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North Korea has achieved its goal
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of becoming a rocket power...
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North Korea says it now can strike
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anywhere in the U.S.
including Washington D.C.
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North Korea today is
armed with nuclear weapons and
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intercontinental ballistic
missiles and anybody who
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underestimates them does
so as their own peril.
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Rocket Man should have been handled
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a long time ago...
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North Koreans truly
feel that nuclear weapons is
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the only way to guarantee their survival.
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For North Korea, it's still about an
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anti-imperialist struggle
against the United States.
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which the North Koreans
take back to the Korean War.
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The Korean War was
one of the bloodiest chapters
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in Korean history.
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It was a civil war that nearly
ignited World War Three.
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We are united in detesting
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communist slavery.
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A war that took the
lives of tens of thousands
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of American GIs and millions of Koreans.
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What we did in North Korea has never
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really been acknowledged.
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The Korean War set the
template for Vietnam.
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The Korean War
was one of the most vicious,
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violent, nauseating
wars of the 20th century.
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It was a war many
Americans don't remember and
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Koreans can never forget.
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The United States dropped
more ordinance on North Korea
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in that three year war
than we dropped during the
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entire Second World War.
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For North Koreans and for the
state ideology of North Korea,
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the Korean War is not a memory.
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It's still very much alive.
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There's no way to understand what's going
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on today, without
understanding of the Korean War.
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How can you understand
this Korean conflict that
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we are having, without understanding
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of the origin of that conflict.
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Good evening from
the White House in Washington.
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Ladies and gentlemen,
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the President of the United States.
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The world will note that the first
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atomic bomb was dropped
on Hiroshima, a military base...
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Nagasaki. Target
for the second atomic bomb.
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Just three days after Hiroshima.
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London newspapers
this morning are speculating
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that a new surrender ultimatum
to Japan may be likely soon.
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With the swift conclusion of World War Two
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after President Truman
dropped two atomic bombs on
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the Japanese cities of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
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American planners turned
their attention to Korea,
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where the US military
would oversee the orderly
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surrender of Japanese forces.
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With Soviet troops already
deployed in northern Korea and
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marching southward the US
military needed to act quickly.
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The United States was much further away,
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00:03:45,984 --> 00:03:49,953
its troops were much further
away than were Soviet troops.
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What that meant was suddenly the Americans
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had to try and establish
some agreements with Stalin,
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the leader in the Soviet Union on Korea.
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The Americans proposed
that the United States and
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the Soviet Union establish zones.
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On the sweltering
night of August 10th, 1945
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two young army officers, on
loan to the state department,
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00:04:20,950 --> 00:04:23,884
were tasked with quickly
finding a dividing line,
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before the Soviets managed
to occupy the entire country.
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Armed only with a national
geographic map of Asia
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00:04:31,995 --> 00:04:36,862
colonels Rusk and Bonesteel,
neither one experts on Korea,
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zeroed in on the peninsula.
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They had 30 minutes
to really divide up the country,
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and they looked at the wall,
and there was a map of the
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Korean peninsula, and they said,
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"Well, why don't we just
kind of divide it here,
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on this 38th parallel?"
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The 38th parallel
is just north of Seoul and
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they wanted the national capital
to be in the American zone,
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and with very little discussion,
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00:04:59,747 --> 00:05:03,855
that decision goes up
to Truman and is made in
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a proposal to Stalin.
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The 38th parallel
was simply a line on a map.
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It followed no physical features.
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It divided farms and whole villages.
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Severed 300 roads, and
cut across six railways.
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But the Soviets accepted it.
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Korea had been cut in two
without a word of input from
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a single Korean.
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Two Koreas created solely
to oppose each other.
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Koreans were one
people for thousands of years,
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and the Koreans didn't
have a lot of choice.
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You know, it's not even a big country.
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It was just divided, and
that took all of 30 minutes,
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it was a 30-minute decision.
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And so, the 38th parallel becomes this
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temporary dividing line between
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northern and southern Korea.
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But the temporary
dividing line congeals into,
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effectively, a permanent
dividing line when the
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Soviet Union and the
United States fall out.
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The cold war intervened and
American troops didn't go home.
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With the end of World War II,
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the United States and
the Soviet Union emerged
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as superpowers.
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By 1946, the twin godheads
of democracy and communism
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collided to redraw the map of the world
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along ideological lines.
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In the Soviet Union,
Joseph Stalin tightened his
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hold on power and without pause
continued to extend communist
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influence throughout Europe.
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US President Truman,
sworn in after the death of
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt
was both unpopular and untested
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yet determined to advance
America's post war interests,
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chief among them the
containment of communism.
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The policy of the Truman
administration was that the
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United States needed to focus
on containing the Soviet Union,
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keeping Soviet power and Soviet ideology,
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00:07:07,392 --> 00:07:09,221
communism, from spreading.
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00:07:09,256 --> 00:07:13,847
It wasn't simply the tanks
and troops of the Soviet Union,
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it was this ideology.
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It was the belief system of communism.
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For Stalin and Truman the first rounds of
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the Cold War would be fought in Europe.
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And neither man was
particularly interested in
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events on the faraway Korean peninsula.
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For us strategic planners Korea really
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didn't figure much in the picture at all.
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To the extent that we cared about Asia,
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us strategic planners
believed that the only power
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in Asia would continue to be Japan.
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The Japanese defeat
in WWII ended their occupation
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of Korea, a history marred
by the brutal subjugation
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of the Korean people.
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Japan succeeded
in colonizing Korea in 1910,
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that led to terrible hardships
for millions of Koreans,
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00:08:05,277 --> 00:08:09,247
and then the Japanese used
Koreans as mobile capital and
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labor throughout the empire.
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You have the mobilization
of 200,000 Korean soldiers
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into the Japanese army,
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00:08:18,118 --> 00:08:21,604
most of them drafted,
as many as 100 to 200,000
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00:08:21,639 --> 00:08:25,090
women were dragooned
into serving dozens of
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00:08:25,125 --> 00:08:28,680
Japanese soldiers every day as sex slaves.
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00:08:31,545 --> 00:08:34,168
So when they were liberated in '45,
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the Koreans thought this
was the beginning of a bright,
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bright future for them,
and that this division would
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end very quickly.
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00:09:07,650 --> 00:09:10,066
Park Kyung Soon was
just nine years old when she
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00:09:10,101 --> 00:09:14,174
heard over the radio that
the Japanese had surrendered.
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00:09:44,653 --> 00:09:47,621
There was celebration,
relief that this period of
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Japanese rule was over.
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But there was a power
vacuum that opened up.
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Dependent on the evolving
relationship between the
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Soviets and the Americans,
and as it turned out the Soviets
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00:10:00,323 --> 00:10:02,705
and the Americans couldn't
reach an agreement on how
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00:10:02,740 --> 00:10:05,881
to unify the Korean peninsula.
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To fill this power vacuum the Soviets
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and Americans backed their own leadership.
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00:10:12,991 --> 00:10:17,409
To preside over South Korea the
Americans chose Syngman Rhee,
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an English-speaking,
Princeton-educated Christian
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who had been lobbying
the American government
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for the job throughout the war.
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00:10:24,865 --> 00:10:26,971
Syngman Rhee haunted the halls of the
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State Department in Washington,
hoping to be taken as the
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00:10:29,836 --> 00:10:33,943
odds-on titular leader of postwar Korea.
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He had no faction in Korea.
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He had no base in Korea,
because he had been out of
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the country for 40 or 50 years,
but he had a certain charisma.
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He had a great smile.
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Americans tended to think he was a kindly,
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old gentleman, Uncle Syngman.
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00:10:52,721 --> 00:10:55,447
But Rhee's kindly
manner belied an unyielding
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thirst for power and desire to unify the
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two Koreas at any cost.
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00:11:02,938 --> 00:11:06,942
By 1948, Rhee was elected president.
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00:11:09,738 --> 00:11:11,843
To consolidate his
authority over the South,
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00:11:11,878 --> 00:11:15,157
Rhee carried out a sustained
nationalist campaign to snuff
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00:11:15,191 --> 00:11:18,539
out political dissent,
killing Communist guerrilla
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00:11:18,574 --> 00:11:22,129
groups by the tens of thousands.
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00:11:24,718 --> 00:11:27,307
Rhee was as an authoritarian,
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00:11:27,341 --> 00:11:30,586
semi-thug with great contacts.
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00:11:30,966 --> 00:11:34,417
He wasn't a nice man, but Americans,
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certainly of this period,
tended to believe if somebody
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00:11:37,766 --> 00:11:39,906
could speak English and
had been educated in the
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00:11:39,940 --> 00:11:43,185
United States, oh well
that means they've absorbed
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all kinds of democratic values.
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00:11:45,739 --> 00:11:47,983
Well, that doesn't happen to be the case.
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Syngman Rhee just happened to be,
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00:11:52,919 --> 00:11:54,541
as Franklin Roosevelt would've said,
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00:11:54,575 --> 00:11:57,509
our S.O.B.
rather than theirs.
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In North Korea, the Soviets hand-picked
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00:12:02,204 --> 00:12:05,759
Kim Il-sung, a little
known Korean ex-patriot who
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00:12:05,794 --> 00:12:08,658
had been radicalized by
the Japanese occupation.
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00:12:09,936 --> 00:12:12,352
Kim Il-sung was really unknown.
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00:12:12,386 --> 00:12:14,906
But then when the Japanese
took control of the Korean
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00:12:14,941 --> 00:12:17,391
peninsula during the
occupation in the first half
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00:12:17,426 --> 00:12:20,670
of the 20th century,
Kim Il-sung transformed.
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00:12:20,705 --> 00:12:22,949
He became known as a gorilla fighter,
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00:12:22,983 --> 00:12:26,159
fighting against the Japanese,
and China and from that point
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00:12:26,193 --> 00:12:29,369
on had basically a price
on his head as a anti-Japan
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00:12:29,403 --> 00:12:32,234
conspirator by the colonial government.
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00:12:32,268 --> 00:12:35,375
He eventually moved to the
Soviet Union where he learned
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00:12:35,409 --> 00:12:38,930
Russian and became close to a number of
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00:12:38,965 --> 00:12:41,450
key Russian generals.
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00:12:43,348 --> 00:12:46,006
By 1948, Kim had transformed himself
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00:12:46,041 --> 00:12:49,734
into a fiery,
committed Korean nationalist.
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00:13:08,166 --> 00:13:10,168
Kim quickly solidified his power and
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amassed a formidable army.
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00:13:13,206 --> 00:13:17,555
By 1949, Kim had burnished
his image as supreme leader
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00:13:17,589 --> 00:13:20,765
by embellishing his history
as a fearsome guerilla fighter
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00:13:20,800 --> 00:13:23,388
who single-handedly defeated the Japanese.
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00:13:25,666 --> 00:13:28,980
Idea was, "Our country has suffered for
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00:13:29,015 --> 00:13:32,708
generations because
we had no great leader,
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00:13:32,742 --> 00:13:34,883
and then great leader emerged.
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00:13:34,917 --> 00:13:37,851
He liberated us from
the Japanese occupation."
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00:13:37,886 --> 00:13:40,578
It was patently untrue,
because Kim Il-sung,
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00:13:40,612 --> 00:13:44,237
during the war with
Japan, the decisive stage,
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00:13:44,271 --> 00:13:48,275
was far away from the
front line in a small Soviet
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00:13:48,310 --> 00:13:51,002
military base.
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00:13:52,693 --> 00:13:54,868
Kim Il-sung was one
of the shrewdest politicians
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00:13:54,903 --> 00:13:59,700
of his era, but a
particularly brutal and ruthless
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00:13:59,735 --> 00:14:03,256
person who knew how to
gain power and hold onto it.
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00:14:05,189 --> 00:14:07,777
There are striking
similarities between Rhee
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00:14:07,812 --> 00:14:11,333
and Kim Il-sung.
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00:14:11,367 --> 00:14:16,648
Both are the same types of
expat nationalist leaders,
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00:14:16,683 --> 00:14:21,308
who have big plans with
themselves at the center.
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00:14:23,483 --> 00:14:28,315
Both of them had a strong
vision of a unified Korea,
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00:14:30,731 --> 00:14:34,804
and both of them believed that
their fundamental power came
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00:14:34,839 --> 00:14:37,600
from their ability to
manipulate outside sponsors,
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00:14:37,635 --> 00:14:40,086
in Rhee's case, the United States,
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00:14:40,120 --> 00:14:43,710
and in Kim Il-sung's
case, the Soviet Union.
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00:14:45,298 --> 00:14:48,818
In 1949, after
Mao Zedong's Communist victory
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00:14:48,853 --> 00:14:52,167
over the American-backed
nationalists in China,
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00:14:52,201 --> 00:14:54,479
Kim Il-sung was emboldened.
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00:14:54,514 --> 00:14:57,137
The time was right to
execute his plan to unify
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00:14:57,172 --> 00:15:00,002
Korea in his mold.
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00:15:00,658 --> 00:15:04,144
That March, Kim had traveled
to Moscow to lobby Stalin to
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00:15:04,179 --> 00:15:06,940
back an invasion of the South,
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00:15:06,975 --> 00:15:09,425
only to be rebuffed by the Soviet leader,
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00:15:09,460 --> 00:15:11,358
who believed the American presence there
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00:15:11,393 --> 00:15:14,430
made a war too risky.
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00:15:15,604 --> 00:15:20,781
But then, only months
later, in January 1950,
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00:15:20,816 --> 00:15:23,370
Stalin suddenly had a change of heart.
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00:15:25,717 --> 00:15:27,961
Now, what happened in between say
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00:15:27,996 --> 00:15:33,001
September of 1949 and
the end of January 1950?
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00:15:34,174 --> 00:15:37,315
Dean Acheson, who was the
American Secretary of State,
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00:15:37,350 --> 00:15:40,801
in January of 1950, January 12,
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00:15:40,836 --> 00:15:43,252
made a major speech to
the National Press Club
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00:15:43,287 --> 00:15:46,773
in Washington D.C.,
and in the speech,
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00:15:46,807 --> 00:15:51,226
he left South Korea out of
the American defense perimeter
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00:15:51,260 --> 00:15:55,989
in the Pacific, and
Stalin, obviously noticed that.
252
00:15:58,371 --> 00:16:00,752
Stalin now believes
that the Americans will not
253
00:16:00,787 --> 00:16:03,065
get involved in Korea.
254
00:16:03,100 --> 00:16:04,411
He's absolutely convinced.
255
00:16:04,446 --> 00:16:09,209
So he says "Okay, I'll
give you my blessing but
256
00:16:09,244 --> 00:16:13,075
you have to ask Mao
for the final decision."
257
00:16:13,110 --> 00:16:15,457
He says something like "If
you shall get kicked in the
258
00:16:15,491 --> 00:16:18,391
teeth I shall not lift a finger.
259
00:16:18,425 --> 00:16:21,290
Mao will have
to do all the help."
260
00:16:22,119 --> 00:16:23,983
Stalin's position was something like,
261
00:16:24,017 --> 00:16:29,436
"Well, comrades, you say
that you will win soon,
262
00:16:29,471 --> 00:16:32,646
it's your idea, and we will
provide you with ammunition
263
00:16:32,681 --> 00:16:36,202
and money and everything, but
it will be your responsibility.
264
00:16:36,236 --> 00:16:40,827
If something gets really bad,
don't count on our support."
265
00:16:42,173 --> 00:16:44,037
In May of 1950,
266
00:16:44,072 --> 00:16:47,489
Kim traveled to China to meet with Mao.
267
00:16:48,421 --> 00:16:50,216
Mao is one of the most experienced leaders
268
00:16:50,250 --> 00:16:53,253
in the word, with his
own gigantic army that
269
00:16:53,288 --> 00:16:56,153
had just proceeded to clear
the mainland of nationalist
270
00:16:56,187 --> 00:17:01,434
forces and who had many allies
who had fought with Kim Il-sung
271
00:17:01,468 --> 00:17:05,093
and other guerillas throughout the 1930s.
272
00:17:05,403 --> 00:17:08,579
I think Kim Il-sung had
good reason to believe that he
273
00:17:08,613 --> 00:17:12,479
would have plenty of comrades
in China that would help him.
274
00:17:12,859 --> 00:17:16,207
Kim was masterful at
maneuvering between Stalin
275
00:17:16,242 --> 00:17:18,727
and Mao and then ended up getting support
276
00:17:18,761 --> 00:17:21,419
from both of them.
277
00:17:21,454 --> 00:17:23,318
By the summer of 1950,
278
00:17:23,352 --> 00:17:26,459
Kim Il-sung was prepared
for an invasion of the South,
279
00:17:26,493 --> 00:17:29,979
assuring Mao that he would
be greeted as a liberator,
280
00:17:30,014 --> 00:17:33,466
and that he would take the
peninsula in a matter of days.
281
00:17:41,922 --> 00:17:43,786
News that communist troops have invaded
282
00:17:43,821 --> 00:17:45,098
southern Korea...
283
00:17:45,133 --> 00:17:47,100
Invading their
fellow countrymen to the South,
284
00:17:47,135 --> 00:17:49,102
to bring another
international crisis to the
285
00:17:49,137 --> 00:17:52,036
already long-suffering world.
286
00:17:52,071 --> 00:17:56,213
At 4 am on the morning of June 25th, 1950,
287
00:17:56,247 --> 00:17:59,733
the border separating North
and South Korea erupted with
288
00:17:59,768 --> 00:18:02,771
the repeated crash of artillery.
289
00:18:03,565 --> 00:18:06,533
With hundreds of Soviet-made T-34 tanks,
290
00:18:06,568 --> 00:18:10,158
North Korean troops, part
of the Korean People's Army,
291
00:18:10,192 --> 00:18:13,264
raced across the 38th parallel.
292
00:18:14,438 --> 00:18:17,406
Kim's invasion of the South had begun.
293
00:18:50,612 --> 00:18:53,684
Basically the South
Korean army either couldn't
294
00:18:53,718 --> 00:18:57,136
fight or didn't fight or ran away.
295
00:18:58,067 --> 00:19:01,554
The North Koreans were
in Seoul in three days.
296
00:19:22,575 --> 00:19:24,818
Some South Korean
men who did not escape were
297
00:19:24,853 --> 00:19:27,787
forced into hiding, rather
than face conscription into
298
00:19:27,821 --> 00:19:31,791
the Communist army, others
were put on trial in town
299
00:19:31,825 --> 00:19:35,967
squares, in what were
known as people's courts,
300
00:19:36,002 --> 00:19:38,556
where men were publicly
shamed for not pledging
301
00:19:38,591 --> 00:19:41,318
allegiance to the party.
