THE INVASION OF NORTH KOREA
 

An extract from  Churchill and the Bomb by Ernie Trory. .

Under the Moscow agreement of December 1945, it had been agreed by
Britain, the USA and the USSR that after its liberation from Japanese
rule, Korea would become a unified, independent, democratic state. In
violation of this agreement, the government of the USA took advantage
of the provisional military occupation by the victorious powers to set
up a regime in South Korea subservient to Washington. The USA poured
money into South Korea together with weapons and military advisers.
In spite of the economic crisis that was beginning to make itself felt
in the USA, 1,225 million dollars was invested in South Korea. The New
Corea Company, whose assets were formerly owned by a Japanese trust,
was floated and its shares marketed by the National City Bank. Among
its assets, the New Corea Company claimed half the mines, railways,
banks and arable land in North Korea! The Oriental Consolidated Mining
Company, also formerly Japanese but now in American hands, claimed
ownership of the Unsan gold mines, also in North Korea and said to be
the richest in all Asia.

The President of South Korea was Syngman Rhee, a man who had spent
30 years in the United States and who had been brought back to South
Korea to head the puppet government set up by the Americans. Syngman
Rhee abolished the press and liquidated the political opposition with
brutal violence. In an interview with United Press, on 7th October 1949,
Syngman Rhee boasted that the South Korean army could take the North
Korean capital of Pyongyang within three days. On the 1st November, the
New York Herald Tribune reported that Syn Sung Mo, the South Korean War
Minister had declared that his army was ready and waiting to push into
North Korea. There had already been a considerable number of border
incidents.

At a conference with his divisional commanders in Seoul during
October 1949 General Roberts, Chief of the American Military Mission in
Korea, said:

"Certainly there have been many attacks on the territory north of
the 38th parallel on my orders, and there will be many others in the
days to come ... From now on, the invasion by the land forces of the
territory north of the 38th parallel is to be carried out only on the
basis of orders of the American military mission."

This is quoted in "Thus Wars Are Made" by Albert Norden, who also
tells us that three months later, in January 1950, General Roberts
announced: "The campaign against the north has been decided upon, and
the date for carrying it through is not very far off." Documents of the
Syngman Rhee government, captured during the subsequent occupation of
Seoul by the Korean Peoples Army and published by the North Korean
government, confirmed the systematic preparation of the invasion of
North Korea from the south.

On the 14th March 1950 a correspondent of the New York Times named
Sullivan reported from Seoul that 13 deputies of the National Assembly
of South Korea had been sentenced to imprisonment for periods ranging
from one and a half to ten years for violations of the Security Act.
Each was found guilty on five charges, of which the fourth was
"opposing the invasion of North Korea by the South Korean forces."

In the South Korean elections of the 30th May 1950 Syngman Rhee
suffered a crushing defeat and his support in the New National Assembly
was reduced to less than a quarter of the seats. The overthrow of his
hated regime seemed certain and its impending collapse was openly
predicted. The general opinion was that only a victorious war could
raise his prestige enough to save him.

Early in June 1950 Secretary of State Acheson's adviser, John Foster
Dulles, who was a member of the board of directors of the National City
Bank that had marketed the shares of the New Corea Company, appeared in
South Korea. His photograph, taken on the border between South Korea and
North Korea in the company of high American and South Korean officers by
Associated Press on the 19th June, was flashed round the world. On that
same day, in an address to the South Korean National Assembly, Dulles
prophesied that "the Communists will lose their rule over North Korea."
On the 20th June the Swiss paper, Z?richer Zeitung, said:

"There is no lack of people in South Korea who see the solution of
the problems weighing heavily upon the country in a military attack on
the north. The Americans have outfitted 150,000 men with American
weapons, have put them under the command of American instructors, and
have long been preparing for war."

While Dulles was in South Korea, the US Secretary for Defence,
Lyndon B. Johnson, and the Chief of the General Staff, Omar Nelson
Bradley, were in conference in Tokyo at the headquarters of General
MacArthur. On the 21st June, Dulles arrived in Tokyo from South Korea
and after long talks with MacArthur told the press that he "prophesied
positive action by the USA."

On the 25th June 1950, the day of the invasion of North Korea, John
Gunther, the American writer, found himself in MacArthur's private
railway car on a pleasure trip in the vicinity of Tokyo. MacArthur's
chief political adviser was to have accompanied him but he had to cancel
his plans as MacArthur needed him. He was replaced by two other high
officers who accompanied Gunther. According to Gunther, one of them was
"unexpectedly called to the telephone just before dinner." When he
returned, he told Gunther: "A tremendous story is just coming out. The
South Koreans have attacked North Korea."

This was confirmed by General MacArthur himself on the 30th July,
when he told press correspondents assembled at his headquarters in
Tokyo: "When the war began on the 25th June, the North Korean army had
not carried out its mobilisation plan. Only six divisions were ready,
although the North Korean plans call for 13 to 15 divisions in case of
war." It had been reported by field observers of the United Nations on
the 24th June, a few hours before hostilities had begun, that "no
reports have been received of any unusual activity by North Korean
forces that would indicate any impending change in the general situation
along the frontier." But officers of the South Korean forces captured
after the outbreak of war insisted that on that particular day, their
regular Saturday leave had been cancelled and that on the following day
they had been ordered to begin "the full phase of the attack north of the
38th parallel."

