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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 3 00:00:08,491 --> 00:00:09,940 North Korea has achieved its goal 4 00:00:09,975 --> 00:00:12,495 of becoming a rocket power... 5 00:00:12,529 --> 00:00:14,221 North Korea says it now can strike 6 00:00:14,255 --> 00:00:18,328 anywhere in the U.S. including Washington D.C. 7 00:00:19,950 --> 00:00:22,712 North Korea today is armed with nuclear weapons and 8 00:00:22,746 --> 00:00:25,956 intercontinental ballistic missiles and anybody who 9 00:00:25,991 --> 00:00:29,305 underestimates them does so as their own peril. 10 00:00:29,615 --> 00:00:31,997 Rocket Man should have been handled 11 00:00:32,032 --> 00:00:34,137 a long time ago... 12 00:00:36,864 --> 00:00:39,660 North Koreans truly feel that nuclear weapons is 13 00:00:39,694 --> 00:00:43,422 the only way to guarantee their survival. 14 00:00:45,252 --> 00:00:47,150 For North Korea, it's still about an 15 00:00:47,185 --> 00:00:50,912 anti-imperialist struggle against the United States. 16 00:00:50,947 --> 00:00:54,330 which the North Koreans take back to the Korean War. 17 00:00:55,227 --> 00:00:57,678 The Korean War was one of the bloodiest chapters 18 00:00:57,712 --> 00:01:00,060 in Korean history. 19 00:01:00,508 --> 00:01:03,994 It was a civil war that nearly ignited World War Three. 20 00:01:04,443 --> 00:01:06,273 We are united in detesting 21 00:01:06,307 --> 00:01:08,102 communist slavery. 22 00:01:08,137 --> 00:01:10,380 A war that took the lives of tens of thousands 23 00:01:10,415 --> 00:01:14,143 of American GIs and millions of Koreans. 24 00:01:15,454 --> 00:01:18,871 What we did in North Korea has never 25 00:01:18,906 --> 00:01:21,667 really been acknowledged. 26 00:01:22,392 --> 00:01:26,879 The Korean War set the template for Vietnam. 27 00:01:27,984 --> 00:01:29,675 The Korean War was one of the most vicious, 28 00:01:29,710 --> 00:01:33,093 violent, nauseating wars of the 20th century. 29 00:01:35,233 --> 00:01:38,063 It was a war many Americans don't remember and 30 00:01:38,098 --> 00:01:41,342 Koreans can never forget. 31 00:01:41,377 --> 00:01:44,518 The United States dropped more ordinance on North Korea 32 00:01:44,552 --> 00:01:47,279 in that three year war than we dropped during the 33 00:01:47,314 --> 00:01:50,040 entire Second World War. 34 00:01:50,075 --> 00:01:53,768 For North Koreans and for the state ideology of North Korea, 35 00:01:53,803 --> 00:01:55,563 the Korean War is not a memory. 36 00:01:55,598 --> 00:01:58,152 It's still very much alive. 37 00:01:58,187 --> 00:02:00,396 There's no way to understand what's going 38 00:02:00,430 --> 00:02:03,571 on today, without understanding of the Korean War. 39 00:02:03,606 --> 00:02:05,504 How can you understand this Korean conflict that 40 00:02:05,539 --> 00:02:07,541 we are having, without understanding 41 00:02:07,575 --> 00:02:10,440 of the origin of that conflict. 42 00:02:31,979 --> 00:02:34,947 Good evening from the White House in Washington. 43 00:02:34,982 --> 00:02:36,363 Ladies and gentlemen, 44 00:02:36,397 --> 00:02:38,779 the President of the United States. 45 00:02:38,813 --> 00:02:40,539 The world will note that the first 46 00:02:40,574 --> 00:02:45,199 atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base... 47 00:02:46,338 --> 00:02:49,928 Nagasaki. Target for the second atomic bomb. 48 00:02:49,962 --> 00:02:52,137 Just three days after Hiroshima. 49 00:02:52,172 --> 00:02:54,035 London newspapers this morning are speculating 50 00:02:54,070 --> 00:02:58,350 that a new surrender ultimatum to Japan may be likely soon. 51 00:03:14,987 --> 00:03:17,887 With the swift conclusion of World War Two 52 00:03:17,921 --> 00:03:20,579 after President Truman dropped two atomic bombs on 53 00:03:20,614 --> 00:03:24,342 the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 54 00:03:24,376 --> 00:03:27,241 American planners turned their attention to Korea, 55 00:03:27,276 --> 00:03:29,726 where the US military would oversee the orderly 56 00:03:29,761 --> 00:03:32,902 surrender of Japanese forces. 57 00:03:33,799 --> 00:03:36,630 With Soviet troops already deployed in northern Korea and 58 00:03:36,664 --> 00:03:40,358 marching southward the US military needed to act quickly. 59 00:03:43,464 --> 00:03:45,949 The United States was much further away, 60 00:03:45,984 --> 00:03:49,953 its troops were much further away than were Soviet troops. 61 00:03:49,988 --> 00:03:54,510 What that meant was suddenly the Americans 62 00:03:54,544 --> 00:03:58,307 had to try and establish some agreements with Stalin, 63 00:03:58,341 --> 00:04:02,276 the leader in the Soviet Union on Korea. 64 00:04:02,311 --> 00:04:06,418 The Americans proposed that the United States and 65 00:04:06,453 --> 00:04:10,767 the Soviet Union establish zones. 66 00:04:13,391 --> 00:04:17,153 On the sweltering night of August 10th, 1945 67 00:04:17,187 --> 00:04:20,915 two young army officers, on loan to the state department, 68 00:04:20,950 --> 00:04:23,884 were tasked with quickly finding a dividing line, 69 00:04:23,918 --> 00:04:28,198 before the Soviets managed to occupy the entire country. 70 00:04:28,578 --> 00:04:31,961 Armed only with a national geographic map of Asia 71 00:04:31,995 --> 00:04:36,862 colonels Rusk and Bonesteel, neither one experts on Korea, 72 00:04:36,897 --> 00:04:39,969 zeroed in on the peninsula. 73 00:04:40,797 --> 00:04:43,662 They had 30 minutes to really divide up the country, 74 00:04:43,697 --> 00:04:46,182 and they looked at the wall, and there was a map of the 75 00:04:46,216 --> 00:04:47,459 Korean peninsula, and they said, 76 00:04:47,494 --> 00:04:49,150 "Well, why don't we just kind of divide it here, 77 00:04:49,185 --> 00:04:50,807 on this 38th parallel?" 78 00:04:50,842 --> 00:04:53,293 The 38th parallel is just north of Seoul and 79 00:04:53,327 --> 00:04:57,193 they wanted the national capital to be in the American zone, 80 00:04:57,227 --> 00:04:59,713 and with very little discussion, 81 00:04:59,747 --> 00:05:03,855 that decision goes up to Truman and is made in 82 00:05:03,889 --> 00:05:06,927 a proposal to Stalin. 83 00:05:07,893 --> 00:05:11,276 The 38th parallel was simply a line on a map. 84 00:05:11,311 --> 00:05:13,830 It followed no physical features. 85 00:05:13,865 --> 00:05:16,523 It divided farms and whole villages. 86 00:05:16,557 --> 00:05:20,423 Severed 300 roads, and cut across six railways. 87 00:05:21,459 --> 00:05:24,151 But the Soviets accepted it. 88 00:05:24,185 --> 00:05:27,499 Korea had been cut in two without a word of input from 89 00:05:27,534 --> 00:05:30,260 a single Korean. 90 00:05:30,295 --> 00:05:34,920 Two Koreas created solely to oppose each other. 91 00:05:34,955 --> 00:05:37,820 Koreans were one people for thousands of years, 92 00:05:37,854 --> 00:05:40,788 and the Koreans didn't have a lot of choice. 93 00:05:41,306 --> 00:05:43,343 You know, it's not even a big country. 94 00:05:43,377 --> 00:05:46,380 It was just divided, and that took all of 30 minutes, 95 00:05:46,415 --> 00:05:48,451 it was a 30-minute decision. 96 00:05:52,282 --> 00:05:54,354 And so, the 38th parallel becomes this 97 00:05:54,388 --> 00:05:56,735 temporary dividing line between 98 00:05:56,770 --> 00:05:59,324 northern and southern Korea. 99 00:05:59,876 --> 00:06:02,983 But the temporary dividing line congeals into, 100 00:06:03,017 --> 00:06:06,400 effectively, a permanent dividing line when the 101 00:06:06,435 --> 00:06:09,265 Soviet Union and the United States fall out. 102 00:06:09,299 --> 00:06:13,959 The cold war intervened and American troops didn't go home. 103 00:06:14,753 --> 00:06:16,583 With the end of World War II, 104 00:06:16,617 --> 00:06:18,895 the United States and the Soviet Union emerged 105 00:06:18,930 --> 00:06:20,794 as superpowers. 106 00:06:20,828 --> 00:06:24,867 By 1946, the twin godheads of democracy and communism 107 00:06:24,901 --> 00:06:27,559 collided to redraw the map of the world 108 00:06:27,594 --> 00:06:30,424 along ideological lines. 109 00:06:32,357 --> 00:06:35,015 In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin tightened his 110 00:06:35,049 --> 00:06:39,468 hold on power and without pause continued to extend communist 111 00:06:39,502 --> 00:06:42,263 influence throughout Europe. 112 00:06:43,299 --> 00:06:46,267 US President Truman, sworn in after the death of 113 00:06:46,302 --> 00:06:50,513 Franklin Delano Roosevelt was both unpopular and untested 114 00:06:50,548 --> 00:06:53,516 yet determined to advance America's post war interests, 115 00:06:54,552 --> 00:06:57,934 chief among them the containment of communism. 116 00:06:58,625 --> 00:07:00,799 The policy of the Truman administration was that the 117 00:07:00,834 --> 00:07:04,493 United States needed to focus on containing the Soviet Union, 118 00:07:04,527 --> 00:07:07,357 keeping Soviet power and Soviet ideology, 119 00:07:07,392 --> 00:07:09,221 communism, from spreading. 120 00:07:09,256 --> 00:07:13,847 It wasn't simply the tanks and troops of the Soviet Union, 121 00:07:13,881 --> 00:07:15,987 it was this ideology. 122 00:07:16,021 --> 00:07:18,679 It was the belief system of communism. 123 00:07:20,060 --> 00:07:22,027 For Stalin and Truman the first rounds of 124 00:07:22,062 --> 00:07:25,237 the Cold War would be fought in Europe. 125 00:07:25,686 --> 00:07:27,481 And neither man was particularly interested in 126 00:07:27,516 --> 00:07:31,002 events on the faraway Korean peninsula. 127 00:07:32,106 --> 00:07:34,108 For us strategic planners Korea really 128 00:07:34,143 --> 00:07:37,215 didn't figure much in the picture at all. 129 00:07:37,249 --> 00:07:39,320 To the extent that we cared about Asia, 130 00:07:39,355 --> 00:07:41,806 us strategic planners believed that the only power 131 00:07:41,840 --> 00:07:45,085 in Asia would continue to be Japan. 132 00:07:46,638 --> 00:07:49,848 The Japanese defeat in WWII ended their occupation 133 00:07:49,883 --> 00:07:54,266 of Korea, a history marred by the brutal subjugation 134 00:07:54,301 --> 00:07:56,959 of the Korean people. 135 00:07:57,649 --> 00:08:01,342 Japan succeeded in colonizing Korea in 1910, 136 00:08:01,377 --> 00:08:05,243 that led to terrible hardships for millions of Koreans, 137 00:08:05,277 --> 00:08:09,247 and then the Japanese used Koreans as mobile capital and 138 00:08:09,281 --> 00:08:12,802 labor throughout the empire. 139 00:08:13,078 --> 00:08:16,254 You have the mobilization of 200,000 Korean soldiers 140 00:08:16,288 --> 00:08:18,083 into the Japanese army, 141 00:08:18,118 --> 00:08:21,604 most of them drafted, as many as 100 to 200,000 142 00:08:21,639 --> 00:08:25,090 women were dragooned into serving dozens of 143 00:08:25,125 --> 00:08:28,680 Japanese soldiers every day as sex slaves. 