Korean War

The Event Military conflict between communist and noncommunist forces in Korea

Date June 25, 1950-July 27, 1953

A coalition involving the United States and its allies under a United National Command prevented communist-led North Korea from taking over South Korea, thus permitting South Korea to become a prosperous and democratic country.

The Korean War was the first war in which an international organization played a major role. After North Korean troops invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950, the United Nations (U.N.) condemned the invasion and requested member countries to come to the assistance of South Korea. Sixteen countries responded by sending troops, while forty-one countries sent food, equipment, and other supplies. Because the United States paid for 90 percent of the costs of the war, President Harry S. Truman chose the commanders and made major decisions on strategy. China sent troops to fight with the North Koreans, and the Soviet Union provided substantial amounts of military equipment.

The war was costly in numbers of casualties, military expenditures, and destruction of property. The U.N. and South Korean forces, at their greatest strength, consisted of more than one million troops, including about 590,000 South Koreans and about 480,000 Americans. During the three years of fighting, approximately 1,600,000 communist troops and about 580,000 troops from the United Nations and South Korea were killed, seriously wounded, or reported missing. About 1.4 million Americans fought in the war, and more than 35,000 died in combat, with an additional 103,000 wounded and missing. Probably at least one million Korean civilians were killed, and several million more became refugees. The United States spent some $67 billion on the war, substantially increasing the deficit and the national debt.

The North Korean Invasion

The conflict grew out of the artificial division of Korea at the end of World War II. After expelling the Japanese, who had controlled Korea since 1895, the United States and the Soviet Union divided Korea into two occupation zones at approximately the thirty-eighth parallel. In 1947, the U.N. General Assembly called for free elections to unify the country, but the Soviets refused to permit elections in the North. In the spring of 1948, the South Koreans elected a national assembly, which soon established the government of the Republic of Korea. Syngman Rhee , a long-standing Korean nationalist, was elected president. On September 9, the Korean Communist Party created the People’s Republic of Korea. Kim Il Sung , who was trained militarily in the Soviet Union, became the country’s first premier.

Both governments claimed to exercise sovereignty over all of Korea, and between 1948 and 1950, their troops had several struggles along the thirty-eighth parallel. The political situation was especially unstable in South Korea, where leftist forces engaged in guerrilla activities. Kim Il Sung, with Soviet assistance, built up a large military force. The Soviet Union viewed North Korea as part of its security zone in Northeast Asia, and Soviet leaders therefore provided the country with a large arsenal of military equipment. The United States did not provide South Korea with comparable assistance because it feared that Syngman Rhee might be tempted to attack North Korea. At the time, American officials minimized the strategic importance of the Korean peninsula. In January, 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson publicly stated in a speech to the National Press Association that the peninsula was outside America’s defense perimeter.

In the spring of 1950, Kim went to Moscow and Beijing in an attempt to persuade Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Chinese leader Mao Zedong to approve an invasion of South Korea. Both leaders feared that an attack might expand into a wider war without significantly advancing their national interests. However, Kim insisted that his forces could conquer South Korea within a few days. After Stalin unenthusiastically agreed to provide tanks and other military equipment, Mao Zedong had no choice but to go along.

The North Korean army had about 135,000 well-trained troops that were supported by Soviet airplanes, heavy artillery, and tanks. The South Korean army had about 95,000 poorly trained troops and very few airplanes or tanks. Because of their superior strength, combined with the advantages of a surprise attack, the North Koreans achieved a smashing success. Within three days of the attack, they had captured the capital city of Seoul and continued to advance southward. Without foreign intervention, the South Korean government had no chance of survival.

The United States Enters the War

At the time of the invasion, the Truman administration was firmly and publicly committed to a foreign policy of “containment,” or preventing the further expansion of communism. Influenced by Cold War confrontations, U.S. officials assumed that the impetus behind the invasion likely was coming from the Soviet Union, and they believed that the credibility of the U.S. government was at stake. In addition, revelations about the subversive activities of alleged spies Karl Fuchs and Alger Hiss were already being exploited by anticommunist zealots, most notably Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. A significant number of Americans blamed the recent “loss of China” on liberals and Democrats. For these reasons, Truman and his advisers quickly assumed that they had no real choice other than military intervention.

