Korean War Successfully Defended Democracy, Author Says

May 30, 2000

University Park, Pa. -- The Korean War, which erupted 50 years ago this June, was the first international effort to turn back aggression and has been the only truly successful effort, despite its popular image as a stalemate, says a Penn State cultural historian and Korean War veteran.

"The Korean War was the first United Nations effort to defeat aggression by the North Koreans and became a model for future efforts, such as Vietnam, the Gulf War and Kosovo" says Stanley Weintraub, author of a new book "MacArthur’s War: Korea and the Undoing of an American Hero," published by Free Press, a division of Simon and Schuster.

"But even today, the Korean War is considered at best a ignominious draw. It was not," said Weintraub, an Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus of Arts and Humanities at Penn State. "The war did cost America 54,246 lives. Thousands more are still missing, but enemy losses were at least 10 times our own. The North Korean communists were rolled back beyond the 38th parallel where they invaded. South Korea thrives while the ideologically obsolete North survives as a backward pariah behind one of the few iron curtains still hanging.

"Taiwan today is booming, having dodged being swallowed up by Mao’s China -- which might have happened if China had not intervened in Korea," he says. "And Communism suffered a public relations blow when 21,805 POWs chose not to return to China and North Korea, compared to 23 Americans who remained behind."

The new book offers a detailed account of the flawed command of the famed Army General Douglas MacArthur, who initially was in charge of the U.N. and U.S. forces in the Korean conflict but later was fired by President Harry Truman. Covering events from June 1950 to April 1951, Weintraub conducted extensive research in Communist and American sources to create a rich tale in the voices of its participants.

"The army’s lack of preparedness, poor equipment and supplies, and inadequate leadership bogged down the Americans from the beginning," says Weintraub. "For many months, the war was fought with hardware left over from World War II and the troops on Occupation duty in Japan — the first to cross to Korea — knew more about whorehouses than howitzers. American draftees just out of basic training were airlifted to Korea to supplement understaffed units."

Prior to the Korean conflict, MacArthur was grandly supervising the occupation government of Japan. He never left Tokyo to inspect his army divisions nor showed up at field exercises where poorly trained garrison soldiers often couldn’t figure out how to break down a rifle or dig a foxhole, according to the book.

His chief of staff blamed the poor quality of troops on peacetime recruits and their disdain for discipline. The correspondents at headquarters in Tokyo didn’t question any of MacArthur’s inaccurate pronouncements.

"The idyll ended with unexpected suddenness on June 25, 1950, although the warning signs had been up and unread for a long time," says Weintraub. "North Korean troops flooded across the 38th parallel into South Korea, scattering the South Korean army units. "

"By the time the American troops were bolstered by replacements, the newly formed United Nation forces -- mostly American — were backed up dangerously in the Pusan perimeter by the North Korean forces. What prevented a disaster was a brilliant, if hazardous, operation designed by MacArthur: a massive amphibian landing at Inchon above occupied Seoul by an experienced Marine division force," the author recalls.

Once having stopped the enemy’s advance, according to the book, MacArthur intended to propagandize for a widening of the war and to run for President, which led to miscalculations in pursuing the enemy north and the headlong retreats from the Yalu River and Chosin Reservoir.

"You can’t fight a war intelligently when politicians have their own agendas, as MacArthur did then and Congress and the President do today," says Weintraub. "Politics interfered with the Korean War and kept MacArthur in command longer than he should have been. President Truman was afraid to fire MacArthur due to the upcoming Congressional elections in 1950, but the general had bungled the job in Korea.

"Politics always enter the conduct of a war and affect the results negatively," he notes. "With politics to interfere, there are never any definitive solutions to these conflicts. Unpopular wars can’t have casualties, but the military know that casualties are unavoidable to achieve genuine success. The Gulf War ended too soon with Hussein being left in power. We went to Somalia in ignorance and innocence and we had to leave in embarrassment. In Kosovo, we couldn’t afford even one death of an American soldier so the conflicts continue today in that region, despite the so-called peace agreement."

In mid-June, there are plans for reconciliation talks between North and South Korean governments. However, Weintraub isn’t very hopeful for immediate success.

"North Korea is still a hostile, isolated country where access is restricted," he notes. "We are trying to buy North Korea’s cooperation and paying ransom for things they should be doing in their own interest. This will cause more problems by merely postponing the real issues."

The Penn State professor emeritus has written several military histories including "Long Day’s Journey Into War: December 7, 1941" and "The Last Great Victory: The End of World War II."

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Contact:

Vicki Fong (814) 865-9481 (o)/ (814) 238-1221 (h)

EDITORS: Dr. Weintraub is at (814) 865-0495 or at by email.