Worst how korea launched the cold war. Is thethbreaking book capstone of sams distinguished career, of which the Wilson Center was his home for over four decades. Sharing in todays celebration is sams family, his wife of 50 years to whom the book is dedicated, daughter lauren, and wife. Ristopher, and his i would also like to acknowledge jane harman, who has provided special leadership in expanding the centers focus on korea. Todays event is cosponsored by the Wilson Centers history and Public Policy program and Hyundai Motor career and policy center for Public Policy. Sam has played a vital role in the history of the Wilson Center. Initially came in the mid70s as a wilson fellow on leave from his professorship at the university of North Carolina chapel hill and went on to join the staff, founding the International Security studies program and serving as the Centers Deputy director. It was his harvard doctoral sam tosor who introduced the arts of using history to analyze issues of current Public Policy and, specifically, to the multinational study of security problems. Thanks to sams pioneering work, that approach, using history as a tool of policy analysis, is now central to the mission of the Wilson Center and our branding. To launche are proud today is policyrelevant scholarship at its finest. The first time i encountered sams name was as a graduate student, reading the fall 1979 issue of harvards premier journal, International Security. If you will permit a personal parenthetical, not long after that, i met sam. He hired me as a postdoc. 36 years later, i remain grateful for that offer and his mentor ship. Titledrticle was sounding the tocsin. It was a seminal article which focused on the then just declassified topsecret policy document of the Truman Administration which advocated for a large expansion of the u. S. Military budget, but sams brilliant analysis, as he acknowledged at the time, was hamstrung by the obvious constraint he only had access to the american documentary record. Fortuitously, the end of the cold war created an opportunity distinguishedat a yale historian has called copying with one hand analysis by tapping the east soviet archives. Sam worked with a team of distinguished cold war historians to found the cold war history project at the Wilson Center, which is now one of the Wilson Centers crown jewels headed by christian osterman. Thanks to that project, the center is now the repository of thousands of translated cold war documents on its website. Whichemarkable resource, is transforming our understanding of the cold war, can be accessed online at digitalarchive. Wilsoncenter. Org. 40 years after the publication of this International Security article, sams work has come full circle. Sam tapped documents from russia, china, and north korea in previously closed archives to have now written a Truly International history. The korean war has been recognized by scholars as a cold war crucible. It proved to be a pivotal event in the early histories of the cold war. In fearing the worst, sam explained how the korean war fundamentally transformed the postwar competition between the United States and soviet union into a militarized confrontation that would last decades. Will bemeeting conversational. I will pose a series of questions allowing sam to elucidate the theories of his book. After the meeting, books will be available for purchase and inspection by the author, and i would invite you to join us for a reception in the centers adjacent boardroom. Sam, what is the principal message of your book . And can you unpack the title for us . In a sense, you have stepped on my answer by giving what is the main conclusion, which is was ahe cold war political and economic contest before korea, and afterwards, it took on a very different nature. In the article that rob quite , i was veryoned the authors of the article, and i thought the recommendations they made for a massive military buildup were excessive. Reading the soviet and chinese documents in the cable correspondence, reports from beijing, reports from pyongyang about what kim was saying to diplomats reports from beijing about what mao was saying, reports from pyongyang what kim was saying to diplomats. The commitment of the three communist states engaged in the war and their willingness to take risk was much higher than i had anticipated. Responding to things that happened in korea that they had neither anticipated nor desired to join. Hey responded they really had a very severe the chinese intervention in october of 1950, which is a critical turning point in the war. At that point, they feared the country was on the edge of world war iii. It is that fearing the worst, the worst case, that is the principal argument and therefore the title of the book. Great. You have a lot of new materials on the origins of the korean war. As you have now pieced together from a multinational perspective , what was the driving factor in starting the war . Well, ive got a few photographs from the book that i will try to toggle through here if i can get my fingers to work. While you do that, i want to welcome those participating in cspan. Meeting via well, thats not coming up on the screen for some reason. We will move on here. Initiative for the work came from the dictator of north korea , who on multiple occasions stalined permission from to invade the south, and with that permission would have to supplies, equipment, toisors that were necessary bring off a successful offensive. After refusing many of these requests or ignoring them, andin changed his mind saying, iilsung moscow to to come to discuss with me the operation you have wanted to launch in the invasion of south korea. He did not spell that