By the end of September 1950 the mandate of the original UN Security Council resolution had been fulfilled: the aggressors had been repelled and the original boundary restored. However, unfulfilled was the second and more ambiguous mandate of the June 27 resolution, which called for restoration of “international peace and security in the area.” Many assumed that this required establishing conditions ensuring that another attack could not be mounted after UN forces withdrew—in other words, for the UN to eliminate North Korea and reunify Korea. Yakov Malik, the Soviet permanent representative to the UN, challenged this interpretation and the meaning of restoring “international peace and security in the area.” Malik argued that peace and security could be restored only if Korea was reunified, and this required the withdrawal of all foreign troops to allow the Koreans to work out their own reunification. To avoid a Soviet veto in the Security Council, the United States turned to the General Assembly to introduce a resolution providing political guidance for military operations in Korea. The resolution called for the establishment of “conditions of stability” throughout Korea with a unified government followed by “a prompt withdrawal of troops.” The Soviets opposed the resolution, and so did India and Yugoslavia, who argued that it exceeded the original limited objective of repelling the invasion. The resolution passed on October 7.1
The resolution stipulated that UN forces “should not remain in any part of Korea longer than necessary once the goal of achieving stability and a unified democratic Korea had been attained.” It did not explicitly call for UN forces to cross the 38th parallel, and this ambiguity reflected the delicate nature of the political situation surrounding the “artificial dividing line.” Most members of the UN, including the United States, sought to evade the issue by playing down the significance of the 38th parallel, “to allow the UN commander to be guided by tactical considerations when he reached the parallel.”2 In any case, General MacArthur had already received authority to conduct military operations north of the 38th parallel even before the UN resolution was passed.
On September 27, MacArthur received the crucial directive from the Joint Chiefs of Staff authorizing his advance into North Korea. It stated, “Your military objective is the destruction of the North Korean Armed Forces. In attaining this objective you are authorized to conduct military operations … north of the 38th Parallel in Korea, provided that at the time of such operation there has been no entry into North Korea by major Soviet or Chinese Communist Forces, no announcement of intended entry, nor a threat to counter our operations militarily in North Korea.” The directive explicitly stated that “under no circumstances, however, will your forces cross the Manchurian or USSR borders of Korea,” and included a prohibition: “As a matter of policy, no non-Korean ground forces will be used in the northeast provinces bordering the Soviet Union or in the area along the Manchurian border.”3 But the directive was complicated by the new secretary of defense, George Marshall. Marshall wrote to MacArthur, “We want you to feel unhampered tactically and strategically to proceed north of the parallel. [However] announcement [of this] … may precipitate embarrassment in the U.N. where evident desire is not to be confronted with necessity of a vote on passage of 38th Parallel, rather to find you have found it militarily necessary to do so.” Marshall wanted MacArthur to recognize the political sensitivity of crossing the “artificial line” and to cross the line only under absolute military necessity while keeping it low key. MacArthur’s reply, however, gave cause for concern. “Parallel 38 is not a factor in the military employment of our forces … in exploiting the defeat of the enemy forces, our own troops may cross the parallel at any time,” he wrote back. “Unless and until the enemy capitulated, I regard all of Korea open for our military operations.”4
While the UN and the Truman administration were deliberating over the issue of the 38th parallel, the ROK Third Division simply crossed it on the clear autumn day of October 1, a week before the UN resolution was passed. Colonel Kim Chŏng-sun, the commander of the lead regiment, later recalled, “It was overwhelming. I thought that that damned line, which had separated our people and the country for so long, was about to crumble, and we would be reunified. We were all so excited that we practically ran across the 38th Parallel.”5 There had been strong indications that ROK troops would cross the line regardless of UN authorization, as President Syngman Rhee had repeatedly stated that he had no intention of halting his forces at “the artificial border” and they would stop only at the Yalu River on the Chinese line. “We have to advance as far as the Manchurian border until not a single enemy soldier is left in our country,” announced Rhee at a mass rally on September 19.6
American soldiers gaze at portraits of Stalin and Kim Il Sung. Such portraits were commonly found in villages and towns liberated by UN forces, November 7, 1950. (U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION)
This climactic moment was followed by a remarkable phase of pursuit. By October 10, ROK forces had captured Wŏnsan, the major port city on the east coast. On October 17, they occupied the northern cities of Hamhŭng and Hŭngnam and thereby secured North Korea’s main industrial hub on the east coast. Meanwhile, in the west, UN forces advanced rapidly against little opposition, and ROK units entered the city of Ch’osan on the Yalu River on October 26. In a little over a month since the Inch’ŏn landing, the tide of war had completely turned.
