Transcripts For CSPAN3 Korean War 70th Anniversary 20240712

Transcripts For CSPAN3 Korean War 70th Anniversary 20240712

Democratic republic. Two years ago, a United Nations commission supervised free elections south of the 30th parallel and the republic of korea, a sovereign, democratic nation, was born. In may 1950, the citizens of this young republic went to the polls again to exercise their democratic rights to choose their government under their democratic constitution. Even as the citizens of the korean republic voted in free the north korean communist leaders were boasting of their intention to unify the country by force. And this was the target, they partly mountainous peninsula and the 20 million peaceloving citizens of the republic of korea. The attack by the north korean communists came suddenly and without warning. The heroic Republican Army rallied to the defense of the republic, improvising quickly to meet the unprovoked aggression, korean republican troops were thrown against the invaders south of the 38th parallel, against a prepared army armed with tanks and guns, they were illequipped to meet the onslaught. Back in the United States, an emergency session of the United Nations security is called. Ambassador chang of korea heres the secretarygeneral say the present situation is a serious one and a threat to international peace. In mycurity Council Opinion is the competent organ to deal with it. The council needs to take steps necessary to reestablish peace in that area. A vote on the United States demand that the North Koreans halt their aggression is carried 90 with the soviet union absent. Korea, the saddest victims of a treacherous aggression by the communist north korean puppets are women and children. This is not new. These tragic and bewildered refugees are always the first proof of wanting aggression w anton aggression. Host Charles Hanley is joining us from naples, florida. He is a former a. P. Correspondent out with a new book, ghost flames, life and death in a hidden war. We thank you for being with us american and cspan3s history tv. Guest thank you. Good to be with you. Host the historical significance of the korean war , often viewed as the forgotten war, what is it 70 years later . Guest we can see it simply and invest in i think we can see in the tension that still exists on the peninsula with the nuclear crisis. It is sometimes called the forgotten war because it was an indecisive conflict in a faroff place. It came just five years after the good war, the great war world war ii. , eventually, it was overshadowed by the vietnam war. But when we look back, we can see this was a watershed moment in 20thcentury history. It militarized the cold war between the communist and capitalist worlds. And it also was the first undeclared war by the United States in its history. And of course, that is all we have had since. It remains the last conflict between great powers, in this case, america and china with soviet help. It permanently militarized the United States within just a couple of years. The Defense Budget quadrupled in the early 1950s as the war was being fought. And in that sense, the pentagon never looked back after that. But we can see, as i said in the nuclear crisis, this is rooted in that war. Because the United States threatened, in various ways, to use Nuclear Weapons against the North Koreans, against the chinese. And as a result, china realized it needed its own deterrent and went to work on it. And by 1964, the chinese had a nuclear weapon. And now, we can see the North Koreans as well, who suffered such tremendous devastation nowng the korean war, they have their own nuclear arsenal, ach they consider deterrent against another devastating conflict with the u. S. Host we have a line set aside for those of you who are veterans of the korean war. But are you saying that the underlying issue in the conflict 70 years ago was the cold war tensions that resulted in the war . Guest yes. At the end of world war ii, korea, which was a japanese colony, was divided by the soviet occupation and American Occupation forces in the north and south. Consequently, each followed divergent paths communist and capitalist. And then, although in december of 1945, washington and moscow reached what is called the moscow agreement to reunify the koreas within five years, bickering and hostility between the great powers doomed that to failure. By 1948, the whole idea had been dropped and the two, south and north, declared themselves independent nations. So yes, we can find the root of the korean war very directly in this hostility between the soviet union and the United States. , you your upcoming book really try to personalize those on the front lines, including citizens, in the war. Walk us through what you learned. Guest i learned even more than i already knew. I had been working on this as a journalist for many years. But i learned even more about the complete devastation of two societies. Not just north korea, which suffered tremendous bombardment, but also south korea. My characters, the featured individuals, and these are real people of course with real experiences, but i called them characters, my characters witnessed much of the horror of the war, some of the worst of it, from the atrocities to the era of bombardment in north korea in particular. And so, this is a way i thought to bring home to the reader the real meaning of any war, and this war in particular, which is so neglected it seems on bookshelves in america in particular. And so, i have characters ranging from a little northern refugee girl in seoul, who opens thebook with awakening to start of the war, on through various soldiers and civilians, even an