Teaching East Asia: Korea Teaching East Asia: Korea | Page 77

Document C
Source: Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreans: A Contemporary History, 1997.
Documents from the Soviet archives recently made available to historians show clearly that in
March, August, and September 1949 and January 1950 , Kim implored Stalin and his diplomats repeat-
edly to authorize an invasion of the South….On at least two occasions in 1949 , Stalin turned down
Kim’s requests, but the documents establish that in early 1950 he approved the war plan due to the
“changed international situation.” At this writing, scholars are still unsure what led to Stalin’s rever-
sal. Was it the victory of Mao’s Communist Party in China, the development of the Soviet Union’s
atomic bomb, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from south Korea, or Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s
famous statement excluding South Korea from the U.S. defense perimeter – all of which took place
in 1949 or early 1950 – or a combination of these and other causes? We still do not know.
Document D
Source: Republican Senator Robert A. Taft, Speech to the 81st Congress, Congressional Record,
June 28, 1950.
If we are going to defend Korea, it seems to me that we should have retained our armed forces
there and should have given, a year ago, the notice which the President has given today. With such
a policy, there never would have been such an attack by the North Koreans. In short, this entirely
unfortunate crisis has been produced, first, by the outrageous aggressive attitude of Soviet Russia,
and second, by the bungling and inconsistent foreign policy of the administration.
Document E
Source: General of the Army, Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences, 1964.
Even then, it was evident that this far more than “a police action,” as President Truman was to eu-
phemistically characterize it, far more than any localized clean-up of border-raiding North Koreans.
In Korea, Communism had hurled its first challenge to war against the free world. Now was the
time for decision. Now it was as clear as it would ever be that this was a battle against imperialistic
Communism. Now it was the time to recognize what the history of the world has taught from the
beginning of time that timidity breeds conflict, and courage often prevents it.
Document F
Source: Carter J. Eckert et al, Korea Old and New: A History, 1990.
It is impossible to comprehend the events and significance of the period of liberation without refer-
ence to the previous four decades of Japanese rule. Colonial policies had shattered the foundations
of a remarkably stable nineteenth-century bureaucratic agrarian society and unleased, new forces in
conflict with the old and with each other. Korean society in 1945 was a maelstrom of old and new
classes, political groups, and ideologies….Communism in Korea had also developed as a radical
response to colonialism, and like other nationalist groups, the Korean communists were also divided
by their experience and goals.
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