In 1592, the Japanese military ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched an invasion of the Korean peninsula. Intent on building a great East Asian empire, Hideyoshi set his sights on Ming China. Control of the Korean peninsula was necessary to secure the invasion route into China. The Japanese invasion force landed just off Pusan and then advanced up the Pusan-Taegu-Seoul corridor. After taking Seoul, the soldiers marched to Kaesŏng, meeting little opposition.7 Once in Kaesŏng, however, the Japanese did not advance farther north as a unified force. Instead, Hideyoshi divided his army. Konishi Yukinaga commanded the western force, which continued northward through flat open terrain to P’yŏngyang and beyond to the Yalu River. Katō Kiyomasa led the eastern force, which advanced to the northeast through a mountainous and wild region toward the Tumen River on the Manchurian border. Petty rivalries put the two commanders at odds, and the result was that the two armies operated without coordination. Hideyoshi’s decision to divide his army was a fatal one. With Katō side-tracked in the wilderness of northeastern Korea, the strength of Konishi’s thrust toward P’yŏngyang and beyond, strategically the more important axis, was effectively cut in half. Eventually, the Japanese faced a dilemma. They needed more men to secure the peninsula, but the Korean navy’s successful interdiction of shipping prevented reinforcements. Faced with the approaching winter, Konishi hunkered down in P’yŏngyang while his army was whittled away by hunger, disease, and the cold. Katō’s army, meanwhile, was scattered across northeastern Korea. It was at this moment, when the Japanese forces were at their weakest, that Ming China attacked, turning the tide of the war.8
Substitute the UN for Japan, MacArthur for Hideyoshi, Walker for Konishi, and Almond for Katō, and you have exactly what happened in Korea in late 1950. MacArthur divided his command like Hideyoshi, sending the Eighth Army up the western half of North Korea, while the weaker ROK forces advanced along the eastern coast, and the X Corps embarked to conduct an amphibious landing at Wŏnsan on the east coast. The forces would link up at the “waist” of the Korean peninsula, a line stretching from P’yŏngyang to Wŏnsan, and then advance north, still under separate commands.9 General Omar Bradley, chairman of the JCS, later wrote, “Too many North Koreans had slipped through the trap [of the encirclement between the X Corps forces advancing east and south after the Inch’ŏn landing and the Eighth Army advancing northward], perhaps a third of the 90,000 North Korean troops in South Korea … The military textbook solution to the existing problem was ‘hot pursuit.’ That is, to drive forward at utmost speed with all the UN forces at hand before the North Koreans could dig in defensively.”10 Instead, MacArthur stopped the pursuit, pulled the X Corps from the lines, loaded it aboard ships, and sent it on a long voyage to the other side of the peninsula to conduct a landing of dubious value. Walker’s Eighth Army, tired from months of fighting and strung out from attacking and moving from Pusan, was left to continue the pursuit. As it turned out, ROK forces occupied Wŏnsan a week before the X Corps’s amphibious “assault.” Another week of delay was caused by mines in the harbor. When the X Corps finally landed, on October 25, they discovered to their dismay that even Bob Hope’s USO show had beaten them to Wŏnsan, much to MacArthur’s embarrassment and chagrin.
At this moment Truman decided to meet MacArthur, for the first time. MacArthur was upset by the president’s “summoning.” Ambassador John Muccio later recalled, “The general appeared irked, disgusted, and at the same time somewhat uneasy” during the plane ride there. “In the course of his exposition, he used such terms as ‘summoned for political reasons’ and ‘not aware that I am still fighting a war.’ “11 The two met on October 15 at Wake Island in the middle of the Pacific, the site of a heroic American stand against the Japanese in the opening days of World War II. Truman’s main concern was the possibility that China would enter the war. MacArthur assured Truman that Chinese intervention was unlikely, and even if they did decide to fight, UN forces would be able to handle it and “the victory was won in Korea.”12 During the meeting, neither Truman nor his advisors questioned MacArthur’s declarations. At one point, Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk, alarmed by the superficiality of the questions posed by the president and the speed in which he was firing them off, passed a note to him suggesting he slow down. Truman scribbled a reply back, “Hell no! I want to get out of here before we get into trouble!”13 MacArthur’s answer to the most important issue facing Truman, and indeed the future postwar world order, was not challenged.