302
00:19:41,352 --> 00:19:44,976
Beatings, kidnapping and
executions were routine.
303
00:20:05,618 --> 00:20:07,378
The South Koreans just couldn't stop them,
304
00:20:07,413 --> 00:20:10,312
and they just fell apart.
305
00:20:10,347 --> 00:20:15,179
The reaction in
Washington was one of shock.
306
00:20:16,560 --> 00:20:20,322
Gentlemen, we face a serious situation.
307
00:20:20,357 --> 00:20:24,395
We hope we face it in the cause of peace.
308
00:20:24,430 --> 00:20:26,673
By now, news of the invasion had reached
309
00:20:26,708 --> 00:20:29,435
the Supreme Commander
for the Allied Powers,
310
00:20:29,469 --> 00:20:32,507
stationed in Japan.
311
00:20:32,541 --> 00:20:36,269
Douglas MacArthur was a
genuine American war hero,
312
00:20:36,304 --> 00:20:39,099
one of the nation's most
famous living generals,
313
00:20:39,134 --> 00:20:41,723
whose face had graced
the cover of Time magazine
314
00:20:41,757 --> 00:20:45,313
no fewer than six times.
315
00:20:45,554 --> 00:20:49,317
Douglas MacArthur was
the scion of a military family.
316
00:20:49,351 --> 00:20:52,423
His father had fought in the Civil War and
317
00:20:52,458 --> 00:20:54,011
won the Medal of Honor.
318
00:20:54,045 --> 00:20:56,600
Douglas MacArthur was a
brilliant student at West Point,
319
00:20:56,634 --> 00:20:59,223
he was a gallant soldier in World War I,
320
00:20:59,258 --> 00:21:03,365
he won all of the medals any
one of his generation could win.
321
00:21:03,641 --> 00:21:05,885
He was the supreme
commander of Allied forces in
322
00:21:05,919 --> 00:21:09,578
the southwestern
Pacific during World War II.
323
00:21:11,235 --> 00:21:13,927
He was clearly brave.
324
00:21:13,962 --> 00:21:15,722
He was brilliant.
325
00:21:15,757 --> 00:21:20,382
He was also quite egotistical,
and he tended to believe that
326
00:21:20,417 --> 00:21:23,385
the world revolved around him.
327
00:21:23,661 --> 00:21:26,423
And MacArthur convinced
himself that he understood
328
00:21:26,457 --> 00:21:29,149
what he called, the Oriental mind,
329
00:21:29,184 --> 00:21:32,946
that he understood how
Asians thought about the world.
330
00:21:34,776 --> 00:21:38,435
MacArthur was a
very proud, self-confident,
331
00:21:38,469 --> 00:21:43,267
vainglorious individual who
had a complete belief in his
332
00:21:43,302 --> 00:21:47,133
own truths, whether they
were based on fact or not.
333
00:21:47,167 --> 00:21:49,549
He considered himself a man of destiny,
334
00:21:49,584 --> 00:21:52,759
and he had an ego the size of China,
335
00:21:52,794 --> 00:21:56,142
but he was a master on the battlefield.
336
00:21:57,281 --> 00:21:59,041
From his perch in Tokyo,
337
00:21:59,076 --> 00:22:01,837
MacArthur famously assured
Washington that he could
338
00:22:01,872 --> 00:22:05,945
handle the North Koreans with
one arm tied behind his back.
339
00:22:07,602 --> 00:22:10,156
But after World War Two the
Truman administration was
340
00:22:10,190 --> 00:22:13,332
intent on shrinking the
defense budget and only a
341
00:22:13,366 --> 00:22:16,990
small advisory team was
left behind in Korea.
342
00:22:18,682 --> 00:22:21,892
By June of 1950 most
branches of the military were
343
00:22:21,926 --> 00:22:25,171
undermanned and ill-equipped.
344
00:22:27,173 --> 00:22:31,384
After World War II,
America built down its military
345
00:22:31,798 --> 00:22:34,249
not expecting that it
would have to be used again,
346
00:22:34,283 --> 00:22:36,631
at least nothing on that scale.
347
00:22:36,665 --> 00:22:39,288
So at the time of the outbreak
of the Korean War the American
348
00:22:39,323 --> 00:22:43,534
military was a shadow of what
it had been in World War II.
349
00:22:45,260 --> 00:22:48,850
As long as we had a
monopoly of nuclear weapons,
350
00:22:48,884 --> 00:22:52,578
we could relax a little bit
in terms of the manpower we had
351
00:22:52,612 --> 00:22:57,824
in the army, and that's
what happened really from 1945
352
00:22:57,859 --> 00:23:01,103
to 1949, there was a
continued reduction in the
353
00:23:01,138 --> 00:23:04,003
size of the US army.
354
00:23:06,315 --> 00:23:10,423
We had to very quickly
put together two regiments.
355
00:23:10,458 --> 00:23:13,322
They took half of my platoon and filled me
356
00:23:13,357 --> 00:23:15,601
up with reserves.
357
00:23:15,635 --> 00:23:18,431
Many of whom had never
even been to boot camp.
358
00:23:19,846 --> 00:23:21,572
I had just turned 17.
359
00:23:21,607 --> 00:23:26,750
And I was sent to camp
Drake, in Japan there,
360
00:23:26,991 --> 00:23:30,685
outside of Tokyo and all
we'd done was processed and
361
00:23:30,719 --> 00:23:35,310
trained to make an amphibious
landing and head for Korea.
362
00:23:37,657 --> 00:23:41,385
On them, world peace depends...
363
00:23:46,010 --> 00:23:49,048
They will not fail.
364
00:23:49,082 --> 00:23:51,671
They never have.
365
00:23:52,845 --> 00:23:56,365
The Americans were pretty confident.
366
00:23:56,400 --> 00:24:00,162
You could even argue they
maybe were a little bit cocky.
367
00:24:02,958 --> 00:24:05,513
Their first encounter was
with North Korean troops that
368
00:24:05,547 --> 00:24:08,585
had Soviet T34 tanks,
369
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:12,002
and the American forces had no weapons.
370
00:24:12,036 --> 00:24:15,315
The bazookas they had
would not penetrate the armor
371
00:24:15,350 --> 00:24:18,008
of a T34 tank.
372
00:24:19,630 --> 00:24:22,253
And so when they entered into battle,
373
00:24:22,288 --> 00:24:24,670
at first, they ran.
374
00:24:24,704 --> 00:24:28,190
They saw their comrades
being killed around them.
375
00:24:28,881 --> 00:24:30,814
And it gradually got a name.
376
00:24:30,848 --> 00:24:32,540
It was called "bugging out."
377
00:24:32,574 --> 00:24:35,266
They would "bug out."
378
00:24:38,373 --> 00:24:41,445
When we were still in Camp Drake in Japan,
379
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:44,483
we were told at that time
that it was going to be
380
00:24:44,517 --> 00:24:48,210
an easy war to finish, you know.
381
00:24:48,245 --> 00:24:50,730
We were told that the North Koreans,
382
00:24:50,765 --> 00:24:54,113
"slant eyes" they
couldn't see to the right
383
00:24:54,147 --> 00:24:55,494
or the left flank.
384
00:24:55,528 --> 00:24:57,185
They could only see to the front.
385
00:24:57,219 --> 00:25:00,878
That you could actually sneak
in behind the North Koreans
386
00:25:00,913 --> 00:25:03,709
and get them, you know,
but we found out that,
387
00:25:03,743 --> 00:25:06,435
that wasn't true, you know.
388
00:25:06,470 --> 00:25:09,542
Them suckers had eyes in the
back and also in the front.
389
00:25:11,544 --> 00:25:15,203
All we could do was just
run back as fast as we could
390
00:25:15,237 --> 00:25:18,413
and they were right after us, you know.
391
00:25:30,218 --> 00:25:32,565
I'm getting very,
very weary of sitting here and
392
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:36,465
acting as though we're
playing some little game.
393
00:25:36,914 --> 00:25:39,952
We've got to clean up,
those who were responsible,
394
00:25:39,986 --> 00:25:43,611
Mr. Chairman, covering up
communists and traitors,
395
00:25:43,645 --> 00:25:46,579
not dead ones but live ones...
396
00:25:49,824 --> 00:25:52,896
Half a world away
from the frontlines of Korea,
397
00:25:52,930 --> 00:25:56,140
the United States was in
the throes of a panic about
398
00:25:56,175 --> 00:25:59,765
the spread of communism
within American society.
399
00:25:59,799 --> 00:26:01,629
Even if there were only one communist in
400
00:26:01,663 --> 00:26:03,320
the state department,
that would still be one
401
00:26:03,354 --> 00:26:05,909
communist too many.
402
00:26:08,463 --> 00:26:10,879
President Truman's
policy of containing communism
403
00:26:10,914 --> 00:26:13,813
was being pushed to its
limits around the world.
404
00:26:13,848 --> 00:26:16,195
World conquest by Soviet Russia
405
00:26:16,229 --> 00:26:20,026
endangers our liberty, and
endangers the kind of world
406
00:26:20,061 --> 00:26:23,789
in which the free
spirit of men can survive.
407
00:26:24,997 --> 00:26:28,310
By now the Soviet
Union had an atomic bomb,
408
00:26:28,345 --> 00:26:31,175
was tightening its grip on Eastern Europe,
409
00:26:31,210 --> 00:26:33,868
and in Asia had forged a powerful alliance
410
00:26:33,902 --> 00:26:36,836
with Mao's China.
411
00:26:37,872 --> 00:26:41,358
At home, Truman stood accused
by Republicans of losing China
412
00:26:41,392 --> 00:26:44,672
to an unchristian ideology.
413
00:26:47,778 --> 00:26:50,885
It wasn't a good thing
that China went communist.
414
00:26:50,919 --> 00:26:54,060
This was a dire threat
to the United States.
415
00:26:54,371 --> 00:26:58,444
And so, when communist forces
of North Korea invaded South
416
00:26:58,478 --> 00:27:02,655
Korea Truman figured, I need
to do something about this.
417
00:27:02,966 --> 00:27:05,727
If politically, the Truman administration,
418
00:27:05,762 --> 00:27:08,212
loses South Korea it's going
to appear, first of all,
419
00:27:08,247 --> 00:27:12,492
"to my domestic critics that
I am a terrible president,"
420
00:27:12,527 --> 00:27:15,841
and there's the whole question
of American credibility.
421
00:27:16,496 --> 00:27:18,498
Our potential allies like in Europe,
422
00:27:18,533 --> 00:27:21,674
which was our top priority,
would say, well, in the end,
423
00:27:21,709 --> 00:27:24,435
the Americans can't be depended upon.
424
00:27:24,643 --> 00:27:27,128
Korea is a small country thousands of
425
00:27:27,162 --> 00:27:30,649
miles away, but what is
happening there is important
426
00:27:30,683 --> 00:27:32,443
to every American.
427
00:27:32,478 --> 00:27:34,376
It was really
inevitable that the Americans
428
00:27:34,411 --> 00:27:36,378
were going to do
whatever they could to stop
429
00:27:36,413 --> 00:27:37,932
the North Koreans.
430
00:27:37,966 --> 00:27:39,899
We are united in detesting
431
00:27:39,934 --> 00:27:41,901
communist slavery.
432
00:27:41,936 --> 00:27:44,870
We know that the cost of freedom is high,
433
00:27:44,904 --> 00:27:47,596
but we are determined
to preserve our freedom
434
00:27:47,631 --> 00:27:50,185
no matter what the cost.
435
00:27:51,946 --> 00:27:54,189
The Korean War came to America within the
436
00:27:54,224 --> 00:27:56,813
decade of World War II.
437
00:27:56,847 --> 00:28:00,161
And what Americans most wanted
after World War II was to come
438
00:28:00,195 --> 00:28:04,130
home and to have families
and to get about the business
439
00:28:04,165 --> 00:28:06,719
of peacetime affairs.
440
00:28:06,754 --> 00:28:08,617
And then just five years later the world
441
00:28:08,652 --> 00:28:11,310
needs re-saving again.
442
00:28:11,344 --> 00:28:14,934
Harry Truman recognized that
if a lot of Americans started
443
00:28:14,969 --> 00:28:18,006
getting killed in Korea the war could turn
444
00:28:18,041 --> 00:28:20,629
unpopular very quickly.
445
00:28:20,664 --> 00:28:24,461
To share the burden
would make the war in Korea
446
00:28:24,495 --> 00:28:27,395
politically more acceptable.
447
00:28:27,429 --> 00:28:29,811
In a show of presidential resolve,
448
00:28:29,846 --> 00:28:32,918
Truman bypassed Congress
while also appealing directly
449
00:28:32,952 --> 00:28:36,335
to the newly-formed United Nations.
450
00:28:36,645 --> 00:28:37,854
The armed invasion of the
451
00:28:37,888 --> 00:28:41,064
Republic of Korea continues.
452
00:28:41,098 --> 00:28:45,965
This is, in fact, an attack
on the United Nations itself.
453
00:28:46,794 --> 00:28:49,451
And on June 27,
the Security Council passed
454
00:28:49,486 --> 00:28:52,558
a resolution authorizing
military intervention.
455
00:28:53,352 --> 00:28:56,389
By June 30, Truman had approved the use of
456
00:28:56,424 --> 00:29:00,704
American troops, the first
time an American president
457
00:29:00,739 --> 00:29:04,466
had unilaterally
committed the country to war.
458
00:29:05,605 --> 00:29:07,780
For a generation of young
men who never thought they'd
459
00:29:07,815 --> 00:29:11,163
see another war, the news came as shock.
460
00:29:14,407 --> 00:29:17,963
I didn't know
where Korea was until I heard
461
00:29:17,997 --> 00:29:21,311
that we was having a war with North Korea.
462
00:29:22,588 --> 00:29:23,831
I lied.
463
00:29:23,865 --> 00:29:28,145
I was 16 when I went in, but
the second World War had just
464
00:29:28,180 --> 00:29:33,633
finished and I had
no idea that I would ever
465
00:29:33,668 --> 00:29:36,775
be involved in a war.
466
00:29:38,224 --> 00:29:42,228
When the war started in June of 1950,
467
00:29:42,263 --> 00:29:46,129
early one morning I received
a telephone call saying,
468
00:29:46,163 --> 00:29:49,201
"Lieutenant Kinard,
you're now in the army."
469
00:29:49,235 --> 00:29:51,824
I said, "What's this?"
470
00:29:51,859 --> 00:29:55,207
Because I didn't really know
where Korea was until I looked
471
00:29:55,241 --> 00:29:58,797
at the map and figured out the,
472
00:29:59,004 --> 00:30:02,524
it was far from my home at that time,
473
00:30:02,731 --> 00:30:05,976
I wondered if I would
ever really go there.
474
00:30:09,808 --> 00:30:12,914
The term of art at
the time was a "Police Action."
475
00:30:12,949 --> 00:30:16,193
There is someone who
has disturbed the peace,
476
00:30:16,228 --> 00:30:19,093
you call out the police,
and the police go to it.
477
00:30:19,507 --> 00:30:23,373
And so this term "Police action"
seemed to be a nice
478
00:30:23,407 --> 00:30:27,066
dodge around why Truman
wasn't asking Congress for
479
00:30:27,101 --> 00:30:28,171
a declaration of war.
480
00:30:28,205 --> 00:30:29,448
It's not really a war.
481
00:30:29,482 --> 00:30:31,864
It's just this
"Police action."
482
00:30:31,899 --> 00:30:34,833
You know, we was Harry's police force.
483
00:30:38,146 --> 00:30:39,423
Thought it was kind of funny.
484
00:30:39,458 --> 00:30:41,253
Here we are fighting
a war and he's calling it a
485
00:30:41,287 --> 00:30:44,014
"police action."
486
00:30:45,636 --> 00:30:49,744
By July 1950, some 50,000 US troops,
487
00:30:49,778 --> 00:30:53,299
followed by thousands more
from Great Britain, Australia,
488
00:30:53,334 --> 00:30:57,648
Thailand and 12 other
nations, headed toward Korea.
489
00:31:01,445 --> 00:31:04,345
After only a month of war,
the North was streaming down
490
00:31:04,379 --> 00:31:07,072
the peninsula at lightning speed,
491
00:31:07,106 --> 00:31:10,454
gaining new ground by the day.
492
00:31:11,248 --> 00:31:13,699
Kim Il-sung's wager that he
would take the South in matter
493
00:31:13,733 --> 00:31:17,496
of days seemed to be coming true.
494
00:31:18,842 --> 00:31:20,326
All up and down the line,
495
00:31:20,361 --> 00:31:22,604
people couldn't quite
figure out the North Koreans.
496
00:31:22,639 --> 00:31:25,953
John Foster Dulles, who
was Truman's roving ambassador
497
00:31:25,987 --> 00:31:29,025
for East Asia policy, said
he can't figure out what keeps
498
00:31:29,059 --> 00:31:32,649
these masses of troops come shrieking on,
499
00:31:32,683 --> 00:31:34,927
or maybe they're on drugs,
or maybe the Soviets have found
500
00:31:34,962 --> 00:31:37,930
some way to program these people,
501
00:31:38,310 --> 00:31:42,072
and in fact they were fighting
and dying for their homeland,
502
00:31:42,107 --> 00:31:45,386
for the unification of their homeland.
503
00:31:45,869 --> 00:31:47,836
What you have really
in this situation is this
504
00:31:47,871 --> 00:31:51,702
brutal civil war overlaid
with an international war
505
00:31:51,737 --> 00:31:53,981
between two ideological
foes of the Cold War,
506
00:31:54,015 --> 00:31:57,260
the Soviet Union and the United States.
507
00:31:57,605 --> 00:32:00,366
To try to slow the North Korean onslaught,
508
00:32:00,401 --> 00:32:02,886
MacArthur sent the
the US Army's 7th Cavalry
509
00:32:02,921 --> 00:32:06,165
to intercept them
near the city of Taejon but
510
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:08,029
the regiment ran into resistance.
511
00:32:09,203 --> 00:32:11,067
We could see the North Koreans,
512
00:32:11,101 --> 00:32:14,242
they were coming in waves.
513
00:32:14,898 --> 00:32:18,039
So by the time we would
kill the first two waves,
514
00:32:18,074 --> 00:32:19,903
we were fighting with
bayonets because we were
515
00:32:19,938 --> 00:32:22,699
out of ammunition.
