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The real Korean story

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N JULY 19, President Harry Truman sent a message to the U.S. Con-
gress purporting to explain the steps taken by his government’ in the
Korean crisis. The main feature of his message was the irrelevant ver-

bosity with which he cloaked misrepresentations and outright lies.

cannot be allowed to go unchallenged, and here we take Truman’s mes-
sage, sentence by sentence, and -answer it — with direct quotations from
the capitalist press of the U.S. and other countries and statements made

RESIDENT TRUMAN stated:

To the Congress of the United
« States:

I am reporting to the Congress on the
situation which has been created in Korea,
and on the actions which this nation has
taken, as a member of the United Nations,
to meet this situation.

I am also laying before Congress my
views concerning the significance of these
events for this nation and the’ world and
certain recommendations for legislative ac-
tion which I believe should be taken at this
time.

At four o’cloch in the morning, Sunday,
June 25, Korean time, armed forces from
north of the 38th parallel invaded the Re-
public of Korea...

It is true that armed intervention on
a peninsula from which American troops
only recently withdrew, and the decision
to save Formosa from the Communists,
together represent a new Far Eastern de-
parture in a direction which the adminis-
tration had frequently declared it had no
intention of taking. But the secretary of
defense and Mr. John Foster Dulles had
both indicated that they were about to
press with renewed vigor for such a re-
versal; the Korean affair may, not be
without its advantages as cover for a4
turnabout that had perhaps already
become inevitable. —London Economist,
July 1.

A few hours before the news of the
invasion reached Washington, the secre-
tary of defense returned from a visit to
the Far East announcing that “we’ve got
all the facts.” A week or two earlier, Briga-
dier General Roberts, the head of the
military mission training the South Kor-
ean army, had boasted that it was the
best fighting force in Asia and able to
lick three times its number of North
Koreans. Tanks, he added, were no men-

ace in such a difficult country. As for .

tanks, the secretary of the army had said
on June 6, at the time when the Pentagon
Was singing the praises of its new wea-
pons, that “It may well be that tank war-
fare as we have known it will soon be
obsolete.” —London Economist, July 22.
The Republic-of Korea was established

as an independent nation in August,

@ An American casualty in Korea ...
“And in Nampo, Hyngman and Wunsan
workers’ homes were ruthlessly bombed
and strafed by American planes. A
number of workers’ dependents, includ-
ing older women and children, were
killed and maimed, and many workers’
dormitories were destroyed.”

1949...

The prisons of South Korea are over-
crowded with political prisoners. The gov-
ernment has never announced how many
political prisoners it holds, but 30,000
would be a fair estimate. ... Under the
press code it is forbidden to print ar-
ticles detrimental to the Republic of
Korea; articles containing falsehoods for
purposes of agitation; articles reflecting
upon the relations of Korea with friendly
powers; or ‘articles agitating the public

mind because written in an excitable ten--

or... . Under civil war conditions, the rule
in Korea is actually in the hands of Dr.
Rhee, with the backing of the American-
trained military and American money. For
the state’s security, Korea has developed
an army of 65,000 men, well fed, well
equipped and trained in combat, with a
growing reserve. It has a national police
force of 60,000 men, armed with carbines,
machine-guns and automatics, plus a met-
ropolitan police force of another 10,000
men. It also has a National Youth Corps
of perhaps 3,000,00 young men and women,
fanatically patriotic, drilled continually in
marching and singing, and used as labor
battalions for local supplementary polic-
ing.... —Allen Raymond im the New
York Herald Tribune, October 29, 1949.
. . . after a free election held under the
auspices of the United Nations . . .
POLICE BRUTALITY IN KOREA AS-
SAILED; TORTURE, WHOLESALE EX-
ECUTIONS OF REDS HELD DRIVING
PEOPLE INTO ARMS OF COMMUNISTS.
_.. The (Korean) National Assembly
. raised a hue and cry over the number
of prominent people who were dying un-
der police and army torture. Cases cited
included a former professor of law at Cho-
sun Christian College, who died in a Seoul
police station a few hours after arrest.
Cause of death was given as electric shock.
A professor of botany at Seoul Normal
College dies at an Inchon police station.
The prosecutor general said it appeared
he had been beaten to death. Wholesale
arrests have caused the jails to overflow
and forced the government to establish
re-education camps. The official capacity
of South Kotea jails is listed at 15,000.
On August 15, 1948, there were 14,000 pris-
oners. Last month the official figure was
40,000. —New York Times, February 1,
1950. :
The authoritarian methods of education
are one of the most serious concerns of
the United States mission here. Much of
the students’ time is devoted to military
drill and public demonstrations. The Edu-
cation Minister is German-trained and, in
an effort to extirpate leftist thought, is
generally regarded by Americans here as
using techniques modelled after those of
Nazi Germany. —New York Times cor-
respondent Walter Sullivan, February 2,

1950.

to obtain a freely elected government for
all of Korea .

“T am not a fascist or a Nazi,” President
Syngman Rhee told the Korean press on
January 20 in justification of his opposi-
tion to party politics. “The Korean people
do not yet realize what democracy really
means,” he said. —New York Herald Tri-
bune, February 2, 1950.

The South Korean regime leans heavily
on the leadership—even in the army and
the police—of those who held positions
of rank under the Japanese. —New York
Times correspondent Walter Sullivan, Jan-
uary 25, 1950.

If you had been imprisoned under the
Japanese, the Russians put you on the
police force; if you had been a policeman
under the Japanese, the Americans kept
you on the force. —Younghijll Kang, Con-
servative New York University instructor
and writer on Korea, May, 1948.