So why did Truman travel so far to meet MacArthur? Truman’s own explanation was that he had sought a better rapport with MacArthur and wanted a chance to explain to him in person the goals of U.S. foreign policy. “Events since June had shown me that MacArthur had lost some of his contacts with the country and its people in the many years he had been abroad,” Truman later wrote. “I had made efforts through Harriman and others to let him see the world-wide picture as we saw it in Washington, but I felt that we had little success. I thought he might adjust more easily if he heard it from me directly.”14 If this had been Truman’s intention, it had clearly failed. The meeting had created more friction than friendship. MacArthur turned Truman down for lunch, saying that he needed to get back to Tokyo as quickly as possible. “Whether intended or not,” Bradley later wrote, “it was insulting to decline lunch with the President, and I think Truman was miffed, although he gave no sign.”15 Truman and MacArthur said good-bye before lunchtime that same morning. The president had been on Wake Island for just five hours. They never saw each other again.16
After returning from the meeting, MacArthur removed all restraints on the advance of UN forces. It was a violation in spirit of the September 27 directive from the Joint Chiefs. In response, the JCS meekly queried MacArthur, who replied that “the instructions contained in [my message to my subordinate commanders to advance north] were a matter of military necessity.” As for the provision to use only ROK forces, “not only are the ROK forces not of sufficient strength to initially accomplish the security of North Korea, but the reactions of their commanders are at times so emotional that it was deemed essential that initial use be made of more seasoned and stabilized commanders.” MacArthur saw “no conflict with the directive … dated 27 September, which merely enunciated the provision as a matter of policy.” He continued that “the necessary latitude for modification was contained also in [the message] dated 29 September from the Secretary of Defense [Marshall] that he should ‘feel unhampered … to proceed north of the 38th Parallel.’ “ He concluded haughtily that “this entire subject was covered in my conference at Wake Island.”17
The die was cast. “As in the case of the Inch’ŏn plan, it was really too late for the JCS to do anything about the order,” Bradley recalled.18 While all seemed aware that something was terribly amiss, there was no consensus over what should be done about it. “We were all deeply apprehensive,” recalled Dean Acheson. “We were frank with one another, but not quite frank enough.” Had Marshall and the JCS proposed a halt at the P’yŏngyang-Wŏnsan line, the “waist” of the peninsula, Acheson continued, “disaster would probably have been averted.”19 But such a stance would have meant a fight with MacArthur, and everyone, it seemed, was more afraid of MacArthur than they were of a potential conflict with the Chinese. As UN forces advanced deeper into North Korea, Chinese troops were massing along the Manchurian border, just as they had done nearly 360 years earlier when the Ming army had lain in wait for the approaching Japanese.