The Truman administration called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, which met on June 25, 1950, and voted nine to none to approve a resolution calling for a cease-fire and a withdrawal of North Korean forces. On June 27, the Security Council passed a second resolution, requesting countries to assist South Korea “to repel the armed attack and restore international peace and security in the area.” The Soviet delegate would have vetoed the two resolutions, except that the Soviet government was boycotting the Security Council to protest the refusal of the United Nations to replace the Nationalist Chinese government on Taiwan with the People’s Republic of China. The Soviet delegate later returned to the Security Council in August to attempt to veto the two resolutions, but the council held that a veto could only be legally exercised at the same time that the resolutions were passed.

The same day that the second U.N. resolution was approved, President Truman ordered U.S. air and naval forces to support South Korean troops. On July 1, a U.S. task force of 403 men flew from Japan to Pusan at the southeastern tip of Korea. Americans fought their first battle with the North Koreans on July 5 at Osan, thirty miles south of Seoul. Two days later, the Security Council voted in favor of a unified command in Korea, under a commander to be chosen by the United States. The next day, Truman designated General Douglas MacArthur for the position. MacArthur would direct operations from his Japanese headquarters. For the field commander in Korea, Truman appointed Lieutenant General Walton “Bulldog” Walker of the U.S. Eighth Army, then on occupation duty in Japan.

Early Combat

Many of the U.S. soldiers first deployed to Korea were young and undertrained, and most of their officers had limited combat experience. In the last week of July, 1950, a confused situation resulted in the tragic incident at the railroad overpass near No Gun Ri, not far from Yongdong. As the North Koreans occupied the region, huge numbers of South Korean civilians fled for their lives. Military intelligence reported that enemy soldiers were sometimes posing as refugees, and frightened young American soldiers had a difficult time distinguishing between civilian refugees and the enemy. During July 26-29, an uncertain number of American soldiers fired at civilians who were inside the No Gun Ri overpass. The soldiers likely believed they had received small arms fire from the location of the overpass. South Korean sources reported that about 250 civilians were killed, while most American sources claimed that no more than 100 were killed.

The initial U.S. intervention did little to slow the North Koreans from advancing south. By August 2, they had taken all of South Korea except for an eighty-mile defense perimeter around the southeastern port of Pusan. By then, however, the cumulative growth of American troops, airplanes, and tanks was making it possible for General Walker to halt further North Korean advances. As North Korea tried to break through the Pusan Perimeter in scattered attacks, Walker reacted by sending in reserves who were protected by U.S. planes. In early August, the allies successfully counterattacked after the North Koreans crossed the Naktonk River. Walker’s forces again halted desperate efforts of the enemy to cross the perimeter in late August and early September. The two armies appeared to be deadlocked.

The Inchon Landing

The conflict dramatically changed when General MacArthur personally directed an amphibious landing at Inchon, only twenty-five miles south of Seoul. The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and most military strategists had opposed the operation as unwise. The major problem was that tides of thirty feet required ships to land precisely at high tide to escape entrapment in mud. In addition, a formidable seawall protected the city. MacArthur, who was known for his self-confidence and willingness to take risks, argued that conditions would assure the element of surprise that was essential to the success of the landing. The JCS reluctantly deferred to his judgment.

On September 15, 1950, the Inchon landing was almost as successful as MacArthur had predicted. After landing, allied forces began to sweep eastward across the peninsula. On September 26, the X corps, commanded by Major General Edward Almond, captured Seoul. While allied planes attacked North Korean supply lines leading to the Pusan Perimeter, General Walker’s Eighth Army fought its way out of the perimeter and inflicted heavy losses on the enemy. On September 28, Generals Walker and Almond joined forces near Seoul. By then, most of the North Korean armies had retreated north of the thirty-eighth parallel. Since the U.N. forces had successfully accomplished the objectives of the U.N. resolutions, the U.N. Command might have simply declared victory. Instead MacArthur broadcast a demand for the North Koreans to surrender, which they ignored.

U.N. Forces Invade North Korea

Delighted by the success of the Inchon landing, Truman and his strategic advisers decided to change the war’s objective from liberating the South to “rolling back” communism and uniting the Korean peninsula under a noncommunist government. The majority of the American public agreed with this change in policy; both Life magazine and The New Republic endorsed attacking North Korea. On October 7, a few days after U.N. troops crossed the thirty-eighth parallel, the General Assembly endorsed the establishment of a “unified, independent, and democratic” government of Korea. The Chinese government responded with warnings that it could not “stand idly by” and allow the overthrow of North Korea. Experts disagreed about whether the warnings should be taken seriously.

