The Coldest Winter

Just finished "The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War". It is so nice to read something by a real writer, not some schlub like me. As his last and final offering David Halberstam has written a companion to his sparkling Vietnam book, "The Best and the Brightest".

This story describes a litany of missteps by North Korea, South Korea, China and the United States. The USSR, led by Joseph Stalin, was a major instigator by providing encouragement directly to Communist North Korea and as a patriarch to newly established Communist China.

The Koreans were separated by the actions of the United Nations and treaties following the close of World War 2. Korean had been, during WW2, under the thumb, if not colonized by the Japanese, Korea was anxious to be an autonomous singular nation. The leader of North Korea was Kim Il Sung, father of the current leader. This dictator was a product both Soviet and Sino communist training and since the cleaving of the Korean peninsula hungered for a communist unified state under hie control. At the start the Soviets gave the green light and hardware for the attack. The Chinese fresh from driving the Nationalists to the island of Formosa were busy consolidating their continental control and eager to establish themselves as a nation which European and US imperialists must respect. Initially the South Korean ROK was unprepared for the attack and nearly driven off the peninsula. Douglas MacArthur the US Far East commander headquartered in Japan rallied the troops and regained territory with his famous back end landing at Inchon. From there the general spread his forces overly thin chasing the North Koreans nearly to the Yalu River which serves as the border between North Korea and mainland China. As the UN forces came closer and closer to the Yalu the Chinese under the auspices of being threatened with invasion, entered North Korea and set a trap for the overly extended forces. The Chinese, in the dead of winter, using vastly superior numbers, drove the UN forces all the way back past the 38th parallel. MacArthur refused to accept responsibility for overextending his forces and sought to shift blame to subordinates and political policy makers, namely Truman and Acheson. Ultimately MacArthur was replaced by Mathew Ridgeway who learned to combat the Chinese numerical advantage with artillery and air support. Eventually both the Chinese and the UN forces reached a stalemate and the war was ended with a truce.
Results of the conflict:

• Truman as president and the Democrats took the blame. Republicans swept the office and both houses in the 1952 elections.
• Allied forces, in 5 years from winning WW2, allowed themselves to fall to a very low state of readiness both in terms of hardware and training.
• The Chinese established themselves as a global power willing to use vast numerical superiority to balance western technical advantages. These troops came to be highly respected for their soldier skills.
• US policy, fueled by anti-communist fervor, established a position of supporting Chang Kai Shek and Nationalist China at Formosa. Shortcomings in Korea became a black spot on the US psyche and to a degree led Kennedy to enter into the Vietnamese conflict.
• Following MacArthur's dismissal, the CIA was brought into military circle serving as a source of intelligence. This is a pattern that remains today with reliability that may be questionable.
• By the end of the war, the bond between the Soviets and the Chinese, forged by communism, was on the way to breakage. The Soviets encouraged the North Koreans and for that matter the Chinese into revolution and war, and expected each to serve as satellite nation states without making physical commitments in either theatre. Mao came to develop a deep mistrust of Stalin.
• Mao consolidated his power as the virtual dictator of the Chinese Politburo. The chairman came to equate his vision of Chinese communism as a form of governance, that being very close to the traditional Chinese feudal system, with Mao as the emperor.

This was an excellent book, I recommend it highly. On a scale of 1-10, "The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War" gets a 10, for while being a historically oriented, is a well paced story rich with information. Unfortunately, David Halberstam passed in a car accident before the release of this book, we will see no more of his great work.