Ten days after the Inch’ŏn landing, Gen. Nie Rongzhen, the acting chief of staff of the PLA General Staff and military governor of Beijing, dined with K. M. Panikkar, India’s ambassador to China. The conversation quickly turned to Korea. “General Nie told me in a quiet and unexcited manner that the Chinese did not intend to sit back with folded hands and let the Americans come to the border,” recollected Panikkar. “This was the first indication that I had that the Chinese proposed to intervene in the war.” Panikkar impressed on Nie, “a pleasant-spoken man, friendly and ready to discuss matters with an air of frankness,” how destructive a war with the United States would be, how “the Americans would be able to destroy systematically all the industries of Manchuria and put China back by half a century.” But Nie “only laughed.” “We have calculated all that,” he told the ambassador. “They may even drop atom bombs on us. What then?” Not long after this conversation, Premier Zhou Enlai spoke on the first anniversary of the founding of the PRC, on October 1, and warned that the Chinese people “will not tolerate foreign aggression and will not stand aside should the imperialists wantonly invade the territory of their neighbor.” Just after midnight on October 3, Panikkar was abruptly awakened. Zhou had sent a message for him to come to his residence at once. Zhou explained that China had reached a decision regarding Korea. “If the Americans cross the 38th Parallel,” Panikkar recalled, “China would be forced to intervene in Korea. Otherwise, he was most anxious for a peaceful settlement.”20
Panikkar’s cable to New Delhi was passed through London to Washington, where it was retransmitted to MacArthur. MacArthur considered the warning a bluff: the Chinese had not intervened when the tide of war was in their favor, so why would they enter when the tide was against them? Truman was skeptical, but his skepticism was less an issue of strategy than of credibility. The problem with the Indian ambassador’s warning, according to Truman, was that “Mr. Panikkar had in the past played the game of the Chinese Communists fairly regularly, so that his statement could not be taken as that of an impartial observer. It might very well be no more than a replay of Communist propaganda.” Furthermore, a key vote on the UN resolution was due the following day, and “it appeared quite likely that Zhou En-lai’s ‘message’ was a bald attempt to blackmail the United Nations by threats of intervention in Korea.”21
As Panikkar’s message was being considered in Washington, Kim Il Sung, facing imminent defeat, was close to panic. He and Pak Hŏn-yŏng had been completely wrong about the South Korean people’s reaction. A senior North Korean communist cadre, Lim Ŭn, remarked, “We all steadfastly believed the boasting of Pak Hŏn-yŏng that once we first occupied Seoul, the 200,000 South Korean Worker’s Party (SKWP) members, who were in hiding throughout South Korea, would rise up and revolt, toppling the South Korean regime.” Kim had no contingency plan for failure. When the anticipated revolt did not happen, Kim threw all his troops into the attack to try to end the war as quickly as possible. “He was engrossed only in marching forward,” according to Lim.22
Kim faced total defeat since his forces were cut off by the landing at Inch’ŏn. He begged Stalin for help, pleading to him on October 1, “We are determined to overcome all the difficulties facing us so that Korea will not be a colony of the U.S. imperialists … This notwithstanding, if the enemy does not give us time to implement the measures which we plan, and, making use of our extremely grave situation, steps up its offensive operations into North Korea, then we will not be able to stop the enemy troops solely with our own forces. Therefore, dear Iosif Vissarionovich, we cannot help asking you to provide us with special assistance.”23 Stalin wrote to Mao and Zhou that he had warned the North Koreans to expect an amphibious landing at Inch’ŏn and “had admonished the North Koreans to withdraw at least four divisions from the South immediately.” But the North Koreans had failed to heed his warning and now “our Korean friends have no troops capable of resistance in the vicinity of Seoul.” Stalin concluded, “I think that if in the current situation you consider it possible to send troops to assist the Koreans, then you should move at least five-six divisions toward the 38th Parallel at once,” adding that “the Chinese Divisions could be considered as volunteers, with Chinese in command at the head, of course.”24
Mao’s reply was unexpected.25 Going back on his initial promise to aid the North Koreans, Mao wrote that his forces were not strong enough to take on the Americans: “We originally planned to move several volunteer divisions to North Korea to render assistance to the Korean comrades when the enemy advanced north of the 38th Parallel. However, having thought this over thoroughly, we now consider that such actions may entail extremely serious consequences.” Mao explained that a clash with the United States would ruin his plans for peaceful reconstruction. He believed it would be better “to show patience … and actively prepare our forces” for a moment when the situation was more advantageous. Mao added, “Of course, not to send out troops to render assistance is very bad for the Korean comrades,” but while the Koreans will “temporarily suffer defeat, [this] will change the form of the struggle to partisan war.”26
Stalin asked Mao to reconsider. He thought the Americans would not start a major war and would agree on a settlement that favored the communists. Under such a scenario, China might also resolve the Taiwan issue. A passive “wait and see policy” as Mao suggested would be counterproductive: “China would fail to get back even Taiwan, which at present the United States clings to as its springboard, not for Jiang Jieshi [Chiang Kai-shek] who has no chance to succeed, but for themselves or for a militaristic Japan.” Stalin then made his most compelling argument for Chinese intervention: “If a war is inevitable, then let it be waged now, and not in a few years when Japanese militarism will be restored as an ally of the USA and when the USA and Japan will have a ready-made bridgehead on the continent in a form of the entire Korea run by Syngman Rhee.”27
Mao spent many sleepless nights that early October trying to decide. He convened an urgent meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee to tell its members he had decided in favor of intervention, but he met strong opposition. Lin Biao, Mao’s old comrade in arms during the civil war, was firmly against it. China, he said, was not ready for such a monumental undertaking. What the country needed was to recuperate after decades of warfare. Nor had the Chinese revolution been fully completed, as there were still more than a million “bandits” roaming the countryside and party control was not completely secure. And, he argued, the PLA’s outdated arsenal was no match against the Americans and would lead to a great slaughter. For Lin Biao, the wiser and safer decision was to accelerate the buildup of the Chinese air, naval, and artillery forces and to assist North Korea in fighting a guerilla war without direct intervention.28 Mao’s response echoed Stalin’s, that if the Chinese did not fight the Americans now, they might be forced to do so at a later date. Since America’s plan to occupy North Korea was part of a grand strategy to dominate the whole of East Asia, the task of defending China would be that much harder if the Americans gained a foothold on the Korean peninsula. Given the deployment of the U.S. Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Straits and MacArthur’s belligerence toward China, Mao was convinced that such a confrontation was only a matter of time.