On October 15, President Truman and General MacArthur held a strategy conference at Wake Island. MacArthur dismissed China’s warnings and predicted that the war would soon be over. He also apologized to the president for a message that he had sent to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, in which he had proposed policy changes without getting advance approval. Truman declared that he was delighted with the conference. Accepting MacArthur’s judgment, he authorized U.N. troops to continue to move northward. On October 20, the capital city of Pyongyang was captured. On October 26, the allied advance reached Chosan on the Yalu River border with China. At this time army intelligence began to report that Chinese soldiers were fighting alongside the North Koreans.

During the next month, about 300,000 Chinese “volunteers” gradually crossed into North Korea. Based on faulty intelligence that greatly underestimated Chinese infiltration, MacArthur and other allied commanders continued to be optimistic about the prospects of a quick victory. Allied war planes bombed North Korean forces while allied warships bombarded North Korean port cities. After heavy fighting, the Chinese troops unexpectedly withdrew, perhaps in order to give the allies a false sense of security. MacArthur ordered a major advance to begin on November 24. He predicted with confidence that the war would be over by Christmas, 1950.

Retreat and Stalemate

On November 26, the North Korean and Chinese troops counterattacked in massive “human waves,” supported by large numbers of Soviet planes and tanks. The allies were taken by surprise and forced to retreat in bitter winter conditions. MacArthur observed that it had become “an entirely new war.” Within a week, communist forces had driven a wedge between the Eighth Army in the west and the X Corps in the east. Stunned by the offensive, Truman, on November 30, refused in a press conference to rule out the use of atomic weapons, and he even suggested that the decision rested with the field commander. The comment created great dismay among European allies, and British prime ministerClement Attlee flew to Washington for reassurance that the U.S. would not use atomic weapons or attack China. Truman, in an effort to calm European fears, stated that he did not intend to use atomic weapons and promised to inform the Europeans of any change in policy.

Soldiers of the Eighth Army were forced to withdraw more than three hundred miles, which is the longest retreat in U.S. military history. On December 4, the allies were forced to begin their withdrawal from Pyongyang. In the port city of Hungnam, about 105,000 U.S. and South Korean troops had to be evacuated. On January 4, 1951, communist troops again occupied Seoul. The allies no longer hoped to unite Korea, but they returned to their original objective of preserving an independent South Korea.

After General Walker was killed in a jeep accident, General Matthew Ridgway replaced him as commander of the Eighth Army, and the X Corps was also merged under his command. Because of his eminent career as a combat officer, Ridgway was extremely popular with the troops. His approach concentrated on improving morale, insisting on strict discipline, and inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy. He adopted a “meat grinder” tactic, aggressively searching out the enemy troops and then striking them repeatedly with artillery and tanks. In mid-January, U.N. forces were finally able to stop the Chinese advance, and on January 25, they begin a counteroffensive called Operation Thunderbolt. When advancing, Ridgway insisted on moving slowly enough to make certain that all enemy forces in an area were effectively eliminated.

Beginning on February 21, Ridgway launched Operation Killer, which was soon followed by Operation Ripper. In March, the allies marched triumphantly into Seoul. On April 22, the Chinese launched their greatest military offensive of the war, capturing Seoul for the third time. This time, however, the Chinese took heavy casualties and were overextended. By May, U.N. forces managed to establish a new defensive line, the Line Wyoming, which was somewhat north of the thirty-eighth parallel: At its center, it reached almost to the heavily defended region called the “iron triangle” (Pyonggang-Kumhwa-Chorwon). As the allies brought in more heavy artillery and air support, the Chinese had no realistic chance of breaking through the line.

Although fighting would continue for two more years, neither side would make any significant advances. There were, nevertheless, many fierce battles for strategic positions. During this period, which is characterized as the Battle for the Hills, thousands of soldiers died in a region called the Punchbowl. The most famous of the battles included Bloody Ridge, Heartbreak Ridge, Old Baldy, Finger Ridge, and Pork Chop Ridge. All the while, the United States inflicted massive bombing attacks on North Korea, devastating to irrigation dams, hydroelectric plants, and most cities. Immense numbers of Korean civilians died from the bombing raids.

