Korean War #23: What Lies Beneath

The Korean War is back with a bang!

Episode 23: What Lies Beneath takes us to the halls of Washington, where as we saw in the last episode, the US was surprisingly slow to respond to the North Korean invasion. What kind of methods did the Truman administration make use of to achieve its policy goals? In this episode we will examine what lay beneath the shocked exterior of the American reaction to the invasion of South Korea. Far from surprised, everything was going according to plan. It remained to be seen if the South would hold firm, or if the US would have to implement those emergency measures prepared for in the weeks before.

We turn our attention then to the issue of the Han River line, and to the question of when it would be ideal for the US to intervene with some military force to defend its disorientated Southern ally. If it moved too soon, then South Korea would potentially be saved the kind of conflict that Washington needed. It was essential that the US did not move too quickly then, but it would quickly become clear that an underestimation of the communists on a vast scale had taken place.

Worse for the planners of the Truman administration, people were beginning to ask questions. If the CIA had furnished the administration with so much evidence regarding the Northern invasion, then how was it that nothing had been done to prepare or intercept this threat? The genuine reason could not be given of course, so the US instead moved to implement some damage control over 25th to 27th June, amidst the more public news abroad which saw the conditions of the Korean War escalate into a full blown problem, which only the United Nations, it seemed, could solve. On the surface it was all outrage and condemnation, but beneath this, the Truman administration was doing its utmost to ensure that its policy aims under NSC 68 were achieved. Let's see how they did...

Music:

Alcoholic Blues (1919) by Vernon Dalhart.

Available from Free Music Archive: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Vernon_Dalhart/Antique_Phonograph_Music_Program_08252015/The_Alcoholic_Blues

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