He also appealed on moral grounds: “It would be shameful for us to stand by seeing our neighbors in perilous danger without offering any help.”29 China would lose face before its North Korean comrades, many of whom had fought in the PLA. Moreover, if China did not help North Korea, the Soviet Union might do nothing if China were in peril, and “internationalism would be empty talk.”30 General Peng Dehuai, a brilliant military leader and another of Mao’s close civil-war comrades, summed up the main thrust of Mao’s argument: “The tiger wanted to eat human beings; when it would do so would depend on its appetite.”31 Mao prevailed. Stalin wrote, “Mao expressed solidarity with the main ideas of my letter and stated that he would send nine, not six, divisions to Korea.”32 Mao had also based his decision to enter the war on the understanding that China would receive air support from the Soviet Union.
On October 8, the day after the UN passed the resolution empowering UN forces to unify Korea, Mao cabled Kim Il Sung: “In view of the current situation, we have decided to send volunteers to Korea to help you fight against the aggressors.”33 China, it was decided, would enter the Korean War on October 19.
Just as the Korea question seemed to be finally settled, it took another startling turn. While Mao was deciding about China’s intervention in Korea, Stalin was considering what, if any, involvement there should be for the Soviet Union. The Politburo agreed with him that a direct confrontation with the United States must be avoided, even if it meant abandoning North Korea.34 The best option was a proxy in the form of China. When Zhou went to Moscow to finalize the details of Sino-Soviet military cooperation in Korea, he was shocked to learn from Stalin that the Soviet Union would seek to avoid all direct involvement in the conflict. It would not provide Soviet air forces to protect Chinese troops in Korea as promised earlier.35 Zhou told Stalin that the decision would put the Chinese in a quandary as to whether to proceed without the promised air cover. He cabled Mao and the CCP leadership and asked them to reconsider the decision to intervene in light of the Soviet “betrayal.”36
Mao suspended his intervention order, and the Politburo convened to deliberate. As before, two main points were raised: China was unprepared for a conflict with the Americans, and the intervention could not be done without Soviet help.37 “Comrade Mao Zedong remained undecided even when our forces reached the Yalu River,” recalled Nie Rongzhen. “He racked his brain and indeed thought about this many times before he made up his mind.”38 An exhausted Mao, who had not slept for days, finally decided to proceed with the intervention. His reasoning had not changed: the UN forces would not stop at the Yalu and war with the United States was inevitable. The others conceded, and Mao informed Zhou in Moscow that “the consensus is that it is still advantageous to send our troops to Korea.”39
Chinese troops began crossing the Yalu on October 19, embarking on a risky venture that would determine the fate of China and its revolution. Stalin’s “betrayal” clarified for Mao the limits of the Sino-Soviet alliance and reinforced the slide toward an eventual Sino-Soviet split. The betrayal also strengthened Mao’s determination to be self-reliant in national security.40 Domestically, Mao’s “far-sighted” and “brilliant” decision to confront the American “imperialists” in Korea would lead to his complete monopoly on power and the radicalization of China’s political and social affairs. Once China’s external enemies were defeated abroad, Mao would turn to China’s “internal” enemies at home. Less than two weeks after crossing the Yalu, the Chinese People’s Volunteer (CPV) army launched an attack that would determine the course of China’s future for decades to come.