The Truman-MacArthur Controversy

Shortly before the Chinese intervention, the American public had every reason to believe that the war was going well and that the “boys” would soon be returning home. The humiliating retreat of allied forces initiated a great debate about the U.S. role in the world. A large percentage of Americans simply could not understand how underdeveloped Asian countries could humiliate the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world. Such frustrations encouraged many people to listen to right-wing critics who insisted the Truman administration was not sufficiently committed to the anticommunist cause.

Even after the Chinese intervention, General MacArthur continued to oppose anything short of total victory. He argued that extending the war into China would pave the way to ending communism in Asia. He advocated bombing the bases in Manchuria, blockading the Chinese coast, and utilizing Nationalist Chinese soldiers in Korea. The proposed plan was contrary to Truman’s policies, and almost all officers and strategists agreed that the plan was impractical. In interviews with the press, MacArthur continued to contradict official policies without obtaining approval from government leaders, and he strongly challenged the notion of limited warfare in a letter to Republican congressman Joseph Martin. After Martin read the letter on the floor of the House on April 11, Truman relieved MacArthur of all his commands and appointed Ridgway to take his place.

The dismissal of MacArthur was cheered in Europe, but it was highly unpopular with the American public. Returning to his native country for the first time after fifteen years, General MacArthur received a hero’s welcome. In a joint declaration before Congress, he defended his plan for escalating the war. While politely applauding the aging general, the majority of the members of Congress remained unconvinced that his proposals would lead to victory. In subsequent Senate hearings, almost no military strategists defended the idea of attacking China, and General Omar Bradley of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned that it would put the United States “in the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy.” Even Republican senators conceded that MacArthur had exceeded his authority by challenging the president’s foreign policies and that the president had the constitutional power to appoint and remove military commanders.

Many military officers, nevertheless, shared MacArthur’s frustrations about fighting for limited objectives. General Ridgway wanted to act more aggressively, and he privately complained that the instructions of the JCS were frequently unhelpful. However, Ridgway, unlike his predecessor, was a team player who was always careful not to make any public statements inconsistent with official policies. In fact, Ridgway was highly critical of MacArthur’s cavalier disregard for the orders from Truman and the JCS, and he believed that MacArthur should have been fired as early as August of 1950.

Prisoners of War

When the war began, none of the participating countries had ratified the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of 1949. Nevertheless, within a month, the United States, North Korea, and South Korea stated that they would apply the guidelines of the convention. These guidelines stated that the captors were required to treat prisoners of war (POWs) humanely and not to allow the coercion of military information. However, neither side fully honored its commitments in this regard.

The North Koreans had no organized system for keeping war prisoners. During the first months of the war, the North Korean People’s Army simply moved the POWs to rear areas and subjected them to death marches. From April of 1951, the Chinese Communist Forces (CCF) took charge of most of the American POWs. Ignoring the Geneva Convention, the Chinese physically abused the prisoners and subjected them to “brainwashing” techniques. Although some of the POWs signed peace petitions and made anti-American statements, few, if any, provided their interrogators with information of any value. A total of 7,245 U.S. soldiers were taken as prisoners, and of these, 2,806 died in captivity.

The U.N. forces held more than 150,000 North Korean and Chinese POWs, whose treatment was a matter of considerable controversy. Critics, including British observers, alleged that U.S. guards were racially biased and looked upon the POWs as “Asian cattle.” This was especially true in the camp on Koje-do, a small island off the southern coast of Korea. The camp contained thousands of dedicated communists who strongly objected to the American policy of screening prisoners to find out their political backgrounds. The Americans adopted the policy because in prisoner repatriation, they did not want to send large numbers of men to their deaths, as had happened during World War II in the case of Eastern European prisoners who had been sent to the Soviet Union.