american nun who runs a clinic for refugees in south korea during the war, on up to people at the top channels, generals, matthew ridgway, who ended up early on as overall commander on the American South korean side, and the chinese general who was the overall commander from 1950 onward on the chinese north korean side. I follow their experiences through the war. Goodhrough them, we get a big picture, overview, of the strategy and the concept of the war. In the meantime many of my , ordinary people are going through these battles, are fleeing, refugees, are under strafing from american airplanes and such. Host our guest has won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting with the associated press. He is joining us from naples, florida. Before we get to the first calls, what specific event led to the initial conflict . Guest of course, there was an invasion on june 25, 1950. I believe it was seven north korean divisions coming across the 38th parallel. But there had been skirmishing along the 38th parallel, the separation line, for a couple years before that, some of them pretty serious. And so, when war broke out on june 25 that morning, a rainy morning in korea, many people in the south thought we hope it is just another skirmish. Well, it turned out to be a fullscale invasion. Actually, on the northern side, the people in north korea were told that south korea had attacked. And this fiction is still maintained by the North Koreans officially in their museums and such, but it was a surprise attack and there was a failure on the south korean american side, an intelligence failure, ofnot detect the movement troops across the north of the 30th parallel was preparation for invasion. The North Koreans cleverly maneuver,ocalled which was actually a hoax. The movements were not a maneuver. Not a practice. But rather a fullscale invasion. Host lets take your phone calls. Bo is first up from sylvester, georgia. Good morning. Welcome to the conversation. Caller i had a relative that served during the longest artillery duel in naval history with an opposing enemy force. President truman called it a Police Action even though it was undeclared. And the second question i have was that the armistice ended the fighting on the peninsula in 1953, but there has been no formal treaty. To many of the North Koreans, the war has never been forgotten, even though we have forgotten the war itself in a lot of American History. Thank you. Host thank you. Two very important points. Guest i call it a war on hold. There has been no peace treaty. There was to be a political settlement. This was called for within the original armistice agreement in july, 1953, that there be a political conference that would reunify the two koreas. But the hostilities were just so great that by 1954 when the meeting took place in geneva it , did not go very far. I think it lasted two or three months. Finally, the United States over thet disagreements over who would oversee elections and such. The United States proposed that the United Nations oversee elections, but the United Nations with considered by the to be a belligerent in the war. The United Nations had adopted a countries toging support south korea during the war. That was something the North Koreans could not abide. They and the soviets and the proposed the commission but theal nations, americans rejected that and so it ended in failure. So, we continue to have a war on hold. No peace treaty. No war, no peace. I am sorry. Your first question related to . Host it is a war that has never there has not been a ceasefire formal agreement. , a guest the caller brought up the undeclared aspect of the Police Action. This is interesting. And as a journalist, i see it happen often. That was raised in a question by a journalist to president truman. Would you consider it a Police Action . And truman said, yes, he went along with it, but this was not his formulation initially. And this was very early on when there was some thought from of theton that the entry United States forces in the war, which ended quickly, would become a peacekeeping operation. But that proved not true. As we see, it went on for three years at a tremendous cost. You may have mentioned the casualty toll for americans, which was over 36,000 dead. But the total dead for the others involved was tremendous and very indefinite. It is believed that between 200,000 and 400,000 south korean troops and the same number of north korean troops were killed and even more chinese killed in that war, approximately 500,000. But the real toll was on civilians in north and south korea. It is believed that probably one side,n civilians on each north and south, were killed during that war. I think it is still considered the war with the most costly casualty toll america has ever fought. In other words, by the proportion of the total death toll. Host we are looking at the start of the korean war in 1950, 70 years ago, here on cspan. Sam is next up from hillsdale, michigan. Thanks for waiting. Good morning. Caller i got so mad toward the end of this book i had to quit reading it. It seemed to me that the Truman Administration was just clicking its tongue and shaking its head watching macarthurs crazy behavior. Why didnt somebody do something about that man . Host to his point, and it may be a broader question, some of the key players involved in this conflict. Charles hanley . Guest the key players . You are asking the key players . Host he mentioned General Macarthur, but also some of the other key figures in the conflict. Guest on macarthur, his behavior really came to the fore during the war itself, not leading up to it. And during the war, he was the overall commander