out. His language was very sparse, but that was clearly what he meant. This is a photograph of stalin khrushchev,e, mao, and all the leaders of the forunist states gathered stalins 70th birthday. ,his is in the bolshoi theater and it occurs december 21 1949. Mao tohad invited discuss a treaty of assistance and alliance. Outside his first trip the country, was very upset. Very manyot have photographs available. He did not like photographs of himself. Hes never smiling, which may have something to do with the fact that he had black teeth. The negotiations dragged on for two months. They would lead to a treaty, but nothis point, mao was getting the concessions that he wanted. Finally at some point in late changes his, stalin mind and conceptualizes a new strategy. No longer would he try and keep all of the concessions he had from what we used to call sheg kaishek, now junkie now shang kaishek in the current annunciation. He was prepared to launch an invasion on the per on the condition he get the soviet union out of the war and on the basis of a plan he had to force persuade, coerce, however one wants to stylet into providing the backup for the North Koreans if things did not go as expected and lead to a rapid north korean victory. Stalin comes up with this new strategy, this new strategic concept. He makes the concessions to mao and without telling mao anything about his planning he was not in the habit of explain himself he cables before the negotiations are completed, he cables kim. Thats the way in which it came about. One of the Big Questions has , why did stalin change. Essentially, it is because he was blocked in his ambitions to break up nato in western europe. Had made it fairly clear that they were consolidating u. S. Interests in asia, and they laid out a defense perimeter for the United States that did not include taiwan or south korea. Analysts said they would not defend. They just were not going to be part of the defensive perimeter. Thats why stalin decides he can go in at little cost. A was very striking is that territory the United States was not willing to stake out as a commitment and declare its Foreign Policy and felt compelled to go to war over some months later after the attack occurred. , it proved occurred unsuccessful. Can you talk about why . You need to know a little bit about kim ilsung. You can see in this photograph in which he is announcing the start of the war, he is very young. Power by the soviet political advisors and Security Services in north korea. He has great ambitions, but they are dependent on soviet support. He promised stalin, and he permissiono, whose and endorsement he had to get, and mao gave it, that he would win the war in a week. He was counting on south koreans not being prepared, which they were not. He was counting on revolt in south korea of 200,000 communists, whom he had cultivated and expected to rise up and take over the central part of the country. Things did not work out. He was also counting that the u. S. Would not intervene. Both of those assumptions were not realized. There was an over fold. Offensive got bogged down because of very timid leadership, very poor use of tanks and artillery. Much progressing in fortis. Ring seoul on the second day of the invasion, the United States announced a plan to intervene, which upset his other fundamental assumption. Not only did the United States intervene, it quickly won the support of the fledgling Security Council of the United Number of allied countries said they would come forward and join the United States in supporting the United Nations resolution to restore peaceful security in korea. The question comes up why did truman reverse his previous thinking . Again, a number of reasons support that. He was very upset at the soviets using what we would today call proxy forces, the North Koreans, to expand his area of influence. Complaints ofd we are now vulnerable coming from west germany forces west germany and other forces in , and finally, there were the charges of senator joseph mccarthy, who had for five months been claiming the administration was soft on communism, harboring communists in the state department and elsewhere at the federal government, and they should be. Mpeached for treason if that has some contemporary rings, well then so be it. It turns out there actually were a couple of communists in the state department, but thats another story. Happened tos what the north korean invasion and why the United States was a key part of each of these countries having to recalibrate their strategies. Just a quick follow on question before turning to the u. S. Military buildup. There were miscalculations on both sides. Miscalculated that the United States was not going to enter the war, given that the u. S. Had previously not designated south korea as part of it defense perimeter, it was in some respects and understandable assumption. Policy change. Can you talk about the decision . Was there a sense that the war had asked collated had escalated, would draw the chinese in . The backdrop of this is that the United States had no human from the russian sources, known on North Koreans, not on the chinese. What happens is there were a informed or not very well informed gases made gases cal leaders guesses by the newly informed central destin guesses by the newly formed Central Intelligence agency. Macarthur, who was at the end of his career, had had a very , had been thee commander in the far east. Korea was not part of his mandate into the war broke out, and then he was immediately responsible for supervising the offensive operations there. Macarthur planned and overrode any opposition and made a very amphibious envelopment, and this is the first regional