The Korean War started 60 years ago on June 25, 1950.

In the wake of World War II, when Korea had been brutally occupied by the Japanese, the Korean peninsula was divided by the victorious allies between a Soviet-allied North and a western allied South Korea. The Korean people were not consulted on the matter.

On June 25, 1950, more than one hundred thousand troops from Communist-ruled North Korea invaded South Korea. The UN called the invasion a violation of international peace and demanded that the Communists withdraw. In what was called a UN “police action,” sixteen UN countries sent troops to help the South Koreans, and 41 countries sent military equipment and other supplies. But the United States provided about 90 percent of the troops, military equipment, and supplies.

Fighting in the Korean War, one of the bloodiest wars in history, ended on July 27, 1953, when the UN and North Korea signed an armistice. A permanent peace treaty between South Korea and North Korea has never been signed. What else do you know about this Cold War conflict that had the world on brink of World War III? (Answers below)

1. Who first commanded the UN troops in Korea?
2. What nation entered the war on North Korea’s side?
3. What two aviation “firsts” occurred during the war?
4. Why did President Truman fire General MacArthur?
5.  What were American losses in the Korean war?

Although it attracts less attention than the nearby Vietnam War Memorial, there is a Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.  A National Parks Service link: http://www.nps.gov/kwvm/

Unlike World War II and the war in Vietnam, the Korean War has also inspired a much smaller list of books. Two recent ones deserve attention:

The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam. This book was completed just before the acclaimed journalist/historian’s untimely death.

The Coldest War: A Memoir of Korea by James Brady is a more personal account of a year spent in Korea as a Marine lieutenant.

James Michener’s The Bridges at Toko Ri (1953) is one of the few notable novels set during the Korean War and is based on Michener’s experience as a war correspondent.  Another is MASH, by the pseudonymous Richard Hooker, published in 1968. Based on the author’s experiences as a surgeon in the Korean conflict, the book inspired the movie and long-running television series of the same name.

You can read more about Korea and the Cold War era in Don’t Know Much About History.

Answers

1. On July 8, with the approval of the UN Security Council, Pres. Truman named Douglas MacArthur commander in chief of the United Nations Command.

2. More than 300,000 Communist Chinese troops crossed into North Korea in October 1950 and U.S. and Chinese troops first clashed on October 25. They fought until November 6, when the Chinese suddenly withdrew.

3. The Korean war marked the first battles between jet aircraft and for the first time, helicopters carried troops into combat.

4. One of the controversies of the war occurred in April 1951, when President Truman removed General MacArthur from command, the result of a continuing dispute between MacArthur and defense leaders in Washington.  MacArthur  wanted to bomb bases in a part of China, and use other “all-out measures.”  Truman  feared such actions might lead to a third world war. The decision was very unpopular; MacArthur was viewed as a hero and Truman’s popularity plunged. It was one of the reasons he chose not to run for another term. World War II hero General Dwight Eisenhower, the Republican candidate, won election as President in 1952 on a stunning vow to end the war.

5. The Department of Defense reports that 54,246 Americans service men and women lost their lives during the Korean War. This includes all losses worldwide during that period. As there has been no peace treaty, those Americans who lost their lives in the Demilitarized Zone of Korea since the Armistice are also included.

The quiz above was adapted from Don’t Know Much About Anything.

With Presidents Day around the corner, it seems like a good time to think about some other great books about the Presidents and Presidency. Here is a short list of some of my favorite Presidential biographies –all what I call “must reads.” Obviously, this not an exhaustive list, and some may already be familiar. Not all of them focus on the presidential years of the subjects. But this is a good place to start with a collection of accessible and fascinating views of the lives and careers of some of the most significant Commanders in Chief –all told by great storytellers, great writers and great historians.
Since Presidents Day exists to honor Washington and Lincoln, I’ll start with them–

Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington by Richard Brookhiser. Fairly brief, mostly admiring but honest, and to the point, Brookhiser of the National Review, cuts through the mythology but keeps Washington firmly in place as “Father of Our Country.”
Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves and the Creation of America by Henry Wiencek. Rather than an exhaustive biography, this is a study of Washington’s complicated relationship to slavery and his views on emancipation.

Speaking of Emancipation, The Lincoln Library is enormous. But if I had to pick one single-volume biography of “The Great Emancipator,” I choose With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln by Stephen B. Oates. I like it for its readability and utterly human portrait of one most mythologized of Presidents. A close second to Oates is Lincoln by David Herbert Donald. Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography by Philip B. Kunhardt. Jr., Philip Kunhardt III and Peter W. Kunhardt is a beautiful volume, a “coffee table” book that won’t just sit on the coffee table. It might be especially valuable for households with children, as is Lincoln: A Photobiography, an award-winning book for children by the appropriately named Russell Freedman.

Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt by David McCullough is one of my favorite biographies, although it focuses not on TR’s astonishing Presidency but on his youth. A magnificent book.
For Teddy Roosevelt’s Presidency, read Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris

For the “other Roosevelt, another of my all time favorite books is Doris Kearn Goodwin’s No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II. It focuses life in the White House during the war years and is the perfect combination of scholarship and great storytelling
Because FDR’s historic “First Hundred Days” got so much attention recently, I would also recommend this fairly slim but excellent overview of the Depression and Roosevelt’s controversial, much-debated response to it: The First Hundred Days by Anthony Badger

For FDR’s successor, the gold standard is Truman by David McCullough

Master of the Senate by Robert Caro. Until Caro finishes the fourth installment of his epic biography of Lyndon Johnson, this book, covering Johnson’s years as the Senator from Texas will have to do.

President Reagan: The Role Of A Lifetime by Lou Cannon. A California journalist, Cannon covered Reagan for years and this is an even-handed assessment.

A comprehensive reading list of these and Presidential biographies can also be found in Don’t Know Much About History