Capstone of sams distinguished career of which the Wilson Center was his home for over four decades. Sharing in todays celebration is sams family. Sherry, his wife of 50 years, daughter lauren and son christopher and his wife. Janeld like to a knowledge harman who will be joining us, who has provided special leadership in expanding the. Enters focus on korea todays event is cosponsored by the Wilson Center history of Public Policy program and the Hyundai Motor center. Sam has played a vital role in the history of the Wilson Center. He initially came in the mid70s as a wilson fellow on leave from his professorship from chapel hill and went on to join the staff founding the International Security studies program and serving as the Centers Deputy director. It was his harvard doctoral supervisor, ernest may, who introduced sam to the arts using history to analyze issues of current Public Policy and specifically to the multinational study of security problems. Thanks to his pioneering work, that approach, using history as a tool of policy analysis, is central to the mission of the Wilson Center and our branding. The book we are proud to launch today is policy to live in scholarship at its i missed. The first time i encountered sams name was as a graduate student reading the fall 1979 issue of harvards premier journal International Security. If you will permit a personal parenthetical, long not long after i met him and he hired me. S a fresh postdoc i am a grateful for that mentorship. His article in the International Security was titled founding the talks in. The toxin. It was an article that focus on the then just declassified topsecret policy document of the Truman Administration which advocated for a large expansion in the u. S. Military budget. But sams brilliant analysis, as he acknowledged at the time, was hamstrung by the obvious constraint. He only had access to the american documentary record. For two it is fully, the end of the cold war created an opportunity to overcome what the distinguished historian john gaddis has called clapping with thehand analysis by tapping post soviet archives. Sam worked with a team of cold war historians to found the Cold War International history project at the Wilson Center which is now one of the Wilson Centers crown jewels and headed by christian osterman. Thanks to that, the center is now a repository of thousands of translated cold war documents on its website. , whicharkable resource is transforming our understanding of the cold war, can be accessed online. 40 years after the publication of this International Security article, sams work has come full circle. Sam tapped documents from russia, china and north korea in previously closed archives to now have ridden a Truly International history. The korean war has been recognized by scholars as a cold war crucible. It proved to be a pivotal event in the early history of the cold war. , samearing the worst talks about how it transformed the postwar competition into a militarized confrontation that would last decades. Todays meeting will be recessional, i will pose a series of questions to allow him to elucidate the main themes of the book. After a half hour they will have questions from the floor. Books will be available for purchase and inscription by the author. I invite you to join us for a reception in the adjacent board room. Lets begin at the obvious starting point. What is the principal message of your book and can you unpack the title, fearing the worst, for us . Samuel since you have stepped giving what is the main conclusion, which is andcold war was a Political Economic contest before korea and afterwards it took on a different nature. In the article that rob quite kindly mentioned on sounding the ,alks in sounding the toxin i was critical of the authors of that. I thought the recommendations they made for a massive military buildup were excessive. Reading the soviet and chinese documents and the cable correspondence reports from beijing about what now was a report from pyongyang about what tim was saying to diplomats kim was saying to diplomats, made me realize the commitment of the chinese and soviet leaders, not to mention North Koreans, which were devoted to trying to capture the whole communism, the commitment of the three communist states engaged in the war, the willingness to take risk was higher than i had anticipated. So washington was responding to things that happened in korea that they had neither join. Pated nor desired to they responded. They really had a severe shock with the chinese intervention in october 1950, a critical turning point in the war. Feared thent they country was on the edge of world war iii. It is that fearing the worst, the worstcase, that is the principal argument and therefore the title of the book. You have a lot of new materials on the origins of the korean war. After you have pieced this together from multinational perspective, what was the driving factor in starting the war . I have got a few photographs that i will try to toggle through here. Let me get my fingers torque fingers to work. I just want to welcome those participating in todays meeting by cspan. Coming up onis not the screen for some reason. We will move on here. The initiative of the war came from kim ilsung, the dictator of north korea who on multiple permissionequested from stalin to invade the south. With that permission would have the supplies, equipment, the