commander ever to go to the front during a dangerous operation of an amphibious is with his here he lieutenants watching the invasion in what is clearly a staged photograph. Have a biographical section of ridgeway in the book, which is fascinating. Being propped up here by the medics and others , these the night before tail end of a hurricane hit the invading force. Nervous notoriously stomach, got very seasick. His top aide and the medics gave him half a bottle of scotch as a solution. He got up the next morning and somehow ate a hearty breakfast and showed up on the bridge to watch the invasion. He had taken what he styled himself as a thousand in one gamble and won, and in the debate about if you cross the 38th parallel, if you try to unify all of korea, atchison and herrmann both stated later in , the sentiment was so great to finish the operation that nobody could withstand macarthurs insistence that he wanted to pursue the north Korean Forces all the way to china. Assumed the chinese were in no shape to invade. What gets worse is he even assumed when the chinese sent , some of theers in americans who had been advisors in the chinese civil war identified Chinese People by their units in the Chinese Peoples volunteers, even though they were wearing north korean uniforms, sent this intelligence back. Macarthur and his intelligence chief dismissed it. So, they were hell bent going for the yalu river border at a time when the chinese had infiltrated at night 380,000 troops into north korea. And set a trap for the advancing american forces. Its a forces. Its a fascinating episode. And to quote a contemporary u. S. General, the enemy gets a vote, too. If you decide to cross the 38th parallel and march on their border, taking into account a response would have been prudent. I think what is one of the great strengths of your book is how you really meticulously go through the decisionmaking and you look from all the different perspectives unpacking what were the threshold assumptions drive different policy prescriptions. If i can hyperlink from that to the mission at the Wilson Center. That is what we do whether it is that is what we do in a host theegional context, if its Iran Nuclear Deal or looking at russia and ukraine now. What are the perspectives of the Different Actors . Given youre dealing with opaque societies in many cases, in some cases, anyone. Anyway. What are the threshold assumptions, and how valid are those, critically assessing policies. This is a wonderful example of that drawing on the available historical material. Lets get up to the next question, which i think really goes to the heart of your argument about transformative consequences of the korean war for the cold war and what led to the u. S. Military buildup. Well, following the chinese intervention, it took several weeks for the overwhelming combat intelligence from of a fleeing set of units to be digested and to realize this was a serious chinese intervention. That shook the decisionmakers in washington. And they, as i say, really feared world war iii was on the table and truman entered in his diary, i think world war iii is here. They made two basic decisions coming out of a month long strategic review. Which was led in very large part by dean atchison here with truman and by general george , marshall, who had been called back to be the secretary of defense. And they decided europe is our first priority. It is the first objective of soviet aggression. And what we need to do in this case is build up our nuclear and conventional forces for the defense of europe. This means we will have a limited war in korea. We will not send any more forces beyond replacements for those who are killed and wounded to mcarthur. Macarthurrthur two macarthur. We will recover the military initiative, and get just above the 38th parallel and call for ceasefire and negotiations at that point. So, this is the new american strategy. At the same time, they endorsed the military buildup to support the defense of europe and the ability to protect american interests more broadly. And what this involved is a quadrupling of the defense budget, which is laid out in some detail in the book. An expansion of the Strategic Air command, doubling the number of longrange bombers that we had from roughly 520 to 1082 by 1954. Sending four additional divisions of troops to europe. Dwight eisenhower is the supreme naming Dwight Eisenhower the supreme allied commander in europe. Transforming the Nato Alliance into a for shooting defensive alliance with war planning sections and commitment of forces. And so forth. Theres a huge buildup, including a massive expansion of the cia with the largest part of the expansion going to covert operations. So, its the chinese intervention that triggers the review, which produces limited war and also produces a commitment inside the government there will be no first use of Nuclear Weapons, and then this massive conventional and nuclear buildup, focused primarily on your. On europe. You are proving the quote from the ambassador. It was the korean war and not world war ii that made us all World Military political power. Made us a World Military political power. Thats the sort of relationship between the korean war and the buildup you just spoke to in which you kind of addressed in the article, you brought the argument to its fullness through these international archives. And i think, to me, as a fresh interpretation of these events and speaks to the path breaking quality of your research here, sam. I cant resist. You have tupulovs photo. While all this was going on the american side, you want to talk about the soviet side . They were scrambling to develop counterpart capabilities and the abil