The Chinese and North Koreans looked upon the POWs as active combatants. Some of them allegedly had surrendered intentionally to U.N. troops to disrupt the camps. Beginning in the summer of 1951, militant prisoners at Koje-do murdered U.S. Army guards. In early 1952, attempts to screen prisoners resulted in the deaths of more than eighty prisoners. On May 7, the commandant of the island, Brigadier-General Francis Dodd, made the mistake of meeting with a group of prisoners to discuss their grievances. Dodd was taken as a hostage, and he was released only after he and his temporary replacement agreed to stop the screening process. The incident attracted great consternation among the American public.

The Long Truce Talks

From the outbreak of the war, European members of the U.N. coalition put pressure on the Truman administration to seek a compromise settlement. By March, 1951, Truman had decided to announce that the U.N. Command was ready to enter into negotiations. General MacArthur, however, undermined the peace initiative by giving the enemy an ultimatum. When MacArthur was no longer an obstacle, the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union agreed in June to begin negotiations toward a cease-fire. The talks began on July 10 in Kaesong and then moved to Panmunjom. The talks would continue in an on-again-off-again manner for the next two years.

The first issue of disagreements was about whether the demarcation line would be the thirty-eighth parallel or the defensive line at the time of the cease-fire. After the two sides agreed on a compromise solution to the border issue, they quickly deadlocked over the more difficult issue of prisoner exchange. The U.N. Command insisted that prisoners of both sides be allowed to choose whether or not they would return to their homelands. Approximately one-third of the North Korean and Chinese captives did not wish to be repatriated. Both the United States and the communists considered the issue to be a matter of principle, and both also were concerned with its propaganda value. On October 8, 1952, the U.N. Command adjourned the talks, stating that they would not resume until the communists were ready to offer helpful suggestions for resolving the repatriation issue.

The war was a major issue of the presidential election of 1952. Dwight D. Eisenhower announced that if elected, he would travel to Korea to promote an end to the fighting. Shortly after winning the election, he visited Korea, but with little effect. Only six weeks after Eisenhower became president, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin died, and the new leaders of the Kremlin were more flexible about a settlement. On March 28, communist negotiators accepted an earlier offer by the U.N. Command to exchange sick and wounded prisoners, a move that allowed talks to resume. Between April 20 and May 3, in an operation called Little Switch, the U.N. Command returned 6,670 sick and wounded prisoners, while it received 684 prisoners in return, including 149 Americans.

As the two sides drew closer to an agreement, South Korean president Syngman Rhee, who still hoped to unite all of Korea under his leadership, sabotaged the talks by releasing about 25,000 North Korean prisoners who reportedly desired to stay in South Korea. The Chinese and North Korean governments were so furious that they launched a military offensive against South Korean units. U.S. negotiators promised to restrain Rhee, and they also began discussing a defense alliance with Rhee in order to encourage him to agree to a truce based on the territorial status quo.

Determined to reach a settlement, President Eisenhower and his senior advisers seriously considered using tactical nuclear weapons as a way of getting the other side to make concessions. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles used diplomatic channels to warn the Chinese government about the nuclear threat. In subsequent years, Dulles and Eisenhower would claim that this warning was a critical factor in making the armistice possible. Skeptical historians, however, have noted that the warning about nuclear weapons was never given as a firm ultimatum. There is considerable evidence, moreover, that Mao Zedong had earlier expected the United States to use nuclear weapons, and such a threat had never appeared to moderate his behavior. Rather than the threat of nuclear weapons, it seems more likely that peace occurred because all parties to the conflict had simply decided that a continuation of fighting was not in their interests.

An End to Hostilities

On June 4, 1953, the Chinese and North Korean negotiators at Panmunjom agreed to allow voluntary repatriations, with both sides having an opportunity to try to persuade defectors to return home. The exchanges were to be under the supervision of a Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission (NNRC), which was composed of representatives from Sweden, Switzerland, India, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. With this contentious issue out of the way, the two sides were able to agree on the few remaining issues, including the location of the border separating the two Koreas.

On July 27, 1953, representatives of the various countries signed an armistice that ended the fighting. The truce recognized a demilitarized zone (DMZ) two and one-half miles wide to divide North and South Korea. Both sides agreed not to enlarge their military strength. A Military Armistice Commission, with representatives from each side, was established to enforce the terms of the truce. In September, 1953, the U.N. Command and the communist countries exchanged the remaining 88,559 prisoners. Among those refusing to return home were 14,222 Chinese, 7,582 North Koreans, 325 South Koreans, and 21 Americans. The truce provided for a future conference that was supposed to work out a final settlement. In 1954, representatives of the countries participating in the war, along with the Soviet Union, met for this purpose, but the conference failed because each of the Korean states refused to recognize the legitimacy of the other.