144 00:08:31,545 --> 00:08:34,168 So when they were liberated in '45, 145 00:08:34,203 --> 00:08:37,171 the Koreans thought this was the beginning of a bright, 146 00:08:37,206 --> 00:08:40,692 bright future for them, and that this division would 147 00:08:40,727 --> 00:08:43,074 end very quickly. 148 00:09:07,650 --> 00:09:10,066 Park Kyung Soon was just nine years old when she 149 00:09:10,101 --> 00:09:14,174 heard over the radio that the Japanese had surrendered. 150 00:09:44,653 --> 00:09:47,621 There was celebration, relief that this period of 151 00:09:47,656 --> 00:09:50,313 Japanese rule was over. 152 00:09:50,348 --> 00:09:53,489 But there was a power vacuum that opened up. 153 00:09:53,523 --> 00:09:56,043 Dependent on the evolving relationship between the 154 00:09:56,078 --> 00:10:00,289 Soviets and the Americans, and as it turned out the Soviets 155 00:10:00,323 --> 00:10:02,705 and the Americans couldn't reach an agreement on how 156 00:10:02,740 --> 00:10:05,881 to unify the Korean peninsula. 157 00:10:06,847 --> 00:10:09,056 To fill this power vacuum the Soviets 158 00:10:09,091 --> 00:10:12,750 and Americans backed their own leadership. 159 00:10:12,991 --> 00:10:17,409 To preside over South Korea the Americans chose Syngman Rhee, 160 00:10:17,444 --> 00:10:20,481 an English-speaking, Princeton-educated Christian 161 00:10:20,516 --> 00:10:22,483 who had been lobbying the American government 162 00:10:22,518 --> 00:10:24,831 for the job throughout the war. 163 00:10:24,865 --> 00:10:26,971 Syngman Rhee haunted the halls of the 164 00:10:27,005 --> 00:10:29,801 State Department in Washington, hoping to be taken as the 165 00:10:29,836 --> 00:10:33,943 odds-on titular leader of postwar Korea. 166 00:10:34,703 --> 00:10:36,774 He had no faction in Korea. 167 00:10:36,808 --> 00:10:39,397 He had no base in Korea, because he had been out of 168 00:10:39,431 --> 00:10:43,746 the country for 40 or 50 years, but he had a certain charisma. 169 00:10:44,264 --> 00:10:46,024 He had a great smile. 170 00:10:46,059 --> 00:10:48,095 Americans tended to think he was a kindly, 171 00:10:48,130 --> 00:10:50,822 old gentleman, Uncle Syngman. 172 00:10:52,721 --> 00:10:55,447 But Rhee's kindly manner belied an unyielding 173 00:10:55,482 --> 00:10:58,381 thirst for power and desire to unify the 174 00:10:58,416 --> 00:11:01,488 two Koreas at any cost. 175 00:11:02,938 --> 00:11:06,942 By 1948, Rhee was elected president. 176 00:11:09,738 --> 00:11:11,843 To consolidate his authority over the South, 177 00:11:11,878 --> 00:11:15,157 Rhee carried out a sustained nationalist campaign to snuff 178 00:11:15,191 --> 00:11:18,539 out political dissent, killing Communist guerrilla 179 00:11:18,574 --> 00:11:22,129 groups by the tens of thousands. 180 00:11:24,718 --> 00:11:27,307 Rhee was as an authoritarian, 181 00:11:27,341 --> 00:11:30,586 semi-thug with great contacts. 182 00:11:30,966 --> 00:11:34,417 He wasn't a nice man, but Americans, 183 00:11:34,452 --> 00:11:37,731 certainly of this period, tended to believe if somebody 184 00:11:37,766 --> 00:11:39,906 could speak English and had been educated in the 185 00:11:39,940 --> 00:11:43,185 United States, oh well that means they've absorbed 186 00:11:43,219 --> 00:11:45,325 all kinds of democratic values. 187 00:11:45,739 --> 00:11:47,983 Well, that doesn't happen to be the case. 188 00:11:51,193 --> 00:11:52,884 Syngman Rhee just happened to be, 189 00:11:52,919 --> 00:11:54,541 as Franklin Roosevelt would've said, 190 00:11:54,575 --> 00:11:57,509 our S.O.B. rather than theirs. 191 00:11:59,649 --> 00:12:02,169 In North Korea, the Soviets hand-picked 192 00:12:02,204 --> 00:12:05,759 Kim Il-sung, a little known Korean ex-patriot who 193 00:12:05,794 --> 00:12:08,658 had been radicalized by the Japanese occupation. 194 00:12:09,936 --> 00:12:12,352 Kim Il-sung was really unknown. 195 00:12:12,386 --> 00:12:14,906 But then when the Japanese took control of the Korean 196 00:12:14,941 --> 00:12:17,391 peninsula during the occupation in the first half 197 00:12:17,426 --> 00:12:20,670 of the 20th century, Kim Il-sung transformed. 198 00:12:20,705 --> 00:12:22,949 He became known as a gorilla fighter, 199 00:12:22,983 --> 00:12:26,159 fighting against the Japanese, and China and from that point 200 00:12:26,193 --> 00:12:29,369 on had basically a price on his head as a anti-Japan 201 00:12:29,403 --> 00:12:32,234 conspirator by the colonial government. 202 00:12:32,268 --> 00:12:35,375 He eventually moved to the Soviet Union where he learned 203 00:12:35,409 --> 00:12:38,930 Russian and became close to a number of 204 00:12:38,965 --> 00:12:41,450 key Russian generals. 205 00:12:43,348 --> 00:12:46,006 By 1948, Kim had transformed himself 206 00:12:46,041 --> 00:12:49,734 into a fiery, committed Korean nationalist. 207 00:13:08,166 --> 00:13:10,168 Kim quickly solidified his power and 208 00:13:10,203 --> 00:13:13,171 amassed a formidable army. 209 00:13:13,206 --> 00:13:17,555 By 1949, Kim had burnished his image as supreme leader 210 00:13:17,589 --> 00:13:20,765 by embellishing his history as a fearsome guerilla fighter 211 00:13:20,800 --> 00:13:23,388 who single-handedly defeated the Japanese. 212 00:13:25,666 --> 00:13:28,980 Idea was, "Our country has suffered for 213 00:13:29,015 --> 00:13:32,708 generations because we had no great leader, 214 00:13:32,742 --> 00:13:34,883 and then great leader emerged. 215 00:13:34,917 --> 00:13:37,851 He liberated us from the Japanese occupation." 216 00:13:37,886 --> 00:13:40,578 It was patently untrue, because Kim Il-sung, 217 00:13:40,612 --> 00:13:44,237 during the war with Japan, the decisive stage, 218 00:13:44,271 --> 00:13:48,275 was far away from the front line in a small Soviet 219 00:13:48,310 --> 00:13:51,002 military base. 220 00:13:52,693 --> 00:13:54,868 Kim Il-sung was one of the shrewdest politicians 221 00:13:54,903 --> 00:13:59,700 of his era, but a particularly brutal and ruthless 222 00:13:59,735 --> 00:14:03,256 person who knew how to gain power and hold onto it. 223 00:14:05,189 --> 00:14:07,777 There are striking similarities between Rhee 224 00:14:07,812 --> 00:14:11,333 and Kim Il-sung. 225 00:14:11,367 --> 00:14:16,648 Both are the same types of expat nationalist leaders, 226 00:14:16,683 --> 00:14:21,308 who have big plans with themselves at the center. 227 00:14:23,483 --> 00:14:28,315 Both of them had a strong vision of a unified Korea, 228 00:14:30,731 --> 00:14:34,804 and both of them believed that their fundamental power came 229 00:14:34,839 --> 00:14:37,600 from their ability to manipulate outside sponsors, 230 00:14:37,635 --> 00:14:40,086 in Rhee's case, the United States, 231 00:14:40,120 --> 00:14:43,710 and in Kim Il-sung's case, the Soviet Union. 232 00:14:45,298 --> 00:14:48,818 In 1949, after Mao Zedong's Communist victory 233 00:14:48,853 --> 00:14:52,167 over the American-backed nationalists in China, 234 00:14:52,201 --> 00:14:54,479 Kim Il-sung was emboldened. 235 00:14:54,514 --> 00:14:57,137 The time was right to execute his plan to unify 236 00:14:57,172 --> 00:15:00,002 Korea in his mold. 237 00:15:00,658 --> 00:15:04,144 That March, Kim had traveled to Moscow to lobby Stalin to 238 00:15:04,179 --> 00:15:06,940 back an invasion of the South, 239 00:15:06,975 --> 00:15:09,425 only to be rebuffed by the Soviet leader, 240 00:15:09,460 --> 00:15:11,358 who believed the American presence there 241 00:15:11,393 --> 00:15:14,430 made a war too risky. 242 00:15:15,604 --> 00:15:20,781 But then, only months later, in January 1950, 243 00:15:20,816 --> 00:15:23,370 Stalin suddenly had a change of heart. 244 00:15:25,717 --> 00:15:27,961 Now, what happened in between say 245 00:15:27,996 --> 00:15:33,001 September of 1949 and the end of January 1950? 246 00:15:34,174 --> 00:15:37,315 Dean Acheson, who was the American Secretary of State, 247 00:15:37,350 --> 00:15:40,801 in January of 1950, January 12, 248 00:15:40,836 --> 00:15:43,252 made a major speech to the National Press Club 249 00:15:43,287 --> 00:15:46,773 in Washington D.C., and in the speech, 250 00:15:46,807 --> 00:15:51,226 he left South Korea out of the American defense perimeter 251 00:15:51,260 --> 00:15:55,989 in the Pacific, and Stalin, obviously noticed that. 252 00:15:58,371 --> 00:16:00,752 Stalin now believes that the Americans will not 253 00:16:00,787 --> 00:16:03,065 get involved in Korea. 254 00:16:03,100 --> 00:16:04,411 He's absolutely convinced. 255 00:16:04,446 --> 00:16:09,209 So he says "Okay, I'll give you my blessing but 256 00:16:09,244 --> 00:16:13,075 you have to ask Mao for the final decision." 257 00:16:13,110 --> 00:16:15,457 He says something like "If you shall get kicked in the 258 00:16:15,491 --> 00:16:18,391 teeth I shall not lift a finger. 259 00:16:18,425 --> 00:16:21,290 Mao will have to do all the help." 260 00:16:22,119 --> 00:16:23,983 Stalin's position was something like, 261 00:16:24,017 --> 00:16:29,436 "Well, comrades, you say that you will win soon, 262 00:16:29,471 --> 00:16:32,646 it's your idea, and we will provide you with ammunition 263 00:16:32,681 --> 00:16:36,202 and money and everything, but it will be your responsibility. 264 00:16:36,236 --> 00:16:40,827 If something gets really bad, don't count on our support." 265 00:16:42,173 --> 00:16:44,037 In May of 1950, 266 00:16:44,072 --> 00:16:47,489 Kim traveled to China to meet with Mao. 267 00:16:48,421 --> 00:16:50,216 Mao is one of the most experienced leaders 268 00:16:50,250 --> 00:16:53,253 in the word, with his own gigantic army that 269 00:16:53,288 --> 00:16:56,153 had just proceeded to clear the mainland of nationalist 270 00:16:56,187 --> 00:17:01,434 forces and who had many allies who had fought with Kim Il-sung 271 00:17:01,468 --> 00:17:05,093 and other guerillas throughout the 1930s. 272 00:17:05,403 --> 00:17:08,579 I think Kim Il-sung had good reason to believe that he 273 00:17:08,613 --> 00:17:12,479 would have plenty of comrades in China that would help him. 274 00:17:12,859 --> 00:17:16,207 Kim was masterful at maneuvering between Stalin 275 00:17:16,242 --> 00:17:18,727 and Mao and then ended up getting support 276 00:17:18,761 --> 00:17:21,419 from both of them. 277 00:17:21,454 --> 00:17:23,318 By the summer of 1950, 278 00:17:23,352 --> 00:17:26,459 Kim Il-sung was prepared for an invasion of the South, 279 00:17:26,493 --> 00:17:29,979 assuring Mao that he would be greeted as a liberator, 280 00:17:30,014 --> 00:17:33,466 and that he would take the peninsula in a matter of days. 281 00:17:41,922 --> 00:17:43,786 News that communist troops have invaded 282 00:17:43,821 --> 00:17:45,098 southern Korea... 