746 Chapter 28 Collision Courses, Abroad and at Home: 1946–1960
The Chinese counteroffensive of November 1950 caught the Americans
by surprise and cut off many units. Here, a U.S. Marine rests during the
retreat that winter.
Nominally the Korean War was a struggle
between the invaders and the United Nations.
General MacArthur, placed in command, flew the
blue UN flag over his headquarters, and sixteen
nations supplied troops for his army. However,
more than 90 percent of the forces were American.
At first the North Koreans pushed them back
rapidly, but in September a front was stabilized
around the port of Pusan, at the southern tip of
Korea. Then MacArthur executed a brilliant
amphibious invasion, landing at the west coast city
of Inchon, fifty miles south of the thirty-eighth par-
allel. Their lines of supply destroyed, the North
Koreans retreated in disorder. By October the bat-
tlefront had moved north of the 1945 boundary.
General MacArthur now proposed the conquest
of North Korea, even if it meant bombing “privileged
sanctuaries” on the Chinese side of the Korean bor-
der. A few of Truman’s civilian advisers, the most
important being George Kennan, opposed advancing
into North Korea, fearing intervention not only by
the Red Chinese but also by the Soviets. “When we
start walking inland from the tip of Korea, we have
about a 10,000 mile walk if we keep going,” Kennan
pointed out.
Truman authorized MacArthur to advance as far
as the Yalu River, the boundary between North Korea
and China. It was an unfortunate decision, an exam-
ple of how power, once unleashed, so often gets out
of hand. As the advance progressed, ominous reports
came from north of the Yalu. Mao’s Foreign Minister
warned that the Chinese would not “supinely” toler-
ate seeing their neighbors being “savagely invaded by
imperialists.” Chinese “volunteers” began to turn up
among the captives taken by UN units.
Alarmed, Truman flew to Wake Island, in the
Pacific, to confer with MacArthur. The general, who
had a low opinion of Asian soldiers, assured him that
the Chinese would not dare to intervene. If they did,
he added, his army would crush them easily; the war
would be over by Christmas.
Seldom has a general miscalculated so badly.
Ignoring intelligence reports and dividing his advanc-
ing units, he drove toward the Yalu recklessly.
Suddenly, on November 26, thirty-three Chinese divi-
sions, hidden along the interior mountains of Korea,
smashed through the center of MacArthur’s lines.
Overnight a triumphant advance became a bloody,
disorganized retreat. MacArthur now spoke of the
“bottomless well of Chinese manpower” and justified
his earlier confidence by claiming that he was fighting
“an entirely new war.”
The UN army rallied south of the thirty-eighth
parallel, and MacArthur then urged that he be per-
mitted to bomb Chinese installations north of the
Yalu. He also suggested a naval blockade of the coast
of China and the use of Chinese Nationalist troops.
Truman rejected these proposals on the ground that
they would lead to a third world war. MacArthur,
who tended to ignore the larger political aspects of
the conflict, attempted to rouse Congress and the
public against the president by openly criticizing
administration policy. Truman ordered him to be
silent. When the general persisted in his criticisms,
Truman fired him.
At first the Korean “police action” had been pop-
ular in the United States, but as the months passed
and the casualties mounted, many citizens became
disillusioned and angry. Military men backed the
president almost unanimously. General Omar N.
Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said
that a showdown with communist China “would
involve us in the wrong war, at the wrong place, at
the wrong time and with the wrong enemy.” In June
1951 the communists agreed to discuss an armistice