COLD WAR AND KOREA

The United States was the strongest country on earth in 1945. Its factories produced half the world's manufactured goods. It had the world's biggest air force and navy. And it was the only nation armed with atomic bombs.

After the United States came the Soviet Union. Soviet soldiers were the masters of all Europe from the middle of Germany eastwards. After driving out Hitler's armies they had helped communists to take over the governments in country after country there. In 1946 Britain's wartime leader, Winston Churchill, spoke of an "Iron Curtain" across Europe, separating these communist-ruled nations of the east from the countries of the west.

The Americans and the Russians had fought Hitler's Germany together as allies. But friendship between them barely lasted the war out. The Russian dictator, Stalin, knew that many Americans hated the Soviet Union's communist way of life. He feared that the United States might drop atomic bombs on his country at any moment. The new American President, Truman, was just as suspicious of the Soviet Union. He suspected that Stalin's actions in eastern Europe were the first steps in a plan to convert the world to communism. The United States and the Soviet Union became deeply suspicious of one another. People began to speak of a "Cold War" between them. Although the two countries were not actually fighting, they were always quarreling.

Truman decided to use American power and money to "contain" Soviet influence - that is, to stop it from spreading. In 1947 he sent money and supplies to help the government of Greece to beat communist forces in a civil war. From this time on, containing communism became the main aim of the United States in dealing with the rest of the world. Because Truman started the policy, containment is sometimes called the Truman Doctrine.

Europe's recovery from the Second World War was painfully slow. By the summer of 1947 two years had passed since the last shots were fired. Yet millions of people were still without work, without decent homes, without sufficient food.

In France and Italy communist parties won lots of support by promising reforms to make things better. This worried President Truman. In the summer of 1947 his government put forward a scheme that he hoped would help Europe's people and also make communism less appealing to them. This scheme was called the Marshall Plan, after General George Marshall, the Secretary of State who announced it.

The United States had plenty of all the things that Europe needed in 1947 - food, fuel, raw materials, machines. The trouble was that Europe was too poor to buy them. To solve this problem Marshall offered to give European countries the goods they needed. Marshall offered help to the Soviet Union, too. But a Soviet newspaper described his scheme as "a plan for interference in the home affairs of other countries." Stalin refused to have anything to do with it. He also made sure than none of the countries on the Soviet Union's side of the Iron Curtain accepted help either.

But millions of dollars' worth of American food, raw materials and machinery started to pour into western Europe. It was like giving a dying person a blood transfusion. By the time the Marshall Plan ended in 1952, western Europe was back on its feet and beginning to prosper.

By then containment was being tested in Asia also. The test was taking place in Korea. Before the Second World War, Korea had been ruled by Japan. When Japan surrendered in 1945, the north of Korea was occupied by Soviet forces and the south by Americans. The boundary between the two areas was the earth's 38th parallel of latitude.

In 1948 the occupation of Korea ended. The Soviet army left behind a communist government in the north and the Americans set up a government friendly to themselves in the south. Both these governments claimed the right to rule all of the country. In June 1950, the North Koreans decided to settle the matter. Their soldiers crossed the 38th parallel in a full-scale invasion of South Korea.

President Truman sent American soldiers and warplanes from Japan to fight for the South Koreans. Then he persuaded the United Nations Organization, which had taken the place of the pre-war League of Nations, to support his action. Sixteen nations eventually sent troops to fight in the United Nations' forces in Korea. But the war was really an American affair. Nine out of every ten U.N. soldiers in Korea were Americans. So, too, was their commander, General Douglas MacArthur.

At first the communist armies advanced easily. But after three months of hard fighting the Americans pushed them back across the 38th parallel and advanced deep into North Korea. By this time the American aim was no longer simply to protect South Korea. They wanted to unite all of Korea under a government friendly towards the United States.

Korea has a long border with China. Only a year earlier communists led by Mao Zedong had won a long struggle to rule China by driving out Chiang Kaishek. The Americans had backed Chiang in the struggle and in 1950 they still recognized him as China's rightful ruler. Mao feared that if all Korea came under American control they might let Chiang use it as a base from which to attack China.

Mao warned the Americans to stay back from China's borders. When his warning was ignored he sent thousands of Chinese soldiers to help the North Koreans. The Chinese drove back the advancing Americans. A new and fiercer war began in Korea. It was really between the United States and China, although neither country officially admitted this.

The Korean War dragged on for another two and a half years. It ended at last in July 1953. One reason it ended was the death of Stalin, who had been encouraging the Chinese to fight on. Another was the fact that the newly-elected President Eisenhower hinted that the Americans might use atomic weapons if the Chinese did not sign a cease-fire.

The cease-fire left Korea still divided more or less along the line of the 38th parallel. One Korean in every ten had been killed and millions made homeless. Yet both sides claimed that they had won a kind of victory. The Chinese said that they had proved that nobody need be afraid of opposing the Americans. The Americans said that they had shown communists everywhere that it did not pay to try to spread their rule by force. More than 33,000 Americans had died in Korea and over 100,000 more had been wounded. Containment in Asia had been expensive. But the Americans felt that it had worked.

Bryn O'Callaghan: An illustrated history of the USA; Longman, Harlow, 1990/1996, page 116 ff.