North Korea. How Did It Happen?

Every week... or maybe several times a week, there is another outrageous story from North Korea. Each time, I am tempted to lean back, grin and say, "Okay, Dems... you caused it, now let's see you solve it!" But, you can't grin about truly scary things.

Let this old guy explain. The trouble started near the end of WW II, at Yalta, in a conference between Churchill, Stalin, and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. The Russians suffered greatly at the hands of Nazi Germany and their people fought courageously on Europe's "Eastern Front". But they were not involved in the war with Japan. Still, at Yalta, Stalin stated that he wanted to participate in the rebuilding of Korea. Our Democrat president, too old, sick and senile to know where he was or what was happening, had just agreed to the partitioning of Germany and the gift of all of Eastern Europe to the Soviets. In this foolish mood of splitting the spoils, he quite unnecessarily agreed to split Korea in half and allow Russia to control all the peninsula north of the 38th parallel.

When I was in the Philippines in the 1940s, I had friends serving in the Army in Korea. Like the Philippines, Korea had been decimated by the Japanese. By the time I reached Leyte and my friends arrived in Korea, the Japanese had been defeated and we were trying to help these two small nations get their lives back together. On Leyte, we had mountains of supplies, intended to support the invasion of Japan, which were dumped on us when Japan surrendered.

We were sending this stuff - everything an Army needs to operate, except guns and ammo, to the Korean Military Government (KMG) established by General MacArthur. It all went well, and eventually all was on the right track... until the summer of 1950.

The Russians had established a puppet Communist government in North Korea, and in 1950, that government decided to take over South Korea. So far as America was concerned, the Pacific war was over and U.S. forces remaining in Korea were more or less clerical, doing the job of extricating America from the affairs of the now established South Korean government. They were hardly trained and seasoned combat forces... a good many, in fact, were some of my old friends from the Philippines.

However, Douglas MacArthur, perhaps the greatest military leader of that era, did have combat forces at his disposal. He attacked and promptly drove the North Koreans back to their border with China. At that point, the Chinese entered the dispute and started sending aircraft from Chinese bases to harass American forces in North Korea. MacArthur wanted to wipe out those Chinese air bases and end that intrusion, but then president Harry Truman, who was afraid of China, refused and promptly fired MacArthur. American forces prevailed, all the same, but the Communist government of North Korea was allowed to survive. My former CEO from Leyte was part of the combat force and later told me that they thought the war was over. Then, one morning, he said they heard a great ruckus, looked out and saw Chinese land forces coming toward them.

Another old friend told me that the Chinese were so poorly equipped that many were armed only with primitive weapons (not firearms) and were slaughtered in uncounted numbers. But, remember, the Chinese built the Great Wall with hand labor... millions of hands... and their sheer numbers drove the Americans back.

America finally elected a Republican president in 1952, and immediately after election day, Dwight Eisenhower went to Korea and brought about a truce at the 38th parallel, the original line of demarcation between North and South Korea.

I guess Ike thought he was dealing with rational people and assumed peace would prevail. It has not. While South Korea has progressed into a highly successful industrial nation. North Korea has degenerated into a primitive hell, still goverened by a madman - a son of the original madman installed by the Russians.

If only Roosevelt had not been running the show at Yalta. If only MacArthur had prevailed in Korea.

It's a big word: If.