advisors that were necessary to bring off a successful offensive. After refusing money of these requests or ignoring them, stalin changed his mind and tabled cabled kim ilsung on january 30, 1950, saying i invite you to come to moscow to discuss with me the operation that you have wanted to operate, the operation you wanted to launch, an invasion of south korea. He didnt spell that out. But that was clearly what he meant. Ok. A photograph of stalin in the middle. Allcre khrushchev and the leaders of the communist states gathered for stalins 70th birthday. This is in the bolshoi theater. Curred december 21, 1949. Comen had invited mao to and discuss a treaty of assistance and alliance. Mao made his first trip outside the country was very upset. Have very many photographs. He didnt like photographs of himself. Hes never smiling, which may have something to do with the fact that he had black teeth. But here he is, looking not like a necessarily happy camper at the bolshoi theater. The negotiations dragged on for two months. They would lead to a treaty. Notat this point, mao was getting the concessions he wanted. In finally, at some point late january, 1950, stalin changes his mind. And he conceptualizes a new strategy. No longer would he try and keep all of the concessions he had taken from what we used to call jen kaishek. The current transliteration. He was prepared to give many of those up to mao. He was prepared to endorse the north korean invasion. On the condition that he would keep the soviet union out of the war. And on the basis of a plan he , persuade,e mao coerce, however one wants to style it, into providing the backup for the North Koreans if things did not go as expected. And lead to a rapid north korean victory. So, stalin comes up with this new strategy, this new strategic concept. He makes the concessions to mao. And, without telling mao anything about his planning, he wasnt in the habit of explaining himself to anyone, certainly not to anyone he saw as client state leaders, he cables, before the negotiations are completed, eh cables kim, come to moscow. That is the way in which it came about. And one of the Big Questions has always been why did stalin change . And, essentially, it is because he was blocked in his ambitions to break up nato in western europe. Andamericans, truman atchison, in january, had made it clear they were consolidating u. S. Interests in asia. And they laid out a defense permit or for the United States that did not include taiwan or south korea. So, communist analysts said, ok, this means they will not defend. That was not necessarily the ascension made in washington, but they wanted to be part of the defensive perimeter. So, thats why stalin decides he can go in at a low cost. What is really striking is that a territory with United States was not willing to stake out a declaratory policy of felt compelled to go to war over. When it did occur and there was that initial north korean success but ultimately it proved unsuccessful. Can you talk about how it played the north korean invasion ultimately proved unsuccessful . Samuel well, you need to know a little bit about kim ilsung. Thisas you can see in photograph in which he is announcing the start of a war, hes very young. Hes 38 years old. And he is put in power by the soviet political advisers and Security Services in north korea. He has great ambitions, but they are completely dependent on soviet support. Lin, and he sta promised mao, whose endorsement he had to get, and mao gave it, that he would win the war in a week. He was counting on south koreans not being prepared, which they werent. He was counting on a revolt in south korea of 200,000 hadunists, whom he cultivated an expected to rise up and take over the Central Point of the country. Things did not work out. He was also counting on the u. S. Would not intervene. So, both of his assumptions were not realized. There was no revolt. His finish the fence of got gotis initial offensive gog bo bogged down. And he was not making very much progress after capturing seoul in four day. On the second day of the invasion, the United States announced a plan to intervene, which upset his other fundamental assumption. The unitedy did states intervened, it quickly the fledglingt of Security Council of the united nations, and a number of allied countries said they would come forward and join United States in supporting the u. N. Resolution to restore peace and security in korea. Now, a question comes up. Why did truman reverse his previous thinking . And, again, i think there are a number of reasons to support that. He was very upset at the soviets using what we would call today proxy forces, the North Koreans, to expand his area of influence. There were loud complaints of we vulnerable coming from west germany and other countries in europe that felt that they were allied and what would happen if stalin turned to the west again and began aggression against the western countries . Thefinally, there were charges of senator joseph mccarthy, who had five months for five months claiming the Truman Administration was soft on communism, they were harboring communists in the federal government, and they should be impeached for treason. Behas contemporary rings, so it. Actually were a couple of communists in the state department, but that is another story. Anyway, thats what happened to the north korean invasion and why the United States