283 00:17:45,133 --> 00:17:47,100 Invading their fellow countrymen to the South, 284 00:17:47,135 --> 00:17:49,102 to bring another international crisis to the 285 00:17:49,137 --> 00:17:52,036 already long-suffering world. 286 00:17:52,071 --> 00:17:56,213 At 4 am on the morning of June 25th, 1950, 287 00:17:56,247 --> 00:17:59,733 the border separating North and South Korea erupted with 288 00:17:59,768 --> 00:18:02,771 the repeated crash of artillery. 289 00:18:03,565 --> 00:18:06,533 With hundreds of Soviet-made T-34 tanks, 290 00:18:06,568 --> 00:18:10,158 North Korean troops, part of the Korean People's Army, 291 00:18:10,192 --> 00:18:13,264 raced across the 38th parallel. 292 00:18:14,438 --> 00:18:17,406 Kim's invasion of the South had begun. 293 00:18:50,612 --> 00:18:53,684 Basically the South Korean army either couldn't 294 00:18:53,718 --> 00:18:57,136 fight or didn't fight or ran away. 295 00:18:58,067 --> 00:19:01,554 The North Koreans were in Seoul in three days. 296 00:19:22,575 --> 00:19:24,818 Some South Korean men who did not escape were 297 00:19:24,853 --> 00:19:27,787 forced into hiding, rather than face conscription into 298 00:19:27,821 --> 00:19:31,791 the Communist army, others were put on trial in town 299 00:19:31,825 --> 00:19:35,967 squares, in what were known as people's courts, 300 00:19:36,002 --> 00:19:38,556 where men were publicly shamed for not pledging 301 00:19:38,591 --> 00:19:41,318 allegiance to the party. 302 00:19:41,352 --> 00:19:44,976 Beatings, kidnapping and executions were routine. 303 00:20:05,618 --> 00:20:07,378 The South Koreans just couldn't stop them, 304 00:20:07,413 --> 00:20:10,312 and they just fell apart. 305 00:20:10,347 --> 00:20:15,179 The reaction in Washington was one of shock. 306 00:20:16,560 --> 00:20:20,322 Gentlemen, we face a serious situation. 307 00:20:20,357 --> 00:20:24,395 We hope we face it in the cause of peace. 308 00:20:24,430 --> 00:20:26,673 By now, news of the invasion had reached 309 00:20:26,708 --> 00:20:29,435 the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, 310 00:20:29,469 --> 00:20:32,507 stationed in Japan. 311 00:20:32,541 --> 00:20:36,269 Douglas MacArthur was a genuine American war hero, 312 00:20:36,304 --> 00:20:39,099 one of the nation's most famous living generals, 313 00:20:39,134 --> 00:20:41,723 whose face had graced the cover of Time magazine 314 00:20:41,757 --> 00:20:45,313 no fewer than six times. 315 00:20:45,554 --> 00:20:49,317 Douglas MacArthur was the scion of a military family. 316 00:20:49,351 --> 00:20:52,423 His father had fought in the Civil War and 317 00:20:52,458 --> 00:20:54,011 won the Medal of Honor. 318 00:20:54,045 --> 00:20:56,600 Douglas MacArthur was a brilliant student at West Point, 319 00:20:56,634 --> 00:20:59,223 he was a gallant soldier in World War I, 320 00:20:59,258 --> 00:21:03,365 he won all of the medals any one of his generation could win. 321 00:21:03,641 --> 00:21:05,885 He was the supreme commander of Allied forces in 322 00:21:05,919 --> 00:21:09,578 the southwestern Pacific during World War II. 323 00:21:11,235 --> 00:21:13,927 He was clearly brave. 324 00:21:13,962 --> 00:21:15,722 He was brilliant. 325 00:21:15,757 --> 00:21:20,382 He was also quite egotistical, and he tended to believe that 326 00:21:20,417 --> 00:21:23,385 the world revolved around him. 327 00:21:23,661 --> 00:21:26,423 And MacArthur convinced himself that he understood 328 00:21:26,457 --> 00:21:29,149 what he called, the Oriental mind, 329 00:21:29,184 --> 00:21:32,946 that he understood how Asians thought about the world. 330 00:21:34,776 --> 00:21:38,435 MacArthur was a very proud, self-confident, 331 00:21:38,469 --> 00:21:43,267 vainglorious individual who had a complete belief in his 332 00:21:43,302 --> 00:21:47,133 own truths, whether they were based on fact or not. 333 00:21:47,167 --> 00:21:49,549 He considered himself a man of destiny, 334 00:21:49,584 --> 00:21:52,759 and he had an ego the size of China, 335 00:21:52,794 --> 00:21:56,142 but he was a master on the battlefield. 336 00:21:57,281 --> 00:21:59,041 From his perch in Tokyo, 337 00:21:59,076 --> 00:22:01,837 MacArthur famously assured Washington that he could 338 00:22:01,872 --> 00:22:05,945 handle the North Koreans with one arm tied behind his back. 339 00:22:07,602 --> 00:22:10,156 But after World War Two the Truman administration was 340 00:22:10,190 --> 00:22:13,332 intent on shrinking the defense budget and only a 341 00:22:13,366 --> 00:22:16,990 small advisory team was left behind in Korea. 342 00:22:18,682 --> 00:22:21,892 By June of 1950 most branches of the military were 343 00:22:21,926 --> 00:22:25,171 undermanned and ill-equipped. 344 00:22:27,173 --> 00:22:31,384 After World War II, America built down its military 345 00:22:31,798 --> 00:22:34,249 not expecting that it would have to be used again, 346 00:22:34,283 --> 00:22:36,631 at least nothing on that scale. 347 00:22:36,665 --> 00:22:39,288 So at the time of the outbreak of the Korean War the American 348 00:22:39,323 --> 00:22:43,534 military was a shadow of what it had been in World War II. 349 00:22:45,260 --> 00:22:48,850 As long as we had a monopoly of nuclear weapons, 350 00:22:48,884 --> 00:22:52,578 we could relax a little bit in terms of the manpower we had 351 00:22:52,612 --> 00:22:57,824 in the army, and that's what happened really from 1945 352 00:22:57,859 --> 00:23:01,103 to 1949, there was a continued reduction in the 353 00:23:01,138 --> 00:23:04,003 size of the US army. 354 00:23:06,315 --> 00:23:10,423 We had to very quickly put together two regiments. 355 00:23:10,458 --> 00:23:13,322 They took half of my platoon and filled me 356 00:23:13,357 --> 00:23:15,601 up with reserves. 357 00:23:15,635 --> 00:23:18,431 Many of whom had never even been to boot camp. 358 00:23:19,846 --> 00:23:21,572 I had just turned 17. 359 00:23:21,607 --> 00:23:26,750 And I was sent to camp Drake, in Japan there, 360 00:23:26,991 --> 00:23:30,685 outside of Tokyo and all we'd done was processed and 361 00:23:30,719 --> 00:23:35,310 trained to make an amphibious landing and head for Korea. 362 00:23:37,657 --> 00:23:41,385 On them, world peace depends... 363 00:23:46,010 --> 00:23:49,048 They will not fail. 364 00:23:49,082 --> 00:23:51,671 They never have. 365 00:23:52,845 --> 00:23:56,365 The Americans were pretty confident. 366 00:23:56,400 --> 00:24:00,162 You could even argue they maybe were a little bit cocky. 367 00:24:02,958 --> 00:24:05,513 Their first encounter was with North Korean troops that 368 00:24:05,547 --> 00:24:08,585 had Soviet T34 tanks, 369 00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:12,002 and the American forces had no weapons. 370 00:24:12,036 --> 00:24:15,315 The bazookas they had would not penetrate the armor 371 00:24:15,350 --> 00:24:18,008 of a T34 tank. 372 00:24:19,630 --> 00:24:22,253 And so when they entered into battle, 373 00:24:22,288 --> 00:24:24,670 at first, they ran. 374 00:24:24,704 --> 00:24:28,190 They saw their comrades being killed around them. 375 00:24:28,881 --> 00:24:30,814 And it gradually got a name. 376 00:24:30,848 --> 00:24:32,540 It was called "bugging out." 377 00:24:32,574 --> 00:24:35,266 They would "bug out." 378 00:24:38,373 --> 00:24:41,445 When we were still in Camp Drake in Japan, 379 00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:44,483 we were told at that time that it was going to be 380 00:24:44,517 --> 00:24:48,210 an easy war to finish, you know. 381 00:24:48,245 --> 00:24:50,730 We were told that the North Koreans, 382 00:24:50,765 --> 00:24:54,113 "slant eyes" they couldn't see to the right 383 00:24:54,147 --> 00:24:55,494 or the left flank. 384 00:24:55,528 --> 00:24:57,185 They could only see to the front. 385 00:24:57,219 --> 00:25:00,878 That you could actually sneak in behind the North Koreans 386 00:25:00,913 --> 00:25:03,709 and get them, you know, but we found out that, 387 00:25:03,743 --> 00:25:06,435 that wasn't true, you know. 388 00:25:06,470 --> 00:25:09,542 Them suckers had eyes in the back and also in the front. 389 00:25:11,544 --> 00:25:15,203 All we could do was just run back as fast as we could 390 00:25:15,237 --> 00:25:18,413 and they were right after us, you know. 391 00:25:30,218 --> 00:25:32,565 I'm getting very, very weary of sitting here and 392 00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:36,465 acting as though we're playing some little game. 393 00:25:36,914 --> 00:25:39,952 We've got to clean up, those who were responsible, 394 00:25:39,986 --> 00:25:43,611 Mr. Chairman, covering up communists and traitors, 395 00:25:43,645 --> 00:25:46,579 not dead ones but live ones... 396 00:25:49,824 --> 00:25:52,896 Half a world away from the frontlines of Korea, 397 00:25:52,930 --> 00:25:56,140 the United States was in the throes of a panic about 398 00:25:56,175 --> 00:25:59,765 the spread of communism within American society. 399 00:25:59,799 --> 00:26:01,629 Even if there were only one communist in 400 00:26:01,663 --> 00:26:03,320 the state department, that would still be one 401 00:26:03,354 --> 00:26:05,909 communist too many. 402 00:26:08,463 --> 00:26:10,879 President Truman's policy of containing communism 403 00:26:10,914 --> 00:26:13,813 was being pushed to its limits around the world. 404 00:26:13,848 --> 00:26:16,195 World conquest by Soviet Russia 405 00:26:16,229 --> 00:26:20,026 endangers our liberty, and endangers the kind of world 406 00:26:20,061 --> 00:26:23,789 in which the free spirit of men can survive. 407 00:26:24,997 --> 00:26:28,310 By now the Soviet Union had an atomic bomb, 408 00:26:28,345 --> 00:26:31,175 was tightening its grip on Eastern Europe, 409 00:26:31,210 --> 00:26:33,868 and in Asia had forged a powerful alliance 410 00:26:33,902 --> 00:26:36,836 with Mao's China. 411 00:26:37,872 --> 00:26:41,358 At home, Truman stood accused by Republicans of losing China 412 00:26:41,392 --> 00:26:44,672 to an unchristian ideology. 413 00:26:47,778 --> 00:26:50,885 It wasn't a good thing that China went communist. 414 00:26:50,919 --> 00:26:54,060 This was a dire threat to the United States. 415 00:26:54,371 --> 00:26:58,444 And so, when communist forces of North Korea invaded South 416 00:26:58,478 --> 00:27:02,655 Korea Truman figured, I need to do something about this. 417 00:27:02,966 --> 00:27:05,727 If politically, the Truman administration, 418 00:27:05,762 --> 00:27:08,212 loses South Korea it's going to appear, first of all, 419 00:27:08,247 --> 00:27:12,492 "to my domestic critics that I am a terrible president," 420 00:27:12,527 --> 00:27:15,841 and there's the whole question of American credibility. 421 00:27:16,496 --> 00:27:18,498 Our potential allies like in Europe, 422 00:27:18,533 --> 00:27:21,674 which was our top priority, would say, well, in the end, 423 00:27:21,709 --> 00:27:24,435 the Americans can't be depended upon. 424 00:27:24,643 --> 00:27:27,128 Korea is a small country thousands of 425 00:27:27,162 --> 00:27:30,649 miles away, but what is happening there is important 426 00:27:30,683 --> 00:27:32,443 to every American. 