In less than two weeks, 200,000 Chinese soldiers crossed the Yalu River into North Korea undetected by the United Nations Command (UNC).41 On October 25, the Chinese initiated their first major attack. The main effort, in what Peng Dehuai called “First Phase Offensive,” was against the Eighth Army. Peng targeted the ROK Army sectors for they were weaker and more vulnerable. ROK II Corps, part of the Eighth Army that occupied the eastern half of the army’s area of operations, received the first blow. Within a few days, II Corps was largely destroyed, and all of the Eighth Army was put in peril. By early November, however, General Walker was able to rally his troops and establish a defense line along the Ch’ŏngch’ŏn River north of P’yŏngyang. The Chinese also engaged the X Corps on Korea’s east coast, but only on a limited scale. General Almond ordered the X Corps, scattered widely in the rugged mountains of the northeast region, to mop up remnants of the NKPA and reach the Yalu as quickly as possible. A short but bloody engagement with the Chinese took place in early November near Changjin (Japanese: Chosin) Reservoir, but the Chinese forces mysteriously disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, instilling a false sense of security.42
Despite the scale of the Chinese actions and their consequences in the Eighth Army sector, MacArthur’s chief of intelligence, Maj. Gen. Charles A. Willoughby, refused to believe it was a major intervention. He estimated that about 16,500, but no more than 34,000, Chinese were in Korea.43 Willoughby’s lack of alarm was not only supported by MacArthur, but also shared by Walker and Almond. According to Walker, the “Chinese” presence had merely indicated the introduction of North Korean reinforcements taken from China.44 This assessment was repeated in MacArthur’s report to the UN, which concluded that “there is no such evidence that Chinese Communist units, as such, have entered Korea.”45 Considering the damage inflicted on the Eighth Army, these assessments were excessively optimistic, if not delusional. MacArthur provided the JCS with his personal “appreciation” of the situation and presented four possible scenarios to explain the sudden appearance of the Chinese: first, a full-scale invasion; second, covert military assistance; third, permitting volunteers to help North Korea; or fourth, provisional intervention predicated on encountering only ROK units in the border provinces. He thought “the last three contingencies, or a combination thereof, seem to be the most likely condition at the present moment.” MacArthur “warned against hasty action and specifically discounted the possibility that the intervention of the Chinese Communists was a ‘new war’ “46
First group of captured Chinese held near Hamhŭng, October 30, 1950. (U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION)
Privately, however, MacArthur seemed to have had some doubts. On November 6, he told his air commander, Lt. Gen. George Stratemeyer, to plan for a bombing campaign of North Korea. “General MacArthur wanted an all-out air effort against communications and facilities with every weapon to stop and destroy the enemy in North Korea,” wrote Stratemeyer in his wartime diary.47 A key target was the bridge over the Yalu River at Sinŭiju, to stop or delay the flow of Chinese troops. Recognizing the political sensitivity of the mission, Stratemeyer contacted Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, who in turn got in touch with Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert A. Lovett and Secretary of State Acheson. They agreed that such a mission was unwise due to the risk of accidentally bombing Chinese territory, which could provide a casus belli for China and perhaps even the Soviet Union. Moreover, such action violated the U.S. commitment not to take any action that would affect Manchuria without prior consultation with the British. Truman, who was in Independence to cast his vote on Election Day, November 7, received an urgent call from Acheson. He told Acheson that he would “approve this bombing mission only if there was an immediate and serious threat to the security of our troops.” Truman also asked Acheson to find out “why MacArthur suddenly found this action necessary” since his earlier cable had given no hint that such drastic actions were being contemplated. The JCS canceled the mission less than two hours before the bombers were scheduled to take off. MacArthur was requested to “forward his estimate of the situation and his reasons for ordering the bombing of the Yalu River bridges.”48 It was the first time the JCS had countermanded an order from MacArthur.