with a key part of each of these countries having to recalibrate their strategies. Robert just to follow on from that. A quick follow on question, sam, before turning to the u. S. Military buildup. There were miscalculations on both sides. You mentioned kim miscalculated that United States was not going to enter into the war. Given that the u. S. Had previously not designated south korea as part of the defense permit or. Perimeter. U. S. War games change from just status quo ante, going back to the the 38th parallel, to the yalu river. You have a whole discussion on river discussion. Was there a sense that the war could draw the chinese in . What was the assumption, you could have American Forces on the chinese border without the chinese responding . Sam well, the backdrop of this was that the United States had from theintelligence russian sources, none in North Koreans, none on the chinese. What happened is there were a series of informed or not very well informed guesses made by political leaders and the leaders of the fairly new Central Intelligence agency. And they assumed the chinese were too weak. They assumed th soviets did not wante a war. They were prepared for it, which was in fact correct. Stalin was, throughout all of this, very cautious. Careful not to get directly involved with soviet forces. Was at theur, who end of his career, had had a had beenessful time, the commander in the far east. Korea was not part of his mandate until the war broke out. Then he immediately was responsible for supervising the offensive operations there. And overrodenned any opposition and made a very amphibious invasion. And this is macarthur, the first regional commander ever to go to the front during the dangerous operation of an Amphibious Landing against the defendant beach. A defended here he is with his lieutenants watching the invasion. A staged photograph. Macarthur robert you have a biographical section on ridgeway in the book which is fascinating. Samuel macarthur is being propped up here by the medics and others, because the night before the start of the landing, the tail end of a hurricane hit the invading force. He was had a notoriously nervous stomach. Got very seasick. And his top aide and the medics gave him half a bottle of scotch as a solution. So, he got up the next morning and somehow ate a hearty breakfast and showed up on the bridge to watch the invasion. Well, he had taken what he styled himself as a 5000 to one gamble and won. And in the debate about whether you cross the 38th parallel, whether you try to unify all of harrimanderson and both stated later in their was so, the sentiment great to finish the operation that nobody could withstand macarthurs insistence that he wanted to pursue the north Korean Forces to china. He assumed the chinese were in no shape to invade. What gets worse is that he even assumed when the chinese sent their volunteers in, and some of the americans who had been advisors in the chinese civil war identified Chinese People by their units in the Chinese Peoples volunteers, even though they were wearing north korean uniforms, sent this intelligence back. Macarthur and his intelligence dismissed it. So, they were hell bent going for the yalu river border at a had when the chinese infiltrated at night 380,000 troops into north korea. And set a trap for the advancing American Forces. Robert its a fascinating episode. And to quote a contemporary u. S. General, the enemy gets a vote, too. If you decide to cross the 38th parallel on their border, taking into account a response would have been prudent. One of the great strengths of your book is how you really meticulously go through the decisionmaking and you look from all the different perspectives unpacking what were the threshold assumptions derived different policy prescriptions. If i can hyperlink from that to wilsonsion at the center. That is what we do whether it is the Iran Nuclear Deal or looking at aggression in ukraine. What are the perspectives of the Different Actors . Given youre dealing with opaque societies in many cases, in some cases, anyone. What are the threshold assumptions, and how valid are those, critically assessing policies. This is a wonderful example drawing on the available historical material. Lets get up to the next question, which i think really goes to the heart of your argument about transformative consequences of the korean war or the cold fwar. What led to the u. S. Military buildup. Sam well, following the chinese intervention, it took several weeks for the overwhelming combat intelligence from of fleeing set of units to be digested and to realize this was a serious chinese intervention. That shook the decisionmakers in washington. Say, really i feared world war iii was on the table and truman entered in his diary, i think world war iii is here. Two basic decisions coming out of a month long strategic review. Which was led in very large part by Dean Anderson with human. With truman. And by general george marshall, who had been called back to be the secretary of defense. And they decided europe is our first priority. It is the first objective of soviet aggression. And what we need to do in this case is build up our nuclear and conventional forces for the defense of europe. This means we will have a limited war in korea. We will not send any more forces beyond replacements for those who are killed and wounded to mcarthur. The militaryer abovetive, and