427 00:27:32,478 --> 00:27:34,376 It was really inevitable that the Americans 428 00:27:34,411 --> 00:27:36,378 were going to do whatever they could to stop 429 00:27:36,413 --> 00:27:37,932 the North Koreans. 430 00:27:37,966 --> 00:27:39,899 We are united in detesting 431 00:27:39,934 --> 00:27:41,901 communist slavery. 432 00:27:41,936 --> 00:27:44,870 We know that the cost of freedom is high, 433 00:27:44,904 --> 00:27:47,596 but we are determined to preserve our freedom 434 00:27:47,631 --> 00:27:50,185 no matter what the cost. 435 00:27:51,946 --> 00:27:54,189 The Korean War came to America within the 436 00:27:54,224 --> 00:27:56,813 decade of World War II. 437 00:27:56,847 --> 00:28:00,161 And what Americans most wanted after World War II was to come 438 00:28:00,195 --> 00:28:04,130 home and to have families and to get about the business 439 00:28:04,165 --> 00:28:06,719 of peacetime affairs. 440 00:28:06,754 --> 00:28:08,617 And then just five years later the world 441 00:28:08,652 --> 00:28:11,310 needs re-saving again. 442 00:28:11,344 --> 00:28:14,934 Harry Truman recognized that if a lot of Americans started 443 00:28:14,969 --> 00:28:18,006 getting killed in Korea the war could turn 444 00:28:18,041 --> 00:28:20,629 unpopular very quickly. 445 00:28:20,664 --> 00:28:24,461 To share the burden would make the war in Korea 446 00:28:24,495 --> 00:28:27,395 politically more acceptable. 447 00:28:27,429 --> 00:28:29,811 In a show of presidential resolve, 448 00:28:29,846 --> 00:28:32,918 Truman bypassed Congress while also appealing directly 449 00:28:32,952 --> 00:28:36,335 to the newly-formed United Nations. 450 00:28:36,645 --> 00:28:37,854 The armed invasion of the 451 00:28:37,888 --> 00:28:41,064 Republic of Korea continues. 452 00:28:41,098 --> 00:28:45,965 This is, in fact, an attack on the United Nations itself. 453 00:28:46,794 --> 00:28:49,451 And on June 27, the Security Council passed 454 00:28:49,486 --> 00:28:52,558 a resolution authorizing military intervention. 455 00:28:53,352 --> 00:28:56,389 By June 30, Truman had approved the use of 456 00:28:56,424 --> 00:29:00,704 American troops, the first time an American president 457 00:29:00,739 --> 00:29:04,466 had unilaterally committed the country to war. 458 00:29:05,605 --> 00:29:07,780 For a generation of young men who never thought they'd 459 00:29:07,815 --> 00:29:11,163 see another war, the news came as shock. 460 00:29:14,407 --> 00:29:17,963 I didn't know where Korea was until I heard 461 00:29:17,997 --> 00:29:21,311 that we was having a war with North Korea. 462 00:29:22,588 --> 00:29:23,831 I lied. 463 00:29:23,865 --> 00:29:28,145 I was 16 when I went in, but the second World War had just 464 00:29:28,180 --> 00:29:33,633 finished and I had no idea that I would ever 465 00:29:33,668 --> 00:29:36,775 be involved in a war. 466 00:29:38,224 --> 00:29:42,228 When the war started in June of 1950, 467 00:29:42,263 --> 00:29:46,129 early one morning I received a telephone call saying, 468 00:29:46,163 --> 00:29:49,201 "Lieutenant Kinard, you're now in the army." 469 00:29:49,235 --> 00:29:51,824 I said, "What's this?" 470 00:29:51,859 --> 00:29:55,207 Because I didn't really know where Korea was until I looked 471 00:29:55,241 --> 00:29:58,797 at the map and figured out the, 472 00:29:59,004 --> 00:30:02,524 it was far from my home at that time, 473 00:30:02,731 --> 00:30:05,976 I wondered if I would ever really go there. 474 00:30:09,808 --> 00:30:12,914 The term of art at the time was a "Police Action." 475 00:30:12,949 --> 00:30:16,193 There is someone who has disturbed the peace, 476 00:30:16,228 --> 00:30:19,093 you call out the police, and the police go to it. 477 00:30:19,507 --> 00:30:23,373 And so this term "Police action" seemed to be a nice 478 00:30:23,407 --> 00:30:27,066 dodge around why Truman wasn't asking Congress for 479 00:30:27,101 --> 00:30:28,171 a declaration of war. 480 00:30:28,205 --> 00:30:29,448 It's not really a war. 481 00:30:29,482 --> 00:30:31,864 It's just this "Police action." 482 00:30:31,899 --> 00:30:34,833 You know, we was Harry's police force. 483 00:30:38,146 --> 00:30:39,423 Thought it was kind of funny. 484 00:30:39,458 --> 00:30:41,253 Here we are fighting a war and he's calling it a 485 00:30:41,287 --> 00:30:44,014 "police action." 486 00:30:45,636 --> 00:30:49,744 By July 1950, some 50,000 US troops, 487 00:30:49,778 --> 00:30:53,299 followed by thousands more from Great Britain, Australia, 488 00:30:53,334 --> 00:30:57,648 Thailand and 12 other nations, headed toward Korea. 489 00:31:01,445 --> 00:31:04,345 After only a month of war, the North was streaming down 490 00:31:04,379 --> 00:31:07,072 the peninsula at lightning speed, 491 00:31:07,106 --> 00:31:10,454 gaining new ground by the day. 492 00:31:11,248 --> 00:31:13,699 Kim Il-sung's wager that he would take the South in matter 493 00:31:13,733 --> 00:31:17,496 of days seemed to be coming true. 494 00:31:18,842 --> 00:31:20,326 All up and down the line, 495 00:31:20,361 --> 00:31:22,604 people couldn't quite figure out the North Koreans. 496 00:31:22,639 --> 00:31:25,953 John Foster Dulles, who was Truman's roving ambassador 497 00:31:25,987 --> 00:31:29,025 for East Asia policy, said he can't figure out what keeps 498 00:31:29,059 --> 00:31:32,649 these masses of troops come shrieking on, 499 00:31:32,683 --> 00:31:34,927 or maybe they're on drugs, or maybe the Soviets have found 500 00:31:34,962 --> 00:31:37,930 some way to program these people, 501 00:31:38,310 --> 00:31:42,072 and in fact they were fighting and dying for their homeland, 502 00:31:42,107 --> 00:31:45,386 for the unification of their homeland. 503 00:31:45,869 --> 00:31:47,836 What you have really in this situation is this 504 00:31:47,871 --> 00:31:51,702 brutal civil war overlaid with an international war 505 00:31:51,737 --> 00:31:53,981 between two ideological foes of the Cold War, 506 00:31:54,015 --> 00:31:57,260 the Soviet Union and the United States. 507 00:31:57,605 --> 00:32:00,366 To try to slow the North Korean onslaught, 508 00:32:00,401 --> 00:32:02,886 MacArthur sent the the US Army's 7th Cavalry 509 00:32:02,921 --> 00:32:06,165 to intercept them near the city of Taejon but 510 00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:08,029 the regiment ran into resistance. 511 00:32:09,203 --> 00:32:11,067 We could see the North Koreans, 512 00:32:11,101 --> 00:32:14,242 they were coming in waves. 513 00:32:14,898 --> 00:32:18,039 So by the time we would kill the first two waves, 514 00:32:18,074 --> 00:32:19,903 we were fighting with bayonets because we were 515 00:32:19,938 --> 00:32:22,699 out of ammunition. 516 00:32:24,632 --> 00:32:26,530 The North Koreans, by mid-July, 517 00:32:26,565 --> 00:32:30,017 had a pincer down the east coast from the north and 518 00:32:30,051 --> 00:32:32,088 then coming around from the southwest and 519 00:32:32,122 --> 00:32:34,021 along the southern coast. 520 00:32:34,055 --> 00:32:37,576 And if the Marines had not landed around that time 521 00:32:37,610 --> 00:32:39,095 and stiffened the lines, 522 00:32:39,129 --> 00:32:41,235 the war would've been lost. 523 00:32:41,269 --> 00:32:44,824 They formed what we call the Pusan Perimeter. 524 00:32:44,859 --> 00:32:50,106 Which is considered basically the last good spot across 525 00:32:50,140 --> 00:32:53,005 the peninsula to establish a defensive position. 526 00:33:02,808 --> 00:33:04,913 Caught in the crossfire between advancing 527 00:33:04,948 --> 00:33:08,158 North Korean troops and UN forces were hundreds of 528 00:33:08,193 --> 00:33:11,472 thousands of Korean refugees who now filled 529 00:33:11,506 --> 00:33:14,544 the roads between Seoul and Pusan. 530 00:33:15,717 --> 00:33:19,135 My father and my grandparents had to walk 531 00:33:19,169 --> 00:33:21,275 the distance from Seoul to Pusan. 532 00:33:22,172 --> 00:33:23,932 That's really walking the distance 533 00:33:23,967 --> 00:33:26,659 from Washington D.C. to New York. 534 00:33:28,523 --> 00:33:29,800 When the war broke out, 535 00:33:29,835 --> 00:33:33,356 my grandparents talked about how they ran to Pusan Perimeter, 536 00:33:33,390 --> 00:33:34,840 the family split up. 537 00:33:34,874 --> 00:33:36,669 My grandmother went with my aunts, 538 00:33:36,704 --> 00:33:38,809 and my grandfather went with the boys, 539 00:33:38,844 --> 00:33:41,433 my uncle and my father, and he lost, actually, 540 00:33:41,467 --> 00:33:45,333 one of my uncles during the move to Pusan. 541 00:33:48,233 --> 00:33:50,994 For U.N. troops, already outmanned and 542 00:33:51,029 --> 00:33:54,342 overwhelmed by the surging North Korean army, 543 00:33:54,377 --> 00:33:57,587 the refugee crisis presented yet another challenge. 544 00:33:57,621 --> 00:34:00,348 North Korean soldiers hiding amongst peasants in 545 00:34:00,383 --> 00:34:03,834 order to get behind enemy lines. 546 00:34:03,869 --> 00:34:08,460 There were only a handful of main roads along which you 547 00:34:08,494 --> 00:34:12,464 could travel with tanks or with other sorts of equipment. 548 00:34:12,498 --> 00:34:14,811 On those very same roads you had civilians that 549 00:34:14,845 --> 00:34:17,331 were trying to evacuate. 550 00:34:17,365 --> 00:34:20,506 American troops did not know who was the enemy 551 00:34:20,541 --> 00:34:23,026 and who was the ally. 552 00:34:23,061 --> 00:34:25,718 There was always this fear about refugees. 553 00:34:25,753 --> 00:34:27,927 That created a great deal of moral dilemma 554 00:34:27,962 --> 00:34:29,515 among American soldiers. 555 00:34:29,550 --> 00:34:30,930 You see a bunch of refugees. 556 00:34:30,965 --> 00:34:32,967 You think that North Koreans are hiding among them, 557 00:34:33,001 --> 00:34:35,314 do you shoot against them or not? 558 00:34:37,316 --> 00:34:40,630 In some instances, U.S. forces did shoot and 559 00:34:40,664 --> 00:34:44,082 refugees were sacrificed in the panic. 560 00:34:57,992 --> 00:35:02,065 Yang Hye Suk was 13 in July of 1950 when war 561 00:35:02,100 --> 00:35:06,104 came to Imgye-ri, a tiny farm town 100 miles 562 00:35:06,138 --> 00:35:08,382 south of Seoul. 563 00:35:19,289 --> 00:35:22,672 1st Cavalry Division troops had forced the people 564 00:35:22,706 --> 00:35:26,331 of these two villages called Joo Gok Ri and Im Gae Ri, 565 00:35:26,365 --> 00:35:29,023 to evacuate and get on the main road south. 