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Week of Decision: June 25, 1950 |
 The United Nations Security Council adopts a resolution calling for the immediate cessation of hostilities and withdrawal of North Korean forces to the 38th parallel. It is clear this is a full-scale invasion. President Truman returns to Washington DC and a meeting of top advisors is held at Blair House to determine initial U.S. steps.
We didn't have any [advance] information on this at all. It was a complete surprise to me as it was to nearly everybody else even all over the world. Nobody thought any such thing would take place. I didn't think so. [The Commander in the Far East General Douglas] MacArthur didn't think so. I didn't know of anybody else who did. Then we had to meet the situation when it came up and that may be what you will be faced with when the time comes so just bear that in mind. Keep your minds open and be ready for whatever comes to meet it in the proper manner at that time and don't try to live in the past. Look to the future but use the past as a basis on which to figure out what you want to do in the future.
President Harry S. Truman
On Sunday morning I drove in immediately to the State Department and found that my colleagues there had been working through the night . . . with their colleagues in the Department of Defense, and they had brought together all the information available and necessary for decisions as to what should be done. In the first place it was clear that this [attack by the regime of Kim Il Sung, premier of the Democratic Republic of Korea] was not a casual . . . or an isolated border incident. This was a general attack which extended all across the border and therefore was a matter of utmost seriousness. This was established by Sunday morning. And [in] the second place it was established that it was an attack in very considerable force. The South Koreans were falling back. They had not yet lost contact with one another. The retreat was orderly but it was precipitate and it seemed fairly clear that before long the capital of South Korea would be overrun. Therefore, we knew we had a critical military situation to handle. We then had reports on enemy strength in so far as our Intelligence was able to gather them, and they were somewhat meager but they indicated that these forces were well trained. Many of them had been within the Soviet Union for some time. They were well equipped and this was a dangerous attack.
Secretary of State Dean Acheson
We had word [earlier in 1950] that they were building up [the North Korean army] in equipment and [the] size of their services and training, but I don't believe we had anything definite which would indicate that they were about to launch an all-out war with complete equipment and large forces. I believe that we felt that the principal thing to be feared or most apt to happen were small raids into South Korea. They'd had those before. And I don't believe any of us had the feeling that they were about to launch an all-out attack. I know I didn't.
General Omar Bradley
Every morning the CIA had a private meeting with me personally, and I was kept informed on everything that anyone else knew, on everything that was going on around the world. But at the time we were more worried about Iran and Azerbaijan than we were about anyplace else.
President Harry S. Truman
We then had an up-to-date report on our own forces. The nearest available, of course, were in Japan. These, for the most part, were untried Divisions [the First Cavalry, and the 7th, 24th and 25th Infantry Divisions]. The veterans had all been mustered out. A few of the soldiers had battle experience but not many. The navy [7th Fleet] was in the Philippines at Cavite. There were air force planes available and so that we knew what was happening. We knew what we had available. We knew that the United Nations was convening at two o'clock on Sunday afternoon and there was about all the information that we could gather. We then began to get to work on recommendations to the President.
Secretary of State Dean Acheson
Howard Anderson, . . . who formerly was a member of the White House [secret service] detail, . . . telephoned and came after me with a car to drive me to [President Truman's house in] Independence. . . . We went to the grounds through the gate at rear in the high iron fence, which the secret service has had erected around the grounds to keep the public from trampling over the lawns and shrubbery. [An agent] . . . took me to the side door and the maid told the president I was there. He came down and took me into a library or study where we talked . . . . He said he had talked to [Secretary of State Dean] Acheson by telephone last night . . . . The Security Council of the United Nations had been called to meet this afternoon, and . . . unless something developed he did not want to cut short his visit to Independence. He felt that if we were to do so it would alarm the people. . . .
Assistant Press Secretary Eben Ayers
. . . I called the President about 12:00 o’clock and told him I thought it would be a good idea if he came back [to Washington DC]. He said he would be there about six o’clock our time. He wanted a meeting at Blair House [his current residence], and he told me the principal people he wanted there and to use my discretion in setting any others who ought to be there. So I went ahead.