get just the 38th parallel and call for ceasefire and negotiations at that point. So, this is the new american strategy. At the same time, they endorsed the military buildup to support thedefense of europe and ability to protect american interests more broadly. And what this involved is a quadrupling of the defense budget, which is laid out in some detail in the book. An expansion of the Strategic Air command, doubling the number of longrange bombers that we 82 byrom roughly 520 to 10 1954. Sending four additional divisions, troops to europe. Dwight eisenhower is the supreme allied commander in europe. Transforming the Nato Alliance into a for shooting defensive alliance with war planning sections and commitment of forces. And so forth. Theres a huge buildup, including a massive expansion of the cia with the largest part of the expansion going to covert operations. So, its the chinese intervention that triggers the review, which produces limited ar and also produces commitment inside the government there will be no first use of Nuclear Weapons, and then this massive conventional and nuclear buildup, focused primarily on europe. Robert you are proving the quote from the ambassador. It was the korean war and not world war ii that made us all World Military political power. Thats the sort of relationship between the korean war and the buildup you just spoke to in which you address in your article, you brought the argument to its fullness through these international archives. Freshthink, to me, as a interpretation of these events and speaks to the path breaking quality of your research here, sam. I cant resist. You have two bullets t upulovs photo. While all this was going on the american side, you want to talk about the soviet side . They were scrambling to develop counterpart capabilities and the ability to threaten the u. S. Homeland. Sam we did not discover this for a long time, but the russians had started the development of longrange bombers in 1942. They didnt need it for world war ii, but they were thinking about for after the war. They saw the british and american use of bombing in world war ii. They wanted to have a comparable capability. They also started within a couple months after they started a Bomber Program, a program on Nuclear Weapons. Neither of these got full soviets because the were fighting for their lives against the nazis. The first task was creating the equipment and the manpower and azi momentum to defeat n germany. And they did that. And immediately after the war, they started to put more 1946 into in 1930 to the Bomber Program and the Nuclear Program. With the korean war, they greatly expanded both of these programs, but they kept and counting technological difficulties. Tupulov was their leader in longrange aircraft manufacture and design. He had multiple Research Teams working with him. They had a lot of resources. They had trouble with the technology. They had trouble with electronics. They had trouble getting the engines developed with that power that could go the range to get a bomb to the United States. The Nuclear Program did somewhat better in terms of efficiency. They had even greater technological problems with the Nuclear Program, which was run by igor with a team of people in secret cities in the center of the soviet union. Down toward the caucuses. Had assistance from an extensive Espionage Network at los alamos. That told them what the americans were doing to develop their bombs. How, what type of materials they use, how they structured the triggering devices, etc. Estimations are that some of our colleagues have made is that the espionage probably saved the soviet Nuclear Scientists 18 months in developing a bomb, and of course, they had their first explosion in august of 1949. Its that explosion that first raised the specter of a soviet threat to the continental united crews and led to the making the arguments for a buildup that they did. Robert you have great anecdotes about how stalin had a couple of b29s that had come to siberia, and stalin said replicated exactly and when they put it together they included ash trays whic were not permitted in the red air force. And they closed them off but they figured they had to mimic it exactly sam it is an indication of how terrified they were of stalin he said, i want this airplane copied in every detail. They did. They included ashtrays. Robert for tupolev. All of us can identify having supervisors and pressures from that. Imagine having stalin as her supervisor. Finalbrings me to a question before we open it up to, we have a great group and the audience of historians and others who are knowledgeable about this era. I look forward to their questions. What surprises did you discover during your research, sam . Sam well, as i indicated i started off, of course, with the western archives. And thought the korean war was preparedwe were not for, did not function very well in combat. Bot surprised by the chinese got surprised by the chinese and overbilled our military as a result. What change my interpretation was really the information in the new communist archives and memoirs. Turns out that soviet and chinese generals like to write their memoirs. Their population likes to read them. Some of them by the chinese, for example, written under house arrest during the cultural revolution. But these documents persuaded me that the degree of commitment by leadersmonstrated in moscow