566 00:35:39,206 --> 00:35:41,484 Chung Koo-do's family was from the same area 567 00:35:41,518 --> 00:35:44,970 as Yang, and his parents and siblings were among the 568 00:35:45,004 --> 00:35:48,422 hundreds of refugees who were led by U.S. troops 569 00:35:48,456 --> 00:35:50,941 to a place called No Gun Ri. 570 00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:55,946 As refugees gathered on nearby train tracks, 571 00:35:55,981 --> 00:36:00,330 eyewitnesses remember American planes beginning to circle 572 00:36:00,365 --> 00:36:01,504 and then opening fire. 573 00:36:14,758 --> 00:36:16,933 Refugees ran for cover under a railroad 574 00:36:16,967 --> 00:36:21,075 overpass where for three days and three nights they say 575 00:36:21,109 --> 00:36:23,871 they were fired upon by the 7th Cavalry. 576 00:36:24,251 --> 00:36:27,115 Fearful North Korean soldiers were among them. 577 00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:32,017 Yang Hye Suk, surrounded by casualties was hiding under 578 00:36:32,051 --> 00:36:34,951 her mother's hemp skirt when she heard her uncle 579 00:36:34,985 --> 00:36:36,884 cry out in pain. 580 00:37:43,571 --> 00:37:45,297 Every war is horrible. 581 00:37:45,332 --> 00:37:50,475 But the Korean War, among American wars, 582 00:37:50,509 --> 00:37:53,167 was the war that had the greatest proportion 583 00:37:53,201 --> 00:37:56,550 of civilian casualties. 584 00:37:57,240 --> 00:37:59,069 It was a very dirty war, 585 00:37:59,104 --> 00:38:02,659 and that also demoralized American soldiers. 586 00:38:02,901 --> 00:38:04,730 They didn't quite know what they were fighting for, 587 00:38:04,765 --> 00:38:06,870 and they were forced to do things that they didn't 588 00:38:06,905 --> 00:38:09,183 do in World War II. 589 00:38:16,121 --> 00:38:18,813 For U.N. troops it was becoming increasingly clear 590 00:38:18,848 --> 00:38:22,023 by the day that they were mired in a bloody conflict 591 00:38:22,058 --> 00:38:25,441 unbound by modern rules of engagement. 592 00:38:27,926 --> 00:38:31,964 Atrocities could be found on all sides of the fight. 593 00:38:33,518 --> 00:38:36,417 Early in August there was a massacre of 594 00:38:36,452 --> 00:38:39,558 captured American troops by the North Koreans, 595 00:38:39,593 --> 00:38:42,630 as the North Koreans left a hilltop, Hill 303. 596 00:38:45,012 --> 00:38:49,844 They, they simply bound and then shot in the back of the head 597 00:38:49,879 --> 00:38:53,020 about 30 American prisoners. 598 00:38:53,745 --> 00:38:56,817 Photos of this were run in the Stars and Stripes newspaper, 599 00:38:56,851 --> 00:38:59,751 which was getting to the troops in Korea, 600 00:38:59,785 --> 00:39:01,787 and some of them cut the photo out and carried it 601 00:39:01,822 --> 00:39:04,756 in the inside of their helmets. 602 00:39:04,790 --> 00:39:07,483 So once something like that happens, 603 00:39:07,517 --> 00:39:11,625 that sort of frees some men at least to do the same thing 604 00:39:11,659 --> 00:39:14,144 to the enemy. 605 00:39:14,455 --> 00:39:18,390 We would capture 15, 20 enemy and supply one or 606 00:39:18,425 --> 00:39:22,221 two men to escort this POWs back to the rear. 607 00:39:24,603 --> 00:39:29,125 I says, "If they try to get away from you, 608 00:39:29,159 --> 00:39:32,715 open up with your machine guns and your rifles. 609 00:39:32,749 --> 00:39:35,062 Don't let them get away." 610 00:39:35,096 --> 00:39:39,273 And they would be gone for 10 or 15 minutes when 611 00:39:39,307 --> 00:39:42,103 we would hear the machine gun going off. 612 00:39:51,181 --> 00:39:53,114 While casualties continued to mount through the 613 00:39:53,149 --> 00:39:56,428 summer of 1950, the North Korean army maintained 614 00:39:56,463 --> 00:39:58,568 their advantage. 615 00:39:58,603 --> 00:40:01,329 Already America has suffered 500 casualties. 616 00:40:01,364 --> 00:40:03,677 Five short years after a global war, 617 00:40:03,711 --> 00:40:06,438 Americans again pay in blood... 618 00:40:06,473 --> 00:40:09,337 All the high American officers had been heroes 619 00:40:09,372 --> 00:40:13,238 of World War II, whether it's General MacArthur or 620 00:40:13,272 --> 00:40:16,241 Curtis LeMay or Matthew Ridgway. 621 00:40:16,275 --> 00:40:19,347 These were people who were famous in the battles that 622 00:40:19,382 --> 00:40:22,489 defeated the Nazis and the Japanese... 623 00:40:22,523 --> 00:40:24,525 The tide of battle still favors the aggressors. 624 00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:27,494 The United Nations' forces in Korea are forced to improvise 625 00:40:27,528 --> 00:40:29,185 their defense... 626 00:40:29,219 --> 00:40:31,705 And here it is 1950, only five years later, 627 00:40:31,739 --> 00:40:33,603 and they're getting their butt whipped by 628 00:40:33,638 --> 00:40:36,261 rough peasant armies. 629 00:40:38,746 --> 00:40:40,921 United Nations commander General MacArthur 630 00:40:40,955 --> 00:40:44,649 was used to fighting with his back against the ropes. 631 00:40:44,959 --> 00:40:46,858 From his headquarters in Japan, 632 00:40:46,892 --> 00:40:49,343 he was quietly putting together a plan for a bold 633 00:40:49,377 --> 00:40:51,897 counter attack that he believed could break 634 00:40:51,932 --> 00:40:54,590 the North Korean army. 635 00:40:56,523 --> 00:40:59,180 He hoped to utilize the element of surprise by 636 00:40:59,215 --> 00:41:02,183 attacking the communist forces from behind, 637 00:41:02,218 --> 00:41:05,601 landing at the port of Inchon and cutting off supply lines. 638 00:41:08,327 --> 00:41:11,917 With extreme tides and a shallow shoreline, 639 00:41:11,952 --> 00:41:14,748 the port of Inchon was a highly risky spot 640 00:41:14,782 --> 00:41:18,027 for an invasion, precisely the reason MacArthur thought 641 00:41:18,061 --> 00:41:20,754 it would work. 642 00:41:20,995 --> 00:41:22,652 Nobody thought it was practical. 643 00:41:22,687 --> 00:41:26,000 Everybody was against it, because it was so impractical. 644 00:41:26,311 --> 00:41:29,521 The timeframe for landing those amphibious vehicles was 645 00:41:29,556 --> 00:41:33,456 very limited to a few hours but MacArthur really believed 646 00:41:33,491 --> 00:41:35,872 that, because of its impracticality the North 647 00:41:35,907 --> 00:41:38,496 Koreans wouldn't defend. 648 00:41:39,255 --> 00:41:41,637 The Joint Chiefs of Staff thought that this 649 00:41:41,671 --> 00:41:43,915 was not a particularly good idea, 650 00:41:43,949 --> 00:41:46,262 but they were in an odd position. 651 00:41:46,296 --> 00:41:49,403 MacArthur was essentially politically untouchable, 652 00:41:49,955 --> 00:41:53,614 and there was nobody in the military chain of command 653 00:41:53,649 --> 00:41:56,548 who would tell MacArthur "no." 654 00:41:57,100 --> 00:41:59,447 I think that so many people said you can't do this, 655 00:41:59,482 --> 00:42:01,760 the more you do that to somebody like MacArthur, 656 00:42:01,795 --> 00:42:06,075 it's going to increase their resistance to change. 657 00:42:06,869 --> 00:42:08,318 The more you tell them not to do something, 658 00:42:08,353 --> 00:42:11,114 the more likely it is you're going to get it. 659 00:42:30,582 --> 00:42:32,791 When we got on the ship, 660 00:42:32,826 --> 00:42:35,449 we didn't know where we were going. 661 00:42:35,483 --> 00:42:38,141 Out in the ocean, we were told we were going 662 00:42:38,176 --> 00:42:40,558 to Inchon to make a landing. 663 00:42:42,629 --> 00:42:45,459 I don't think I knew enough to be scared. 664 00:42:47,047 --> 00:42:51,845 It had a 26-foot tide, and you had to go in at high 665 00:42:51,879 --> 00:42:56,574 tide, and it takes a lot of time to get a division ashore, 666 00:42:57,471 --> 00:42:58,990 total division. 667 00:42:59,024 --> 00:43:03,650 So I was pretty, I was nervous, naturally. 668 00:43:05,030 --> 00:43:08,068 On September 15th, 70,000 US troops 669 00:43:08,102 --> 00:43:10,829 stood at anchor off the Korean coast, 670 00:43:10,864 --> 00:43:14,350 awaiting high tide and MacArthur's order to attack. 671 00:43:14,971 --> 00:43:16,663 Nobody knew what was in store for them once they 672 00:43:16,697 --> 00:43:19,631 made it to shore. 673 00:43:19,666 --> 00:43:21,633 One admiral said if you drew up all the things 674 00:43:21,668 --> 00:43:24,118 that made amphibious operations difficult, 675 00:43:24,153 --> 00:43:26,327 Inchon had them all. 676 00:43:26,362 --> 00:43:29,572 The tides are bad, the harbor's all mud. 677 00:43:29,814 --> 00:43:32,782 Who knew how many guns were sitting in it. 678 00:43:36,234 --> 00:43:38,443 Lt. Richard Carey was leading a platoon 679 00:43:38,477 --> 00:43:40,410 of Marines that day, 680 00:43:40,445 --> 00:43:44,449 when at 5pm MacArthur gave his unit the order to attack. 681 00:43:46,313 --> 00:43:49,454 We only had a couple hours before it was dark. 682 00:43:49,488 --> 00:43:52,457 The only place we could go in was into an inlet. 683 00:43:52,491 --> 00:43:55,874 And when we got into the inlet it was surrounded 684 00:43:55,909 --> 00:43:58,428 by barbed wire. 685 00:43:58,463 --> 00:44:00,810 I started cutting the wire. 686 00:44:01,397 --> 00:44:06,402 A sniper shot off my radio, was strapped on my shoulder. 687 00:44:07,748 --> 00:44:09,681 And the guy on the other side of me took one 688 00:44:09,716 --> 00:44:12,063 right between the eye. 689 00:44:13,720 --> 00:44:15,894 We were getting shot at when we hit the beach, 690 00:44:17,344 --> 00:44:20,485 but I don't think they expected us. 691 00:44:21,728 --> 00:44:23,695 Despite initial resistance, 692 00:44:23,730 --> 00:44:27,147 as an unrelenting waves of troops landed onshore, 693 00:44:27,181 --> 00:44:29,977 the advantage quickly shifted. 694 00:44:30,012 --> 00:44:33,325 By evening, U.N. forces had secured the beach and 695 00:44:33,360 --> 00:44:37,226 headed east to cut off North Korean supply lines. 696 00:44:40,988 --> 00:44:43,922 Remarkably, MacArthur had caught the North Koreans 697 00:44:43,957 --> 00:44:45,717 by surprise. 698 00:44:45,752 --> 00:44:48,686 His gamble had paid off. 699 00:44:49,341 --> 00:44:53,725 It was such a daring strike and such a rapid strike 700 00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:57,384 that it changed the momentum in the war entirely. 701 00:44:57,418 --> 00:44:59,006 The United States and the South Koreans were 702 00:44:59,041 --> 00:45:00,490 losing badly until then. 703 00:45:00,525 --> 00:45:02,630 All of a sudden they were winning! 704 00:45:23,168 --> 00:45:25,239 I mean, it was such a risky operation, 705 00:45:25,274 --> 00:45:28,726 and the fact that he brought it off without any problem. 706 00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:32,005 MacArthur was viewed as a kind of god. 707 00:45:33,765 --> 00:45:36,354 In a single stroke, MacArthur had cemented his 708 00:45:36,388 --> 00:45:39,115 reputation for military genius. 709 00:45:39,150 --> 00:45:41,290 The tide of the war had shifted, 710 00:45:41,324 --> 00:45:43,499 as North Korean troops scrambled back toward 711 00:45:43,533 --> 00:45:46,674 the 38th parallel. 