The morning of June 25th, 1950 marked the beginning of a frightful devastation known today as the Korean War. The leader of the People’s Republic of Korea Kim Il Sung under the approval of Stalin and promised support of Mao Zedong invaded the 38th parallel in an attempt to unite the divided country into one. The attack was largely unanticipated, with both the Central Intelligence Agency and United Nations failing to notice the imminent attack even after the mobilization of North Korean troops towards the South Korean peninsula. Approximately 5 million lives were lost during the war including soldiers as well as civilians. It was the first military initiative of the Cold War under Communist command and the first United States military involvement on the behalf of South Korea and its Containment policy. United States incentives for the war was due to fear of a Communist victory over East Asia and although Korea was not part of the strategic Asian Defense Perimeter, the Truman administration apprehended that if invaded South Korea was to be left alone, this would trigger the internationalization of communism through military violence. The prevailing domino theory of Communism inferred that if a country falls to the grasp of communist Soviet Union, contingent countries will all begin to ‘fall down’ to Communist power. Thus, it was imperative for the United States to at least delay and at best prevent the fall of South Korea to North Korea. “If we let Korea down,” President Harry Truman said, “the Soviet[s] will keep right on going and swallow up one [place] after another.” Accordingly, it is safe to assume that the Korean battlefield was a battle of not soldiers but ideologies.
Nevertheless, citizens and the media were not unan...
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...amounts to political and psychological censorship.” As the New York Times recorded, they believed that “censorship, which was introduced here for ‘security’ purposes … was being used to cover up military errors and defeats.” The government was both forced and desperate in trying to at the least delay the overwhelming flood of media propaganda and information that molded public sentiment like clay.
In July 1951, peace talks began to start at Panmunjom. The fighting continued along the 38th parallel but after 2 years of careful negotiations, the adversaries signed the Korean Armistice Agreement on July 27th 1953 to settle down the prolonged ideological struggle. The Korean War helped shine the role of media as a potent tool of propaganda and shaping public opinion. The media blitz during the war indicated the significance of how powerful this medium can become.
The Korean War changed the face of American Cold War diplomacy forever. In the midst of all the political conflict and speculation worldwide, the nation had to choose between two proposed solutions, each one hoping to ensure that communism didn?t sweep across the globe and destroy American ideals of capitalism and democracy. General Douglas MacArthur takes the pro-active stance and says that, assuming it has the capability, the U.S. should attack communism everywhere. President Harry Truman, on the other hand, believed that containing the Soviet communists from Western Europe was the best and most important course of action, and that eliminating communism in Asia was not a priority.
The United States vows to protect the democratic South Korea. American forces defend South Korea but are almost pushed on the peninsula . Douglas Mccarthur is in charge of the American forces. He stages an impressive counter attack that pushes the North Koreans all the way back to China. This is when China enters the warand pushes American forces back to the 38Th parallel. In 1953 , the war ended In a stalemate. (document C)
The Korean War , although successful in preventing the spread of communism, was one of the first tests of communism in Asia. North Korea was strictly communist while South Korea was democratic. As usual, the United States supported democratic South Korea and the Truman Doctrine was applied to the Korean situation. The North Korean forces crossed the dividing line (38th parallel) and invaded South Korea. Thus, they provoked a war over communism. With the possibility of democratic South Korea falling to the communistic North, the U.S. stepped in and supplied aid mostly through troops. The U.S. then urged the United Nations to support South Korea and fight against the communist North. Once the North Korean forces were defeated at Inchon, they eventually got pushed back to the 38th parallel. However, against President Truman’s word, American General MacArthur decided to keep pushing back the North Korean forces by crossing the dividing line. This caused more trouble because the People’s Republic of China (Communist China) now sent troops to aid the communists against the pro...
Comparison of the Practices and Strategies Utilized in the Korean and Vietnam Wars Two of the greatest battles which were fought by similar foes were those of the Korean and Vietnamese wars. Both conflicts involved a "communist" and "capitalist" participant(s) which had their own ideals and reasons for why to include themselves into such conflicts. There are also other similarities other than the opponents in these wars, such as the military tactics and strategies which were effectuated during this time. In both cases, the U.S. intervened forcefully introducing large masses of militia and using a considerable amount of armament, yet on the other hand, their enemies were supported by their allies throughout the duration of both conflicts and succeeded militarily against the democratic forces. To start off with, during the Korean War, North Korea invaded the southern sector of the country without any warning.
Panmunjom: Panmunjom, Korea was where the negotiation between the United Nations and North Korea occurred that ultimately ended the Korean War. The negotiation a Panmunjom positively affected the war effort as it set a defensible boundary that ensured that communism would not spread.
... the Korean War." Global Research. Global Research, 03 Sept. 2008. Web. 06 Dec. 2013.