516
00:32:24,632 --> 00:32:26,530
The North Koreans, by mid-July,
517
00:32:26,565 --> 00:32:30,017
had a pincer down the
east coast from the north and
518
00:32:30,051 --> 00:32:32,088
then coming around from the southwest and
519
00:32:32,122 --> 00:32:34,021
along the southern coast.
520
00:32:34,055 --> 00:32:37,576
And if the Marines had
not landed around that time
521
00:32:37,610 --> 00:32:39,095
and stiffened the lines,
522
00:32:39,129 --> 00:32:41,235
the war would've been lost.
523
00:32:41,269 --> 00:32:44,824
They formed what
we call the Pusan Perimeter.
524
00:32:44,859 --> 00:32:50,106
Which is considered basically
the last good spot across
525
00:32:50,140 --> 00:32:53,005
the peninsula to
establish a defensive position.
526
00:33:02,808 --> 00:33:04,913
Caught in the crossfire between advancing
527
00:33:04,948 --> 00:33:08,158
North Korean troops and
UN forces were hundreds of
528
00:33:08,193 --> 00:33:11,472
thousands of Korean
refugees who now filled
529
00:33:11,506 --> 00:33:14,544
the roads between Seoul and Pusan.
530
00:33:15,717 --> 00:33:19,135
My father and my grandparents had to walk
531
00:33:19,169 --> 00:33:21,275
the distance from Seoul to Pusan.
532
00:33:22,172 --> 00:33:23,932
That's really walking the distance
533
00:33:23,967 --> 00:33:26,659
from Washington D.C.
to New York.
534
00:33:28,523 --> 00:33:29,800
When the war broke out,
535
00:33:29,835 --> 00:33:33,356
my grandparents talked about
how they ran to Pusan Perimeter,
536
00:33:33,390 --> 00:33:34,840
the family split up.
537
00:33:34,874 --> 00:33:36,669
My grandmother went with my aunts,
538
00:33:36,704 --> 00:33:38,809
and my grandfather went with the boys,
539
00:33:38,844 --> 00:33:41,433
my uncle and my father,
and he lost, actually,
540
00:33:41,467 --> 00:33:45,333
one of my uncles during the move to Pusan.
541
00:33:48,233 --> 00:33:50,994
For U.N. troops,
already outmanned and
542
00:33:51,029 --> 00:33:54,342
overwhelmed by the
surging North Korean army,
543
00:33:54,377 --> 00:33:57,587
the refugee crisis presented
yet another challenge.
544
00:33:57,621 --> 00:34:00,348
North Korean soldiers
hiding amongst peasants in
545
00:34:00,383 --> 00:34:03,834
order to get behind enemy lines.
546
00:34:03,869 --> 00:34:08,460
There were only a handful
of main roads along which you
547
00:34:08,494 --> 00:34:12,464
could travel with tanks or
with other sorts of equipment.
548
00:34:12,498 --> 00:34:14,811
On those very same roads
you had civilians that
549
00:34:14,845 --> 00:34:17,331
were trying to evacuate.
550
00:34:17,365 --> 00:34:20,506
American troops did
not know who was the enemy
551
00:34:20,541 --> 00:34:23,026
and who was the ally.
552
00:34:23,061 --> 00:34:25,718
There was always this fear about refugees.
553
00:34:25,753 --> 00:34:27,927
That created a great deal of moral dilemma
554
00:34:27,962 --> 00:34:29,515
among American soldiers.
555
00:34:29,550 --> 00:34:30,930
You see a bunch of refugees.
556
00:34:30,965 --> 00:34:32,967
You think that North Koreans
are hiding among them,
557
00:34:33,001 --> 00:34:35,314
do you shoot against them or not?
558
00:34:37,316 --> 00:34:40,630
In some instances,
U.S. forces did shoot and
559
00:34:40,664 --> 00:34:44,082
refugees were sacrificed in the panic.
560
00:34:57,992 --> 00:35:02,065
Yang Hye Suk was
13 in July of 1950 when war
561
00:35:02,100 --> 00:35:06,104
came to Imgye-ri, a
tiny farm town 100 miles
562
00:35:06,138 --> 00:35:08,382
south of Seoul.
563
00:35:19,289 --> 00:35:22,672
1st Cavalry Division
troops had forced the people
564
00:35:22,706 --> 00:35:26,331
of these two villages called
Joo Gok Ri and Im Gae Ri,
565
00:35:26,365 --> 00:35:29,023
to evacuate and get
on the main road south.
566
00:35:39,206 --> 00:35:41,484
Chung Koo-do's
family was from the same area
567
00:35:41,518 --> 00:35:44,970
as Yang, and his parents
and siblings were among the
568
00:35:45,004 --> 00:35:48,422
hundreds of refugees
who were led by U.S. troops
569
00:35:48,456 --> 00:35:50,941
to a place called No Gun Ri.
570
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:55,946
As refugees gathered
on nearby train tracks,
571
00:35:55,981 --> 00:36:00,330
eyewitnesses remember American
planes beginning to circle
572
00:36:00,365 --> 00:36:01,504
and then opening fire.
573
00:36:14,758 --> 00:36:16,933
Refugees ran for cover under a railroad
574
00:36:16,967 --> 00:36:21,075
overpass where for three
days and three nights they say
575
00:36:21,109 --> 00:36:23,871
they were fired upon by the 7th Cavalry.
576
00:36:24,251 --> 00:36:27,115
Fearful North Korean
soldiers were among them.
577
00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:32,017
Yang Hye Suk, surrounded
by casualties was hiding under
578
00:36:32,051 --> 00:36:34,951
her mother's hemp skirt
when she heard her uncle
579
00:36:34,985 --> 00:36:36,884
cry out in pain.
580
00:37:43,571 --> 00:37:45,297
Every war is horrible.
581
00:37:45,332 --> 00:37:50,475
But the Korean War, among American wars,
582
00:37:50,509 --> 00:37:53,167
was the war that had
the greatest proportion
583
00:37:53,201 --> 00:37:56,550
of civilian casualties.
584
00:37:57,240 --> 00:37:59,069
It was a very dirty war,
585
00:37:59,104 --> 00:38:02,659
and that also demoralized
American soldiers.
586
00:38:02,901 --> 00:38:04,730
They didn't quite know
what they were fighting for,
587
00:38:04,765 --> 00:38:06,870
and they were forced to
do things that they didn't
588
00:38:06,905 --> 00:38:09,183
do in World War II.
589
00:38:16,121 --> 00:38:18,813
For U.N. troops it
was becoming increasingly clear
590
00:38:18,848 --> 00:38:22,023
by the day that they
were mired in a bloody conflict
591
00:38:22,058 --> 00:38:25,441
unbound by modern rules of engagement.
592
00:38:27,926 --> 00:38:31,964
Atrocities could be found
on all sides of the fight.
593
00:38:33,518 --> 00:38:36,417
Early in August there was a massacre of
594
00:38:36,452 --> 00:38:39,558
captured American troops
by the North Koreans,
595
00:38:39,593 --> 00:38:42,630
as the North Koreans
left a hilltop, Hill 303.
596
00:38:45,012 --> 00:38:49,844
They, they simply bound and then
shot in the back of the head
597
00:38:49,879 --> 00:38:53,020
about 30 American prisoners.
598
00:38:53,745 --> 00:38:56,817
Photos of this were run in
the Stars and Stripes newspaper,
599
00:38:56,851 --> 00:38:59,751
which was getting to the troops in Korea,
600
00:38:59,785 --> 00:39:01,787
and some of them cut
the photo out and carried it
601
00:39:01,822 --> 00:39:04,756
in the inside of their helmets.
602
00:39:04,790 --> 00:39:07,483
So once something like that happens,
603
00:39:07,517 --> 00:39:11,625
that sort of frees some men
at least to do the same thing
604
00:39:11,659 --> 00:39:14,144
to the enemy.
605
00:39:14,455 --> 00:39:18,390
We would capture 15,
20 enemy and supply one or
606
00:39:18,425 --> 00:39:22,221
two men to escort this
POWs back to the rear.
607
00:39:24,603 --> 00:39:29,125
I says, "If they try to get away from you,
608
00:39:29,159 --> 00:39:32,715
open up with your machine
guns and your rifles.
609
00:39:32,749 --> 00:39:35,062
Don't let them get away."
610
00:39:35,096 --> 00:39:39,273
And they would be gone
for 10 or 15 minutes when
611
00:39:39,307 --> 00:39:42,103
we would hear the machine gun going off.
612
00:39:51,181 --> 00:39:53,114
While casualties
continued to mount through the
613
00:39:53,149 --> 00:39:56,428
summer of 1950, the
North Korean army maintained
614
00:39:56,463 --> 00:39:58,568
their advantage.
615
00:39:58,603 --> 00:40:01,329
Already America
has suffered 500 casualties.
616
00:40:01,364 --> 00:40:03,677
Five short years after a global war,
617
00:40:03,711 --> 00:40:06,438
Americans again pay in blood...
618
00:40:06,473 --> 00:40:09,337
All the high American
officers had been heroes
619
00:40:09,372 --> 00:40:13,238
of World War II, whether
it's General MacArthur or
620
00:40:13,272 --> 00:40:16,241
Curtis LeMay or Matthew Ridgway.
621
00:40:16,275 --> 00:40:19,347
These were people who were
famous in the battles that
622
00:40:19,382 --> 00:40:22,489
defeated the Nazis and the Japanese...
623
00:40:22,523 --> 00:40:24,525
The tide of battle
still favors the aggressors.
624
00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:27,494
The United Nations' forces
in Korea are forced to improvise
625
00:40:27,528 --> 00:40:29,185
their defense...
626
00:40:29,219 --> 00:40:31,705
And here it is
1950, only five years later,
627
00:40:31,739 --> 00:40:33,603
and they're getting their butt whipped by
628
00:40:33,638 --> 00:40:36,261
rough peasant armies.
629
00:40:38,746 --> 00:40:40,921
United Nations commander General MacArthur
630
00:40:40,955 --> 00:40:44,649
was used to fighting with
his back against the ropes.
631
00:40:44,959 --> 00:40:46,858
From his headquarters in Japan,
632
00:40:46,892 --> 00:40:49,343
he was quietly putting
together a plan for a bold
633
00:40:49,377 --> 00:40:51,897
counter attack that
he believed could break
634
00:40:51,932 --> 00:40:54,590
the North Korean army.
635
00:40:56,523 --> 00:40:59,180
He hoped to utilize the
element of surprise by
636
00:40:59,215 --> 00:41:02,183
attacking the communist
forces from behind,
637
00:41:02,218 --> 00:41:05,601
landing at the port of Inchon
and cutting off supply lines.
638
00:41:08,327 --> 00:41:11,917
With extreme tides
and a shallow shoreline,
639
00:41:11,952 --> 00:41:14,748
the port of Inchon was a highly risky spot
640
00:41:14,782 --> 00:41:18,027
for an invasion, precisely
the reason MacArthur thought
641
00:41:18,061 --> 00:41:20,754
it would work.
642
00:41:20,995 --> 00:41:22,652
Nobody thought it was practical.
643
00:41:22,687 --> 00:41:26,000
Everybody was against it,
because it was so impractical.
644
00:41:26,311 --> 00:41:29,521
The timeframe for landing
those amphibious vehicles was
645
00:41:29,556 --> 00:41:33,456
very limited to a few hours
but MacArthur really believed
646
00:41:33,491 --> 00:41:35,872
that, because of its
impracticality the North
647
00:41:35,907 --> 00:41:38,496
Koreans wouldn't defend.
648
00:41:39,255 --> 00:41:41,637
The Joint Chiefs
of Staff thought that this
649
00:41:41,671 --> 00:41:43,915
was not a particularly good idea,
650
00:41:43,949 --> 00:41:46,262
but they were in an odd position.
651
00:41:46,296 --> 00:41:49,403
MacArthur was essentially
politically untouchable,
652
00:41:49,955 --> 00:41:53,614
and there was nobody in
the military chain of command
653
00:41:53,649 --> 00:41:56,548
who would
tell MacArthur "no."
654
00:41:57,100 --> 00:41:59,447
I think that so many
people said you can't do this,
655
00:41:59,482 --> 00:42:01,760
the more you do that to
somebody like MacArthur,
656
00:42:01,795 --> 00:42:06,075
it's going to increase
their resistance to change.
657
00:42:06,869 --> 00:42:08,318
The more you tell them
not to do something,
658
00:42:08,353 --> 00:42:11,114
the more likely it is
you're going to get it.
659
00:42:30,582 --> 00:42:32,791
When we got on the ship,
660
00:42:32,826 --> 00:42:35,449
we didn't know where we were going.
661
00:42:35,483 --> 00:42:38,141
Out in the ocean,
we were told we were going
662
00:42:38,176 --> 00:42:40,558
to Inchon to make a landing.
663
00:42:42,629 --> 00:42:45,459
I don't think I knew enough to be scared.
664
00:42:47,047 --> 00:42:51,845
It had a 26-foot tide,
and you had to go in at high
665
00:42:51,879 --> 00:42:56,574
tide, and it takes a lot of
time to get a division ashore,
666
00:42:57,471 --> 00:42:58,990
total division.
667
00:42:59,024 --> 00:43:03,650
So I was pretty, I was nervous, naturally.
668
00:43:05,030 --> 00:43:08,068
On September 15th, 70,000 US troops
669
00:43:08,102 --> 00:43:10,829
stood at anchor off the Korean coast,
670
00:43:10,864 --> 00:43:14,350
awaiting high tide and
MacArthur's order to attack.
671
00:43:14,971 --> 00:43:16,663
Nobody knew what was
in store for them once they
672
00:43:16,697 --> 00:43:19,631
made it to shore.
673
00:43:19,666 --> 00:43:21,633
One admiral said
if you drew up all the things
674
00:43:21,668 --> 00:43:24,118
that made amphibious operations difficult,
675
00:43:24,153 --> 00:43:26,327
Inchon had them all.
676
00:43:26,362 --> 00:43:29,572
The tides are bad, the harbor's all mud.
677
00:43:29,814 --> 00:43:32,782
Who knew how many guns were sitting in it.
678
00:43:36,234 --> 00:43:38,443
Lt. Richard
Carey was leading a platoon
679
00:43:38,477 --> 00:43:40,410
of Marines that day,
680
00:43:40,445 --> 00:43:44,449
when at 5pm MacArthur gave
his unit the order to attack.
681
00:43:46,313 --> 00:43:49,454
We only had a couple
hours before it was dark.
682
00:43:49,488 --> 00:43:52,457
The only place we could
go in was into an inlet.
683
00:43:52,491 --> 00:43:55,874
And when we got into
the inlet it was surrounded
684
00:43:55,909 --> 00:43:58,428
by barbed wire.
685
00:43:58,463 --> 00:44:00,810
I started cutting the wire.
686
00:44:01,397 --> 00:44:06,402
A sniper shot off my radio,
was strapped on my shoulder.
687
00:44:07,748 --> 00:44:09,681
And the guy on the
other side of me took one
688
00:44:09,716 --> 00:44:12,063
right between the eye.
689
00:44:13,720 --> 00:44:15,894
We were getting
shot at when we hit the beach,
690
00:44:17,344 --> 00:44:20,485
but I don't think they expected us.
691
00:44:21,728 --> 00:44:23,695
Despite initial resistance,
692
00:44:23,730 --> 00:44:27,147
as an unrelenting waves
of troops landed onshore,
693
00:44:27,181 --> 00:44:29,977
the advantage quickly shifted.
694
00:44:30,012 --> 00:44:33,325
By evening, U.N. forces
had secured the beach and
695
00:44:33,360 --> 00:44:37,226
headed east to cut off
North Korean supply lines.
696
00:44:40,988 --> 00:44:43,922
Remarkably, MacArthur
had caught the North Koreans
697
00:44:43,957 --> 00:44:45,717
by surprise.
698
00:44:45,752 --> 00:44:48,686
His gamble had paid off.
699
00:44:49,341 --> 00:44:53,725
It was such a daring
strike and such a rapid strike
700
00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:57,384
that it changed the
momentum in the war entirely.
701
00:44:57,418 --> 00:44:59,006
The United States and
the South Koreans were
702
00:44:59,041 --> 00:45:00,490
losing badly until then.
703
00:45:00,525 --> 00:45:02,630
All of a sudden they were winning!
704
00:45:23,168 --> 00:45:25,239
I mean, it was such a risky operation,
705
00:45:25,274 --> 00:45:28,726
and the fact that he brought
it off without any problem.
706
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:32,005
MacArthur was viewed as a kind of god.
707
00:45:33,765 --> 00:45:36,354
In a single stroke,
MacArthur had cemented his
708
00:45:36,388 --> 00:45:39,115
reputation for military genius.
709
00:45:39,150 --> 00:45:41,290
The tide of the war had shifted,
710
00:45:41,324 --> 00:45:43,499
as North Korean troops
scrambled back toward
711
00:45:43,533 --> 00:45:46,674
the 38th parallel.
712
00:45:46,709 --> 00:45:49,747
In just two weeks, Seoul
was back in the hands of
713
00:45:49,781 --> 00:45:53,233
the United Nations and
President Rhee was restored
714
00:45:53,267 --> 00:45:55,787
to the capitol building.
715
00:45:56,408 --> 00:46:00,240
MacArthur's forces were now
sitting at the 38th parallel,
716
00:46:00,274 --> 00:46:04,244
with fresh troops, superior
airpower, and momentum.
717
00:46:05,176 --> 00:46:06,729
The United Nations man of the hour,
718
00:46:06,764 --> 00:46:09,663
General MacArthur, with the
capture of Seoul will have the
719
00:46:09,697 --> 00:46:12,804
Communist aggressors
between a crushing millstone.
720
00:46:12,839 --> 00:46:14,530
MacArthur had planned one daring master
721
00:46:14,564 --> 00:46:18,396
stroke and turned
the whole tide of battle.
722
00:46:18,603 --> 00:46:21,364
There's a drastic alteration of
723
00:46:21,399 --> 00:46:23,194
the military situation.
724
00:46:23,228 --> 00:46:25,886
Suddenly, the Americans
and South Koreans are on the
725
00:46:25,921 --> 00:46:29,614
verge of going across the 38th
parallel and into the north,
726
00:46:29,648 --> 00:46:32,582
and obviously, military
leaders want to take advantage
727
00:46:32,617 --> 00:46:36,069
of the immediate situation.