... and at the time of the attack, a
United Nations commission, made up of
representatives of seven nations — Austra-
lia, China, El Salvador, France, India, the
Philippines and Turkey, was in the Repub-
lic of Korea. Just one day before the at-

These ,

The United Nations continued its efforts

by politicians from Prime Minister Clement Attlee of Britain down to Sihn
Sung Mo, war minister in the Syngman Rhee regime. Only once — in a
quotation from the Phyongyang Radio on American bombing — do we
diverge from this practice of answering Truman through publications that
not even General MacArthur could describe as leftist, and only in one case,
in a reference to the original cable from the United Nations Commission
on Korea, have we found it necessary to add a few words of explanation.

tack of June 25, field observers attached to
the United Nations Commission on Korea
had- completed a routine ‘tour, lasting two
weeks, of the military positions of the Re-
epic of Korea, south of the 38th paral-
i bean

Today the Korean people are in the
front line of freedom under conditions
both dangerous and exciting. ... There
is no doubt there are difficult days ahead.
—John Foster Dulles at Seoul, June 19.

You are not alone. You will never be-

alone so long as you continue to play

worthily your part in the great design

@ General Douglas MacArthur kisses the
hand of Madame Chiang Kai-shek as

he leaves Formosa... “By putting the
island under her protection, America is
directly intervening in the Chinese civil
war,” says the Eastern World, London—
and retaining in power the remnants of
a regime utterly repudiated by the
Chinese people.

‘of human freedom. —John Foster Dulles
to Syngman Rhee, according to the New
York Herald Tribune, June 26,

The report of these international observ-
ers stated that the army of the Republic of
Korea was organized entirely for defense

If we had our way we would, I’m sure,
have started up already. But we had to
wait until they (American government
leaders) are ready. They keep telling us:
No, no, no. Wait, you are not ready. We
are strong enough to march up and take
ph ard within a few days. —From a

ment made to the press by Syngman
Rhee’s Defense Minister, Sihn Sung Mo,
October 29, 1949.

On a number of occasions, Dr, Rhee
has indicated that his army would have
taken the offensive if Washington had
given its consent. —New York Times cor-
respondent Walter Sullivan, June 25, re-
porting from Hongkong. :

On June 25, within a few hours after

the invasion was launched from the north, -

the commission reported tothe United. Na-
tions that the attack had come without
warning and without provocation . . .”
The government of the Republic of Korea
states that about 4 am: on June 25, at-
tacks were launched in strength by North
Korean forces all along the 38th parallel.
seg Bs the United Nations Com-
missi n Korea to UN Sec
Trygve Lie, on June 25. sian ea Ra

\

* with General MacArthur.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 11, 1950—PAGE *
!

(The Commission was cautious enough
merely to quote Rhee’s’ government and
abstain from expressing its own views.)

The South Korean government has in
the past embroidered the news on border
incidents in an apparent effort to con-
vince Americans of the need for greater
military aid....The theme song of the
official North Korean radio during the
past year has been the quest for “peace-
ful unification of the Fatherland.”. .. The
warlike talk strangely has almost all come
from South Korean leaders... .” —New
York Times, June 26.

The United Nations Commission on Kor-
ea recommended today that the Security

- Council consider inviting both Korean fight-

ing factions to agree on a neutral mediator
or to request UN members to undertake
mediation. —Associated Press dispatch
from Lake Success, June 26.

The reports from the Commission make
it unmistakeably clear that the attack had
come without warning and without provo-
cation . . ;

In’ our demand for redemption of our
conquered land, we shall not much longer
be without allies. —Syngman Rhee in Seoul .
on March 1, after his return from Tokyo.

It may now be revealed that two weeks
ago Korean Ambassador John Myun Chang
warned high officials of the State Depart-
ment that his country was on the verge
of internal collapse....As a result of
his plea, John Foster Dulles, Republican
consultant to Secretary Acheson, visited
South Korea a week ago. He intended
to give a strong stateraent of reassurance
—but obviously he could not go so far
as to’ commit the United States to war
on behalf of South Korea, . . , —New York
Herald Tribune, June 26,

Mr Dulles told reporters that he ex-
pected “positive results’ from his talks
. —United
‘Press report from Yokohama, June 21.

The tactical surprise gained by the ag-
gressors and their superiority in planes,
tanks and artillery forced the lightly armed
defenders to retreat . . .

I don’t think most of us want to go, But
we've been ready and expected it sooner
or later.—A lieutenant of the 22nd Medium
Bomber Group awaiting take-off for Kore#
at March Field, California.

When the attack came, our ambassador
to Korea, John J. Muccio began an im-—
mediate evacuation of American women
and children from the danger zone . . -

A U.S, defense department aide... said
privately that the U.S. expected the at-
tack and had made all preparations th@
could be made....The fact that ships
were ready to evacuate the families °
American officers and others in South
Korea (was) evidence that the invasio
was not a surprise, —New York Time
June 27. :

‘ The vigorous and unhesitating actions of
the United Nations and the United States
in the face of the aggression met with an
immediate and overwhelming respons
throughout the free world... A numbet
of. member nations have offered military
support of other types of assistance for !
United Nations action. . .

There appears to be reason to believe
that Britain will send a small toke?
force to Korea only for the sake of mai?”
taining harmony in Anglo-American re‘
tions, The Labor government and thé
British people are extremely sensitive
critical reports from the United state*
which accuse Britain of sloughing its mil-
itary responsibilities in Korea, By sendin’
‘a token force the British hope to put oo
end to at least part of this type of crit®
cism. —New York Herald Tribune, Pati
edition, July 22.

The troops of the Republic of Korea.:* —
have been reorganized and are fightin8
bravely... :

A small group of American soldiers th*
week watched the virtual rout of

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