712 00:45:46,709 --> 00:45:49,747 In just two weeks, Seoul was back in the hands of 713 00:45:49,781 --> 00:45:53,233 the United Nations and President Rhee was restored 714 00:45:53,267 --> 00:45:55,787 to the capitol building. 715 00:45:56,408 --> 00:46:00,240 MacArthur's forces were now sitting at the 38th parallel, 716 00:46:00,274 --> 00:46:04,244 with fresh troops, superior airpower, and momentum. 717 00:46:05,176 --> 00:46:06,729 The United Nations man of the hour, 718 00:46:06,764 --> 00:46:09,663 General MacArthur, with the capture of Seoul will have the 719 00:46:09,697 --> 00:46:12,804 Communist aggressors between a crushing millstone. 720 00:46:12,839 --> 00:46:14,530 MacArthur had planned one daring master 721 00:46:14,564 --> 00:46:18,396 stroke and turned the whole tide of battle. 722 00:46:18,603 --> 00:46:21,364 There's a drastic alteration of 723 00:46:21,399 --> 00:46:23,194 the military situation. 724 00:46:23,228 --> 00:46:25,886 Suddenly, the Americans and South Koreans are on the 725 00:46:25,921 --> 00:46:29,614 verge of going across the 38th parallel and into the north, 726 00:46:29,648 --> 00:46:32,582 and obviously, military leaders want to take advantage 727 00:46:32,617 --> 00:46:36,069 of the immediate situation. 728 00:46:36,414 --> 00:46:37,829 With the course of the war changing 729 00:46:37,864 --> 00:46:41,143 so dramatically, General MacArthur saw an opening 730 00:46:41,177 --> 00:46:44,284 to widen the conflict into North Korea. 731 00:46:45,561 --> 00:46:47,943 It would allow him to unite the peninsula in the name 732 00:46:47,977 --> 00:46:51,670 of democracy, and to issue a decisive blow against 733 00:46:51,705 --> 00:46:53,465 communism in Asia. 734 00:46:54,535 --> 00:46:57,090 The general's aggressive worldview was always at odds 735 00:46:57,124 --> 00:46:59,955 with President Truman's ideas of containment, 736 00:46:59,989 --> 00:47:02,474 and of a limited war. 737 00:47:02,509 --> 00:47:05,029 But with MacArthur's success at Inchon, 738 00:47:05,063 --> 00:47:08,101 Truman suddenly saw an opportunity. 739 00:47:09,240 --> 00:47:11,069 MacArthur says give me just a little bit more time 740 00:47:11,104 --> 00:47:12,415 and I can end the war. 741 00:47:12,450 --> 00:47:15,556 I can capture or destroy all the North Korean forces. 742 00:47:15,763 --> 00:47:19,284 Truman, who just weeks before had worried about the 743 00:47:19,319 --> 00:47:21,493 fact that he was going to be charged with losing more 744 00:47:21,528 --> 00:47:25,187 ground to the Communists, thought "I can do something 745 00:47:25,221 --> 00:47:27,775 that no president before me has ever done. 746 00:47:27,810 --> 00:47:30,986 I can take ground back from the Communists." 747 00:47:36,232 --> 00:47:38,269 On October 7th 1950, 748 00:47:38,303 --> 00:47:41,513 MacArthur's troops stormed across the border. 749 00:47:46,864 --> 00:47:50,177 Victories came quickly as UN forces pursued the remnants 750 00:47:50,212 --> 00:47:54,595 of the North Korean army and continued to pound 751 00:47:54,630 --> 00:47:57,081 them from the sky. 752 00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:06,711 People were lighting cigars all over Washington 753 00:48:06,745 --> 00:48:09,196 and Seoul when American troops were marching up 754 00:48:09,231 --> 00:48:12,786 the peninsula in October 1950. 755 00:48:12,820 --> 00:48:14,374 MacArthur arrived in Pyongyang, 756 00:48:14,408 --> 00:48:17,032 the capital of North Korea, he gets off his plane, 757 00:48:17,066 --> 00:48:19,275 and he says "Where's Kim Buck too? 758 00:48:19,310 --> 00:48:21,105 Isn't he here to greet me?" 759 00:48:21,139 --> 00:48:24,280 Referring, of course, to Kim Il-sung. 760 00:48:24,315 --> 00:48:26,317 Only two months after U.N. troops had faced 761 00:48:26,351 --> 00:48:29,907 annihilation at Pusan, their flag flew above Kim's 762 00:48:29,941 --> 00:48:33,013 capital city, Pyongyang. 763 00:48:33,048 --> 00:48:35,119 We had already taken Pyongyang. 764 00:48:35,153 --> 00:48:38,467 We didn't have too much resistance from 765 00:48:38,501 --> 00:48:41,021 the Koreans at all. 766 00:48:41,056 --> 00:48:43,127 A devastating blow against communism 767 00:48:43,161 --> 00:48:44,991 seemed within reach. 768 00:48:45,025 --> 00:48:48,511 MacArthur's forces moved with lightning speed. 769 00:48:48,891 --> 00:48:51,929 Each day, they pressed closer to the Yalu River, 770 00:48:51,963 --> 00:48:54,552 North Korea's border with China. 771 00:48:56,726 --> 00:49:01,697 MacArthur argues that really he needs American 772 00:49:01,731 --> 00:49:06,046 forces to go all the way to the Yalu in order to clean up 773 00:49:06,081 --> 00:49:09,739 the situation and do it quickly, 774 00:49:09,774 --> 00:49:13,467 and the administration back in Washington, 775 00:49:13,502 --> 00:49:17,816 faced with strong Republican attacks on the Democratic 776 00:49:17,851 --> 00:49:20,405 administration being weak on Asia. 777 00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:24,858 The Truman administration does not say no to MacArthur. 778 00:49:26,032 --> 00:49:27,792 Saying no to MacArthur was becoming 779 00:49:27,826 --> 00:49:31,485 increasingly difficult for Truman an unpopular president, 780 00:49:31,520 --> 00:49:35,386 who was seen at home as badly mismanaging the war in Korea. 781 00:49:36,939 --> 00:49:39,114 But needing assurances from his general on the future 782 00:49:39,148 --> 00:49:43,221 course of the war, Truman requested a meeting. 783 00:49:43,256 --> 00:49:45,568 Since MacArthur would not travel more than a half-day 784 00:49:45,603 --> 00:49:49,917 from Tokyo, Truman flew to Wake Island in the Pacific, 785 00:49:49,952 --> 00:49:51,919 where he was greeted by his general not with 786 00:49:51,954 --> 00:49:55,716 a traditional salute but with a civilian handshake. 787 00:49:58,202 --> 00:50:02,482 MacArthur had been overstating his authority 788 00:50:02,516 --> 00:50:06,037 for many months, he would hold news conferences, 789 00:50:06,072 --> 00:50:08,867 and he would speak very often as the United Nations 790 00:50:08,902 --> 00:50:12,147 commander and not report directly to the 791 00:50:12,181 --> 00:50:13,976 president of the United States. 792 00:50:14,011 --> 00:50:16,565 So Truman flies all the way out to Wake Island 793 00:50:16,599 --> 00:50:20,638 in the Pacific hoping on the basis of MacArthur's 794 00:50:20,672 --> 00:50:24,573 repeated assurances, the war is nearly over and 795 00:50:24,607 --> 00:50:27,886 Korea will be liberated. 796 00:50:28,404 --> 00:50:31,511 And he puts the question to MacArthur, 797 00:50:31,545 --> 00:50:34,790 if American troops get close to the border will the 798 00:50:34,824 --> 00:50:39,346 Chinese enter the war, and MacArthur says they won't 799 00:50:39,381 --> 00:50:43,454 dare and if they do I will annihilate them. 800 00:50:57,778 --> 00:51:00,471 We were pumped up. 801 00:51:00,747 --> 00:51:03,784 MacArthur put it out, he said, "We're going as far as 802 00:51:03,819 --> 00:51:07,098 the Yalu, probably you're going right into China." 803 00:51:07,961 --> 00:51:10,826 So, we were, we were pretty enthusiastic. 804 00:51:10,860 --> 00:51:13,346 We said, "This is going to be the end of it. 805 00:51:13,380 --> 00:51:16,349 We'll win the war right here." 806 00:51:16,935 --> 00:51:19,041 MacArthur is assuring them that the 807 00:51:19,076 --> 00:51:21,285 war is nearly over. 808 00:51:21,319 --> 00:51:24,322 He kept saying that American troops will be 809 00:51:24,357 --> 00:51:27,739 home by Christmas, that the war is wrapping up. 810 00:51:27,774 --> 00:51:31,018 When American troops had their Thanksgiving dinner 811 00:51:31,053 --> 00:51:32,192 and they're thinking, 812 00:51:32,227 --> 00:51:34,712 "Christmas, that's only a month away. 813 00:51:34,746 --> 00:51:37,301 We're all going to get to go home." 814 00:51:37,611 --> 00:51:40,166 A final victory, and an end to the war, 815 00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:42,513 was in sight. 816 00:51:42,547 --> 00:51:46,517 In late November, 1950, 30,000 United Nations troops 817 00:51:46,551 --> 00:51:49,761 paused their advance and sat down in the frozen hills 818 00:51:49,796 --> 00:51:53,144 and valleys that surrounded the Chosin Reservoir. 819 00:51:54,007 --> 00:51:57,010 There they enjoyed a hot Thanksgiving dinner courtesy 820 00:51:57,044 --> 00:52:00,013 of the U.S. government. 821 00:52:00,841 --> 00:52:03,189 We was dug in in the hills up there. 822 00:52:03,223 --> 00:52:05,156 Headquarters had set up cooks and 823 00:52:05,191 --> 00:52:08,125 we had our Thanksgiving dinner. 824 00:52:08,918 --> 00:52:11,162 They didn't have serving trays at the time 825 00:52:11,197 --> 00:52:13,578 I got through there, and I just went ahead 826 00:52:13,613 --> 00:52:17,341 and took my helmet liner out of the helmet and used my helmet, 827 00:52:17,686 --> 00:52:22,173 and I had my Thanksgiving dinner in 1950 in a helmet. 828 00:52:24,141 --> 00:52:28,214 And then when we moved out of where we was dug in after 829 00:52:28,248 --> 00:52:30,250 Thanksgiving, we went on up through Yudam-II. 830 00:52:30,285 --> 00:52:33,460 That's when all hell broke loose. 831 00:52:38,155 --> 00:52:40,950 The U.N. forces had been caught in a massive trap, 832 00:52:40,985 --> 00:52:43,298 sprung by the Chinese. 833 00:52:43,332 --> 00:52:46,542 MacArthur it seemed had miscalculated. 834 00:52:46,784 --> 00:52:49,373 Mao's army had entered the war. 835 00:52:52,859 --> 00:52:55,965 Attacking at night to retain the element of surprise and 836 00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:59,003 to avoid aerial bombardment, hundreds of thousands of 837 00:52:59,037 --> 00:53:02,696 Chinese troops stormed the frontline in an overwhelming 838 00:53:02,731 --> 00:53:05,354 display of force. 839 00:53:06,321 --> 00:53:09,634 Over 200,000 Chinese managed to infiltrate across 840 00:53:09,669 --> 00:53:11,567 the Yalu River. 841 00:53:11,602 --> 00:53:15,364 When the Americans are taken by surprise they find that 842 00:53:15,399 --> 00:53:17,884 they're basically surrounded, and instead of fighting for 843 00:53:17,918 --> 00:53:20,990 victory they're fighting for their lives. 844 00:53:22,233 --> 00:53:25,650 We could hear the bugles sounding and all the 845 00:53:25,685 --> 00:53:27,100 screaming and what have you, 846 00:53:27,134 --> 00:53:30,241 and the Chinese coming at you in hordes. 847 00:53:32,692 --> 00:53:35,488 We was outnumbered probably 5 to 1, 10 to 1, 848 00:53:35,695 --> 00:53:37,248 something like that. 849 00:53:37,283 --> 00:53:40,355 And their sole purpose was to annihilate the 850 00:53:40,389 --> 00:53:43,185 1st Marine Division. 