728
00:46:36,414 --> 00:46:37,829
With the course of the war changing
729
00:46:37,864 --> 00:46:41,143
so dramatically,
General MacArthur saw an opening
730
00:46:41,177 --> 00:46:44,284
to widen the conflict into North Korea.
731
00:46:45,561 --> 00:46:47,943
It would allow him to unite
the peninsula in the name
732
00:46:47,977 --> 00:46:51,670
of democracy, and to issue
a decisive blow against
733
00:46:51,705 --> 00:46:53,465
communism in Asia.
734
00:46:54,535 --> 00:46:57,090
The general's aggressive
worldview was always at odds
735
00:46:57,124 --> 00:46:59,955
with President Truman's
ideas of containment,
736
00:46:59,989 --> 00:47:02,474
and of a limited war.
737
00:47:02,509 --> 00:47:05,029
But with MacArthur's success at Inchon,
738
00:47:05,063 --> 00:47:08,101
Truman suddenly saw an opportunity.
739
00:47:09,240 --> 00:47:11,069
MacArthur says give
me just a little bit more time
740
00:47:11,104 --> 00:47:12,415
and I can end the war.
741
00:47:12,450 --> 00:47:15,556
I can capture or destroy
all the North Korean forces.
742
00:47:15,763 --> 00:47:19,284
Truman, who just weeks
before had worried about the
743
00:47:19,319 --> 00:47:21,493
fact that he was going to
be charged with losing more
744
00:47:21,528 --> 00:47:25,187
ground to the Communists,
thought "I can do something
745
00:47:25,221 --> 00:47:27,775
that no president before me has ever done.
746
00:47:27,810 --> 00:47:30,986
I can take ground back
from the Communists."
747
00:47:36,232 --> 00:47:38,269
On October 7th 1950,
748
00:47:38,303 --> 00:47:41,513
MacArthur's troops
stormed across the border.
749
00:47:46,864 --> 00:47:50,177
Victories came quickly as
UN forces pursued the remnants
750
00:47:50,212 --> 00:47:54,595
of the North Korean
army and continued to pound
751
00:47:54,630 --> 00:47:57,081
them from the sky.
752
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:06,711
People were lighting
cigars all over Washington
753
00:48:06,745 --> 00:48:09,196
and Seoul when American
troops were marching up
754
00:48:09,231 --> 00:48:12,786
the peninsula in October 1950.
755
00:48:12,820 --> 00:48:14,374
MacArthur arrived in Pyongyang,
756
00:48:14,408 --> 00:48:17,032
the capital of North Korea,
he gets off his plane,
757
00:48:17,066 --> 00:48:19,275
and he says "Where's Kim Buck too?
758
00:48:19,310 --> 00:48:21,105
Isn't he here to greet me?"
759
00:48:21,139 --> 00:48:24,280
Referring, of course, to Kim Il-sung.
760
00:48:24,315 --> 00:48:26,317
Only two months
after U.N. troops had faced
761
00:48:26,351 --> 00:48:29,907
annihilation at Pusan,
their flag flew above Kim's
762
00:48:29,941 --> 00:48:33,013
capital city, Pyongyang.
763
00:48:33,048 --> 00:48:35,119
We had already taken Pyongyang.
764
00:48:35,153 --> 00:48:38,467
We didn't have too much resistance from
765
00:48:38,501 --> 00:48:41,021
the Koreans at all.
766
00:48:41,056 --> 00:48:43,127
A devastating blow against communism
767
00:48:43,161 --> 00:48:44,991
seemed within reach.
768
00:48:45,025 --> 00:48:48,511
MacArthur's forces moved
with lightning speed.
769
00:48:48,891 --> 00:48:51,929
Each day, they pressed
closer to the Yalu River,
770
00:48:51,963 --> 00:48:54,552
North Korea's border with China.
771
00:48:56,726 --> 00:49:01,697
MacArthur argues
that really he needs American
772
00:49:01,731 --> 00:49:06,046
forces to go all the way to
the Yalu in order to clean up
773
00:49:06,081 --> 00:49:09,739
the situation and do it quickly,
774
00:49:09,774 --> 00:49:13,467
and the administration back in Washington,
775
00:49:13,502 --> 00:49:17,816
faced with strong Republican
attacks on the Democratic
776
00:49:17,851 --> 00:49:20,405
administration being weak on Asia.
777
00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:24,858
The Truman administration
does not say no to MacArthur.
778
00:49:26,032 --> 00:49:27,792
Saying no to MacArthur was becoming
779
00:49:27,826 --> 00:49:31,485
increasingly difficult for
Truman an unpopular president,
780
00:49:31,520 --> 00:49:35,386
who was seen at home as badly
mismanaging the war in Korea.
781
00:49:36,939 --> 00:49:39,114
But needing assurances
from his general on the future
782
00:49:39,148 --> 00:49:43,221
course of the war,
Truman requested a meeting.
783
00:49:43,256 --> 00:49:45,568
Since MacArthur would not
travel more than a half-day
784
00:49:45,603 --> 00:49:49,917
from Tokyo, Truman flew to
Wake Island in the Pacific,
785
00:49:49,952 --> 00:49:51,919
where he was greeted
by his general not with
786
00:49:51,954 --> 00:49:55,716
a traditional salute
but with a civilian handshake.
787
00:49:58,202 --> 00:50:02,482
MacArthur had
been overstating his authority
788
00:50:02,516 --> 00:50:06,037
for many months, he
would hold news conferences,
789
00:50:06,072 --> 00:50:08,867
and he would speak very
often as the United Nations
790
00:50:08,902 --> 00:50:12,147
commander and not report directly to the
791
00:50:12,181 --> 00:50:13,976
president of the United States.
792
00:50:14,011 --> 00:50:16,565
So Truman flies all the
way out to Wake Island
793
00:50:16,599 --> 00:50:20,638
in the Pacific hoping on
the basis of MacArthur's
794
00:50:20,672 --> 00:50:24,573
repeated assurances,
the war is nearly over and
795
00:50:24,607 --> 00:50:27,886
Korea will be liberated.
796
00:50:28,404 --> 00:50:31,511
And he puts the question to MacArthur,
797
00:50:31,545 --> 00:50:34,790
if American troops get
close to the border will the
798
00:50:34,824 --> 00:50:39,346
Chinese enter the war,
and MacArthur says they won't
799
00:50:39,381 --> 00:50:43,454
dare and if they do
I will annihilate them.
800
00:50:57,778 --> 00:51:00,471
We were pumped up.
801
00:51:00,747 --> 00:51:03,784
MacArthur put it out, he said,
"We're going as far as
802
00:51:03,819 --> 00:51:07,098
the Yalu, probably you're
going right into China."
803
00:51:07,961 --> 00:51:10,826
So, we were, we were pretty enthusiastic.
804
00:51:10,860 --> 00:51:13,346
We said, "This is
going to be the end of it.
805
00:51:13,380 --> 00:51:16,349
We'll win the war right here."
806
00:51:16,935 --> 00:51:19,041
MacArthur is assuring them that the
807
00:51:19,076 --> 00:51:21,285
war is nearly over.
808
00:51:21,319 --> 00:51:24,322
He kept saying that
American troops will be
809
00:51:24,357 --> 00:51:27,739
home by Christmas,
that the war is wrapping up.
810
00:51:27,774 --> 00:51:31,018
When American troops had
their Thanksgiving dinner
811
00:51:31,053 --> 00:51:32,192
and they're thinking,
812
00:51:32,227 --> 00:51:34,712
"Christmas, that's only a month away.
813
00:51:34,746 --> 00:51:37,301
We're all going
to get to go home."
814
00:51:37,611 --> 00:51:40,166
A final victory, and an end to the war,
815
00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:42,513
was in sight.
816
00:51:42,547 --> 00:51:46,517
In late November, 1950,
30,000 United Nations troops
817
00:51:46,551 --> 00:51:49,761
paused their advance and
sat down in the frozen hills
818
00:51:49,796 --> 00:51:53,144
and valleys that surrounded
the Chosin Reservoir.
819
00:51:54,007 --> 00:51:57,010
There they enjoyed a hot
Thanksgiving dinner courtesy
820
00:51:57,044 --> 00:52:00,013
of the U.S. government.
821
00:52:00,841 --> 00:52:03,189
We was dug in in the hills up there.
822
00:52:03,223 --> 00:52:05,156
Headquarters had set up cooks and
823
00:52:05,191 --> 00:52:08,125
we had our Thanksgiving dinner.
824
00:52:08,918 --> 00:52:11,162
They didn't have serving trays at the time
825
00:52:11,197 --> 00:52:13,578
I got through there, and I just went ahead
826
00:52:13,613 --> 00:52:17,341
and took my helmet liner out of
the helmet and used my helmet,
827
00:52:17,686 --> 00:52:22,173
and I had my Thanksgiving
dinner in 1950 in a helmet.
828
00:52:24,141 --> 00:52:28,214
And then when we moved out
of where we was dug in after
829
00:52:28,248 --> 00:52:30,250
Thanksgiving, we went
on up through Yudam-II.
830
00:52:30,285 --> 00:52:33,460
That's when all hell broke loose.
831
00:52:38,155 --> 00:52:40,950
The U.N. forces had
been caught in a massive trap,
832
00:52:40,985 --> 00:52:43,298
sprung by the Chinese.
833
00:52:43,332 --> 00:52:46,542
MacArthur it seemed had miscalculated.
834
00:52:46,784 --> 00:52:49,373
Mao's army had entered the war.
835
00:52:52,859 --> 00:52:55,965
Attacking at night to retain
the element of surprise and
836
00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:59,003
to avoid aerial bombardment,
hundreds of thousands of
837
00:52:59,037 --> 00:53:02,696
Chinese troops stormed the
frontline in an overwhelming
838
00:53:02,731 --> 00:53:05,354
display of force.
839
00:53:06,321 --> 00:53:09,634
Over 200,000 Chinese
managed to infiltrate across
840
00:53:09,669 --> 00:53:11,567
the Yalu River.
841
00:53:11,602 --> 00:53:15,364
When the Americans are taken
by surprise they find that
842
00:53:15,399 --> 00:53:17,884
they're basically surrounded,
and instead of fighting for
843
00:53:17,918 --> 00:53:20,990
victory they're fighting for their lives.
844
00:53:22,233 --> 00:53:25,650
We could hear the
bugles sounding and all the
845
00:53:25,685 --> 00:53:27,100
screaming and what have you,
846
00:53:27,134 --> 00:53:30,241
and the Chinese coming at you in hordes.
847
00:53:32,692 --> 00:53:35,488
We was outnumbered
probably 5 to 1, 10 to 1,
848
00:53:35,695 --> 00:53:37,248
something like that.
849
00:53:37,283 --> 00:53:40,355
And their sole purpose
was to annihilate the
850
00:53:40,389 --> 00:53:43,185
1st Marine Division.
851
00:53:49,985 --> 00:53:53,230
When they came, they came in waves.
852
00:53:54,334 --> 00:53:57,475
A wave, a wave, a wave, a wave.
853
00:53:58,994 --> 00:54:02,825
The platoon sergeant and
I were in a foxhole together.
854
00:54:03,757 --> 00:54:09,970
So, he took the grenades out
all night, handed them to me,
855
00:54:10,005 --> 00:54:13,111
I counted "one-thousand-one,
one-thousand-two"
856
00:54:13,146 --> 00:54:15,597
and threw them.
857
00:54:15,804 --> 00:54:19,428
I threw three cartons
of grenades that night.
858
00:54:23,812 --> 00:54:26,642
That night was bitterly cold.
859
00:54:26,677 --> 00:54:29,058
God, it was cold.
860
00:54:29,093 --> 00:54:32,476
It was below 50 below zero.
861
00:55:17,175 --> 00:55:19,005
Many of these soldiers,
862
00:55:19,039 --> 00:55:20,662
they pretty much consigned themselves
863
00:55:20,696 --> 00:55:22,146
to die one way or the other.
864
00:55:22,180 --> 00:55:23,837
They were going to get
killed by a Chinese bullet
865
00:55:23,872 --> 00:55:26,184
or a mortar round or
they were going to freeze,
866
00:55:26,219 --> 00:55:30,257
and it was merely a matter
of how long can we put this off.
867
00:55:31,880 --> 00:55:34,641
Homer Garza and
the Army's 7th Cav were west
868
00:55:34,676 --> 00:55:39,612
of Chosin battling two enemies,
the Chinese and the cold.
869
00:55:41,027 --> 00:55:44,375
Our fingers would crack
as you tried to close your
870
00:55:44,410 --> 00:55:49,035
hand with it being so
damn cold and we got the old
871
00:55:49,069 --> 00:55:52,901
blanket sleeping bags and
we cut strips of the blankets
872
00:55:52,935 --> 00:55:58,009
and wrap it around our
feet to try to keep our
873
00:55:58,044 --> 00:56:00,702
feet from freezing,
874
00:56:02,531 --> 00:56:05,465
but it was so cold
that it wouldn't take more
875
00:56:05,500 --> 00:56:09,607
than four or five minutes
after a guy was killed that he
876
00:56:09,642 --> 00:56:14,888
was froze solid, if we were
staying in the same hill for
877
00:56:14,923 --> 00:56:18,651
a while, we would get the dead Chinese and
878
00:56:18,685 --> 00:56:21,619
the dead Koreans and stand them up against
879
00:56:21,654 --> 00:56:24,657
the trees frozen solid.
880
00:56:24,691 --> 00:56:27,591
Yeah.
881
00:56:29,351 --> 00:56:30,732
When you saw one of those Marine's
882
00:56:30,766 --> 00:56:34,598
bodies frozen stiff, that was sad.
883
00:56:35,184 --> 00:56:38,084
Arms sticking out, legs sticking out.
884
00:56:38,429 --> 00:56:41,052
You really knew you was at war then.
885
00:56:42,122 --> 00:56:44,953
It's hard to describe it truly is.
886
00:56:45,885 --> 00:56:49,026
You had to be careful
how you picked them up.
887
00:56:49,509 --> 00:56:53,410
If you pick them up
by an the arm, for example,
888
00:56:53,444 --> 00:56:55,722
you can break the arm off.
889
00:56:56,930 --> 00:57:00,037
There was no option but to retreat.
890
00:57:00,071 --> 00:57:02,902
Over ten days, U.N. troops
fought their way out of
891
00:57:02,936 --> 00:57:06,871
the reservoir, suffering 18,000
casualties along the way.
892
00:57:09,046 --> 00:57:10,841
The whole ethos
of the American approach to
893
00:57:10,875 --> 00:57:14,327
war was advance, attack,
and when the soldiers saw
894
00:57:14,361 --> 00:57:15,501
that we can't attack.
895
00:57:15,535 --> 00:57:18,124
In fact, it's going to be
everything we can do simply
896
00:57:18,158 --> 00:57:20,506
to escape, to flee
and get out of this alive,
897
00:57:20,540 --> 00:57:23,232
it was exceedingly disorienting.
898
00:57:23,267 --> 00:57:25,372
These were soldiers,
many of them whom were in
899
00:57:25,407 --> 00:57:26,857
their first combat.
900
00:57:26,891 --> 00:57:28,237
They hadn't seen anything like this.
901
00:57:28,272 --> 00:57:30,895
They had never really
confronted the basic questions
902
00:57:30,930 --> 00:57:33,208
of life and death.
903
00:57:35,486 --> 00:57:38,489
They told us to
straighten up as we was coming
904
00:57:38,524 --> 00:57:43,529
in to Hagaru-ri, we come
in their like real Marines,
905
00:57:44,564 --> 00:57:47,325
we was singin' the Marine Corps Hymn,
906
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:50,018
all gong ho, you know?
907
00:57:55,472 --> 00:57:58,302
The tide of the war had changed yet again.
908
00:57:58,336 --> 00:58:01,616
U.N. troops were forced back
below the 38th parallel,
909
00:58:02,133 --> 00:58:04,584
and within weeks, Seoul
had fallen to the combined
910
00:58:04,619 --> 00:58:08,174
North Korean and Chinese forces.
911
00:58:08,208 --> 00:58:11,349
Bloody fighting in and around
Seoul would see the capitol
912
00:58:11,384 --> 00:58:14,491
change sides four times.
913
00:58:16,285 --> 00:58:19,081
With an American public
growing restless with bad news
914
00:58:19,116 --> 00:58:22,775
from the frontlines and body
counts of American servicemen
915
00:58:22,809 --> 00:58:27,193
increasing everyday,
Truman was forced to confront
916
00:58:27,227 --> 00:58:31,473
a war that seemed unwinnable
with conventional forces.
917
00:58:33,648 --> 00:58:36,547
No one seriously talked about the use of
918
00:58:36,582 --> 00:58:41,310
atomic weapons in Korea
until the end of November,
919
00:58:41,759 --> 00:58:47,075
beginning of December, 1950,
when American forces were
920
00:58:47,109 --> 00:58:51,389
fleeing for their lives
upon the Chinese entry into
921
00:58:51,424 --> 00:58:55,497
the war, then it certainly
occurred to members of
922
00:58:55,532 --> 00:58:58,293
the public to ask, well, "How can we lose
923
00:58:58,327 --> 00:59:00,813
to North Korea, how can
we lose to China when we've
924
00:59:00,847 --> 00:59:04,057
got the bomb and they don't?"
925
00:59:07,440 --> 00:59:09,649
In the press, General MacArthur made clear
926
00:59:09,684 --> 00:59:12,894
his belief in expanding
the conflict into China.
927
00:59:13,377 --> 00:59:15,586
And in the war room,
he was making plans for
928
00:59:15,621 --> 00:59:18,140
the use of the atomic bomb.
929
00:59:18,796 --> 00:59:20,764
MacArthur wanted an unlimited war.
930
00:59:20,798 --> 00:59:24,146
He wanted to use 24 atomic bombs.
931
00:59:24,181 --> 00:59:26,735
In December 1950, he said,
I want 24 atomic bombs to
932
00:59:26,770 --> 00:59:31,464
establish a radiation
cordon along the Yalu River,
933
00:59:31,498 --> 00:59:35,157
you know, using cobalt, which
has a half-life of 90 years,
934
00:59:35,192 --> 00:59:37,470
and the two places will
be separated, you know,
935
00:59:37,504 --> 00:59:40,059
for a long time, generations to come.
936
00:59:41,267 --> 00:59:43,821
In November of '50,
Truman was asked about the
937
00:59:43,856 --> 00:59:46,410
use of atomic weapons, and he said
938
00:59:46,444 --> 00:59:48,964
"Yes, this would have
to be considered."