An image has the explicit power of telling a story without saying any words, that’s the power behind a photo. A photo tends to comes with many sides to a story, it has the ability to manipulate and tell something differently. There is a tendency in America, where explicit photos of war or anything gruesome occurring in the world are censored for the public view. This censorship hides the reality of our world. In “The War Photo No One Would Publish” Torie DeGhett centers her argument on censorship, detailing the account of graphic Gulf War photo the American press refused to publish. (73) DeGhett argues that the American public shouldn’t be restrained from viewing graphic content of the war occurring around the world. She believes that incomplete
Throughout the early 1950’s the Korean Peninsula was a location with much civil unrest and violence. For this reason, it is a miracle that the Korean Armistice Agreement was actually mutually agreed upon by North and South Korea. Even with the constant complications, and early opposition surrounding the Korean Armistice Agreement, the aid of Dwight D Eisenhower made this unrealistic attempt of peace a reality.
Arguably one of the greatest generals in American history Douglas MacArthur was born to be in the military, his father Arthur MacArthur was a great soldier who honorably in the Army and it MacArthur went to West Point to follow in his father's footsteps. MacArthur served for rising through the ranks at a rapid pace, he became most well known for his leadership during the second world war but after that he led his troops on the battlefields of Korea in his seventies. Although MacArthur proved to be a brilliant general, his aggressive decisions towards the end of the Korean War led to his honorable removal as general of the United Nations Army and his heroic actions and tales to be cemented permanently in American History.
Government had a hard time keeping up with censoring what any American could potentially see when they tuned into the evening news. With the fast-paced increase in television sets in American homes, came a lack of adequate government control. The multitude of graphic images and videos from Vietnam that were being broadcasted in the living rooms of so many families is what made the Vietnam war the “Living-Room War.” Hundreds of thousands of NBC viewers watched Col. Nguyen Ngoc Loan shoot his captive in a Saigon street. It was violence like this that heavily impacted America’s feelings toward the war. “Vietnam was a journalistic milestone: according to Daniel C. Hallin … it was the first war in which reporters were routinely accredited to accompany military forces, yet not subject to censorship”(Blumenthal Web). This lack of censorship is what caused America to see the truth of the vietnam
U.S. participation was centered on America’s foreign policy at the time. Although the War did not break out until June of 1950, several conflicts brewed over the attempt to take over the entire nation under one rule for several years after World War II. The majority of these conflicts took place at the 38th parallel where Korea was split. Decisions influenced by President Harry S. Truman and his doctrine, which was essentially the policy to contain the spread of communism, gave the United Nations an opportunity to prevent global domination through communism (“Teaching with Documents”). The fear of international communism from the powers of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China was the main reason that caused the United States to intervene.
June 25, 1950 marked the day in which fighting between the North Koreans and South Koreans started. 135,000 North Korean troops crossed the border into South Korea while others attacked by sea. In several hours North Korea had successfully detained the South Korean city of Kaesong and in the next couple hours South Korea’s capital, Seoul, was under attack. Things were not looking good for Korea.
Throughout history the United States has fought in many wars. Whether the fighting took place in Europe such as WWI or in our own land like the civil war. The one war many people seem to forget is the Korean War. The Korean War also known as the “forgotten war” was a war between North Korea, South Korea and the US together with the South Koreans to help. The Korean War was fought on sea, land, and in the air over and near the Korean peninsula (Brown, p.2). On June 25, 1950, the North Koreans rumbled across the thirty-eighth parallel. The invasion was successful because the south was not expecting or even prepare for a war. The invasion was so successful that they pushed the south to a tiny defensive area around Pusan. That’s when President Truman steps in real quick to halt the invasion of the North Koreans. Truman ordered American armed forces under General Douglas MacArthur to support South Korea. The Korean War was a clash between Communist forces and Free World (Brown, p.2).
During the Vietnam War, a rift between government officials and journalists emerged. The American government felt the need, for various reasons, to censor many war developments. In an attempt to act ethically, the press fought the censors, trying their hardest to report the truth to the general public. Despite claims of bias and distortion by several prominent government officials, these journalists acted completely ethically, allowing the general public to obtain a fair, informed opinion.
The Korean War explicitly portrayed the atrocious battle between both the North and South side which gave the United Nations its military role for the first time, thus expanding the war from a domestic to an international scale. Sometimes called “The Forgotten War”, the Korean War was mainly overshadowed in historical terms by the conflicts that occurred before and after it, World War II and the Vietnam War. The Korean War had raged for years without a true resolution and after years of battles, even the compromise that was made was not a complete one. The current situation in North and South Korea is quite volatile. In order to apprehend the Korean War, one has to look at events that took place before the war, how the war was conducted and the aftermath of the War.