in the far east. And so, he was the one who ordered troops in after getting the ok from truman in an undeclared war, ordered the troops into korea. And had a very hard time. To summarize the early backandforth seesawing, the north korean invasion pushed the south korean army and the american troops there into the southeastern quadrant of south korea. Then, later, in september 1950, macarthur landed a huge Amphibious Force at inchon. And that effectively cut off the North Koreans in the south from their resupply. And at the same time, the American South Korean Forces in the south broke out from their perimeter and drove the north Korean Forces north. The North Koreans were very weakened at that point. And then, macarthur sent his forces across the 38th parallel, capturing pyongyang, and all the way to the chinese border. Now, the directives from the joint chiefs of staff in washington were that he should not send american troops to the chinese border because the chinese would consider that a threat, but he disobeyed that. And the whole u. N. Command at seoul moved toward the border, and some reached the border. And that resulted in disaster for the americans. At the same time, macarthur made a strategic error splitting his forces up the east coast and west coast of north korea. Him so, the chinese could kick off the two split forces more easily that way. The attacks were a great surprise to macarthur and his generals. They went into essentially a headlong retreat all the way back to seoul. And eventually even south of seoul. The real thing that got to president truman about macarthur was that he was speaking out geo strategically, not just militarily. But he kept pushing for a wider war against china, attacking chinese bases, attacking china itself, and even mustering troops from taiwan, Chinese Nationalist troops that had fled to taiwan, getting them to reinvade china for a second front in the war. My character, general ridgway, one of the featured individuals in my book, he could see early on that macarthur was making a great strategic mistake on the ground in north korea. And also, he understood, when he was told he was taking over from macarthur, that macarthur had been fired. And ridgway would leave the pentagon. Ridgway was already in korea in command of the eighth army, but he would leave korea and go to tokyo as far east commander. Ridgway knew that macarthurs ideas were mistaken and the American People would not stand for another global war. This time, against communism. Truman simply became too impatient with macarthurs insubordination speaking out publicly on geopolitical matters. And so, he fired him. Host we welcome our cspan Radio Audience and those listening on sirius xm. Our guest is Charles Hanley. He is a Pulitzer Prizewinning reporter for the associated press. And his new, upcoming book titled ghost flames, life and war, as we hidden look back at the korean war 70 years ago. Bob is up next from arlington, texas. Good morning. Caller my brother got killed over there august 5, 1952. And what bothers me the most is the fact that most people over here these days do not know china was the biggest part of why we lost that war. And we still disrespect it. The second thing is that on memorial day everybody says, happy memorial day. Well, it is not very happy for me, i will tell you that. The second thing is guys like Colin Kaepernick who disrespect the flag really burns it. I tell you what, that is the lowest point we can ever, respect the honor of the people that died. That is what memorial day is about, but you get a guy like Colin Kaepernick or these other celebrities and whatever. This is our flag, and theyre disrespecting it. I would love to disrespect one of their relatives in the same way. Host bob, tell us about your brother. What happened . Caller he waited to get drafted. And he was ready to come home and evidently a sniper got him. [crying] he was with the 5th Regimental Combat Team and evidently it was behind the lines, but they had the snipers out there picking people off right and left. He had been promised to be able to come home. He had already served his time and they kept promoting him. He got promoted. They did not know how to manage the peace. Everything was quiet, everybody was just waiting for the next move. Host how old was he when he passed away . Caller 22. Host bob, thank you for the call and thank you for sharing your story. Guest i am very sorry to hear about your loss. And obviously, steve, the mention of china earlier, there are possibly as many as 600,000 chinese soldiers lost in the war and they were the deciding factor in the war. They saved north korea. Otherwise, we would have a unified korea back in the 1950s. But the chinese still view the war as a great victory because they saved north korea, and they pay close attention to the history of that particular war. In fact, one of my characters is the overall commander of the communists. Soon after he entered the war zone and set up headquarters, he oldest son ons his staff as a russian translator. Soon after the chinese army entered north korea, the headquarters was attacked. And the general had just left reason,n, and for some his son had returned to the cabin. American planes came in and ed an area of the headquarters and killed his son. Maos son, who some considered a potential successor, is buried in north korea and honored on their memorial day so to speak. The connection between china and north korea is quite close historically. They have their animosities, but the Chinese People and north Korean People recognize their relationship is deep and long. Host our guest is joining us fro

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