939
00:59:48,999 --> 00:59:51,622
That was the first mention by him.
940
00:59:52,692 --> 00:59:54,625
Then the next question is, well,
941
00:59:54,660 --> 00:59:57,110
who is going to determine whether the bomb
942
00:59:57,145 --> 00:59:59,043
will be used or not?
943
00:59:59,078 --> 01:00:01,839
Truman said, without
thinking very clearly,
944
01:00:01,874 --> 01:00:05,015
"The decision will be made
by the commander in the field."
945
01:00:06,188 --> 01:00:08,812
Well, everybody realized
the commander in the field
946
01:00:08,846 --> 01:00:11,055
is Douglas MacArthur.
947
01:00:11,435 --> 01:00:13,955
Harry Truman has just
announced this policy that
948
01:00:13,989 --> 01:00:16,958
the atom bomb is
available for use in Korea and
949
01:00:16,992 --> 01:00:19,063
that Douglas MacArthur
is going to make the decision.
950
01:00:19,098 --> 01:00:21,859
Oh, boy, what have
we got ourselves in for?
951
01:00:21,894 --> 01:00:23,240
The president has stated that the use of
952
01:00:23,274 --> 01:00:25,449
the atomic bomb is
being considered to halt
953
01:00:25,483 --> 01:00:27,106
the communist onrush...
954
01:00:27,140 --> 01:00:29,971
It may well precipitate World War III...
955
01:00:30,005 --> 01:00:32,042
News of Truman's
consideration of using the
956
01:00:32,076 --> 01:00:34,907
atomic bomb set America's allies around
957
01:00:34,941 --> 01:00:37,806
the world on edge.
958
01:00:38,945 --> 01:00:41,120
Clement Attlee is
the British prime minister and
959
01:00:41,154 --> 01:00:45,055
he is in a meeting of
parliament and he hears this
960
01:00:45,089 --> 01:00:47,885
stir in the back and kind
of wonders what's going on
961
01:00:47,920 --> 01:00:51,026
and somebody passes him a note
explaining that the president
962
01:00:51,061 --> 01:00:52,959
of the United States
has threatened the use of
963
01:00:52,994 --> 01:00:55,341
the atom bomb in Korea.
964
01:00:55,721 --> 01:00:57,895
A new war brought prime minister Attlee
965
01:00:57,930 --> 01:01:00,795
to Washington for
talks with president Truman...
966
01:01:01,934 --> 01:01:03,729
The prime minister
of Great Britain raced across
967
01:01:03,763 --> 01:01:07,456
the Atlantic to try
and bring some sanity back
968
01:01:07,491 --> 01:01:09,527
into the situation.
969
01:01:09,735 --> 01:01:12,151
At home, Truman's confusing remarks
970
01:01:12,185 --> 01:01:15,085
only deepened the public's
skepticism of his abilities
971
01:01:15,119 --> 01:01:17,501
as commander in chief.
972
01:01:17,535 --> 01:01:19,952
And General MacArthur's public
campaign for the expansion
973
01:01:19,986 --> 01:01:22,713
of the war into China increasingly put the
974
01:01:22,748 --> 01:01:25,440
two men at odds.
975
01:01:26,337 --> 01:01:29,237
MacArthur wanted a rollback.
976
01:01:29,271 --> 01:01:31,446
He wanted to keep on
going into China and try
977
01:01:31,480 --> 01:01:34,587
to settle the hash
of the Chinese revolution.
978
01:01:34,621 --> 01:01:37,348
That was his great error in Truman's eyes.
979
01:01:37,383 --> 01:01:39,178
Truman wanted a limited rollback.
980
01:01:39,212 --> 01:01:41,732
He wanted to roll North
Korean communists back and
981
01:01:41,767 --> 01:01:44,597
unify the peninsula.
982
01:01:45,218 --> 01:01:47,255
MacArthur feels
like this is the place where
983
01:01:47,289 --> 01:01:49,602
we're going to have to
have this great battle against
984
01:01:49,636 --> 01:01:52,432
communism, even to
the extent that he's willing
985
01:01:52,467 --> 01:01:54,952
to risk World War III.
986
01:01:56,333 --> 01:01:59,681
Truman said to MacArthur "If this war gets
987
01:01:59,716 --> 01:02:02,684
any bigger, we don't have the resources,
988
01:02:02,719 --> 01:02:06,274
we don't have the military
establishment to do that.
989
01:02:06,308 --> 01:02:09,242
General MacArthur,
your job is to buy time."
990
01:02:09,277 --> 01:02:11,210
Well that cut against
everything MacArthur.
991
01:02:11,244 --> 01:02:14,696
No, no, in war there is
no substitute for victory.
992
01:02:14,731 --> 01:02:15,939
We fight to win.
993
01:02:15,973 --> 01:02:18,148
Not simply to hold ground.
994
01:02:18,182 --> 01:02:21,151
Truman learned from
Hiroshima and Nagasaki that
995
01:02:21,185 --> 01:02:23,809
no true victory in that
sense is possible anymore and
996
01:02:23,843 --> 01:02:26,708
so he really wanted to limit the war.
997
01:02:26,743 --> 01:02:29,124
MacArthur couldn't deal with that defeat.
998
01:02:29,159 --> 01:02:31,540
Truman had given him a
directive on December 5th not
999
01:02:31,575 --> 01:02:34,854
to say anything publicly
against the policy of the
1000
01:02:34,889 --> 01:02:38,409
Truman administration,
and MacArthur consistently
1001
01:02:38,444 --> 01:02:40,584
defied that directive.
1002
01:02:43,138 --> 01:02:45,589
On April 11th 1951,
1003
01:02:45,623 --> 01:02:48,592
President Truman addressed the nation.
1004
01:02:49,627 --> 01:02:51,388
I have considered it essential to
1005
01:02:51,422 --> 01:02:54,632
relieve General MacArthur
so that there would be no doubt
1006
01:02:54,667 --> 01:02:58,809
or confusion as to the real
purpose and aim of our policy.
1007
01:02:59,430 --> 01:03:01,191
It was with the deepest personal regret
1008
01:03:01,225 --> 01:03:04,539
that I found myself
compelled to take this action.
1009
01:03:04,573 --> 01:03:05,851
General MacArthur is one of our
1010
01:03:05,885 --> 01:03:08,267
greatest military commanders.
1011
01:03:08,301 --> 01:03:12,858
But the cause of world
peace is much more important
1012
01:03:12,892 --> 01:03:15,170
than any individual.
1013
01:03:16,965 --> 01:03:20,141
For Truman this
was an issue that transcended
1014
01:03:20,175 --> 01:03:21,832
the moment in Korea.
1015
01:03:21,867 --> 01:03:25,491
This had everything to do
with how America was going to
1016
01:03:25,525 --> 01:03:27,665
be governed in the Cold War.
1017
01:03:27,700 --> 01:03:30,254
Truman recognized that
the Korean War was not
1018
01:03:30,289 --> 01:03:31,635
one of a kind.
1019
01:03:31,669 --> 01:03:34,017
There would be other challenges like this.
1020
01:03:34,051 --> 01:03:37,986
And so he made a point
of relieving MacArthur simply
1021
01:03:38,021 --> 01:03:41,369
because his view of
what American policy should
1022
01:03:41,403 --> 01:03:44,475
be was different than the president's.
1023
01:03:45,683 --> 01:03:48,721
General MacArthur was far from wounded.
1024
01:03:48,755 --> 01:03:52,173
On April 16th, he boarded
his plane and left Japan.
1025
01:03:53,553 --> 01:03:56,280
In New York, he was given
a ticker tape parade down
1026
01:03:56,315 --> 01:03:59,594
Broadway, and he was invited
to give a speech in front of
1027
01:03:59,628 --> 01:04:02,769
a joint session of Congress.
1028
01:04:02,804 --> 01:04:05,358
For many, MacArthur was
the personification of
1029
01:04:05,393 --> 01:04:09,846
American exceptionalism, the
last great World War II hero.
1030
01:04:10,674 --> 01:04:12,918
And in living rooms across the country,
1031
01:04:12,952 --> 01:04:15,955
Americans hung on his every word.
1032
01:04:16,231 --> 01:04:20,166
MacArthur knows
that this audience is primed
1033
01:04:20,201 --> 01:04:21,892
to approve of him.
1034
01:04:21,927 --> 01:04:26,724
I stand on this rostrum with a sense of
1035
01:04:26,759 --> 01:04:30,659
deep humility and great pride.
1036
01:04:31,212 --> 01:04:35,009
And he speaks in a very stentorian voice
1037
01:04:35,043 --> 01:04:37,804
and he plays the crowd.
1038
01:04:38,667 --> 01:04:43,914
But I still remember the refrain of one
1039
01:04:43,949 --> 01:04:49,609
of the most popular barrack
ballads of that day which
1040
01:04:49,644 --> 01:04:55,719
proclaimed most proudly that
1041
01:04:55,753 --> 01:05:03,692
"Old soldiers never die;
they just fade away."
1042
01:05:05,694 --> 01:05:10,078
And like the old soldier of that ballad,
1043
01:05:10,113 --> 01:05:16,913
I now close my military
career and just fade away.
1044
01:05:21,572 --> 01:05:25,611
And there was not a dry eye in the house.
1045
01:05:26,508 --> 01:05:28,959
In private, Truman fumed,
1046
01:05:28,994 --> 01:05:33,239
calling the speech quote,
"A bunch of damn bullshit."
1047
01:05:33,274 --> 01:05:36,173
But his decision to
fire MacArthur nearly cost
1048
01:05:36,208 --> 01:05:39,349
him his presidency.
1049
01:05:39,383 --> 01:05:42,248
I think his popularity rate sank to 22%.
1050
01:05:42,283 --> 01:05:45,424
I mean he was an extremely
unpopular leader because
1051
01:05:45,458 --> 01:05:48,427
he didn't see in terms
of victory or defeat.
1052
01:05:48,461 --> 01:05:51,292
He said we had to limit this war.
1053
01:05:51,775 --> 01:05:53,846
Despite continued
pressure from Republicans
1054
01:05:53,880 --> 01:05:56,607
to expand the war
against communism into China
1055
01:05:56,642 --> 01:06:00,335
and beyond, Truman stayed the course.
1056
01:06:14,246 --> 01:06:16,869
By the spring of 1951,
1057
01:06:16,903 --> 01:06:19,768
the Korean War had reached a stalemate.
1058
01:06:19,803 --> 01:06:22,944
Under the new leadership
of General Matthew Ridgway,
1059
01:06:22,979 --> 01:06:26,430
UN forces were dug in
around the 38th parallel,
1060
01:06:26,810 --> 01:06:30,262
trading ground against
North Korean and Chinese forces
1061
01:06:30,296 --> 01:06:32,126
one bloody battle at a time.
1062
01:06:55,390 --> 01:06:58,083
What we were doing
at that time was very different
1063
01:06:58,117 --> 01:07:00,878
than what had been earlier in the war.
1064
01:07:00,913 --> 01:07:03,398
They called that the
stalemate at the time,
1065
01:07:03,433 --> 01:07:07,264
which is what it was,
but living in the trenches
1066
01:07:07,299 --> 01:07:09,818
there is like living as animals.
1067
01:07:09,853 --> 01:07:11,337
You're living in the dirt.
1068
01:07:11,372 --> 01:07:12,925
You ate in the dirt.
1069
01:07:12,959 --> 01:07:15,962
That was a little bit hard on the morale.
1070
01:07:20,415 --> 01:07:23,211
It was a terribly bloody and
1071
01:07:23,246 --> 01:07:25,455
demoralizing experience.
1072
01:07:25,489 --> 01:07:27,664
There was a dynamic
that basically meant that
1073
01:07:27,698 --> 01:07:30,218
neither side could win.
1074
01:07:30,253 --> 01:07:33,083
Most of the casualties
take place in this period,
1075
01:07:33,118 --> 01:07:35,982
for no good purpose.
1076
01:07:38,088 --> 01:07:40,366
Armistice talks between the UN, China,
1077
01:07:40,401 --> 01:07:44,715
and North Korea, which had
begun in the summer of 1951,
1078
01:07:44,750 --> 01:07:48,512
dragged on for months, then years.
1079
01:07:49,582 --> 01:07:51,998
At every venue the Soviet Union continued
1080
01:07:52,033 --> 01:07:53,345
its stonewalling.
1081
01:07:53,379 --> 01:07:55,036
United Kingdom?
1082
01:07:55,071 --> 01:07:56,555
Yes.
1083
01:07:56,589 --> 01:07:57,694
United States?
1084
01:07:57,728 --> 01:07:58,729
Yes.
1085
01:07:58,764 --> 01:08:00,455
Union of Socialist Republics?
1086
01:08:00,490 --> 01:08:02,078
No.
1087
01:08:02,285 --> 01:08:04,356
For Stalin and the Communist forces,
1088
01:08:04,390 --> 01:08:09,361
keeping the Americans stalled
in East Asia was preferable.
1089
01:08:09,395 --> 01:08:12,536
Stalin was willing
to fight the Korean War to
1090
01:08:12,571 --> 01:08:15,367
the last Chinese soldier.
1091
01:08:15,401 --> 01:08:18,232
It was keeping the Americans
engaged in Korea rather
1092
01:08:18,266 --> 01:08:21,511
than building up in Europe.
1093
01:08:25,342 --> 01:08:27,379
In order to break the Communists' will,
1094
01:08:27,413 --> 01:08:30,416
Americans stepped up their
air campaign in North Korea.
1095
01:08:35,352 --> 01:08:37,906
All of the cities in North Korea were
1096
01:08:37,941 --> 01:08:40,150
essentially flattened.
1097
01:08:40,185 --> 01:08:44,879
It got so that the pilots
and the squadron leaders,
1098
01:08:44,913 --> 01:08:48,124
et cetera, were complaining
they had no more targets.
1099
01:08:48,986 --> 01:08:52,162
A written directive to the
5th Air Force in North Korea,
1100
01:08:52,197 --> 01:08:56,028
had ordered that every
installation, every town,
1101
01:08:56,062 --> 01:08:58,410
every village be destroyed.
1102
01:09:14,357 --> 01:09:16,221
They dropped a lot of napalm.
1103
01:09:16,255 --> 01:09:19,293
Napalm had been invented
at the end of World War II,
1104
01:09:19,327 --> 01:09:20,880
but not used much.
1105
01:09:20,915 --> 01:09:26,817
It was used indiscriminately
across North Korea.
1106
01:09:32,098 --> 01:09:33,790
And they thought
that that was the price that
1107
01:09:33,824 --> 01:09:37,725
you had to pay to avoid
a larger war, World War III,
1108
01:09:37,759 --> 01:09:39,036
with China.
1109
01:09:39,071 --> 01:09:42,039
And so basically North Korea
became that kind of victim,
1110
01:09:42,074 --> 01:09:46,354
to force the communists
to negotiate the armistice.
1111
01:09:51,601 --> 01:09:53,844
The Republican party is back in power.
1112
01:09:53,879 --> 01:09:56,226
General Dwight D. Eisenhower
is elected!
1113
01:09:56,261 --> 01:09:58,746
Even President
Dwight D. Eisenhower,
1114
01:09:58,780 --> 01:10:01,611
a Republican who had won the 1952 election
1115
01:10:01,645 --> 01:10:04,786
on a pledge to go to Korea to end the war,
1116
01:10:04,821 --> 01:10:08,445
could do little to change
the situation on the ground.
1117
01:10:08,756 --> 01:10:10,654
The mere fact that Dwight Eisenhower,
1118
01:10:10,689 --> 01:10:13,347
the hero of the European
side of World War II,
1119
01:10:13,381 --> 01:10:14,486
was going to go.
1120
01:10:14,520 --> 01:10:15,901
He was going to put his mind to it.
1121
01:10:15,935 --> 01:10:19,836
Now, in fact, the end came
not because Eisenhower went
1122
01:10:19,870 --> 01:10:22,942
to Korea, he went, he looked
around, basically came home.
1123
01:10:22,977 --> 01:10:26,222
But the key was the death of Josef Stalin.
1124
01:10:30,122 --> 01:10:33,436
In March of 1953, the Soviet dictator died
1125
01:10:33,470 --> 01:10:37,233
unexpectedly of a cerebral hemorrhage.
1126
01:10:38,372 --> 01:10:41,927
Stalin's successors wasted no time.
1127
01:10:42,755 --> 01:10:46,138
Once Stalin's gone,
his body's hardly cold when
1128
01:10:46,172 --> 01:10:49,279
the reigning central
committee, the presidium,
1129
01:10:49,314 --> 01:10:52,282
sends a message to the
Chinese and North Koreans,
1130
01:10:52,317 --> 01:10:55,112
"Get an armistice."
1131
01:10:55,147 --> 01:10:59,358
It took several months
to agree on an armistice line.
1132
01:10:59,634 --> 01:11:03,224
The communists initially
argued for the 38th parallel,
1133
01:11:03,259 --> 01:11:05,847
which was an indefensible line on a map.
1134
01:11:05,882 --> 01:11:09,575
The Americans insisted on another line,
1135
01:11:09,610 --> 01:11:11,163
a line that was defensible.
1136
01:11:11,197 --> 01:11:14,408
They wanted the armistice to survive.
1137
01:11:14,787 --> 01:11:17,790
Even as negotiators
argued over the last details,
1138
01:11:17,825 --> 01:11:20,448
battles continued to rage.
1139
01:11:21,104 --> 01:11:23,969
At Pork Chop Hill, an
800-foot-high ridge near
1140
01:11:24,003 --> 01:11:28,214
the 38th parallel, the US
army lost nearly 1,000 men
1141
01:11:28,249 --> 01:11:31,735
to death or injury
fighting over a plot of land
1142
01:11:31,770 --> 01:11:35,221
of no strategic or tactical value.
1143
01:11:35,256 --> 01:11:37,327
To the soldiers in the trenches,
1144
01:11:37,362 --> 01:11:40,641
it seemed the fighting would never end.
1145
01:11:40,675 --> 01:11:43,782
We didn't know too
much about what was going
1146
01:11:43,816 --> 01:11:48,373
on with negotiations
except they were happening.
1147
01:11:48,925 --> 01:11:51,859
All of us hoped and
thought any day we were going
1148
01:11:51,893 --> 01:11:56,001
to have a treaty signed.
1149
01:11:56,553 --> 01:11:58,693
You always thought, I
don't want to be the last
1150
01:11:58,728 --> 01:12:02,283
one to die in this war.