Secretary of State Dean Acheson
[Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Ernest] Gross was an able lawyer and a very energetic man. We burned up the telephone throughout the night. . . . We talked about the possibility of whether [Jacob A.] Malik, the Soviet representative who had walked out because he wouldn't sit with the [Nationalist] Chinese representative, would return. I asked Gross, since Malik had walked out if Lie felt that the Russians ought to be notified, Gross said that he had thought about that and hadn't talked to [U.N. Secretary General Trygve] Lie, but he would mention it to him, but he was pretty sure that in all of the meetings notification was simply a matter of course, because they were a member and entitled to come, that they were sent a routine notification. Then we speculated, and incidentally we agreed that the chances were unlikely that Malik would come back. . . . He would have to get instructions from home about that, and he probably assumed they couldn't do anything since the Security Council can't order forces or take any real military action without unanimity. He probably assumed that he'd have time to come in. . . . Well, he stayed away. The Security Council passed one resolution that day--calling on the North Koreans to go back. That passed unanimously. Assistant Secretary of State for U.N. Affairs John HickersonOral history interview, June 5, 1973
And that was all done by arousing people from their sleep and making sure that everyone would be on deck at two o'clock at Lake Success [New York], which was at that time the headquarters of the United Nations. This was the first emergency session that the Security Council had ever held.
Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Ernest Gross
I've been asked several times whether, in these crucial meetings of Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Friday [June 25 to 30, 1950], during the Korean decisions, we considered as a group, what would be done in the event that the United Nations refused to take any action. I think . . . in asking these questions - those who do so have not participated in decisions of this sort. This business of making decisions is a continuous process. One does not say, we will do this - then someone says - well, suppose this doesn't work, what do you do? This is not the way the thing was done, or usually is done, -- particularly when action is as vague and as general as proceeding through the . . . United Nations as against proceeding unilaterally. For instance, it was perfectly clear that the United Nations would and must denounce an aggression. It could not do otherwise. The charter prohibited an aggression. This was clearly one. There was a report from the United Nations Commission [on Korea] itself in Korea branding this as an aggression from the North. Therefore, it was certain that the United Nations, in some form or other would denounce this action . . . . This we knew would occur. Now, it was doubtful as to whether it would go further - whether it would call on its members to fight. However, it had gone far enough, so that those who wanted to fight would be fighting with its blessing and not against it. But one says, suppose [the Soviet Ambassador to the United Nations] Mr. [Jacob A.] Malik appeared and interposed a veto? He might have appeared. It was extremely unlikely. The very fact that it was unlikely underlined the importance of immediate action. One thing that one can be fairly sure about in the Soviet system is that they are not capable of making instantaneous decisions. There has to be even more palaver in the Soviet system than there does in the democratic system. They can make decisions over a long period of time, so that action appears to be peremptory - but it really isn't. And, here was something which occurred. Undoubtedly, they had inspired it. Undoubtedly, they had not expected us to take the action that we did. They had boycotted the United Nations because of the Nationalist Chinese. This would have taken a major decision of the Politburo to turn this around. And the betting was all in favor of Malik's not appearing, if we acted fast. If we didn't act fast, why anything would have happened. And therefore, I think, to all of us it would have been a waste of time to say - spend the precious minutes saying what'll we do if Malik appears tomorrow? Well, the answer is, let's wait and see. Chances are seventy-five out of a hundred that he won't appear. We haven't got time to deal with the twenty-five percent chance. Let's get forward with the job. Now, I think if he had appeared, we would have immediately adjusted ourselves to that and taken some other action, either through the General Assembly or unilaterally. I think Mr. Truman is quite right that the interest of the United States and its allies, and of the free world was so great in defeating this aggression against Korea that it had to be done. And if, through some sort of legal mechanism one operation was blocked, then another operation would have to be found to do it. My own view was not to worry about things that were not likely to happen. Because we had plenty of worries about things that were likely to happen.
