The Korean War

The Korean War took place between the years

of 1950 and 1953. The cause of the war was that Korea

was under Japanese rule ever since the end of the

Chinese-Japanese war in 1895. After World War II, in

1945, Korea was freed from Japan. The United States

troops occupied the southern part of the country and

Russian forces took the north. The very first and main reason

we entered the war in Korea was because John Foster

Dulles, the future Secretary of State under Dwight

Eisenhower, said that it would be best if we entered the war.

At the time Dulles was a special advisor to the Secretary of

State Acheson. Dulles was in Tokyo when the Koreans

staged war. Dulles sent a message to Acheson that if the

South Koreans start losing and cannot hold back the North

Koreans, they should send in United States forces. He said

to do so, "even though this risks Russian counter moves. To

sit by while Korea is overrun by unprovoked armed attack

would start a disaster chain even leading most probably to

World War III." When Dulles got back to Washington he

specified that he meant sending in United States Air and

Naval forces only, not troops. Almost immediately after

getting word of the invasion, Acheson decided that the

United States should put the matter before the United

Nations. He then called President Truman and got his

approval. Almost fourteen hours after Washington got word

of the war there was a conference set up among certain

members of the United Nations. The final decision of the

United Nations was to give arms and equipment to the

R.O.K. army (Republic of Korea). Then they authorized

General MacArthur to use his forces and the United States

Seventh Fleet, "to stabilize the combat situation". We first

entered the war on June 25, 1950 because the United States

felt that if Russia's troops would fight for North Korea, we

should fight for South Korea. Also, since South Korea had a

dictatorship, we wanted to prevent it from becoming

communist... [continues]

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