Two years ago at seoul a United Nations supervised free elections south of the 38th parallel and the republic of korea, a sovereign democratic nation, was born. Its president was sing mull ri. In may 1950, the citizens of this young republic went to the polls to choose their government under their democratic constitution. Even as the citizens of the korean republic voted in free elections, the north korean communist leaders were boasting of their intention to unify the country by force. And this was their target. A 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 Republic Army faced by superior forces with the advantages of deception and surprise rallied it the defense of the republic improvising quickly to meet the unprovoked aggression, korean republic troops were against the invaders. Against a prepared enemy armed with modern tanks, planes and guns the republic troops were ill equipped to meet the onslaught. Back in the United States an emergency session of the United NationsSecurity Council is called. Ambassador chang of the republic of korea heard the general say the present situation is a serious one and a threat to international peace. The Security Council is, mr. President , in my opinion, a competent organization to deal with it. I consider it the duty of the Security Council 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. In korea the saddest victims by the communist north korean puppets are women and children. This is not new. These tragic and bewildered refugees are always the first fruit of wanton aggression. Charles hanley is joining us from naples, florida. He is a former Ap International desk special correspondent and out with a new book ghost flames life and death in a hidden war korea 1950 to 1953. Thank you for being with us here on cspan and on cspan3s American History tv. Thank you, steve. Very good to be with you. The historical significance of the korean war as we said often being viewed as the forgotten war, what is it 70 years later . Well, i think we can see it simply in the tension that still exists on the Korean Peninsula, the Nuclear Crisis. But you mentioned it was sometimes called the forgotten war, and it basically was 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. And then eventually it was overshadowed by the vietnam war. But when we look back we can see this was a watershed moment in 20th century history because it militarized the cold war between the communists and capitalist worlds and it also was the first undeclared war by the United States in its history. Of course, thats all we have had since. It remains the last conflict between great powers, in this case america and china, and with soviet help on the chinese north korean side, and it really made permanently militarized the United States within just a couple of years. The Defense Budget quadrupled in the early 50s as the war was being fought and, in essence, the pentagon never looked back after that. But we can see today, as i said, in the Nuclear Crisis this is really rooted in that war because the United States threatened in various ways openly and secretly through backchannels to use Nuclear Weapons against the North Koreans, against the chinese. So, as a result, obviously china realized it needed its own deterrence 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 during the korean war, they now have their own Nuclear Arsenal as well, which they consider a deterrent against another devastating conflict with the u. S. We should point out we have a line set aside for those of you who are veterans of the korean war. Are you saying that the underlying issue in the conflict 70 years ago was the cold war tensions that resulted in the war . Yes. Of course, at the end of world war ii, korea, which was a japanese colony, was divided by the soviet occupation, American Occupation in the north and south. Consequently, they each followed the virgin paths. Communists an capitalists. And then, although in 45, in december of 45, washington and moscow reached what was called the moscow agreement to reunify the koreas within five years, their bickering and hostility between the two great powers doomed that to failure by 1948. The whole idea had been dropped and the two south and north declared themselves independent nations. And so, yes, we can find the root of the korean war very directly in this hostility between soviet union and the United States. Your upcoming book ghost flames life and death and the hidden war looking at korea 19501953, you personalize those on the front lines including citizens in the war. Walk us through what you learned. What i learned was 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 such tremendous bombardment, but also south korea, with the back and forth of the war. And my characters, the featured individuals, and these are real people, of course, and real experiences, but i call them characters, my characters witness much of the horror of the war. Some of the worst of it from the atrocities to the error of bombardment in north korea and in particular. 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 the book shelves in america and in particular. So i have characters ranging from a little a northern refugee girl in seoul, a 10yearold girl, who opens the book, in effect, awakening to the start of the war on through various soldiers and civilians. Even an american who runs a clinic for refugees in south korea during the war on up to people at the top. General matthew ridgeway, who ended up fairly early on as overall commander on the American South korean side, and a general of china who was the overall commander from 1950 onward on the chinese north korean side. These we follow i follow their experiences through the war and through them we get a good big picture, overview of the strategy and the conduct of the war. Meantime, many of my ordinary people are going through these battles, are pleading as refugees, are under from american airplanes and such. Our guest has one the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting with Tthe Associated press. What specifically event led to the initial conflict . Well, 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 separation line for a couple of years before that. Some of it pretty serious. And so when the war broke out on june 25, that morning, a rainy morning in korea, many people in the south thought, well, we hope this is just another skirmish. Well, it turned out to be a fullscale invasion. And actually on the northern side the people in north korea were told that south korea had attacked. And this fiction, it is still maintained bit North Koreans officially in their museums and such. But it was a surprise attack and there was a failure on the south korean and american side, an intelligence failure to not detect that these movements of troops across the north of the 38th parallel was the preparation for an invasion. The North Koreans had very cleverly staged a socalled maneuver which was actually a hoax. The movements were not a maneuver, not a practice, their movements, but rather a fullscale invasion. Lets get to your phone calls. Bo is first up joining us from sylvester, georgia. Good morning. Welcome to the conversation. Caller thank you. I had a relative that served on the lafi during the battle woo son, which was the longest artillery dual i believe in naval history. The first question i have is that president truman called it a Police Action even though it was undeclared, and the second question i have is 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. Bo, thank you. Two very important points. Yeah. Of course, it is a war, as 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 of 1953 that there would be a political conference that would reunify the two koreas. But the hostilities were so great