Secretary of State Dean Acheson
The President was not one to show great concern about a thing. He wasn't going to get excited and carried away about anything. I think he was concerned, of course. When you ask questions like that . . . about the concern of a President, and I think this would apply of any President probably--a man who gets to the point where he's President of the United States isn't going to get up and run around in little circles and get overly excited. He's going to keep his head. He just talked casually and easily about the situation, without any excitement about it. When I went out the gate, of course, all these photographers and reporters began to ask questions and I just told them--they asked if he was concerned, and I said that naturally he was concerned, but he wasn't alarmed. That's the way I put it then, and I think that was a fair statement. About an hour and a half later after I got back to the hotel, the word came that the President was going to go back to Washington as soon as possible, and that efforts were being made to round up everyone, others of the staff, the few that there were, and newspapermen.
Assistant Press Secretary Eben Ayers
I was there [in St. Louis]; the [President's plane] plane came in a minute or two after after 2:00 and I got aboard. The first thing the president said to me was, "We're in trouble, I think."
Secretary of Treasury John Snyder
At about 3:30 in the afternoon, the Secretary [of State, Dean Acheson,] broke off the discussions we [the Department of State advisors] had been having with him and said he wanted time to be alone and to dictate. We were called in about 6:30 p.m. and he read to us a paper he had produced, which was the first draft of the statement finally issued by the President, and which was not significantly changed by the time it appeared the following day [June 26], as the President's statement. I think this fact is of historical significance, since it shows Mr. Acheson's advocacy of the course actually taken by this Government was not something pressed upon him by military leaders, but rather something arrived at by himself, in solitary deliberation and in the knowledge of all that was at stake.
Counselor George Kennan
 Image: The Independence, President Truman's plane, 1950. Source: Truman Library
[President Truman] . . . call[ed] the newspaper men into his
cabin, after we were off the ground
and they had no way of leaking what they heard as they could not use our
radio . . . . He had them hooked, so he called them in and told them . . . what
had happened. He said, now I don’t pledge you to secrets because by the time
we get there it will be all out anyway. And then he dismissed them and they
went back to their seats. He said, now, John, what will you do if this is as
bad as it sounds or worse? What will the Treasury do?
Well, I said, . . . . I want you to give me . . . authority to go up on the
Hill and see all the Chairmen and ask them to stop any bill that’s to cut
taxes. Then I want you to give me authority to start working with the Ways
and Means Committee and the Finance Committee to start raising all the taxes
we can--new taxes.
John Snyder
On the way there I was going over in my mind the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 . . . . And then I thought about Mussolini's entrance into Ethiopia and Haile Selassie's protest to the League of Nations on that invasion. I also thought about Hitler's march into the Saar Valley, which could have been stopped by the French and the British if they had acted in unison on the subject. Then Hitler's march into Austria and his overthrow of Czechoslovakia and Poland, and it occurred to me that if the Russian totalitarian state was intending to follow in the path of the dictatorships of Hitler and Mussolini, they should be met head on in Korea . . . .
I was sure that they [the Russians] had trained the North Koreans in order to create a communist state in Korea as a whole and that their intention was to overthrow the Republic of Korea which had been set up by the United Nations with the Russians' approval. . . . The conclusion that I had come to was that force was the only language that the Russian dictatorship could understand. We had to meet them on that basis . . . .
President Harry S. Truman
Under Secretary of State James Webb
. . . I've never seen President Truman go into any conference that he didn't give the impression that he was pretty well briefed on what was going to happen. He knew a lot of details of the situation. And whether or not he'd made up his mind, I don't remember, but I'm sure he gave us the impression that was well versed on the problem facing us. He always was.
