the invasion. The following day the president
returned to Washington.
The earlier American policy of involving the
United Nations in the search for a solution to
Korean problems now provided the Truman
administration with a card to play. The US would
not need to react alone to safeguard its Asian
interests but could do so in the name of the UN
Charter and at the request of the Security
Council. This would have been impossible but for
one fortuitous circumstance. A country’s mem-
bership of the UN requires a two-thirds approval
by the General Assembly on a Security Council
recommendation, with a power of veto exercis-
able by any of the five permanent members. When
communist China was not allowed to replace
Chiang Kai-shek’s regime on the Security
Council, the Russians refused to attend the
Security Council meetings. This proved a huge
tactical blunder. Had the Soviet Union been
present and cast its veto, or had Mao’s govern-
ment been represented on the Security Council,
the Security Council would have vetoed military
action. The Soviet Union had thrown away the
very safeguard – the veto – it had fought so hard
to secure when the UN was founded.
Dean Acheson rapidly masterminded America’s
diplomatic reaction. The Security Council met on
Sunday, 25 June and called on North Korea to
halt the invasion and to pull back its forces to the
38th parallel. Truman independently authorised
the use of the US air force in Korea south of the
parallel to evacuate 2,000 Americans, and General
MacArthur was placed in command of operations
in Korea. Truman also ordered equipment and
arms to be sent from US bases in the Pacific to
help the South Korean army. These unilateral
American decisions anticipated a second, tougher
resolution of the Security Council adopted on the
night of Tuesday, 27 June and drafted by the US
ambassador to the UN. This called on members
‘to render such assistance to the Republic of Korea
as may be necessary to repel the armed attack and
to restore international peace and security to the
area’.
The first week of the Korean War brought
another reversal of US policy. The headlong
flight of the South Korean army made it essential
to send reinforcements if they were to be saved
from total defeat. Chiang Kai-shek’s offer of
soldiers was rejected but in his capacity as US
commander-in-chief Truman ordered American
ground troops to move into Korea. Militarily, the
US was unprepared, because Truman’s ‘economy
budget’ had slashed defence spending to the
bone. Although the National Security Council in
Washington had earlier that year drawn up plans
for a massive increase of defence spending and
a rapid expansion of the armed forces, they
had not yet been acted on. Truman, nevertheless
announced during the first days of the Korean
War that, to meet the threat of Asia, the US
would defend Korea and Taiwan and help the
Philippine government and the French in their
anti-communist campaigns. This was contrary to
earlier strategic planning: on the assumption that
Moscow was following a global strategy, US
strategists had come up with the concept of
regions of prime importance to be defended and
those of less importance. Defence would not be
diverted from prime regions by Moscow’s
attempts to distract the US from its goals. This
strategic thinking was overridden by Truman in
the summer of 1950.
For Truman and Acheson the engagement in
Korea was motivated by the premise that com-
munists must not be permitted to expand and
overthrow independent nations anywhere. If not
checked when they struck, wherever that might
be, even in strategically less important Korea,
then what faith would the allies in Europe have
in America’s readiness to resist aggression? For
MacArthur, on the other hand, Asia came first –
and now the hot war was actually being fought
in Asia. As he saw it, the military objective was
to defeat the enemy and to do so by any means
necessary; this might even include the use of
nuclear weapons and, if China joined the war, the
bombing of the Chinese Manchurian sanctuaries
beyond the frontiers of North Korea.
The views of Truman’s advisers on the political
objectives to be achieved and the military means
that could be used were different from Mac-
Arthur’s from the beginning of the Korean War.
Neither MacArthur nor Truman wished to pro-
voke a Soviet or communist Chinese entry into
1
1950: CRISIS IN ASIA – WAR IN KOREA 409