851 00:53:49,985 --> 00:53:53,230 When they came, they came in waves. 852 00:53:54,334 --> 00:53:57,475 A wave, a wave, a wave, a wave. 853 00:53:58,994 --> 00:54:02,825 The platoon sergeant and I were in a foxhole together. 854 00:54:03,757 --> 00:54:09,970 So, he took the grenades out all night, handed them to me, 855 00:54:10,005 --> 00:54:13,111 I counted "one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two" 856 00:54:13,146 --> 00:54:15,597 and threw them. 857 00:54:15,804 --> 00:54:19,428 I threw three cartons of grenades that night. 858 00:54:23,812 --> 00:54:26,642 That night was bitterly cold. 859 00:54:26,677 --> 00:54:29,058 God, it was cold. 860 00:54:29,093 --> 00:54:32,476 It was below 50 below zero. 861 00:55:17,175 --> 00:55:19,005 Many of these soldiers, 862 00:55:19,039 --> 00:55:20,662 they pretty much consigned themselves 863 00:55:20,696 --> 00:55:22,146 to die one way or the other. 864 00:55:22,180 --> 00:55:23,837 They were going to get killed by a Chinese bullet 865 00:55:23,872 --> 00:55:26,184 or a mortar round or they were going to freeze, 866 00:55:26,219 --> 00:55:30,257 and it was merely a matter of how long can we put this off. 867 00:55:31,880 --> 00:55:34,641 Homer Garza and the Army's 7th Cav were west 868 00:55:34,676 --> 00:55:39,612 of Chosin battling two enemies, the Chinese and the cold. 869 00:55:41,027 --> 00:55:44,375 Our fingers would crack as you tried to close your 870 00:55:44,410 --> 00:55:49,035 hand with it being so damn cold and we got the old 871 00:55:49,069 --> 00:55:52,901 blanket sleeping bags and we cut strips of the blankets 872 00:55:52,935 --> 00:55:58,009 and wrap it around our feet to try to keep our 873 00:55:58,044 --> 00:56:00,702 feet from freezing, 874 00:56:02,531 --> 00:56:05,465 but it was so cold that it wouldn't take more 875 00:56:05,500 --> 00:56:09,607 than four or five minutes after a guy was killed that he 876 00:56:09,642 --> 00:56:14,888 was froze solid, if we were staying in the same hill for 877 00:56:14,923 --> 00:56:18,651 a while, we would get the dead Chinese and 878 00:56:18,685 --> 00:56:21,619 the dead Koreans and stand them up against 879 00:56:21,654 --> 00:56:24,657 the trees frozen solid. 880 00:56:24,691 --> 00:56:27,591 Yeah. 881 00:56:29,351 --> 00:56:30,732 When you saw one of those Marine's 882 00:56:30,766 --> 00:56:34,598 bodies frozen stiff, that was sad. 883 00:56:35,184 --> 00:56:38,084 Arms sticking out, legs sticking out. 884 00:56:38,429 --> 00:56:41,052 You really knew you was at war then. 885 00:56:42,122 --> 00:56:44,953 It's hard to describe it truly is. 886 00:56:45,885 --> 00:56:49,026 You had to be careful how you picked them up. 887 00:56:49,509 --> 00:56:53,410 If you pick them up by an the arm, for example, 888 00:56:53,444 --> 00:56:55,722 you can break the arm off. 889 00:56:56,930 --> 00:57:00,037 There was no option but to retreat. 890 00:57:00,071 --> 00:57:02,902 Over ten days, U.N. troops fought their way out of 891 00:57:02,936 --> 00:57:06,871 the reservoir, suffering 18,000 casualties along the way. 892 00:57:09,046 --> 00:57:10,841 The whole ethos of the American approach to 893 00:57:10,875 --> 00:57:14,327 war was advance, attack, and when the soldiers saw 894 00:57:14,361 --> 00:57:15,501 that we can't attack. 895 00:57:15,535 --> 00:57:18,124 In fact, it's going to be everything we can do simply 896 00:57:18,158 --> 00:57:20,506 to escape, to flee and get out of this alive, 897 00:57:20,540 --> 00:57:23,232 it was exceedingly disorienting. 898 00:57:23,267 --> 00:57:25,372 These were soldiers, many of them whom were in 899 00:57:25,407 --> 00:57:26,857 their first combat. 900 00:57:26,891 --> 00:57:28,237 They hadn't seen anything like this. 901 00:57:28,272 --> 00:57:30,895 They had never really confronted the basic questions 902 00:57:30,930 --> 00:57:33,208 of life and death. 903 00:57:35,486 --> 00:57:38,489 They told us to straighten up as we was coming 904 00:57:38,524 --> 00:57:43,529 in to Hagaru-ri, we come in their like real Marines, 905 00:57:44,564 --> 00:57:47,325 we was singin' the Marine Corps Hymn, 906 00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:50,018 all gong ho, you know? 907 00:57:55,472 --> 00:57:58,302 The tide of the war had changed yet again. 908 00:57:58,336 --> 00:58:01,616 U.N. troops were forced back below the 38th parallel, 909 00:58:02,133 --> 00:58:04,584 and within weeks, Seoul had fallen to the combined 910 00:58:04,619 --> 00:58:08,174 North Korean and Chinese forces. 911 00:58:08,208 --> 00:58:11,349 Bloody fighting in and around Seoul would see the capitol 912 00:58:11,384 --> 00:58:14,491 change sides four times. 913 00:58:16,285 --> 00:58:19,081 With an American public growing restless with bad news 914 00:58:19,116 --> 00:58:22,775 from the frontlines and body counts of American servicemen 915 00:58:22,809 --> 00:58:27,193 increasing everyday, Truman was forced to confront 916 00:58:27,227 --> 00:58:31,473 a war that seemed unwinnable with conventional forces. 917 00:58:33,648 --> 00:58:36,547 No one seriously talked about the use of 918 00:58:36,582 --> 00:58:41,310 atomic weapons in Korea until the end of November, 919 00:58:41,759 --> 00:58:47,075 beginning of December, 1950, when American forces were 920 00:58:47,109 --> 00:58:51,389 fleeing for their lives upon the Chinese entry into 921 00:58:51,424 --> 00:58:55,497 the war, then it certainly occurred to members of 922 00:58:55,532 --> 00:58:58,293 the public to ask, well, "How can we lose 923 00:58:58,327 --> 00:59:00,813 to North Korea, how can we lose to China when we've 924 00:59:00,847 --> 00:59:04,057 got the bomb and they don't?" 925 00:59:07,440 --> 00:59:09,649 In the press, General MacArthur made clear 926 00:59:09,684 --> 00:59:12,894 his belief in expanding the conflict into China. 927 00:59:13,377 --> 00:59:15,586 And in the war room, he was making plans for 928 00:59:15,621 --> 00:59:18,140 the use of the atomic bomb. 929 00:59:18,796 --> 00:59:20,764 MacArthur wanted an unlimited war. 930 00:59:20,798 --> 00:59:24,146 He wanted to use 24 atomic bombs. 931 00:59:24,181 --> 00:59:26,735 In December 1950, he said, I want 24 atomic bombs to 932 00:59:26,770 --> 00:59:31,464 establish a radiation cordon along the Yalu River, 933 00:59:31,498 --> 00:59:35,157 you know, using cobalt, which has a half-life of 90 years, 934 00:59:35,192 --> 00:59:37,470 and the two places will be separated, you know, 935 00:59:37,504 --> 00:59:40,059 for a long time, generations to come. 936 00:59:41,267 --> 00:59:43,821 In November of '50, Truman was asked about the 937 00:59:43,856 --> 00:59:46,410 use of atomic weapons, and he said 938 00:59:46,444 --> 00:59:48,964 "Yes, this would have to be considered." 939 00:59:48,999 --> 00:59:51,622 That was the first mention by him. 940 00:59:52,692 --> 00:59:54,625 Then the next question is, well, 941 00:59:54,660 --> 00:59:57,110 who is going to determine whether the bomb 942 00:59:57,145 --> 00:59:59,043 will be used or not? 943 00:59:59,078 --> 01:00:01,839 Truman said, without thinking very clearly, 944 01:00:01,874 --> 01:00:05,015 "The decision will be made by the commander in the field." 945 01:00:06,188 --> 01:00:08,812 Well, everybody realized the commander in the field 946 01:00:08,846 --> 01:00:11,055 is Douglas MacArthur. 947 01:00:11,435 --> 01:00:13,955 Harry Truman has just announced this policy that 948 01:00:13,989 --> 01:00:16,958 the atom bomb is available for use in Korea and 949 01:00:16,992 --> 01:00:19,063 that Douglas MacArthur is going to make the decision. 950 01:00:19,098 --> 01:00:21,859 Oh, boy, what have we got ourselves in for? 951 01:00:21,894 --> 01:00:23,240 The president has stated that the use of 952 01:00:23,274 --> 01:00:25,449 the atomic bomb is being considered to halt 953 01:00:25,483 --> 01:00:27,106 the communist onrush... 954 01:00:27,140 --> 01:00:29,971 It may well precipitate World War III... 955 01:00:30,005 --> 01:00:32,042 News of Truman's consideration of using the 956 01:00:32,076 --> 01:00:34,907 atomic bomb set America's allies around 957 01:00:34,941 --> 01:00:37,806 the world on edge. 958 01:00:38,945 --> 01:00:41,120 Clement Attlee is the British prime minister and 959 01:00:41,154 --> 01:00:45,055 he is in a meeting of parliament and he hears this 960 01:00:45,089 --> 01:00:47,885 stir in the back and kind of wonders what's going on 961 01:00:47,920 --> 01:00:51,026 and somebody passes him a note explaining that the president 962 01:00:51,061 --> 01:00:52,959 of the United States has threatened the use of 963 01:00:52,994 --> 01:00:55,341 the atom bomb in Korea. 964 01:00:55,721 --> 01:00:57,895 A new war brought prime minister Attlee 965 01:00:57,930 --> 01:01:00,795 to Washington for talks with president Truman... 966 01:01:01,934 --> 01:01:03,729 The prime minister of Great Britain raced across 967 01:01:03,763 --> 01:01:07,456 the Atlantic to try and bring some sanity back 968 01:01:07,491 --> 01:01:09,527 into the situation. 969 01:01:09,735 --> 01:01:12,151 At home, Truman's confusing remarks 970 01:01:12,185 --> 01:01:15,085 only deepened the public's skepticism of his abilities 971 01:01:15,119 --> 01:01:17,501 as commander in chief. 972 01:01:17,535 --> 01:01:19,952 And General MacArthur's public campaign for the expansion 973 01:01:19,986 --> 01:01:22,713 of the war into China increasingly put the 974 01:01:22,748 --> 01:01:25,440 two men at odds. 975 01:01:26,337 --> 01:01:29,237 MacArthur wanted a rollback. 976 01:01:29,271 --> 01:01:31,446 He wanted to keep on going into China and try 977 01:01:31,480 --> 01:01:34,587 to settle the hash of the Chinese revolution. 978 01:01:34,621 --> 01:01:37,348 That was his great error in Truman's eyes. 979 01:01:37,383 --> 01:01:39,178 Truman wanted a limited rollback. 980 01:01:39,212 --> 01:01:41,732 He wanted to roll North Korean communists back and 981 01:01:41,767 --> 01:01:44,597 unify the peninsula. 982 01:01:45,218 --> 01:01:47,255 MacArthur feels like this is the place where 983 01:01:47,289 --> 01:01:49,602 we're going to have to have this great battle against 984 01:01:49,636 --> 01:01:52,432 communism, even to the extent that he's willing 985 01:01:52,467 --> 01:01:54,952 to risk World War III. 986 01:01:56,333 --> 01:01:59,681 Truman said to MacArthur "If this war gets 987 01:01:59,716 --> 01:02:02,684 any bigger, we don't have the resources, 988 01:02:02,719 --> 01:02:06,274 we don't have the military establishment to do that. 989 01:02:06,308 --> 01:02:09,242 General MacArthur, your job is to buy time." 990 01:02:09,277 --> 01:02:11,210 Well that cut against everything MacArthur. 991 01:02:11,244 --> 01:02:14,696 No, no, in war there is no substitute for victory. 992 01:02:14,731 --> 01:02:15,939 We fight to win. 993 01:02:15,973 --> 01:02:18,148 Not simply to hold ground. 