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.