and beijing in their attempt to drive u. S. And allied forces out of korea was in fact a worstcase. That altering all ultimately, all the human and Financial Resources that moscow put into the effort and the chinese sec of icing a total of 900,000 casualties in the war made the worstcase justified, and the u. S. Military buildup justified. More positivebeen about the type of a buildup if more sustained attention had been given to Ground Forces and a little less to the Strategic Air command as general marshall had recommended on meeting the defense department, but the air greatthen and now has a Public Relations operation which extends well into congress and they won a series of battles of the budget going through the 1950s. And when the cutback came with eisenhower, they kept most of what they had and the army, na vy, and the marines are the ones that got cut back. Myert well, now its pleasure to open the floor to questions. Lets go first to bob halfway robertway, dr. Hathaway because he got his phd with sam wells as his supervisor. Bob thanks, rob. Robert you had a dissertation defense. Now you can ask him a question. Bob his questions were harder than mine. Sam, congratulations. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know you for a while are immensely pleased to see the publication of this book, because we know, knew and know just how terribly important its going to be for our understanding of this period of history. I want to ask you another question about your title, fearing the worst. Of have suggested that a lot serious people, knowledge of people, really did think that world war iii was eminent. Fortunately, they were wrong. Why were they wrong . Hadit because they erroneous assumptions about the other side, or was it because key decisions in a variety of onetals, not simply in capital, key decisions were made so that world war iii was avoided, or was it some combination of missed assumptions and delivered actions . Sam well, its a combination, as you would imagine from a variety of sources. And, foremost, i would say worstaders feared the because they had very poor intelligence. Your inclination when the intelligence you are relying on is proven wrong in several instances, you tend to think i have to disregard what im hearing and think the worst. Because i am not prepared for the worst. I will get surprised again. And that was very much at place, they realize they cannot trust the information they were getting. This huge expansion of the cia where the amount of money and the amount of foreign contract ines that the cia put out eastern europe, china, north korea doubled by six or seven times, yet virtually all of these people were either killed upon arrival in the country or turned and started sending reports written by their ca ptors back to us as intelligence. A negativeonly useful intelligence, we had a negative of disinformation coming back, pretending to be intelligence. So, we had good reason not to be very confident. But, i mean, the soviets, for example, found that Technological Progress was a lot harder than they expected. They cannot make their deadlines. They couldnt separate uranium from all the dirty minerals that were in the uranium ore. Otherouldnt make technological processes work effectively, they had to invent new processes and build the plans to do it. The North Koreans were hopelessly ambitious and underprepared. The chinese were carried away by essentially maos bounding ambition to be the communist leader in asia. He was willing to sacrifice all manner of people, equipment, and so forth. But his commander in the field, a plain soldier who had grown up in a farming peasant family, kept saying, we cannot fight on any more. We are losing hundreds of thousands of people per month. He eventually said we have to draw this to a conclusion, and, of course, the war was brought to a conclusion by the death of stalin and the incoming soviet leadership deciding enough. Here call it quites and accept a negotiated settlement. Best we can get in negotiations that pyongyang. But there was a period when the worst really appears possible. After general ridgway restores ,orale and starts going back members of congress say, why do we need to keep funding this program . We are now moving into north korea again. We got enough equipment, weapons and so forth. The administration at that point, i think, kept arguing worstcase, and the battle of the 1951 budget had them really stretching their arguments beyond what i believe they really thought, because that was the only way they could get the republicans coultop vote. And some for democrats. This was a time when a large group of southern democrats acted democratic. The rest of the time they voted with republicans. So, it was a problem. Robert good. Our resident about congress. All the way in the back. Sam, for your book. This is the korean war, the first war i remember as an eightyearold and macarthur was one of my early heroes, but studying the history of the world little later i keep running into truman insisting that this be called a u. N. Police action and you mentioned the u. N. Did saying to the intervention there, but was this done to really avoid congress oeclaring war, or to als highlight the fact we did have other allies involved with us in fighting the North Koreans . Can you give us a little background on that . Sam well, theres a fair amount of literature on it. I didnt go into it in