that by 1954 the meetings took place in 54 in geneva and it did not go very far. I think it lasted two or three months and finally the United States walked out because of the disagreements over who would oversee elections and such. The United States proposed that the United Nations oversee the elections, but of course the United Nations was actually considered by the north to be a belligerent in the war. The Security Council having adopted resolutions urging countries to provide aid to south korea. In other words, it took sides in the war. And that was something the North Koreans did not abide. They proposed, they and the soviets proposed and the chinese proposed a neutral, a commission of neutral nations, but the americans rejected that. And so it ended in failure and we now continue to have a war on hold. No peace treaty. No war, no peace. And im sorry. The first question related to . Basically, there has not been a ceasefire, a formal agreement between the u. S. And north korea. The caller brought up the undeclared aspect, the Police Station action. And this is interesting. As a journalist, i see this happen so often. That was raised in a question by a journalist to president truman. Would you consider it well, say a Police Action . And truman said, yes, okay. He went along with it. But this was not his formulation initially. And this was very early on when there was some thought in washington at least that the entry of the United States forces into a war would end it pretty quickly and it woul operation. But that proved to be not true. We see it went on for three years at a tremendous cost. You may have mentioned, steve, the cost, the casualty toll for the americans, which was over 36,0000 dead. But the total dead for the others involved were just tremendous. And very indefinite. Its believed that between 200 and 400,000 south korean troops and the same number of north korean troops were killed. And even more chinese were killed in that war. Approximately a halfmillion. But the real toll was on the civilians in north and south korea, and its believed that probably a million on each side, north and south, were killed during that war. So its one of the, i think it is still considered the war with the most costly casualty toll of any that america has fought. In other words, the portion of the total death toll. We are looking back at the start of the korean war in 1950, 70 years ago on cspan and cspan3s American History tv. Sam is up from hillsdale, michigan. Good morning. Caller hi. I was reading and i got so mad toward the end of it that i had to quit reading it because it seemed to me that the Truman Administration was just clicking its tongue and shaking its head watching mcarthurs crazy behavior over there. Why didnt somebody do something about that man . Thank you, sam. To his point, maybe a broader question, too, some of the key players involved in this conflict. Charles hanley . Yes. The key player, you are asking, i am sorry, steve, the key players . He mentioned general mcarthur. I was going to mention him and some of the other key figures in the conflict. Yes. Well, on mcarthur, mcarthurs behavior really came to the fore during the war itself and not leading up to it. And during the war he was, general mcarthur was the overall commander. And so he was the one who ordered troops in after getting the okay from truman in an undeclared war. Ordered the troops into korea. And had a very hard time, of course, quickly, to summarize the early back and forth seesawing of the war. The north korean invasion pushed the south korean army and the troops there into the southeastern quadrant of south korea, which became known as the pew son perimeter. The defense line. And then later in september, september 15, 1950, mcarthur landed a huge Amphibious Force at inchon, west of seoul, and that effectively cut off the North Koreans in the south from their resupply. At the same time the american and south Korean Forces in the south broke out from their p uso n perimeter and drove the north Korean Forces north. The North Koreans were very weakened at that point because of their supply line. And then mcarthur sent his forces across the 38th parallel capturing pyongyang and all the way on to the chinese border. Now, the directives from the joint chiefs of staff in washington were that you 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 moved towards the border and some reach the border and thats when the chinese the disaster for the americans. At the same time, mcarthur made a strategic error in splitting his forces up east coast and west coast of north korea and so the chinese could pick off the two forces more easily that way. And their attacks were a great surprise to mcarthur and his generals. They went into essentially a headlong retreat, all the way back to seoul and then eventually even south of seoul. But the real thing that got to president truman about mcarthur was that he was speaking out geostrategicly, not just militarily, but he kept on pushing for a wider war against china, attacking the chinese bases, attacking china itself, and even mustering troops from taiwan, the Chinese Nationalist troops that had fled to taiwan, getting them to reinvade china to start a second front in the war. Now, my character matt ridgeway, general ridgeway, one of the featured individuals in my book, he could see early on that mcarthur was making a great strategic mistake on the ground in north korea, and also he understood when he was told he was taking over for mcarthur, mcarthur had been fired, and ridgeway would lead the pentagon and go to tokyo sorry, ridgeway already in korea. He was in command of the 8th army, but he would go to tokyo. Ridgeway knew that mcarthurs ideas were mistaken. The American People would not stand for another global war this time against communism. And truman simply became time patie impatient with mcarthurs insubordination and speaking out publicly on geopolitical matters, and so he fired him. We welcome our cspan radio audience, also those listening on sirius xm channel 124 every sunday morning. Charles hanley is a Pulitzer Prizewinning writer for the associated press. His new book, as we look back at the korean war. Bob next in arlington, texas. Good morning. Good morning. Steve. Its been a long time. Well, my brother got killed over there. 1952, august 5th. And what bothers petme the most the fact that most people over here these days dont know that china was the biggest part of why we lost that war. We still disrespect it. The second thing is that on memorial day everybody over here says happy memorial day. Well, it aint very happy for me. I tell you that. The second thing is that guys like Colin Kaepernick that disrespect the flag really burns it. I tell you what. That is the lowest point we could ever respect the honor of the people who died. Thats what memorial day is all about. But you get a guy like Colin Kaepernick or these other celebrities and whatever. Well, this is our flag and they are disrespecting it. And i would love to disrespect one of their relatives in the same way. Hey, bob, tell us about your brother. What happened . Well, he waited to get drafted. And he was ready to come home. Evidently, a sniper got him. He was listen, the 5th regimental combat team, and effortly he was behind the lines. But they had the snipers out there just picking people off right and left. He had been promised to be able to come home. He had already served his time. They kept promoting him. He got promoted. They didnt know how to manage the peace. Everything was quiet. Everybody was waiting for the next move. How old was he when he passed away . 22. Hey, bob, thank you for the call. Thank you for sharing your story. And im very sorry to hear about your loss, and obviously, it stays with you all y