1151
01:12:04,250 --> 01:12:08,358
Eventually the two
sides agreed not to accept
1152
01:12:08,393 --> 01:12:10,291
the 38th parallel.
1153
01:12:10,326 --> 01:12:12,811
They would accept a
demilitarized zone on each
1154
01:12:12,845 --> 01:12:16,124
side of the line of battle, so
there would be a minor retreat
1155
01:12:16,159 --> 01:12:19,576
of anywhere from three
to five kilometers at the end
1156
01:12:19,611 --> 01:12:23,925
of the war, but it would be
essentially the battle line.
1157
01:12:24,685 --> 01:12:25,962
Then the exodus begins,
1158
01:12:25,996 --> 01:12:28,654
and from the disputed hills
hundreds of thousands of men
1159
01:12:28,689 --> 01:12:32,417
pull back, and there's not
a regret in a truckload...
1160
01:12:33,210 --> 01:12:36,041
While US forces were happy to pull back,
1161
01:12:36,075 --> 01:12:39,044
for many Koreans the
location of the new border
1162
01:12:39,078 --> 01:12:41,564
had serious consequences.
1163
01:12:41,598 --> 01:12:45,326
Families would be permanently
separated as territory once
1164
01:12:45,361 --> 01:12:49,365
situated in the south suddenly
came under northern control.
1165
01:12:51,021 --> 01:12:53,748
Park Kyung Soon's hometown
of Kaesong was one such
1166
01:12:53,783 --> 01:12:58,374
city that was now
caught behind enemy lines.
1167
01:12:58,891 --> 01:13:01,515
Kyung Soon lived at home
with her two younger siblings.
1168
01:13:03,171 --> 01:13:06,105
Her mother, fearing what
might happen to her daughter
1169
01:13:06,140 --> 01:13:10,040
in North Korea, told her to flee.
1170
01:14:04,578 --> 01:14:08,305
On July 27th, 1953,
an armistice was finally
1171
01:14:08,340 --> 01:14:12,240
reached between the UN,
China and North Korea.
1172
01:14:12,689 --> 01:14:16,141
It called for a cessation of
hostilities and armed force
1173
01:14:16,175 --> 01:14:19,696
until an official peace treaty is signed.
1174
01:14:20,248 --> 01:14:23,286
North Korea was completely destroyed,
1175
01:14:23,320 --> 01:14:24,908
not a building left standing.
1176
01:14:24,943 --> 01:14:27,497
South Korea was completely destroyed.
1177
01:14:27,532 --> 01:14:29,672
China lost a million people.
1178
01:14:29,706 --> 01:14:31,328
Mao lost his own son.
1179
01:14:31,363 --> 01:14:32,571
And U.S. too,
1180
01:14:32,606 --> 01:14:35,436
what do we accomplish after
three years of destruction?
1181
01:14:35,471 --> 01:14:37,300
We're left with where we started,
1182
01:14:37,334 --> 01:14:41,477
with the, with the DMZ and
the 38th parallel.
1183
01:15:00,439 --> 01:15:06,392
♪ Some people love to love ♪
1184
01:15:07,748 --> 01:15:11,648
♪ While some people seem to wait... ♪
1185
01:15:11,783 --> 01:15:18,341
Most of us when we came
back really felt like
1186
01:15:18,375 --> 01:15:21,586
we had not accomplished much.
1187
01:15:21,793 --> 01:15:24,381
The American people generally,
1188
01:15:24,416 --> 01:15:27,799
most of them really didn't
even know where we'd been.
1189
01:15:27,833 --> 01:15:31,216
A number of the Korean
veterans that I know of that
1190
01:15:31,250 --> 01:15:33,839
came back home would
walk down the street and
1191
01:15:33,874 --> 01:15:36,428
their friends would ask
them, 'Where have you been?'
1192
01:15:36,462 --> 01:15:39,155
And they said, 'Oh, we've
been in a war in Korea.'
1193
01:15:39,189 --> 01:15:41,537
'Where's Korea?'
1194
01:15:41,571 --> 01:15:44,401
No one could gin
up enthusiasm for a victory
1195
01:15:44,436 --> 01:15:46,507
parade because there wasn't a victory.
1196
01:15:46,542 --> 01:15:50,062
In fact, when the troops came
home there was this armistice.
1197
01:15:50,097 --> 01:15:54,204
There was the possibility
that they might have to go back.
1198
01:15:58,105 --> 01:16:00,556
Despite the end of major combat,
1199
01:16:00,590 --> 01:16:03,075
the Korean War was far from over.
1200
01:16:03,110 --> 01:16:05,319
There was no official peace treaty,
1201
01:16:05,353 --> 01:16:09,634
thousands of POWs were
still awaiting repatriation
1202
01:16:09,668 --> 01:16:11,843
and tensions along the DMZ would require
1203
01:16:11,877 --> 01:16:14,742
President Eisenhower
to commit tens of thousands
1204
01:16:14,777 --> 01:16:19,057
of troops to act as a standing
force along the border.
1205
01:16:21,922 --> 01:16:26,582
But at home, Americans were
tired of war and had long lost
1206
01:16:26,616 --> 01:16:30,102
interest in events in Korea.
1207
01:16:30,413 --> 01:16:33,692
Americans conclude that not that much
1208
01:16:33,727 --> 01:16:36,143
was at stake in Korea.
1209
01:16:36,177 --> 01:16:39,249
We're not going to World
War III over Korea,
1210
01:16:39,284 --> 01:16:43,460
and the Communists aren't
going to take over South Korea.
1211
01:16:43,944 --> 01:16:47,948
It didn't seem to be
threatening to America's
1212
01:16:47,982 --> 01:16:51,158
actual life and livelihood.
1213
01:16:51,192 --> 01:16:52,677
Let's just forget about this.
1214
01:17:05,448 --> 01:17:07,657
The luxury of forgetting the war was not
1215
01:17:07,692 --> 01:17:10,487
possible on the Korean peninsula.
1216
01:17:10,522 --> 01:17:13,214
Three years of bloody
conflict had left both
1217
01:17:13,249 --> 01:17:16,770
Koreas devastated,
their cities flattened and
1218
01:17:16,804 --> 01:17:19,980
their economies destroyed.
1219
01:17:20,566 --> 01:17:22,948
After the armistice was signed,
1220
01:17:22,983 --> 01:17:26,503
the Korean peninsula was
basically a field of rubble.
1221
01:17:26,538 --> 01:17:29,783
The United States dropped
more ordinance on North Korea
1222
01:17:29,817 --> 01:17:32,958
in that three-year war than
we dropped during the entire
1223
01:17:32,993 --> 01:17:36,065
Second World War,
basically leveled the country.
1224
01:17:38,274 --> 01:17:41,622
The southern side of
the peninsula was no better.
1225
01:17:41,657 --> 01:17:43,382
Everything was leveled.
1226
01:17:43,417 --> 01:17:46,523
They were starting very much from scratch.
1227
01:17:47,041 --> 01:17:49,734
Despite an influx
of millions of American dollars
1228
01:17:49,768 --> 01:17:52,840
to rebuild South Korea,
the country remained among
1229
01:17:52,875 --> 01:17:55,636
the world's poorest.
1230
01:17:55,947 --> 01:17:59,088
Syngman Rhee, who after
the armistice continued his
1231
01:17:59,122 --> 01:18:03,126
authoritarian regime, ruled
over a government rife with
1232
01:18:03,161 --> 01:18:06,543
corruption and mismanagement.
1233
01:18:06,820 --> 01:18:09,788
Syngman Rhee ruled
the country ostensibly as a
1234
01:18:09,823 --> 01:18:13,619
constitutional democracy, but
really in a very brutal and
1235
01:18:13,654 --> 01:18:18,728
ruthless way, very cliquish,
focusing on providing benefits
1236
01:18:18,763 --> 01:18:23,008
to his followers,
punishing his detractors,
1237
01:18:23,043 --> 01:18:25,735
and he essentially sought
economic assistance from the
1238
01:18:25,770 --> 01:18:28,289
United States and from other countries,
1239
01:18:28,324 --> 01:18:32,121
but was using it largely
to subsidize his own rule and
1240
01:18:32,155 --> 01:18:35,711
was not really putting
it into an economic plan.
1241
01:18:37,643 --> 01:18:40,474
In the countryside
and in major cities food
1242
01:18:40,508 --> 01:18:44,685
and basic resources
remained scant for years.
1243
01:19:05,913 --> 01:19:08,088
I was raised in Gangnam,
1244
01:19:08,122 --> 01:19:11,574
Apgujeong-dong in Gangnam,
with Psy, the singer,
1245
01:19:11,608 --> 01:19:13,093
sings about it.
1246
01:19:13,127 --> 01:19:16,406
So, I have a memory of that,
when it was just a field,
1247
01:19:16,441 --> 01:19:19,409
and had none of these buildings.
1248
01:19:19,444 --> 01:19:21,549
South Korea, people forget,
was one of the poorest
1249
01:19:21,584 --> 01:19:24,449
countries in the world.
1250
01:19:30,524 --> 01:19:32,802
In North Korea, despite the complete
1251
01:19:32,837 --> 01:19:34,977
destruction of its infrastructure,
1252
01:19:35,011 --> 01:19:38,221
Kim Il-sung quickly oversaw
the complete transformation
1253
01:19:38,256 --> 01:19:42,432
of his country and
rebuilt it in his image.
1254
01:19:43,226 --> 01:19:45,090
After the end of the Korean War,
1255
01:19:45,125 --> 01:19:47,783
the North Korean economy
developed quite rapidly
1256
01:19:47,817 --> 01:19:50,199
because they had a great
deal of support from the
1257
01:19:50,233 --> 01:19:53,823
Soviet Union and from Communist China.
1258
01:19:56,032 --> 01:19:59,829
Economic growth in
North Korea through the '50s,
1259
01:19:59,864 --> 01:20:04,109
after the armistice and
really into the early '60s,
1260
01:20:04,144 --> 01:20:08,493
was clearly greater
than that of South Korea.
1261
01:20:10,909 --> 01:20:12,911
Kim Il-sung used the memory of the war
1262
01:20:12,946 --> 01:20:15,258
to double down on his authority.
1263
01:20:15,293 --> 01:20:18,675
In his re-writing of history,
America and South Korea were
1264
01:20:18,710 --> 01:20:22,610
the aggressors who instigated
the war and it was he who
1265
01:20:22,645 --> 01:20:26,822
lead North Korea to
victory over American tyranny.
1266
01:20:27,892 --> 01:20:29,928
The way the North Koreans learn about the
1267
01:20:29,963 --> 01:20:32,655
Korean War is that the
United States, first of all,
1268
01:20:32,689 --> 01:20:36,452
divided the Korean peninsula,
then invaded North Korea,
1269
01:20:36,486 --> 01:20:39,317
but under the great
leadership of Kim Il-sung,
1270
01:20:39,351 --> 01:20:41,906
the North Koreans emerged victorious,
1271
01:20:41,940 --> 01:20:44,770
yet you have to continually
fight against the Americans,
1272
01:20:44,805 --> 01:20:47,912
because the Americans are bent
on destruction of North Korea,
1273
01:20:48,705 --> 01:20:52,778
and this is sort of repeated
over and over and over.
1274
01:20:53,020 --> 01:20:54,988
To strengthen
this mythology and consolidate
1275
01:20:55,022 --> 01:20:59,647
his power, Kim enforced
a series of brutal purges.
1276
01:21:00,648 --> 01:21:02,547
After the war, Kim Il-sung was in a very
1277
01:21:02,581 --> 01:21:06,137
vulnerable position, because
he led the country into this
1278
01:21:06,171 --> 01:21:11,176
disaster but Kim Il-sung is a
survivor and he then begins to
1279
01:21:11,211 --> 01:21:14,490
consolidate his power
and then a huge purge happens
1280
01:21:14,524 --> 01:21:16,975
in '58 and '59.
1281
01:21:17,942 --> 01:21:21,704
Some people say like
100,000 people then are killed,
1282
01:21:21,911 --> 01:21:25,432
by '61, he's totally in power.
1283
01:21:25,881 --> 01:21:28,297
Kim even created
his own political philosophy
1284
01:21:28,331 --> 01:21:29,988
in order to govern the country.
1285
01:21:30,023 --> 01:21:33,336
He called it "Juche" a
revolutionary theory that
1286
01:21:33,371 --> 01:21:36,546
focused on independence, nationalism
1287
01:21:36,581 --> 01:21:39,618
and most importantly self-defense.
1288
01:21:59,397 --> 01:22:02,193
Before he defected to the south in 2004,
1289
01:22:02,227 --> 01:22:05,713
Jang Jin Sung was a prominent
member of the North Korean
1290
01:22:05,748 --> 01:22:08,820
propaganda wing and was
raised under the influence
1291
01:22:08,854 --> 01:22:10,787
of Kim Il-sung.
1292
01:22:47,617 --> 01:22:49,619
Though increasingly isolated,
1293
01:22:49,654 --> 01:22:53,037
Kim Il-sung's vision for
his country remained true,
1294
01:22:53,071 --> 01:22:56,385
to build an army strong enough
to defend itself from America
1295
01:22:56,419 --> 01:23:01,355
and South Korea and to
one day unify the peninsula.
1296
01:23:15,024 --> 01:23:18,338
By 1968 South Korea
had emerged from the era of
1297
01:23:18,372 --> 01:23:21,306
corruption and economic
stagnation that had marred
1298
01:23:21,341 --> 01:23:24,137
Syngman Rhee's administration.
1299
01:23:25,517 --> 01:23:28,244
Under the leadership
of General Park Chung Hee,
1300
01:23:28,279 --> 01:23:31,247
a military leader with
an eye toward modernity,
1301
01:23:31,282 --> 01:23:34,009
South Korea's economy was booming.
1302
01:23:36,459 --> 01:23:38,634
By the late 1960s and early '70s,
1303
01:23:38,668 --> 01:23:42,431
Park Chung-hee implemented
an export-oriented economy and
1304
01:23:42,465 --> 01:23:45,537
it was through his guidance
that South Korea as we
1305
01:23:45,572 --> 01:23:49,231
know it really began
to take off economically.
1306
01:23:50,301 --> 01:23:54,581
I mean he was also a dictator,
but he was able to create the
1307
01:23:54,615 --> 01:23:58,171
economic platform from
which South Korea could
1308
01:23:58,205 --> 01:24:01,381
then develop into a democracy.
1309
01:24:01,760 --> 01:24:04,694
And of course South Korea's
rise and global power and
1310
01:24:04,729 --> 01:24:07,939
success then reflected back on the success
1311
01:24:07,973 --> 01:24:10,942
of the American war.
1312
01:24:10,976 --> 01:24:13,565
While South Korea's
prosperity was heralded across
1313
01:24:13,600 --> 01:24:17,604
the Western world, to Kim Il-sung
and North Korea
1314
01:24:17,638 --> 01:24:20,227
it was a threat.
1315
01:24:23,679 --> 01:24:25,508
As South Korea started to take off
1316
01:24:25,543 --> 01:24:28,856
economically, North Korea
then saw the window for
1317
01:24:28,891 --> 01:24:32,550
reunification closing
because it had surpassed
1318
01:24:32,584 --> 01:24:34,103
North Korea's economy.
1319
01:24:34,138 --> 01:24:36,623
North Korea was going down economically,
1320
01:24:36,657 --> 01:24:39,177
South Korea was going up.
1321
01:24:39,695 --> 01:24:42,974
With thousands of American
troops sitting on its border,
1322
01:24:43,008 --> 01:24:45,770
and a well-armed South Korean military,
1323
01:24:45,804 --> 01:24:48,186
Kim Il-sung saw his
opportunities to unite the
1324
01:24:48,221 --> 01:24:52,087
peninsula under his own
control shrinking by the day.
1325
01:24:53,812 --> 01:24:59,439
Between 1967 and 1972,
it did look like that
1326
01:24:59,473 --> 01:25:03,098
North Koreans really wanted
to restart hostilities and
1327
01:25:03,132 --> 01:25:07,412
maybe create havoc by
successful assassinations
1328
01:25:07,447 --> 01:25:10,484
of high level officials.
1329
01:25:10,726 --> 01:25:13,901
So, a short period which
is sometimes called
1330
01:25:13,936 --> 01:25:16,801
the second Korean war began.
1331
01:25:17,422 --> 01:25:19,321
And it was at that
point that North Korea then
1332
01:25:19,355 --> 01:25:22,013
begins a series of
provocative actions in order
1333
01:25:22,047 --> 01:25:25,568
to unify the peninsula
under Kim Il-sung's rule.
1334
01:25:26,673 --> 01:25:29,296
On January 21st 1968,
1335
01:25:29,331 --> 01:25:32,403
Kim Il-sung ordered his most
brazen military operation
1336
01:25:32,437 --> 01:25:36,131
since the signing of the 1953 armistice.
1337
01:25:36,510 --> 01:25:39,479
A unit of highly trained North
Korean commandos cut their way
1338
01:25:39,513 --> 01:25:43,828
through barbed wire along the
DMZ and snuck into the south.
1339
01:25:44,898 --> 01:25:48,212
Donning South Korean military
uniforms and credentials,
1340
01:25:48,246 --> 01:25:50,904
the commandos stormed the Blue House,
1341
01:25:50,938 --> 01:25:53,976
the private residence
of President Park Chung Hee.
1342
01:25:55,184 --> 01:25:57,186
The commandos' orders,
which came directly from
1343
01:25:57,221 --> 01:26:01,501
Kim Il-sung, were concise and explicit.
1344
01:26:01,708 --> 01:26:03,330
The instructions were basically,
1345
01:26:03,365 --> 01:26:06,368
to go to the Blue House
to kill the South Korean
1346
01:26:06,402 --> 01:26:09,198
president, Park Chung-Hee,
to cut off his head and
1347
01:26:09,233 --> 01:26:11,545
bring it back to North Korea.
1348
01:26:13,064 --> 01:26:14,686
The North Koreans got within yards of
1349
01:26:14,721 --> 01:26:17,033
the president before they were discovered,
1350
01:26:17,068 --> 01:26:19,967
and the assassination was thwarted.
1351
01:26:20,554 --> 01:26:23,074
And I sincerely hope Kim Il-sung
1352
01:26:23,108 --> 01:26:28,459
and his people up north
recognize the futility and
1353
01:26:28,493 --> 01:26:32,566
the unwisdom of continuing this action.
1354
01:26:33,567 --> 01:26:36,294
But just days later,
North Korea captured the USS
1355
01:26:36,329 --> 01:26:40,850
Pueblo which had been sailing
off of the coast of Korea.