General Omar Bradley
When we left the car at the Blair House and walked in, the President was in
front and turned to the right into a cloak room to which the door was
open. [Secretary of State Dean] Acheson and [Secretary of Defense Louis] Johnson turned to the left into a room in which the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and other officials were waiting. Knowing . . . that
the President had always given me a large amount of freedom to express the
results of staff work, I walked into the cloak room behind him and closed
the door and quickly outlined for him the three recommendations to which
he was to listen. I told him that Acheson and I both felt strongly only
two of the recommendations should be approved that night and that the
third one ["neutralizing" Taiwan, then called Formosa, by ordering the
Navy to both prevent the Chinese Communists from invading the island and
also to bar Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces from attacking the
mainland] should go over for another day or two, particularly in view of
the fact that [it was separate of the Korean invasion and]
we were presenting the situation to the United Nations in
New York.
Under Secretary of State James Webb
In the discussions at this meeting, [Defense Secretary] Louis Johnson has
introduced something which I think is quite wrong. He believes that there
is an argument with me on the subject of Formosa. I don't recall any argument
at all. I recall quite clearly that before dinner, while we were having a
cocktail and waiting for dinner to be announced, Louis asked [Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff] General [Omar] Bradley to read a long memorandum from
General [of the Army Douglas] MacArthur about the importance of Formosa, which
he read. Everybody listened to this, and then as I recall it--I recall it
quite clearly--the President said "We will put off all discussion of everything
until we have our dinner and then get things cleared away." I don't recall that
I said anything or that Louis said anything or that there was any argument at all.
Secretary of State Dean Acheson
Well [after Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Omar Bradley read the memorandum on Formosa] the President said he didn’t want to discuss this or any other subject until we were through with dinner, “I don’t want to talk about this with waiters around. Let’s finish our cocktails and have dinner.” We had dinner, and then everything was cleared away. The President dismissed the servants and said, “Dean you start off.” . . .
Secretary of State Dean Acheson
The recommendations that we made [at Blair House] were, first of all, to get the Americans out of Korea, as soon as possible--that is, the dependents of the Military Mission and people of that sort. In order to do that, the airports had to be kept open particularly the Kimpo port [near Seoul], and therefore there should be air protection for those airfields. In doing whatever the Air Force did to protect those field from attack, they should stay south of the 38th Parallel, and not go north of it. We had hoped, and rather indicated, that in doing this, they would not be too careful about just meeting planes that came over the airfields--if they saw any North Korean planes anywhere in the neighborhood, they were to go after them and get them out of the way. Later on that became somewhat of a disappointment because [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs] General [Omar] Bradley did not want to put that explicitly in the orders--saying that the lieutenants who flew these planes could be depended upon to interpret their instructions broadly. In fact, they didn't interpret them broadly, and therefore since since there were no attacks on the airports as such, they didn't look for any trouble beyond that area. The second recommendation was that General [Douglas] MacArthur should be instructed by airdrop to get all the ammunition and military supplies which he possibly could to the South Korean forces. The third recommendation was that the fleet should be ordered from Cavite [in the Phillipines] north at once, and we added that we should make a statement that the fleet will would repel any attack on Formosa and and that Formosa should not make any attack on the mainland. The President said he would not do the latter that night, that he would order the fleet immediately from Cavite [but] . . . . not make any decision one way or the other [on "neutralizing" Formosa] . . . . It was an interesting discussion [on June 25], because as I recall it the assumption by everybody--I don't think there was a question in anyone's mind or that it entered into the discussion that took place--as to whether we would or would not stand up . . . to this issue that had been presented to us. I think it was just sort of clear to us, almost without discussion, that we were going to [become involved in Korea]. These recommendations, of course, looked very strongly in that direction. I think there was some talk about what this meant, about what would happen if we let it go, and all that sort of thing. But certainly there was nobody there who took the view that we should regard this as a crisis to which we had to respond.
Secretary of State Dean Acheson
Immediately after dinner we discussed the whole situation and after [Secretary of State] Dean [Acheson] stated the case and Dean's statement had been agreed to by the Secretary of Defense [Louis Johnson], then everybody expressed his opinion around the table.