the book, because it does not really bear on the conduct of the war or strategic decisions. Andashes and atcheson one or two other people in the white house staff urged the president when he had strong republican support at the start of the war to get a congressional endorsement. And he refused, because he thought it was going to be a sort war. He believed it would be a police action. To his dismay found out otherwise. And he had some lawyers who to ld him told him he didnt need that authority. I think one of our early as follows, International Security studies program, was robert former, the prizewinning political reporter for the old New York Herald volume, who did a two by murphy of macarthur and went into this aspect of a great deal of of detail. Of detail. And he said that truman simply did not want to give the republicans a chance to put conditions on troop limits and start meddling in straddling because in strategy because they had been asked to approve a war in advance. He chose to accept the legal interpretation that the president s authority to defend the country was sufficient. So, it is, i think most scholars now agree one of the more serious mistake and set. Dents truman robert john . Hang on a second. There is a microphone coming to. You. Former head of our European Studies program. As i was speak of eastern europe, there i was in bulgaria in 1966 and 1967. With the anniversary of the start of the korean war, when south korea invaded north korea, as the ball Bearing Press announced. And then north korea had to responded. To respond. Question, one brief was there any sort of small north korean effort to show that, in fact, they were responding to some kind of attack . That is a minor point. A major point, i think, speaking of the technological problems the soviet side was having, in fearing the worst, was part of the american buildup connected to a mis estimate of how much Nuclear Capacity the soviets really had in the early 1950s . Questions. Ood the original plan for the invasion, which was developed by the North Koreans, the soviet advisers did not like it. And they completely revised it. And stalin said, you dont just invade a country. You set up a pretext that you are the victim. And so, there has to be an incident that is simulated of a south korean attack and you response to it. Respond to it. It was going to be a secret invasion, but then the information about the invasion and the clearing away of civilians from the border region inched some communists japan, some japanese told the american officials in japan, and so, the North Koreans began to realize that their secrecy had been blown. So, they made a slight faint to and the their overall tech by a few hours and then responded to that f eint, with an all front invasion. Now i nn this picture if you read the text of kim ilsungs speech announcing a war, he says hes responding to a south korean attack. Linet continue to behe that worked it way into communist and satellite histories. On the other point about the , in our intelligence estimates, to my surprise, the c crudethe basis of fairly theulations, based on amount of fissionable material that could possibly be produced plants wee of thought were operating the soviets had a couple of plants we did not know about the cia estimate of the number of bombs they would have was close to what the stockpile was in 1954. Yougood marks for however came up with it but there it is. On estimating bomber strength we misread that. But air forcecia, intelligence misread it. And this is part of the battle of the budget. They wanted to emphasize the rapid size and growth iof the types in aircraft, so they categorize an airplane that looked really nice, but it was built in a hurry to try and get an alljet bomber. And theuy built 20 of them to start with. And, when they started testing them, six of the for seven crashed at test. And the test pilots showed an understandable reluctance to fly the rest. And air force intelligence said they have got this great new bomber. And we started building against that bomber, which had been shown in an air show on the mayday parade. So, its a combination of things. We could certainly overestimate their by restraint and capabilities. Robert yes . In the back. If speakers can please identify. Yes, man. With earliest connection sam is back in chapel hill he introduced me to the man who became my husband. So, we go way back. I have the deepest respect for him. Sam, here is my question. You have mentioned several things that may be part of your answers. You have mentioned as a result of the korea engagement, a build met of the u. S. Military, the buildup of intelligence, especially covert operations. In the facilitation of limited war, but the bottom line is why and when did korea go to the top of your to do list of books to write, since you are expert on diplomacy north, south, east and west . Sam well, it was actually the opportunity given the records we had been able to collect to in one of the first cases that i aow of tell both sides of Major International incident that has continuing resonance in the policy arena. Just, you could name probably on one hand the number of cases where we have foreign records that you can sit down and say, here is what stalin was saying to kim, here is what he was saying to mao, what they were planning to do. The chinese, for example, are been forsed and hav e many years of their performance