Kim I Sek and some other South Korean leaders were captured at the
very beginning of the war. They gave valuable information. A number of
documents were also captured which showed quite clearly that the South
Koreans, backed by the Americans, were the aggressors. According to Kim
I Sek, the final instructions given to Syngman Rhee by Dulles went as
follows:

"Start the aggression against the north, accompanied by a
counter-propaganda on the grounds that the North has invaded the South
first. If you can but hold out for two weeks, everything will go
smoothly, for during this period the United States, by accusing North
Korea of attacking South Korea, will compel the United Nations to take
action, in whose name land, naval and air forces would be mobilised."

The invasion started in the early hours of the 25th June. According
to a captured front-line officer, Lieutenant Han Su-whan, formerly of the
17th Regiment of the South Korean army:

"Though the 24th was a Saturday, officers of the regiment were not
allowed to go out; they were ordered to be on the alert. We all stayed
up that night in tense mood, and by daybreak of the 25th a secret order
reached us from Headquarters to launch an attack on the region north of
the 38th parallel line. All the units which had launched the sudden
attack from the Ongjin area broke through the 38th parallel line, and
their advance covered from on to two kilometres ... Soon after we
launched our attack, we were confronted by a fierce counter-offensive of
the Constabularies of the People's Republic ... We, who had been so
proud of being equipped with American arms of ultra-modern type,
collapsed immediately everywhere before the Constabularies of the
People's Republic; even the 53 rocket guns we had were of no use."

In his book "New Light on Korea" D.N. Pritt wrote: "Within eight
hours of the first news of the hostilities reaching Washington, the
Security Council was summoned ... Its members were called from their
sleep at 3 a.m and twelve hours later, in the absence of the Soviet
representative, and of any representative of China (the nominee of the
defeated bandit Chiang Kaishek still sitting in China's seat), they had
passed what appeared to be a resolution of the Security Council."
According to the Charter of the United Nations, all five permanent
members of the Security Council had to concur before any resolution
could be said to be valid. The representative of the USSR, objecting in
principle to China's being represented by the nominee of a government
that had ceased to exist, did not attend. The resolution was, therefore,
totally void. It nevertheless condemned "the invasion of the Republic of
Korea by armed forces from North Korea" and recommended its members to
give military aid to South Korea.

In reaching its decision the Security Council neither asked the
North Korean government to give its version of the outbreak of
hostilities nor took into consideration its claim that the South Koreans
were the aggressors. On the 2nd July, the Observer boasted: "The
Security Council, overnight, was transformed into the executive
authority of non-Communist world opinion," adding that it had "suddenly
begun to work as it was intended to work." On the same day, the West
Berlin Telegraf told its readers that South Korea, which it described as
"the last corner of democratic freedom on the Chinese mainland," had
been subjected to "the cowardly attack of Communism."

In a statement made on behalf of the Soviet government on the 4th
July, Gromyko accused the Security Council of "acting not as a body
invested with the main responsibility for the maintenance of peace, but
as an instrument employed by the US ruling circles with the object of
unleashing war." Unlike the USA, whose President was already threatening
to occupy Formosa and the nominally independent Philippines, as well as
sending a military mission to Indo-China and calling for a crusade
against every socialist country in the world, the USSR remained calm.

Within three days of the outbreak of war, the People's Army of North
Korea had driven back the South Korean invaders and liberated Seoul. But
the Americans had anticipated this possibility and had already landed
three infantry divisions, one armoured division and one marine division
in South Korea. This was, of course, in violation of all international
agreements. On the 26th and 27th June, the US forces bombarded North
Korean cities and villages, shot up harbours and landed transports under
the protection of the Pacific Fleet and the Seventh Fleet, which pushed
into North Korean territorial waters. On the 5th July, the Federal
German radio announced that the Americans had "rounded up the South
Korean troops, who were retreating in panic, and brought them back into
position." It was to be three years before the USA, with official losses
of 25,000 dead and 100,000 wounded, were forced to agree to an
armistice.

The people of the USA and of Korea paid for the war with their lives
but the industrial-military complex of the USA reaped its profits in
dollars. The industrialists of the Federal Republic of Germany also
raked in the dollars. In 1950 West Germany increased its exports to the
USA from 46.5 million dollars to 102.4 million dollars; and in 1955 its
exports to the USA reached 356.3 million dollars. This was the basis of
the post-war recovery of the Federal Republic of Germany, then being
described as an economic miracle.

The Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer,
used the Korean conflict to create a German army in secret, without the
knowledge even of his own government, but in conspiracy with the rulers
of the USA. Like Hitler before him, he later justified this by
repeatedly declaring that the purpose of the new German army was for the
waging of a war against the east.