1356
01:26:40,885 --> 01:26:44,440
The 82-man crew was bound, blindfolded,
1357
01:26:44,475 --> 01:26:46,753
and transported to Pyongyang,
1358
01:26:46,787 --> 01:26:49,928
where they were charged as spies.
1359
01:26:52,310 --> 01:26:55,624
For eleven months, the
ship's crew was tortured
1360
01:26:55,658 --> 01:26:58,799
and subjected to harsh interrogations.
1361
01:26:59,110 --> 01:27:01,146
The North Koreans committed yet
1362
01:27:01,181 --> 01:27:04,391
another wanton and aggressive act by
1363
01:27:04,426 --> 01:27:08,533
seizing an American ship and its crew.
1364
01:27:08,568 --> 01:27:12,261
Clearly, this cannot be accepted.
1365
01:27:12,296 --> 01:27:14,263
By the winter of 1968,
1366
01:27:14,298 --> 01:27:16,886
it seemed America was
once again being pulled into
1367
01:27:16,921 --> 01:27:20,304
the conflict in Korea just
as their war in Vietnam
1368
01:27:20,338 --> 01:27:22,547
was heating up.
1369
01:27:22,582 --> 01:27:24,446
The seizure of the Pueblo happened almost
1370
01:27:24,480 --> 01:27:27,656
conterminously with the Tet
offensive and was designed
1371
01:27:27,690 --> 01:27:30,452
to put pressure on the
US by the North Koreans,
1372
01:27:30,486 --> 01:27:32,143
who were helping the North Vietnamese
1373
01:27:32,177 --> 01:27:35,526
as pilots and things like that.
1374
01:27:35,560 --> 01:27:38,253
The Pueblo incident kind of illustrates
1375
01:27:38,287 --> 01:27:41,808
the dilemma that the
Americans have always been in,
1376
01:27:41,842 --> 01:27:44,500
because we do have
major interests in Korea,
1377
01:27:44,535 --> 01:27:46,985
but we have global interests as well.
1378
01:27:47,020 --> 01:27:50,920
So the Americans were
deeply engaged in Vietnam,
1379
01:27:50,955 --> 01:27:54,269
and were scared to death that
Park Chung Hee would take some
1380
01:27:54,303 --> 01:27:58,721
kind of action that would
create a renewed Korean war.
1381
01:27:59,343 --> 01:28:01,241
Park Chung-hee is furious.
1382
01:28:01,276 --> 01:28:02,760
He wants to go north.
1383
01:28:02,794 --> 01:28:06,626
He wants to seek revenge
for the Blue House raid,
1384
01:28:06,660 --> 01:28:09,180
but all the other powers
around the Korean Peninsula,
1385
01:28:09,214 --> 01:28:13,460
of course, are not interested
in restarting the Korean War.
1386
01:28:13,495 --> 01:28:16,912
The Americans are bogged down in Vietnam.
1387
01:28:16,946 --> 01:28:19,708
The Soviet Union has
distractions in Eastern
1388
01:28:19,742 --> 01:28:23,090
Europe, it invades Czechoslovakia in 1968,
1389
01:28:24,368 --> 01:28:28,406
and the Chinese are involved
in their cultural revolution,
1390
01:28:28,993 --> 01:28:32,341
so the outside powers outside
of the Korean Peninsula have
1391
01:28:32,376 --> 01:28:35,620
no interest in starting the Korean War,
1392
01:28:35,655 --> 01:28:39,383
but the two Koreas want,
again, to start a war.
1393
01:28:40,315 --> 01:28:42,282
With pressure from America Korean
1394
01:28:42,317 --> 01:28:45,630
President Park stood down.
1395
01:28:45,941 --> 01:28:48,184
The American crew of the
Pueblo were released in
1396
01:28:48,219 --> 01:28:52,327
December 1968 but the
ship was never returned.
1397
01:28:56,952 --> 01:29:00,265
I think it's fair to say
that after the initial hot war
1398
01:29:00,300 --> 01:29:02,440
between North and South Korea,
1399
01:29:02,475 --> 01:29:04,373
there was a cold war
competition between the
1400
01:29:04,408 --> 01:29:07,169
North and the South
that was quite intense.
1401
01:29:07,203 --> 01:29:09,792
Lots of hostilities day
to day along the border,
1402
01:29:09,827 --> 01:29:12,899
and every time in that history
whenever we saw the south
1403
01:29:12,933 --> 01:29:16,696
Koreans doing something good,
the North Koreans would always
1404
01:29:16,730 --> 01:29:19,492
seek to spoil that party.
1405
01:29:19,526 --> 01:29:21,390
Simmering tensions between the two Koreas
1406
01:29:21,425 --> 01:29:25,360
continued throughout the 70's and 80's.
1407
01:29:26,775 --> 01:29:29,881
Then as the decade wound down,
1408
01:29:29,916 --> 01:29:33,126
North Korea would strike yet again,
1409
01:29:33,160 --> 01:29:36,405
this time while the whole world watched.
1410
01:29:50,523 --> 01:29:53,042
These games were widely seen worldwide as
1411
01:29:53,077 --> 01:29:56,632
a triumph of the south
Korean anti-communist regimes.
1412
01:29:57,530 --> 01:30:02,258
And well, North Koreans
wanted to spoil the show.
1413
01:30:02,535 --> 01:30:06,366
In November of 1987,
just weeks before South Korea
1414
01:30:06,401 --> 01:30:09,542
was to hold its first
democratic elections while
1415
01:30:09,576 --> 01:30:12,372
busily preparing for the Olympic games,
1416
01:30:12,407 --> 01:30:15,582
two North Korean agents
working under orders from
1417
01:30:15,617 --> 01:30:20,863
the Kim regime planted a bomb
aboard Korean air flight 858.
1418
01:30:22,106 --> 01:30:26,628
All 104 passengers and
11 crew members were killed.
1419
01:30:28,492 --> 01:30:30,563
The republic of
Korea has produced evidence
1420
01:30:30,597 --> 01:30:34,014
that KAL 858 was destroyed
by an act of terrorism
1421
01:30:34,049 --> 01:30:36,431
by North Korea.
1422
01:30:40,504 --> 01:30:43,886
This bombing of
the Korean Airlines plane was
1423
01:30:43,921 --> 01:30:48,408
just a part of their efforts
to create a climate of fear,
1424
01:30:48,719 --> 01:30:52,516
to prevent people from going
to the Seoul Olympic Games.
1425
01:30:55,588 --> 01:30:57,313
But the desperate act of terror by
1426
01:30:57,348 --> 01:31:00,213
Kim Il-sung backfired.
1427
01:31:00,247 --> 01:31:02,215
And it's at that point, that really,
1428
01:31:02,249 --> 01:31:05,908
you can say that the
Korean War has been won
1429
01:31:05,943 --> 01:31:08,635
by South Korea.
1430
01:31:10,603 --> 01:31:14,848
The world to Seoul, Seoul to the world...
1431
01:31:20,129 --> 01:31:22,269
And then the Soviet
Union establishes diplomatic
1432
01:31:22,304 --> 01:31:24,375
relations with South Korea in 1990.
1433
01:31:24,409 --> 01:31:27,274
China follows in 1992.
1434
01:31:27,309 --> 01:31:29,656
So North Korea is now
diplomatically isolated,
1435
01:31:29,691 --> 01:31:31,762
humiliated by the Seoul Olympics,
1436
01:31:31,796 --> 01:31:36,076
and unable to deal with
South Korea on any equal terms.
1437
01:31:36,974 --> 01:31:40,460
And it's that time then,
that the North Korean regime
1438
01:31:40,495 --> 01:31:43,670
seeks its nuclear program
for its own security.
1439
01:32:00,342 --> 01:32:03,932
On July 8th 1994, Kim Il-sung died.
1440
01:32:08,557 --> 01:32:11,042
Ordinary North Koreans
were forced into a state
1441
01:32:11,077 --> 01:32:13,044
of prolonged mourning.
1442
01:33:12,345 --> 01:33:13,691
Kim's son,
1443
01:33:13,726 --> 01:33:16,763
Kim Jong-il was made supreme leader.
1444
01:33:16,798 --> 01:33:19,697
He inherited a country in crisis.
1445
01:33:19,732 --> 01:33:22,251
The collapse of the Soviet
Union in the early 90's
1446
01:33:22,286 --> 01:33:25,703
devastated the North
Korean economy and a series
1447
01:33:25,738 --> 01:33:30,052
of successive famines killed an
estimated one million Koreans.
1448
01:33:32,641 --> 01:33:35,230
But even as his people were starving,
1449
01:33:35,264 --> 01:33:37,750
Kim doubled down on his father's expensive
1450
01:33:37,784 --> 01:33:40,235
nuclear ambitions.
1451
01:33:41,408 --> 01:33:43,825
So everyone really
thinks at that point that
1452
01:33:43,859 --> 01:33:46,793
North Korea's going to
collapse and yet it doesn't.
1453
01:33:46,828 --> 01:33:50,107
Kim Jong-il continues
with his nuclear program and
1454
01:33:50,141 --> 01:33:54,490
he knows that is the only
leverage he has for survival.
1455
01:33:55,630 --> 01:33:57,942
The situation in Korea is serious,
1456
01:33:57,977 --> 01:33:59,495
we are examining what we can do,
1457
01:33:59,530 --> 01:34:03,707
we're talking to our
South Korean partners...
1458
01:34:03,741 --> 01:34:06,261
In 1994, after it was discovered that the
1459
01:34:06,295 --> 01:34:10,161
North was secretly
producing plutonium for a bomb,
1460
01:34:10,196 --> 01:34:12,543
President Bill Clinton
dispatched a team of American
1461
01:34:12,577 --> 01:34:15,650
diplomats to Geneva to defuse the crisis.
1462
01:34:16,616 --> 01:34:17,962
We are pursuing our sanctions
1463
01:34:17,997 --> 01:34:20,275
discussions in the United Nations.
1464
01:34:20,309 --> 01:34:22,173
After months of negotiations,
1465
01:34:22,208 --> 01:34:25,107
Kim Jong-il consented to
freeze his nuclear program
1466
01:34:25,142 --> 01:34:27,731
in exchange for increased aid.
1467
01:34:28,145 --> 01:34:31,113
They called it the
"Agreed Framework."
1468
01:34:31,148 --> 01:34:33,633
Bill Clinton referred
to the deal as the first step
1469
01:34:33,668 --> 01:34:37,361
on the road to a nuclear
free Korean peninsula.
1470
01:34:38,327 --> 01:34:41,365
So, that was sort
of the height of diplomacy.
1471
01:34:41,399 --> 01:34:43,401
Madeleine Albright as
the Secretary of State went
1472
01:34:43,436 --> 01:34:45,921
to North Korea.
1473
01:34:45,956 --> 01:34:49,235
The problem is that
North Koreans were pursuing
1474
01:34:49,269 --> 01:34:52,548
a separate track, a
uranium enrichment program,
1475
01:34:52,583 --> 01:34:55,655
before the 1994 agreed framework,
1476
01:34:55,690 --> 01:34:59,210
during the negotiation, and
after the agreed framework.
1477
01:34:59,245 --> 01:35:02,731
So, North Koreans were always
bent on keeping some aspect
1478
01:35:02,766 --> 01:35:05,044
of their nuclear program.
1479
01:35:06,286 --> 01:35:08,599
For North Korea,
nuclear weapons are not only
1480
01:35:08,633 --> 01:35:10,808
the ultimate sign of strength,
1481
01:35:10,843 --> 01:35:14,122
but they have meaning for
North Korea and their history
1482
01:35:14,156 --> 01:35:19,161
because Kim Il-sung saw how
Japan's occupation of Korea,
1483
01:35:19,196 --> 01:35:23,407
which looked like it would never end,
1484
01:35:23,441 --> 01:35:26,686
suddenly being terminated
by two atomic bombs
1485
01:35:26,721 --> 01:35:29,758
that the United States dropped on Japan.
1486
01:35:29,793 --> 01:35:33,935
They saw China explode a
nuclear device in 1964 and
1487
01:35:33,969 --> 01:35:38,180
then become a permanent member
of the U.N. Security Council.
1488
01:35:39,803 --> 01:35:42,288
These are the interpretations,
the lessons the North Koreans
1489
01:35:42,322 --> 01:35:45,532
learned from the ability
to have nuclear weapons.
1490
01:35:57,027 --> 01:35:59,374
As North Korea
retreated further and further
1491
01:35:59,408 --> 01:36:02,860
into isolation, South Korea
was becoming a paragon of
1492
01:36:02,895 --> 01:36:06,036
capitalism, and democracy.
1493
01:36:06,070 --> 01:36:09,108
Even though the war between
the two had not ended,
1494
01:36:09,142 --> 01:36:12,801
memories of it receded behind
glowing monuments to economic
1495
01:36:12,836 --> 01:36:15,908
progress, spearheaded by
the success of companies
1496
01:36:15,942 --> 01:36:19,083
like Samsung and Hyundai.
1497
01:36:20,015 --> 01:36:23,398
But by the late 90s, as
democracy ripened and with it
1498
01:36:23,432 --> 01:36:27,126
a free press, harrowing truths
about the war finally came
1499
01:36:27,160 --> 01:36:30,577
to light and threatened
to strain the long standing
1500
01:36:30,612 --> 01:36:33,960
alliance between America and South Korea.
1501
01:36:51,391 --> 01:36:53,635
Choe Sang-Hun was
reporter for the Associated
1502
01:36:53,669 --> 01:36:55,948
Press in Seoul in the late '90s.
1503
01:37:29,809 --> 01:37:32,156
Choe partnered
with a team at AP's New York
1504
01:37:32,191 --> 01:37:35,435
bureau, led by Charles Hanley.
1505
01:37:35,850 --> 01:37:39,405
The investigation was a very detailed,
1506
01:37:39,439 --> 01:37:44,479
very arduous, onerous,
drawn-out investigation.
1507
01:37:45,135 --> 01:37:47,862
It wasn't easy.
1508
01:37:47,896 --> 01:37:49,587
The team began to interview survivors who
1509
01:37:49,622 --> 01:37:52,142
described atrocities
perpetrated by American
1510
01:37:52,176 --> 01:37:55,731
military in the earliest days of the war.
1511
01:37:57,250 --> 01:38:01,496
One of the worst was the
massacre at No Gun Ri where
1512
01:38:01,530 --> 01:38:05,569
hundreds of South Korean
civilian refugees were killed
1513
01:38:05,603 --> 01:38:08,986
while they huddled under a train overpass.
1514
01:38:49,199 --> 01:38:52,857
The stories from the Korean survivors
1515
01:38:52,892 --> 01:38:54,859
were just horrible.
1516
01:38:54,894 --> 01:38:59,968
And the key thing then was
to find the Americans involved.
1517
01:39:00,003 --> 01:39:02,971
We needed to find corroboration.
1518
01:39:03,006 --> 01:39:05,732
My colleague Martha
Mendoza and I began making
1519
01:39:05,767 --> 01:39:09,253
cold calls to these veterans.
1520
01:39:09,288 --> 01:39:11,255
Homer Garza was a 17 year old private with
1521
01:39:11,290 --> 01:39:13,223
the Army's 7th Cavalry.
1522
01:39:13,257 --> 01:39:17,089
He says he arrived at No Gun Ri
just after the massacre ended.
1523
01:39:18,159 --> 01:39:21,610
There was two tunnels side by side.
1524
01:39:21,645 --> 01:39:24,717
When we got there,
there must've been about
1525
01:39:24,751 --> 01:39:29,929
300 South Korean civilians
that were killed there.
1526
01:39:31,103 --> 01:39:36,108
One thing I'll never forget,
there was a woman, a mother,
1527
01:39:36,142 --> 01:39:37,592
laying there on her back.
1528
01:39:37,626 --> 01:39:41,527
And she had a little baby
about, probably about,
1529
01:39:41,561 --> 01:39:47,050
not more than 8 or 9 months
old trying to nurse on the
1530
01:39:47,084 --> 01:39:50,570
dead body there, you know.
1531
01:39:51,778 --> 01:39:53,884
Garza contends American soldiers were not
1532
01:39:53,918 --> 01:39:58,026
to blame for the massacre
but along with other veterans
1533
01:39:58,061 --> 01:39:59,994
he has confirmed that their orders during
1534
01:40:00,028 --> 01:40:02,686
the war were clear.
1535
01:40:02,720 --> 01:40:06,000
We received orders
that anything in front of us
1536
01:40:06,034 --> 01:40:09,175
was the enemy, no matter
who was in front of us.
1537
01:40:09,210 --> 01:40:14,008
If they didn't shoot at you,
you would shoot at them.
1538
01:40:14,042 --> 01:40:15,112
Yeah.
1539
01:40:15,147 --> 01:40:18,667
Whether they was a male or a female.
1540
01:40:21,187 --> 01:40:24,639
Choe, Hanley, and
a team of AP reporters dug
1541
01:40:24,673 --> 01:40:26,951
into the Pentagon's files,
1542
01:40:26,986 --> 01:40:29,885
many of them formerly classified
1543
01:40:29,920 --> 01:40:33,441
what they found there supported
the survivors' accounts.
1544
01:40:33,682 --> 01:40:36,271
There were orders
flying around the warfront
1545
01:40:36,306 --> 01:40:38,998
to treat civilians as enemy.
1546
01:40:40,793 --> 01:40:43,313
Orders from the very top
command, the 8th Army,
1547
01:40:43,347 --> 01:40:47,213
to stop any refugee movement across lines.
1548
01:40:48,456 --> 01:40:53,116
This was just a prima
facie case of a war crime.
1549
01:40:53,150 --> 01:40:56,050
Targeting noncombatants
has always been considered
1550
01:40:56,084 --> 01:40:58,086
a war crime,
1551
01:40:58,121 --> 01:41:01,952
and these were the
first documents like this
1552
01:41:01,986 --> 01:41:04,610
to be turned up.
1553
01:41:04,644 --> 01:41:07,578
On September 29, 1999,
1554
01:41:07,613 --> 01:41:09,822
the AP published the first piece of
1555
01:41:09,856 --> 01:41:11,755
their investigative report.
1556
01:41:11,789 --> 01:41:13,722
By the next day, Defense Secretary
1557
01:41:13,757 --> 01:41:17,554
William Cohen had ordered
an Army investigation,
1558
01:41:17,588 --> 01:41:21,075
which dragged on for many months.