in the korean war. Volumeve written a six official history of the war in korea, the war to defeat imperialism and it gives chapter and verse. It is their big victory. So, there is a lot of material there. Now, these things we have collected and weve seen and have scholars that some of our chinese colleagues have gone through a lot of records in the Defense Ministry and other places that foreigners could not see, but theyve written about it and we have got their books. Those records are now close to us and to them. Same in russia. Weve got sort of a one time chance in this case to tell the whole story. Veryhat seemed both interesting and an opportunity that could tease out how things the began there, sinosoviet split, the commitment of the United States to no first use, the korean drive, the north korean drive for Nuclear Weapons program, which the russians finally agreed to support, and a range of other things that go right the earlyis period in 1950s. So, it seems like a good way to stop bothering my colleagues at the center, since id retired, and stay off the streets. Robert and the book has a tremendous contemporary onance, becausees the armistice of the korean, there is no peace treaty. The major powers that you address, russia, china, the United States, kind of a revived south korea and talks of the six party been involved with north korea. The methodology that is used to estimate the size of the north Korean Nuclear arsenal is pretty much what you described, which is looking at facilities and making estimates of how much weapons usable material they can produce leading to the size of the estimates about the arsenal. Tremendous contemporary relevance that one can tease out of your analysis here. Who will be next . Thank you. Thank you, rob. Remarks, to your somebody looking at and analyzing the Korean Peninsula, it was very striking to find the semblance between the circumstances back in 1950 and probably today, 70 years later, aere the Korean Peninsula has very strategic, geographical and political significance, not just in the region but on the world. With your title being feraing t worst, now with north korea with its advanced weapons, mass destruction, the situation has become more serious. Id like to ask what implications of, since President Trump has been emphasizing his willingness and interest to withdraw troops from the Korean Peninsula. How that would, even if it did not happen now, continued mentioning of it, would have on situation, considering line did not include the Korean Peninsula, south korea . Sam well, i think you know as well as i do, having worked on these things in seoul, that our current president has divined a way to make virtually every International Relationship we have worse. To start an engagement with the North Koreans by having personal diplomacy with kim jongun is giving away one of the most valued assets we had to this young,ognizing unproven leader. And, essentially, acknowledging the status of north korea as a Nuclear State at the same time. And now, of course, he, through sanctionsed tariff torations, hes managed alienate both your government in the japanese in the process and make it up. That the United States is the unreliable ally. Optimistic that the situation will improve, but i agree with what my colleague rob has been saying for some months, that its highly unlikely the North Koreans are going to accept any serious reduction or cap on their Nuclear Weapons program, and the talk about denuclearization is, has much morfor an on a forced audience n an uninformed audience in the rest of the world as it is for the North Koreans. I really am not optimistic about where we are headed there unless there is a significant change in the political arrangements in washington. Robert russ johnson . Russ sam, thank you very much. Could you go back to your understanding of stalins decision to support and assist the north korean vision in so many ways. A high risk decision, which very uncharacteristic of stalin in the late 1940s up to 1950. Quite in contrasted his conservatism in europe, his great concern that tito was trying to force them into confrontations in a greek civil war and so on. It seems uncharacteristic for stalin to be risktaking to that extent. I wonder if you could help us understand a bit more. I know you mentioned it. But is there any more that helps in terms of the context . Sam i think part of it has to maoith his frustration with and the facts that mao simply would not give in to the assistance of stalin and his negotiators that russia keep all the concessions from yalta. Rights,ard to chinese railroads, territories, and so forth. The chinese, even though they did not have many cards to play, implicitly understood that stalin did not want another tito. Can go myayed the i own way card a little bit, not a finally in the soviets agreeing to initially stalin would not agree with two negotiations with mao. Mao was the key thing in turning around the korean invasion promise. And he finally agreed to negotiate. From beijing to come with the negotiating team. Is every bit as Henry Kissinger paints him as the most brilliant diplomat he is engaged with. Down and rewrote a massive soviet draft treaty with his team in 48 hours. Rejecting all the concessions. Taking them over for china. And having a total chinese draft. For the soviets who immediately adjourned. Had to consult with various stalin and molotov. The sovietser, agreed