ted American forces to the defense of South
Korea. Task Force Smith was landed at Pusan
and proceeded north under Gen. William F.
Dean, but it was defeated at Taejon on July
20, 1950. If American forces were militarily
unequal to the struggle, they were even less
prepared for the atrocities that followed. On
several occasions, the North Koreans bound
up several groups of American prisoners and
brutally executed them. Within weeks, how-
ever, such ruthless behavior would be re-
turned in kind. Kim’s armored columns then
knifed southward until they had confined the
South Korean regime to a pocket of land
around the port of Pusan. There, throughout
August and September, American and ROK
forces under Gen. Walton H. Walker made a
heroic—and perilous—stand against great
odds, fighting the communists to a standstill.
Angered by this last-minute setback, Kim or-
dered attacks against Pusan renewed, despite
repeated warnings from Russia and China
that the Americans were preparing a massive
counterstroke at Inchon Harbor to the north.
On September 15, 1950, a task force under
Gen. Douglas MacArthur accomplished ex-
actly that by landing large forces and march-
ing inland to recapture Seoul. This threatened
to cut the North Korean supply line, and Kim’s
forces hastily scrambled back to the border
with Walker in close pursuit. By October,
United Nations forces had crossed over the
38th Parallel, and North Korea, for all intents
and purposes, ceased to exist.
Kim, now a fugitive in his own country,
pleaded with China for assistance, and Mao
complied. The following month, 500,000 Chi-
nese “volunteers” entered the fray under Gen.
Peng Dehuai, and they rolled the invaders
back to the border. A stalemate, punctuated
by savage fighting, ensued for two more years
before an armistice was signed in June 1953.
The fighting stopped but, technically speak-
ing, North Korea and the United States still re-
main at war. The toll was also immense:
33,000 Americans, 1 million Chinese, and an
estimated 4 million Koreans from both sides
were killed.
Kim’s quixotic gamble had failed mis-
erably, and he now faced the daunting
prospect of rebuilding his shattered nation.
However, here he proved himself to be both
resolute and resilient. Kim quickly stifled
dissent and criticism of his wartime leader-
ship by arresting and executing several polit-
ical adversaries. Then, in true Stalinist style,
he began deliberately and carefully orches-
trating a cult of personality centered upon
himself. Kim thus became nationally her-
alded as the “Great Leader,” and praise for
him and his achievements became a national
mantra. One of the visible facets of this
state-sponsored megalomania was the erec-
tion of giant statues of Kim around the coun-
try. He also espoused an indigenous version
of socialism called juche,or “self-reliance,”
which required the long-suffering North Ko-
rean people to make further sacrifices for
the state. Between 1953 and the 1970s, So-
viet-style heavy industry became the staple
of Korean economic activity, as did vast col-
lectivized farms. Private property or posses-
sions disappeared completely. Kim’s plan did
mark impressive economic gains, and for a
while it actually eclipsed economic perform-
ance in the capitalist-oriented South Korea.
However, North Korea remained an oppres-
sive Stalinist police state—long after Stalin
had departed. For many years it remained a
pariah on the international scene.
In truth, Kim never really abandoned his
desire to unify Korea. Commencing in 1968,
he launched several guerrilla attacks against
the South Korean government in an attempt
to destabilize it. He also remained an implaca-
ble enemy of the United States and brooked
no opportunity to humiliate America when-
ever possible. In January 1968, his forces
seized the U.S. intelligence ship USS Puebloin
international waters and held its crew
hostage for 11 months. That same year, North
Korean warplanes downed a U.S. Navy EC-
121 reconnaissance aircraft, again in interna-
tional airspace. The U.S. response to this out-
rage was tepid, as President Lyndon B.
Johnson, occupied with a war raging in South-KIMILSUNG