President Harry S. Truman
When you see a force the size of the North Korean army launching an attack . . . of this size, you knew they had to be backed by Russian equipment. We were not sure for a long time whether or not any Russians were actually in the fighting forces. . . . And, of course, we had to take into consideration whether or not this would bring on total war. Some of us felt that Russia did not want to go into a world war at this time but was using this as one of those small . . . aggressive movements to further communism, more or less piecemeal. And, of course, we never knew whether or not Russia would have gone to war under certain circumstances, but we didn’t think she would.
General Omar Bradley
Most of my people [from the Department of State] said they had nothing to add, that what I said was right. [Air Force Chief of Staff General] Hoyt Vandenberg made the usual statement made by the Air Force that they could do rather more than they could do. The Army was troubled, and [their Chief of Staff General J. Lawton] Collins said, “This is a tough business, but I think it can be handled.” The Navy said we can take care of the naval part of it but that that was minor. Hoyt’s idea was that the Air Force could take care of this and didn’t need any help. No one thought that was true. The Air Force always says that. You can discount it. When we got through, the President instructed [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Omar] Bradley to send out certain orders. . . .
Secretary of State Dean Acheson
. . . [T]he President, therefore, who had been considering all of this while the discussion was going on, said he would adopt the three recommendation which I made and that orders should be prepared immediately for his signature with the proviso that he would not that night make any statement as to what the fleet was going to do [about Fromosa] until the fleet was in a position to do it. This was rather typical . . . of President Truman. And it seemed to be extremely unwise to say what is going to happen when one is not in a position to do it. It is always a mistake and I realized at once he was right and that our recommendation was wrong.
Secretary of State Dean Acheson
Five or six years later [Secretary of State Dean] Acheson said to me one day when I was visiting from Oklahoma, he said, "You know I always wondered how the President knew so instinctively the right thing to do." I said, "Didn't you see me walk in the cloakroom with him and close the door?" Hell, no one there knew I walked in the cloakroom with him. But the point is that when he had good staff work he would use [it] very advantageously.
Under Secretary of State James Webb
That concluded our operations for Sunday night. The President told us to stand ready to meet again on Monday night when the situation became clearer. I told all my people to go home and get some sleep which they needed very badly, having missed one night entirely.
Secretary of State Dean Acheson
We had a grand trip back once we were in the air . . . . The crowd at the Washington Airport was made up of the Secretaries of State and Defense and Army, Navy, and Air. Had them all up to dinner [at Blair House] at eight . . . . My conference was a most successful one, and there is a chance that things may work out without the necessity of mobilization. Haven't been so badly upset since Greece and Turkey fell into our lap. Let's hope for the best. . . . Lots and lots of love and many happy returns for the thirty-first year of your ordeal with me. It's been all pleasure for me.
President Harry S. Truman
I talked to Mrs. Truman about everything that came up, but the major decisions were accomplished after a long study of all information available, no matter where it came from. In the long run, the jump decision that I made in the beginning was usually the right one. . . . [Meaning] Immediately make a decision when things are put up to you, and you don't want to tell anybody that you've made the decision, but you want to get all the facts and try not to get those facts to support what you think you're going to do. Get all those facts and you put them together and, in the long run, if you're heart's right and you know the history and the background of these things it'll be right. . . . You'll find nine times in ten the decision off the cuff, in the long run, is the correct one. . . . When Dean Acheson called me in Independence and told me that the North Koreans had invaded South Korea and asked me what to do, I said, Get the United Nations agreement that we're going to prevent that from happening. I was thinking of Ethiopia when that happened. If I hadn't known about Ethiopia, I'd have had to study everything in the world to find out about it. And we did the right thing!
President Harry S. Truman
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Source: Truman Library.
Photo: U.S. Army. Source: Truman Library.
Photo: Defense Department. Source: Truman Library.
Photo: U.S. Navy. Source: Truman Library.