to almost everything, but there is in the archives a copy he submittedthat in which according to russian experts, of which i am not one, stalin made marginal notations words blue pencil, curse upanddown, striking out clauses. He was obviously on initial reading bent out of shape. But voted, because he came up as i argue this new concept. In which the risk would be assumed by mao. And so thats what i referred to as his reassurance treaty. Robert well take two more questions. That gentlemen and then that gentleman. And then we will adjourn. Thank you. From George Washington university. Speaking of the chinese, i want to ask a question about chinese going into north korea. Because what we know is chinese leaders started debate about going to north korea from june 1952 october im wondering in set of going to war or not, are there other options that chinese leaders were thinking like, giving up north korea are trying to use another way to north korea . D a there is a debate, an few members of the politburo in the end come around only reluctantly. Thatao himself from things people like professor shin have come up with decided in midjuly that china would have to intervene. Thats why he sends several hundred thousand troops to manchuria, starting in july of 1950. Then he has a campaign of persuasion to bring around a of otherber of the members of the politburo. He never does bring all of them around. But what mao does is, in the first week of october, is a sustained three day meeting of the politburo, wchi y which you have read about and mao almost has everybody support. And the question is, the americans at this point,. With their allies the south koreans approaching the border. At the yalu. Been the who had head of this northeast border army back to beijing. Meets with him and says, will you support me . Ping says yes. So they have a meeting the next morning. And ping makes an impassioned statement, saying, we will have to fight the american sooner or later. Its much better to fight them in korea than on chinese soil. Ben our cities could be boun bombed and our industry ruined. The troops were there, ready to go. That carried the vote. They started to go in, but then they get a message back whos in moscow trying to negotiate massive arms and weapons underes for the really equipped Chinese Force. Backys, stalin is going on his promise of providing air cover for our troops. And so, the Patrol Bureau says, wait a minute. Hold decisions for 48 hours the politburo says, wait a minute. Cannot wait for stalin. He will have to bail us out sooner or later. We are going. He gets the authorization. And then they start ordering the troops to move in the night of october 19. Its a back and forth. Mao never wavered. It was a question of timing. He was determined that t United States would, it would have to be resolved by conflict. Onwant to the concert to be neighboring territory, not chinese territory he wanted the conflict to be on neighboring territory. Robert next question. Im kevin lee. 1951,estion is that in commander had already reversed the situation. Even pushed back the Chinese Force and north korean force up north of the 38th line. Im wondering why in 1952, replace theuman general. He did pretty well. I was wondering why. Eventsll, basically two that are key. Setis the strategy had been that you go slightly above the 38th parallel to a more defensible border. Then top there, and we negotiate and stop there. And we negotiate, and ridgeway was not going to violate that. That was his order, but macarthur was sitting back in tokyo, started making speeches and sending them to the american legion, having them reprinted by the republicans, by joe martin, the congressional quarterly, which were real violations of trumans guidelines and strategy. He had been ordered not to speak to the press or not to speak to the public about strategy. He did. So truman fired him. At that point there was no overall commander for u. N. Forces. Ridgway was the commander of u. S. Forces. Ridgway got promoted to all of macarthurs positions, commander of u. N. Forces, regional far east, etc. And mark kclark, who had been scheduled to come in as a ridgway replacement, took over. Got a gold star and was moved back to tokyo. And the negotiations continued. So, that was, that had to be satisfactory to him. Macarthurs no longer on the playing field. Robert the book is fearing the worst how korea transformed the cold war columbias professor at says it is a masterful and definitive combination of detail, insight, new sources from both sides and page turning readability. Thank you, sam. It is available for purchase outside. I would like to thank you for your presentation today. Thank you for joining me. Please join me in thanking. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] watching American History tv with archival films, lectures in College Classrooms and visits to museums and historic places, all weekend every weekend on cspan 3. In december 19 79, the soviet Union Invaded afghanistan, beginning a nineyear war against its mountainous neighbor. Next, afghanistan the gallant struggle, a 20minute Central Intelligence video produced for president Ronald Reagan about one year after the invasion. The documentary details events that led to the invasion, the final role of islam in the country, and the status of the fight against the soviets. Called the hidden kingdom, isolated for centuries from