the Soviet Union had garrisoned [[North Korea]] with a larger force than the Americans possessed in [[Japan]] and [[Manchuria]]. The Communists were disposed to invade at a moment's notice. Where the U.S. had a squad near the border commanded by a corporal, the Soviet Union had a battalion, commanded by an officer, equipped with motor transport, ninety per cent of which came from America. The Soviet Union had established a police state in North Korea and suppressed every political organization except the Communist Party.

In 1947, General Albert Wedemeyer made his report on China and Korea. The Korean part was suppressed. Wedemeyer said:

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Wedemeyer warned that this would take place as soon as "they can be sure that the North Korean [[puppet government]] and its armed forces . . . are strong enough . . . to be relied upon to carry out Soviet objectives without the actual presence of Soviet troops." General Lyman L. Lemnitzer said that before June 1950, when the attack occurred, no aid had been sent but a few hundred dollars worth of baling wire.<ref name="Foreign Relations 1951"/>

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[[Comintern]] propagandist [[Owen Lattimore]] writing in the [[leftist]] ''New York Compass'' said that the U.S. should give Korea a "parting grant" of $150,000,000 and "let South Korea fall but not to let it look as though we pushed it."<ref>''New York Compass'', Jan. 17, 1949.</ref> Attempts were made by the Soviet Union and newly established North Korean regime to unite the whole of Korea under [[Communist party]] control. Initially the confusion resulting from the United States-Soviet disagreement over unification enhanced the domestic rivalries of the two contending South Korean extremist camps. The [[Left]], being an outspoken advocate of national wealth redistribution, gravitated towards the [[propaganda]] of the North Korea, and allowed itself to be utilized as a political instrument in the struggle to destroy the infant South Korean [[democracy]]. The [[Right]]ist element, incensed over the possibility that a redistribution of vested Japanese interests would constitute a precedent for the confiscation of Korean owned wealth, found itself in opposition with the left. This widening of the political chasm in South Korea was given impetus by a resort to [[terrorism]] for the Leftist agenda. The North Korean government injected a propaganda effort contrasting the alleged [[proletarian]] paradise of North Korea with what it termed the political and economic distress of the South.

Conditions inviting the North Korean attack were created by the [[United Nations]] which issued a resolution for withdrawal of both Soviet and American troops. Troops began withdrawing September 15, 1948, leaving only about 7500 Americans lightly armed. This left in South Korea 16,000 Koreans and 7500 Americans, both groups lightly armed, against 150,000 fully armed North Korean Communists. General Roberts, head of the U. S. Military Mission said the South Koreans were not permitted to arm adequately.

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