MacArthur’s reply was unexpected. In a sudden and inexplicable change from his report just a few days earlier, MacArthur wrote that “men and material in large force are pouring across all bridges over the Yalu from Manchuria. This movement not only jeopardizes but threatens the ultimate destruction of the forces under my command.” “The only way to stop this reinforcement of the enemy is the destruction of these bridges and the subjection of all installations in the north area supporting the enemy advance to the maximum of our air destruction,” he declared. “I cannot overemphasize the disastrous effect, both physical and psychological, that will result from the restrictions which you are imposing. I trust that the matter [will] be immediately brought to the attention of the President as I believe your instructions may well result in a calamity of major proportion for which I cannot accept the responsibility without his personal and direct understanding of the situation.” The JCS was jolted by the cable’s accusatory and hysterical tone. Bradley recollected that “we had little choice but to authorize the mission.” Truman agreed.49
Two days later, MacArthur again changed his tune. “The introduction of Chinese Communist forces in strength into the Korean campaign had completely changed the overall situation,” he wrote on November 9, but he had every confidence that with his superior airpower he could interdict Chinese reinforcements from Manchuria and destroy those already in Korea. MacArthur was now so confident that he planned to resume the offensive on November 15 to occupy all of North Korea.50 On November 7, the JCS had received the startling report that Chinese and North Korean troops had completely broken contact with UN forces and “disappeared.” These developments appeared to support MacArthur’s initial assessment that the Chinese had intervened only in moderate numbers and, having been successfully “rebuffed,” lost their nerve for further fighting.51 The JCS decided that MacArthur would “continue military operations in accordance with current directive,” but the directive should be “kept under review.” “We read, we sat, we deliberated,” recalled Bradley, “and, unfortunately, we reached drastically wrong conclusions and decisions.”52 The JCS was lulled by MacArthur’s optimistic predictions of a quick victory, the sudden disappearance of the Chinese, and “wildly erroneous” estimates of the scale and intent of the Chinese intervention.
If the Americans appeared blissfully ignorant of China’s real intentions, the North Koreans were downright unhappy. China’s entrance had significantly marginalized Kim Il Sung and North Korea, which now played only a supporting role. Keenly aware of his diminishing influence, Kim had hoped to reorganize his forces with the help of the Soviet Union even as China was preparing to launch its second offensive at the end of November. Ambassador Shtykov wrote to Stalin with a plea from Kim Il Sung: “Our North Korean friends will withdraw to Manchuria with the personnel for organizing nine divisions … Once again, our comrades in North Korea are requesting that ninety Soviet advisors and education and training specialists remain with them to help them organize the nine divisions and establish education and training institutions. The North Koreans state that if they do not have this help, it will take them a year before they can prepare for combat on their own.”53 Kim believed that with Soviet help he could reconstitute his tattered NKPA in time to make a difference in the outcome of the war. His fear of Chinese domination of the Korean peninsula was understandable. Given the long history of Chinese interventions in Korea, Kim was loath to give China control over military operations.
Disgusted by the turn of events, Stalin refused to help, deciding instead to distance himself from Korean military matters all together. When Shtykov told Kim that his request had been denied, “he was silent for a moment,” then turned to Pak Hŏn-yŏng and said, “How can matters have come to this?”54 To add to Kim’s misery, Stalin replaced his team in North Korea. First to go was Gen. Nicolai Vasiliev, chief of the Soviet Military Advisory Group, who was replaced by Gen. V. N. Razuvaev. Ambassador Shtykov was recalled at the end of December, demoted to lieutenant general in early 1951, and then forced to retire, a precipitous fall reflecting Stalin’s displeasure at his performance. Shtykov’s departure had far-reaching consequences for future North Korean–Soviet relations. He had been Stalin’s personal envoy to North Korea since 1945 and had enjoyed direct access to the Soviet dictator. Razuvaev, who also replaced Shtykov as ambassador while remaining chief of the Soviet Military Advisory Group, did not enjoy the same close relationship with Stalin. With Shtykov gone, Kim Il Sung no longer had a valuable ally with a direct line to Stalin. To Kim’s dismay, Mao became the new conduit to the Soviet leader. North Korea had been treated as an independent agent by Stalin since 1945, but with the Chinese entering the war, North Korea became relegated to a satellite of China. A perceptible split between Kim and Stalin was beginning to emerge, sowing the seeds for future conflict and driving Kim to seek a more independent path from the Soviet Union.