1559
01:41:22,593 --> 01:41:26,425
Somehow my name got
all the way to the Pentagon.
1560
01:41:27,357 --> 01:41:30,843
And I got on the phone and he said,
1561
01:41:30,877 --> 01:41:32,293
"This is Colonel so-and-so."
1562
01:41:32,327 --> 01:41:35,986
Says, "We want to talk
to you about No Gun Ri."
1563
01:41:36,193 --> 01:41:39,023
I says, "Neither one of
you have been in combat so
1564
01:41:39,058 --> 01:41:41,509
you don't know what the
hell you're talking about.
1565
01:41:41,543 --> 01:41:43,476
You're fighting to keep your ass alive.
1566
01:41:43,511 --> 01:41:45,444
That's what you're doing."
1567
01:41:47,446 --> 01:41:49,793
Outraged South
Koreans demanded an official
1568
01:41:49,827 --> 01:41:53,762
apology from the
U.S. but one never came.
1569
01:41:54,798 --> 01:41:56,075
We know things happen which
1570
01:41:56,110 --> 01:41:57,283
should not have happened.
1571
01:41:57,318 --> 01:41:59,837
And that things happen which were wrong.
1572
01:41:59,872 --> 01:42:02,840
President Clinton
did not offer an apology.
1573
01:42:02,875 --> 01:42:06,844
An apology would be
an admission of culpability.
1574
01:42:06,879 --> 01:42:10,089
What Clinton issued
was a statement of regret.
1575
01:42:10,124 --> 01:42:13,679
Which of course simply says,
"It's too bad this thing
1576
01:42:13,713 --> 01:42:17,441
happened to you, we really
feel sorry for you."
1577
01:43:14,360 --> 01:43:16,086
A major disaster
is occurring in New York City
1578
01:43:16,120 --> 01:43:17,329
this morning.
1579
01:43:17,363 --> 01:43:19,227
If you are a New York City firefighter,
1580
01:43:19,262 --> 01:43:20,332
drop what you're doing.
1581
01:43:20,366 --> 01:43:22,575
Report to your company.
1582
01:43:26,614 --> 01:43:29,755
Every nation, in every region,
1583
01:43:29,789 --> 01:43:32,482
now has a decision to make.
1584
01:43:32,516 --> 01:43:35,174
Either you're with us.
1585
01:43:35,209 --> 01:43:38,073
Or you are with the terrorists.
1586
01:43:38,419 --> 01:43:40,283
In a speech after
the devastating terrorist
1587
01:43:40,317 --> 01:43:43,631
attacks on September 11th, 2001,
1588
01:43:43,665 --> 01:43:46,358
President Bush thrust North
Korea back into America's
1589
01:43:46,392 --> 01:43:50,672
consciousness, using the rogue
nation as justification for
1590
01:43:50,707 --> 01:43:53,744
his broader war on terror.
1591
01:43:53,779 --> 01:43:56,195
North Korea is
a regime arming with missiles
1592
01:43:56,230 --> 01:43:59,405
and weapons of mass destruction while
1593
01:43:59,440 --> 01:44:01,925
starving its citizens.
1594
01:44:01,959 --> 01:44:05,446
States like these, and
their terrorist allies,
1595
01:44:05,480 --> 01:44:09,243
constitute an axis of
evil arming to threaten
1596
01:44:09,277 --> 01:44:11,797
the peace of the world.
1597
01:44:14,075 --> 01:44:16,042
President Bush took a hardline approach to
1598
01:44:16,077 --> 01:44:19,045
North Korea, applying
economic sanctions to force
1599
01:44:19,080 --> 01:44:22,186
Kim Jong-il to give
up his nuclear program,
1600
01:44:23,015 --> 01:44:25,707
but his efforts failed.
1601
01:44:27,399 --> 01:44:31,679
On October 9, 2006, Kim
achieved the goal that he and
1602
01:44:31,713 --> 01:44:34,647
his father had long hoped for,
1603
01:44:34,682 --> 01:44:38,375
the successful test of a nuclear weapon.
1604
01:44:40,343 --> 01:44:43,311
What we don't know is his intentions.
1605
01:44:43,346 --> 01:44:45,002
And so, I think we've
got to plan for the worst
1606
01:44:45,037 --> 01:44:46,970
and hope for the best.
1607
01:44:47,004 --> 01:44:49,144
And planning for the worst
means to make sure that we
1608
01:44:49,179 --> 01:44:53,010
continue to send a unified
message to Kim Jong-il that,
1609
01:44:53,045 --> 01:44:56,980
you know, we expect you to
adhere to international norms.
1610
01:44:58,084 --> 01:44:59,776
Kim Jong-il continued to defy the
1611
01:44:59,810 --> 01:45:01,950
international community,
1612
01:45:01,985 --> 01:45:05,678
refusing to allow nuclear inspections.
1613
01:45:05,713 --> 01:45:08,371
And after his sudden death in 2011,
1614
01:45:08,405 --> 01:45:12,133
his son Kim Jong-un vowed
to carry on the family's
1615
01:45:12,167 --> 01:45:15,309
nuclear dreams.
1616
01:45:16,793 --> 01:45:19,761
At just 28 years of age,
Kim Jong-un became the
1617
01:45:19,796 --> 01:45:23,696
youngest leader in North Korean history.
1618
01:45:24,421 --> 01:45:26,837
In order to solidify his authority he drew
1619
01:45:26,872 --> 01:45:30,185
on the imagery of his iconic grandfather.
1620
01:45:30,220 --> 01:45:32,395
You know, here is
this guy, who's a young guy,
1621
01:45:32,429 --> 01:45:34,880
educated in the west, he
was not introduced to the
1622
01:45:34,914 --> 01:45:36,985
North Korean public
until a year before his
1623
01:45:37,020 --> 01:45:39,263
father's death in 2011.
1624
01:45:39,298 --> 01:45:42,370
And yet, he comes in there
and is able to consolidate
1625
01:45:42,405 --> 01:45:44,234
his power so quickly.
1626
01:45:44,268 --> 01:45:47,306
That just shows the power
of the Kim Il-sung myth,
1627
01:45:47,341 --> 01:45:48,790
and how it's still alive.
1628
01:45:48,825 --> 01:45:51,379
His power has something
to do with the fact that he is
1629
01:45:51,414 --> 01:45:54,796
Kim Il-sung's grandson.
1630
01:45:54,969 --> 01:45:58,213
He knows that Kim Il-sung
had popularity and
1631
01:45:58,248 --> 01:46:01,320
love of the Korean people,
North Korean people.
1632
01:46:01,355 --> 01:46:03,426
So that's why he wanted
to sort of even look like
1633
01:46:03,460 --> 01:46:06,843
his grandfather, the
way he dresses, his haircut,
1634
01:46:06,877 --> 01:46:09,224
just the whole outer
appearance looks like his
1635
01:46:09,259 --> 01:46:12,193
grandfather, and his
behavior is also more like
1636
01:46:12,227 --> 01:46:14,195
his grandfather.
1637
01:46:15,921 --> 01:46:18,233
By 2016, President Obama,
1638
01:46:18,268 --> 01:46:21,133
hoping to pressure the
young leader to end his pursuit
1639
01:46:21,167 --> 01:46:24,895
of nuclear weapons,
piled on more sanctions.
1640
01:46:24,930 --> 01:46:26,863
North Korea's continued pursuit of nuclear
1641
01:46:26,897 --> 01:46:30,418
weapons is a path that
leads only to more isolation.
1642
01:46:30,453 --> 01:46:32,731
It's not a sign of strength.
1643
01:46:32,765 --> 01:46:34,422
But rather than capitulate,
1644
01:46:34,457 --> 01:46:37,943
Kim Jong-un ratcheted up
his nuclear program invoking
1645
01:46:37,977 --> 01:46:41,084
the memory of the Korean War.
1646
01:46:53,821 --> 01:46:56,306
In the final weeks of Obama's presidency,
1647
01:46:56,340 --> 01:46:59,896
North Korea tested
their 5th nuclear warhead,
1648
01:46:59,930 --> 01:47:03,106
their most powerful yet.
1649
01:47:03,555 --> 01:47:06,454
The North Koreans,
the message that their leaders
1650
01:47:06,489 --> 01:47:11,425
give them is that we're not
going to let the United States
1651
01:47:11,459 --> 01:47:15,083
to do us what they did
between 1950 and '53,
1652
01:47:15,118 --> 01:47:17,051
and that's why we need
nuclear weapons and that's
1653
01:47:17,085 --> 01:47:20,088
why we need to have
missiles that can deliver them
1654
01:47:20,123 --> 01:47:22,125
to the continental United States.
1655
01:47:24,576 --> 01:47:26,301
I just had the opportunity to have
1656
01:47:26,336 --> 01:47:30,305
an excellent conversation
with President-elect Trump,
1657
01:47:30,340 --> 01:47:32,342
it was wide ranging...
1658
01:47:32,376 --> 01:47:34,240
In a meeting in the Oval Office,
1659
01:47:34,275 --> 01:47:38,106
Obama told his successor
Donald Trump that North Korea
1660
01:47:38,141 --> 01:47:42,490
would be his greatest
challenge as president.
1661
01:47:42,525 --> 01:47:45,424
Soon after, President Trump
went on the offensive...
1662
01:47:45,459 --> 01:47:48,703
North Korea best not make any more threats
1663
01:47:48,738 --> 01:47:50,740
to the United States.
1664
01:47:50,774 --> 01:47:55,192
They will be met with fire and fury.
1665
01:47:55,227 --> 01:47:57,263
Starting a war of
words with the North Korean
1666
01:47:57,298 --> 01:48:01,405
leader, that pushed the two
nations toward World War III.
1667
01:48:01,440 --> 01:48:04,512
From Kim Jong-un,
a first message in English,
1668
01:48:04,547 --> 01:48:07,791
vowing to make
President Trump quote "pay dearly",
1669
01:48:07,826 --> 01:48:10,794
calling him a "mentally deranged dotard"
1670
01:48:10,829 --> 01:48:13,141
or senile old man.
1671
01:48:13,176 --> 01:48:15,074
Rocket man should have been handled
1672
01:48:15,109 --> 01:48:16,559
a long time ago.
1673
01:48:20,217 --> 01:48:22,772
Little rocket man.
1674
01:48:37,994 --> 01:48:40,030
North Korea better get their act together,
1675
01:48:40,065 --> 01:48:41,273
or they're going to be in trouble,
1676
01:48:41,307 --> 01:48:44,725
like few nations ever
have been in trouble,
1677
01:48:44,759 --> 01:48:45,898
in this world.
1678
01:48:55,459 --> 01:48:57,392
To call Trump a bull in a China shop
1679
01:48:57,427 --> 01:48:58,911
is an understatement.
1680
01:48:58,946 --> 01:49:01,327
The United States has great strength and
1681
01:49:01,362 --> 01:49:04,848
patience, but if it is forced
to defend itself or its
1682
01:49:04,883 --> 01:49:10,095
allies, we will have no
choice but to totally destroy,
1683
01:49:10,129 --> 01:49:12,097
North Korea.
1684
01:49:12,131 --> 01:49:13,961
Threatening to
totally destroy North Korea,
1685
01:49:13,995 --> 01:49:16,584
at the UN, without anybody
pointing out that we already
1686
01:49:16,619 --> 01:49:19,760
did that during the Korean War.
1687
01:49:21,175 --> 01:49:23,177
But underneath the fiery rhetoric,
1688
01:49:23,211 --> 01:49:25,973
Trump was preparing a
step none of his predecessors
1689
01:49:26,007 --> 01:49:29,114
were willing to take.
1690
01:49:29,563 --> 01:49:30,840
President Trump and Kim Jong-un
1691
01:49:30,874 --> 01:49:32,393
are scheduled to shake hands and
1692
01:49:32,427 --> 01:49:33,877
sit down for a summit meeting.
1693
01:49:33,912 --> 01:49:36,500
The whole world will be watching.
1694
01:49:36,535 --> 01:49:38,433
Against the backdrop of North Korean
1695
01:49:38,468 --> 01:49:42,299
and American flags,
Trump and Kim shook hands,
1696
01:49:43,197 --> 01:49:45,544
the first time in
history leaders from these
1697
01:49:45,579 --> 01:49:48,616
two countries had ever met in person.
1698
01:49:48,651 --> 01:49:51,515
The two men spoke for a
few hours and later signed
1699
01:49:51,550 --> 01:49:54,588
a declaration vowing to work toward peace
1700
01:49:54,622 --> 01:49:56,762
and denuclearization.
1701
01:49:56,797 --> 01:50:00,214
Despite the vague and tepid
language of the document,
1702
01:50:00,248 --> 01:50:03,079
Trump left Singapore proclaiming victory.
1703
01:50:03,113 --> 01:50:04,356
They're gonna get rid of their nuclear
1704
01:50:04,390 --> 01:50:07,428
weapons, I really believe that
he will, I've gotten to...
1705
01:50:07,462 --> 01:50:08,740
Did he tell you that?
1706
01:50:08,774 --> 01:50:10,258
In a short period of time, yeah sure,
1707
01:50:10,293 --> 01:50:13,261
it's denuc-denuclearize,
he's denuking the whole place,
1708
01:50:13,296 --> 01:50:14,538
and he's going to start very quickly,
1709
01:50:14,573 --> 01:50:17,334
I think he's going to start now.
1710
01:50:17,369 --> 01:50:19,440
Trump administration
thinks if Kim Jong-un is
1711
01:50:19,474 --> 01:50:21,822
saying, "I'm now interested
in denuclearization of the
1712
01:50:21,856 --> 01:50:24,100
Korean peninsula," that
he's now willing to give up
1713
01:50:24,134 --> 01:50:25,895
North Korea's nuclear weapons,
1714
01:50:25,929 --> 01:50:27,759
but that's not what
Kim Jong-un is talking about.
1715
01:50:27,793 --> 01:50:30,451
Kim Jong-un is talking about
concluding a peace treaty,
1716
01:50:30,485 --> 01:50:32,936
ending US/South Korea alliance,
1717
01:50:32,971 --> 01:50:35,456
and then he's saying, only then,
1718
01:50:35,490 --> 01:50:37,492
when the regime's security is guaranteed,
1719
01:50:37,527 --> 01:50:40,288
he will think about
giving up nuclear weapons.
1720
01:50:40,703 --> 01:50:42,118
US intelligence says,
1721
01:50:42,152 --> 01:50:45,086
'no significant signs
of denuclearization',
1722
01:50:45,121 --> 01:50:47,261
contradicting this
tweet from President Trump
1723
01:50:47,295 --> 01:50:49,194
one day after Singapore.
1724
01:50:49,228 --> 01:50:51,679
Declaring, "There is
no longer a nuclear threat
1725
01:50:51,714 --> 01:50:54,613
from North Korea."
1726
01:50:54,648 --> 01:50:55,787
The Trump administration is being
1727
01:50:55,821 --> 01:50:56,960
taken for a ride.
1728
01:50:56,995 --> 01:50:58,065
I think it's becoming increasingly clear
1729
01:50:58,099 --> 01:50:59,135
that he got played.
1730
01:50:59,169 --> 01:51:00,205
Are they playing us?
1731
01:51:00,239 --> 01:51:01,482
I don't know.
1732
01:51:01,516 --> 01:51:05,175
This is the last, best
chance for peace right here.
1733
01:51:05,210 --> 01:51:07,522
The United States started
entering negotiations from
1734
01:51:07,557 --> 01:51:10,077
the Clinton administration onwards.
1735
01:51:10,111 --> 01:51:12,873
And in all of these cases
what the United States has put
1736
01:51:12,907 --> 01:51:16,704
on offer is remarkably
consistent which is the promise
1737
01:51:16,739 --> 01:51:20,294
of normal political relations,
the promise of a peace treaty
1738
01:51:20,328 --> 01:51:23,297
ending the Korean war,
economic assistance,
1739
01:51:23,331 --> 01:51:24,919
energy assistance.
1740
01:51:24,954 --> 01:51:27,508
All of these things would
be on offer to North Korea
1741
01:51:27,542 --> 01:51:31,339
if they did one thing which
is give up their nuclear weapons
1742
01:51:31,374 --> 01:51:32,651
and ballistic missiles.
1743
01:51:32,686 --> 01:51:35,827
But I think the main lesson
we've learned from all of this
1744
01:51:35,861 --> 01:51:37,898
is that the problem
is not the United States.
1745
01:51:37,932 --> 01:51:39,520
The problem is that
North Korea doesn't want
1746
01:51:39,554 --> 01:51:41,867
to give up its weapons.
1747
01:51:43,766 --> 01:51:46,389
In the end, the
prospects for peace may depend
1748
01:51:46,423 --> 01:51:49,668
not on the United States,
but on the two leaders of
1749
01:51:49,703 --> 01:51:53,568
this long-divided nation
and on its people,
1750
01:51:53,603 --> 01:51:57,572
still separated by
a never-ending conflict.
1751
01:53:34,083 --> 01:53:36,948
For these Koreans
who wish for reunification,
1752
01:53:36,982 --> 01:53:39,191
their hope to see
their families may only be
1753
01:53:39,226 --> 01:53:43,299
fulfilled with an official end to the war.
1754
01:53:43,540 --> 01:53:45,991
This is a blip in the history of Korea.
1755
01:53:46,026 --> 01:53:48,200
This division since 1945 and then the
1756
01:53:48,235 --> 01:53:50,927
Korean war since 1950.
1757
01:53:50,962 --> 01:53:54,344
It's the same ethnic make-up,
same language, same culture.
1758
01:53:54,379 --> 01:53:57,278
The two Koreas were one
Korea for thousands of years.
1759
01:53:57,313 --> 01:53:59,039
So I'm hoping that this division is
1760
01:53:59,073 --> 01:54:01,420
the anomaly in history.
1761
01:54:01,765 --> 01:54:03,526
We don't get fairy tale endings on
1762
01:54:03,560 --> 01:54:05,010
the Korean peninsula.
1763
01:54:05,045 --> 01:54:10,326
So whether it is the
Japanese occupation of Korea,
1764
01:54:10,360 --> 01:54:13,087
the start of the Korean war in 1950,
1765
01:54:13,122 --> 01:54:15,814
democratization in South Korea in 1987,
1766
01:54:15,849 --> 01:54:17,126
the list goes on and on.
1767
01:54:17,160 --> 01:54:20,301
History has shown that change
on the Korean peninsula
1768
01:54:20,336 --> 01:54:23,442
always comes suddenly,
it never comes gradually.