Remember the “Forgotten War?”
...in the United States that we could not afford to “lose” any more countries to communism. With these two issues in the back of everyone’s mind, the Korean War became more than just a civil war it became an argument over how we would face the communist threat in the future. These two factors influenced the way people thought about the war including whether or not they supported the United States in its actions. In a New York Times article, the editors outlined the feelings of the public toward the coming war in Korea. The article divided the public into six groups according to where the region in which they lived: Upper South, Deep South, New England, Central, Mountain, and the Pacific Coast. In all of the regions, the paper reported that the public was generally in favor of the US actions. Although there was support throughout the country, there were also qualifications of this support in some regions. In the Deep South for example, the New York Times reported that the people were cautious about giving full support because of a fear that the action will turn into a major war with Russia. The same was true for the report on the feelings of New Englanders. In the Central States, it was reported that they were strongly in favor of the action because they felt the communist aggression should be stopped. In this article it is possible to see two things. First, the American public was engaged in discussion over how best to act with respect to Korea from the beginning. Second, the greater political and international context of the time plays an important role in shaping the opinion of the public. Both issues, the communist threat and the threat of a major war with Russia, were important to the discussion of how to act in the Korean conflict. In general, it appears that if the communist threat was the most important issue to a person, he was more likely to support the war in Korea. President Truman made use of this feeling in his statement on Korea on June 27, 1950 when he used communist threat rhetoric to make the case for war. “The attack upon Korea makes it plain beyond all doubt that communism has passed beyond the use of subversion to conquer independent nations and will now use armed invasion and war.” This argument affected many people in the United States especially because of the semi-recent turn of the Chinese government to communism. Many people saw that occurrence as a disaster and a symptom of the growing threat to democracy. In an article written before President Truman had committed United States ships and planes to aid South Korea, David Lawrence addressed this fear. “The same policy which permitted China to be forfeited to the Communists now will see the loss of Korea to the Communists.” In an article written after President Truman’s statement promising to aid South Korea, Mark Foote discussed the communist threat, and its effect on the country’s opinion of the United States’ action in Korea. “The unprecedented and about-face action which President Truman executed in respect to containment of Communism in the Far East electrified and to a great extent unified the country.” He went on to say that “consensus is that the President did the right thing although belatedly.” In the beginning of the conflict it was already apparent that the country had a great fear of the spread of Communism and that many people even if they did not believe that going to war was a good thing or if they believed that doing so may throw the United States into the path of another world war, believed that “the dangers of inaction were greater than the dangers of the bold action taken by the President.” The threat of a third world war and whether United States action in the region would spark one was a “question that touched most American hearts as news poured in of the fighting in far Korea.” The administration, and most American citizens as well as the British government believed that Russia and/or China were behind North Korea’s invasion of its southern neighbor. It was believed by many that the invasion was the beginning of a communist plan for world domination, and how much Russia would be willing to fight for control of South Korea was a matter of much discussion. It was widely debated whether or not United States intervention on behalf of South Korea would lead to a major war with Russia. The consensus of reporters was that this would not happen, mainly because Russia was not yet ready for such a war and therefore would not instigate one. “My conviction is that Soviet Russia isn’t yet ready to plunge the globe into another international conflict,” wrote Hal Boyle in an article printed in The Flint Journal. Boyle goes on to talk about what he believes Russia’s motives were in South Korea. “Russia is still barking in Korea—just another test of her pressure—and isn’t ready to bite. She’ll still stand for her bluff being called. And I’d call Joe Stalin now, just as Adolf Hitler should have been called when he marched into the Rhineland. Remember?” Because many reporters were against the notion that a third world war was imminent, the issue lost some of its influence with the public, and the issue of the communist threat and expansion came to the forefront. With the communist threat influencing the American public’s (as well as its government’s) opinion, support for the United States’ aid to South Korea became more widespread. Support for the Korean War may have become widespread in the United States, even with those people who were inclined to be unsupportive, and who offered their support albeit with warnings of caution, but what were feelings about the war like overseas? Many people saw this war as greater than merely a civil war. This was a war between the east and west, and between communism and democracy. In Great Britain, the feelings were quite similar to those of our own especially in the government which pledged to aid the United Nations (and therefore the United States) with its action in Korea. There seemed to be a sense that the real danger was to Europe not Asia, that Russia’s true goal was to expand its influence into Europe. In the Times London, they portrayed the North Korean invasion as a “clear threat to international peace and security,” and that the attack was one “that struck at the fundamental purposes of the UN and openly defied its in...