Abstract
The Asian decisions of 1947/8 represented an attempt to balance commitments with resources. In a period of budgetary restraint, first priority was given to containing communism in Europe. In 1949, however, US policy began to assume new directions which dictated the response to the attack on South Korea in June 1950. Two sets of factors lay behind the changes. The first was international. In September 1949 the Soviet Union tested an atomic bomb, shattering the US atomic monopoly which had existed since 1945. In October Mao proclaimed a People’s Republic in Beijing, leading the largest nation in the world into the communist camp. In this situation, it was feared that Washington was losing the initiative in the cold war. A further expansion of communist power would endanger American credibility. Western Europe and Japan would lose faith in US guarantees, seeking refuge in neutrality or an accommodation with the Russians. Washington would have lost the cold war. The second was domestic. The new international climate had political repercussions at home, denting public confidence in containment. The Republicans, denied power in the Presidential elections of 1948, attempted to capitalize on this mood, charging Truman and the Democrats with softness on communism and the loss of China.
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Notes and References
Robert J. Donovan, Tumultuous Years (New York, 1982) p. 141.
The position of the US with Respect to Asia, NSC-48/2, 30 December 1949, in Thomas H. Etzhold and John Lewis Gaddis (eds), Containment, Documents on American Policy & Strategy, 1945–1950 (New York, 1978) pp. 252–76.
NSC-48/2, 30 December 1949; Robert M. Blum, Drawing the Line, The Origins of the American Containment Policy in East Asia (New York, 1982) pp. 175–7.
Gaddis Smith, American Diplomacy during the Second World War (New York, 1985) pp. 91–2.
Ronald J. Caridi, The Korean War and American Politics. The Republican Party as a Case Study (Philadelphia, 1968) pp. 2–4.
William Manchester, American Ceasar, Douglas MacArthur 1880–1964 (Boston, 1978) pp. 149–52.
Ibid., pp. 478–83.
John Gunther, The Riddle of MacArthur (London, 1951) pp. 1–12.
David Detzer, Thunder of the Captains (New York, 1977) pp. 25–7.
Gunther, pp. 55–8; Roger Morris, Haig, The General’s Progress (London, 1982) p. 24.
Warren I. Cohen, ‘Cold Wars and Shell Games’, Reviews in American History (September 1983) p. 431.
Elisabeth Barker, The British between the Superpowers, 1945–1950 (London, 1983) pp. 169–74.
Acheson, pp. 355–8; Gaddis Smith, Dean Acheson (New York, 1972) pp. 175–6.
John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment (New York, 1982) pp. 95–106.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Walter LaFeber, America, Russia & the Cold War 1945–1984 (New York, 1985) p. 97.
Samuel F. Wells, ‘Sounding the Tocsin. NSC-6 8 & the Soviet Threat’, International Security, Vol. 4 (Fall 1979) pp. 124–5.
Draft Memo, 30 May 1950, FR 1950, Vol. 6, pp. 349–51; Memo by Deputy Special Assistant for Intelligence, 31 May 1950, ibid., pp. 347–9.
John Lewis Gaddis, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Defensive Perimeter Concept’, in Dorothy Borg and Wald Heinrichs (eds), Uncertain Years (New York, 1980) pp. 86–8.
Leonard Mosley, Dulles (New York, 1978) p. 256.
Memo of Conversation, 3 April 1950, FR 1950, Vol. 7, p. 42.
Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences (New York, 1964) p. 371.
Memo of Conversation, 10 May 1950, FR 1950, Vol. 7, pp. 78–9.
Ibid., p. 81.
Harry S. Truman, Years of Trial and Hope (New York, 1956) pp. 332–3.
But see Karunker Gupta, ‘How did the Korean War Begin?’, China Quarterly 8 (October–December 1972) pp. 699–716; Documents and Materials Exposing the Instigators of the Civil War in Korea, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pyongyang, 1950.
Robert R. Simmons, The Strained Alliance, Peking, Pyongyang, Moscow & the Politics of the Korean Civil War (New York, 1975) pp. 102–10.
Allen S. Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu, The Decision to Enter the Korean War (Stanford, 1968) pp. 45–6.
Wilbur Hitchcock, ‘North Korea Jumps the Gun’, Current History (20 March 1951) pp. 136–44.
Ronald K. Betts, Surprise Attack (Washington DC, 1982) pp. 53–4.
Frank Heller (ed.); The Korean War, A 25 Year Perspective (Lawrence, Kansas, 1977) p. 11.
Donovan, pp. 143–6.
Truman, pp. 331–2; Acheson, pp. 402–4; J. Lawton Collins, War in Peacetime, The History and Lessons of Korea (Boston, Mass., 1969) pp. 2–11.
Glen D. Paige, The Korean Decision, June 24–30 1950 (New York, 1968) p. 86.
Truman, pp. 332–33; Ernest R. May, Lessons of the Past, The Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy (New York, 1973) pp. 70–8.
Memo of Conversation, 25 June 1950, FR 1950, Vol. 7, p. 158.
Memo of Conversation, 26 June 1950, FR 1950, Vol. 7, pp. 178–83.
John W. Spanier, The Truman-MacArthur Controversy and the Korean War (New York, 1965) pp. 38–9.
Memo of Conversation, 25 June 1950, FR 1950, Vol. 7, pp. 157–61; Memo of Conversation, 26 June 1950, ibid., pp. 178–83.
State/Defense Mtg, 25 June 1950, FR 1950, Vol. 7, p. 143.
Memo of Conversation, 26 June 1950, ibid., pp. 178–83.
Memo of Conversation, 25 June 1950, FR 1950, Vol. 7, pp. 157–61.
Memo of Conversation, 25 June 1950, FR 1950, Vol. 7, p. 158.
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© 1986 Callum A. MacDonald
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MacDonald, C.A. (1986). The Korean Decisions. In: Korea: The War before Vietnam. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06332-1_2
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