Impact

The Korean War made the thirty-eighth parallel a permanent division between North and South Korea, and it intensified the mutual animosities and tensions of the two regimes. While the truce meant an end to the fighting, it did not actually mean an end to the war. Officially, a state of war continued into the twenty-first century, and the border between the two countries remained one of the most heavily militarized and dangerous locations in the world. In the fifty years following the truce, numerous persons have been killed on both sides of the DMZ.

From an economic perspective, the war helped give South Korea access to Western markets, stimulating an impressive record of economic growth. In contrast, both the war and the truce tended to isolate North Korea from external influences, promoting an authoritarian political system and a very impoverished standard of living for its citizens.

As a result of the Korean War, Asia became a much more important region of concern in international relations. It was during the war that the United States began to provide France with substantial assistance to fight the nationalist-communist insurgency in Vietnam, a commitment that grew and expanded after the French left Vietnam in 1954. The war also resulted in the U.S. policy of defending Taiwan from attack by the People’s Republic of China. In addition, it hastened the signing of the Japanese peace treaty and led to the formation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). In Europe, the war had the effect of strengthening the military forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Although the Korean conflict exacerbated Cold War tensions, some historians have suggested that it helped motivate policymakers not to allow future differences to escalate into a third world war.

On the U.S. domestic scene, the Korean War helped fuel the anticommunist hysteria known as the “second red scare.” The war required a doubling of the budget for military and related expenditures, and it led to a bipartisan consensus on the need for better preparedness for possible conflicts in the future. Critics argued that the expenditures promoted the growth of a “military-industrial complex.” Unquestionably the war enhanced the powers of the office of the president, contributing to the so-called imperial presidency. One far-reaching aspect of this trend was Truman’s conviction that the commander in chief possessed constitutional authority to conduct a large-scale “police action.” Thus, he decided it was unnecessary to ask Congress to formally approve participation in what became a major international war. Dissatisfaction with this precedent would eventually result in passage of the controversial War Powers Act of 1973, which attempted to limit the president’s prerogatives for waging war without congressional authorization.

Bibliography

Blair, Clay. The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950-1953. New York: Times Books, 1987. A highly detailed and lively popular account of the conflict, critical of both MacArthur and Truman.

Catchpole, Brian. The Korean War, 1950-1953. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2000. A narrative that is generally favorable toward American policies during the conflict.

Clark, Eugene, and Thomas Fleming. Secrets of Inchon. New York: Putnam, 2002. Discusses the debates and many logistical problems associated with the daring operation.

Dorr, Robert, and Warren Thompson. Korean Air War. Chicago: Motorbooks, 2003. An interesting account of an important aspect of the war, combining narration with oral history interviews.

Goncharov, Sergi, John Lewis, and Xue Litai. Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1993. A scholarly book that focuses on the differences among communist leaders, especially the extreme reluctance of Stalin and Mao to allow Kim Il Sung to order the 1950 invasion.

Granfield, Linda, ed. Korea: Veterans Tell Their Stories of the War, 1950-1953. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001. A valuable collection recording the firsthand experiences of thirty-two participants.

Hanley, Chalres, Sang-Hun Choe, and Martha Mendoza. The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War. New York: Henry Holland, 2001. Summarizes interviews of more than 150 participants in the tragic shooting of civilians in July, 1950.

Jian, Chen. China’s Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. A scholarly work that emphasizes Mao’s revolutionary ideology. Jian argues that Mao decided to intervene even before U.N. forces crossed the thirty-eighth parallel.

Kaufman, Burton. The Korean Conflict. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999. A succinct guide that is readable, interesting, and balanced. It includes major documents, biographical summaries, and a long annotated bibliography.

Spiller, Harry, ed. American POWs in Korea: Sixteen Personal Accounts. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1998. Memoirs that tell about brutal treatment and terrible conditions.

Stueck, William. The Korean War: An International History. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997. Comprehensive study from an international perspective, utilizing archives from several countries.

Stueck, William. Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and Strategic History. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002. Well-written short synthesis by an outstanding scholar of the war.