994 01:02:18,182 --> 01:02:21,151 Truman learned from Hiroshima and Nagasaki that 995 01:02:21,185 --> 01:02:23,809 no true victory in that sense is possible anymore and 996 01:02:23,843 --> 01:02:26,708 so he really wanted to limit the war. 997 01:02:26,743 --> 01:02:29,124 MacArthur couldn't deal with that defeat. 998 01:02:29,159 --> 01:02:31,540 Truman had given him a directive on December 5th not 999 01:02:31,575 --> 01:02:34,854 to say anything publicly against the policy of the 1000 01:02:34,889 --> 01:02:38,409 Truman administration, and MacArthur consistently 1001 01:02:38,444 --> 01:02:40,584 defied that directive. 1002 01:02:43,138 --> 01:02:45,589 On April 11th 1951, 1003 01:02:45,623 --> 01:02:48,592 President Truman addressed the nation. 1004 01:02:49,627 --> 01:02:51,388 I have considered it essential to 1005 01:02:51,422 --> 01:02:54,632 relieve General MacArthur so that there would be no doubt 1006 01:02:54,667 --> 01:02:58,809 or confusion as to the real purpose and aim of our policy. 1007 01:02:59,430 --> 01:03:01,191 It was with the deepest personal regret 1008 01:03:01,225 --> 01:03:04,539 that I found myself compelled to take this action. 1009 01:03:04,573 --> 01:03:05,851 General MacArthur is one of our 1010 01:03:05,885 --> 01:03:08,267 greatest military commanders. 1011 01:03:08,301 --> 01:03:12,858 But the cause of world peace is much more important 1012 01:03:12,892 --> 01:03:15,170 than any individual. 1013 01:03:16,965 --> 01:03:20,141 For Truman this was an issue that transcended 1014 01:03:20,175 --> 01:03:21,832 the moment in Korea. 1015 01:03:21,867 --> 01:03:25,491 This had everything to do with how America was going to 1016 01:03:25,525 --> 01:03:27,665 be governed in the Cold War. 1017 01:03:27,700 --> 01:03:30,254 Truman recognized that the Korean War was not 1018 01:03:30,289 --> 01:03:31,635 one of a kind. 1019 01:03:31,669 --> 01:03:34,017 There would be other challenges like this. 1020 01:03:34,051 --> 01:03:37,986 And so he made a point of relieving MacArthur simply 1021 01:03:38,021 --> 01:03:41,369 because his view of what American policy should 1022 01:03:41,403 --> 01:03:44,475 be was different than the president's. 1023 01:03:45,683 --> 01:03:48,721 General MacArthur was far from wounded. 1024 01:03:48,755 --> 01:03:52,173 On April 16th, he boarded his plane and left Japan. 1025 01:03:53,553 --> 01:03:56,280 In New York, he was given a ticker tape parade down 1026 01:03:56,315 --> 01:03:59,594 Broadway, and he was invited to give a speech in front of 1027 01:03:59,628 --> 01:04:02,769 a joint session of Congress. 1028 01:04:02,804 --> 01:04:05,358 For many, MacArthur was the personification of 1029 01:04:05,393 --> 01:04:09,846 American exceptionalism, the last great World War II hero. 1030 01:04:10,674 --> 01:04:12,918 And in living rooms across the country, 1031 01:04:12,952 --> 01:04:15,955 Americans hung on his every word. 1032 01:04:16,231 --> 01:04:20,166 MacArthur knows that this audience is primed 1033 01:04:20,201 --> 01:04:21,892 to approve of him. 1034 01:04:21,927 --> 01:04:26,724 I stand on this rostrum with a sense of 1035 01:04:26,759 --> 01:04:30,659 deep humility and great pride. 1036 01:04:31,212 --> 01:04:35,009 And he speaks in a very stentorian voice 1037 01:04:35,043 --> 01:04:37,804 and he plays the crowd. 1038 01:04:38,667 --> 01:04:43,914 But I still remember the refrain of one 1039 01:04:43,949 --> 01:04:49,609 of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which 1040 01:04:49,644 --> 01:04:55,719 proclaimed most proudly that 1041 01:04:55,753 --> 01:05:03,692 "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away." 1042 01:05:05,694 --> 01:05:10,078 And like the old soldier of that ballad, 1043 01:05:10,113 --> 01:05:16,913 I now close my military career and just fade away. 1044 01:05:21,572 --> 01:05:25,611 And there was not a dry eye in the house. 1045 01:05:26,508 --> 01:05:28,959 In private, Truman fumed, 1046 01:05:28,994 --> 01:05:33,239 calling the speech quote, "A bunch of damn bullshit." 1047 01:05:33,274 --> 01:05:36,173 But his decision to fire MacArthur nearly cost 1048 01:05:36,208 --> 01:05:39,349 him his presidency. 1049 01:05:39,383 --> 01:05:42,248 I think his popularity rate sank to 22%. 1050 01:05:42,283 --> 01:05:45,424 I mean he was an extremely unpopular leader because 1051 01:05:45,458 --> 01:05:48,427 he didn't see in terms of victory or defeat. 1052 01:05:48,461 --> 01:05:51,292 He said we had to limit this war. 1053 01:05:51,775 --> 01:05:53,846 Despite continued pressure from Republicans 1054 01:05:53,880 --> 01:05:56,607 to expand the war against communism into China 1055 01:05:56,642 --> 01:06:00,335 and beyond, Truman stayed the course. 1056 01:06:14,246 --> 01:06:16,869 By the spring of 1951, 1057 01:06:16,903 --> 01:06:19,768 the Korean War had reached a stalemate. 1058 01:06:19,803 --> 01:06:22,944 Under the new leadership of General Matthew Ridgway, 1059 01:06:22,979 --> 01:06:26,430 UN forces were dug in around the 38th parallel, 1060 01:06:26,810 --> 01:06:30,262 trading ground against North Korean and Chinese forces 1061 01:06:30,296 --> 01:06:32,126 one bloody battle at a time. 1062 01:06:55,390 --> 01:06:58,083 What we were doing at that time was very different 1063 01:06:58,117 --> 01:07:00,878 than what had been earlier in the war. 1064 01:07:00,913 --> 01:07:03,398 They called that the stalemate at the time, 1065 01:07:03,433 --> 01:07:07,264 which is what it was, but living in the trenches 1066 01:07:07,299 --> 01:07:09,818 there is like living as animals. 1067 01:07:09,853 --> 01:07:11,337 You're living in the dirt. 1068 01:07:11,372 --> 01:07:12,925 You ate in the dirt. 1069 01:07:12,959 --> 01:07:15,962 That was a little bit hard on the morale. 1070 01:07:20,415 --> 01:07:23,211 It was a terribly bloody and 1071 01:07:23,246 --> 01:07:25,455 demoralizing experience. 1072 01:07:25,489 --> 01:07:27,664 There was a dynamic that basically meant that 1073 01:07:27,698 --> 01:07:30,218 neither side could win. 1074 01:07:30,253 --> 01:07:33,083 Most of the casualties take place in this period, 1075 01:07:33,118 --> 01:07:35,982 for no good purpose. 1076 01:07:38,088 --> 01:07:40,366 Armistice talks between the UN, China, 1077 01:07:40,401 --> 01:07:44,715 and North Korea, which had begun in the summer of 1951, 1078 01:07:44,750 --> 01:07:48,512 dragged on for months, then years. 1079 01:07:49,582 --> 01:07:51,998 At every venue the Soviet Union continued 1080 01:07:52,033 --> 01:07:53,345 its stonewalling. 1081 01:07:53,379 --> 01:07:55,036 United Kingdom? 1082 01:07:55,071 --> 01:07:56,555 Yes. 1083 01:07:56,589 --> 01:07:57,694 United States? 1084 01:07:57,728 --> 01:07:58,729 Yes. 1085 01:07:58,764 --> 01:08:00,455 Union of Socialist Republics? 1086 01:08:00,490 --> 01:08:02,078 No. 1087 01:08:02,285 --> 01:08:04,356 For Stalin and the Communist forces, 1088 01:08:04,390 --> 01:08:09,361 keeping the Americans stalled in East Asia was preferable. 1089 01:08:09,395 --> 01:08:12,536 Stalin was willing to fight the Korean War to 1090 01:08:12,571 --> 01:08:15,367 the last Chinese soldier. 1091 01:08:15,401 --> 01:08:18,232 It was keeping the Americans engaged in Korea rather 1092 01:08:18,266 --> 01:08:21,511 than building up in Europe. 1093 01:08:25,342 --> 01:08:27,379 In order to break the Communists' will, 1094 01:08:27,413 --> 01:08:30,416 Americans stepped up their air campaign in North Korea. 1095 01:08:35,352 --> 01:08:37,906 All of the cities in North Korea were 1096 01:08:37,941 --> 01:08:40,150 essentially flattened. 1097 01:08:40,185 --> 01:08:44,879 It got so that the pilots and the squadron leaders, 1098 01:08:44,913 --> 01:08:48,124 et cetera, were complaining they had no more targets. 1099 01:08:48,986 --> 01:08:52,162 A written directive to the 5th Air Force in North Korea, 1100 01:08:52,197 --> 01:08:56,028 had ordered that every installation, every town, 1101 01:08:56,062 --> 01:08:58,410 every village be destroyed. 1102 01:09:14,357 --> 01:09:16,221 They dropped a lot of napalm. 1103 01:09:16,255 --> 01:09:19,293 Napalm had been invented at the end of World War II, 1104 01:09:19,327 --> 01:09:20,880 but not used much. 1105 01:09:20,915 --> 01:09:26,817 It was used indiscriminately across North Korea. 1106 01:09:32,098 --> 01:09:33,790 And they thought that that was the price that 1107 01:09:33,824 --> 01:09:37,725 you had to pay to avoid a larger war, World War III, 1108 01:09:37,759 --> 01:09:39,036 with China. 1109 01:09:39,071 --> 01:09:42,039 And so basically North Korea became that kind of victim, 1110 01:09:42,074 --> 01:09:46,354 to force the communists to negotiate the armistice. 1111 01:09:51,601 --> 01:09:53,844 The Republican party is back in power. 1112 01:09:53,879 --> 01:09:56,226 General Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected! 1113 01:09:56,261 --> 01:09:58,746 Even President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1114 01:09:58,780 --> 01:10:01,611 a Republican who had won the 1952 election 1115 01:10:01,645 --> 01:10:04,786 on a pledge to go to Korea to end the war, 1116 01:10:04,821 --> 01:10:08,445 could do little to change the situation on the ground. 1117 01:10:08,756 --> 01:10:10,654 The mere fact that Dwight Eisenhower, 1118 01:10:10,689 --> 01:10:13,347 the hero of the European side of World War II, 1119 01:10:13,381 --> 01:10:14,486 was going to go. 1120 01:10:14,520 --> 01:10:15,901 He was going to put his mind to it. 1121 01:10:15,935 --> 01:10:19,836 Now, in fact, the end came not because Eisenhower went 1122 01:10:19,870 --> 01:10:22,942 to Korea, he went, he looked around, basically came home. 1123 01:10:22,977 --> 01:10:26,222 But the key was the death of Josef Stalin. 1124 01:10:30,122 --> 01:10:33,436 In March of 1953, the Soviet dictator died 1125 01:10:33,470 --> 01:10:37,233 unexpectedly of a cerebral hemorrhage. 1126 01:10:38,372 --> 01:10:41,927 Stalin's successors wasted no time. 1127 01:10:42,755 --> 01:10:46,138 Once Stalin's gone, his body's hardly cold when 1128 01:10:46,172 --> 01:10:49,279 the reigning central committee, the presidium, 1129 01:10:49,314 --> 01:10:52,282 sends a message to the Chinese and North Koreans, 1130 01:10:52,317 --> 01:10:55,112 "Get an armistice." 1131 01:10:55,147 --> 01:10:59,358 It took several months to agree on an armistice line. 1132 01:10:59,634 --> 01:11:03,224 The communists initially argued for the 38th parallel, 1133 01:11:03,259 --> 01:11:05,847 which was an indefensible line on a map. 1134 01:11:05,882 --> 01:11:09,575 The Americans insisted on another line, 1135 01:11:09,610 --> 01:11:11,163 a line that was defensible. 1136 01:11:11,197 --> 01:11:14,408 They wanted the armistice to survive. 1137 01:11:14,787 --> 01:11:17,790 Even as negotiators argued over the last details, 1138 01:11:17,825 --> 01:11:20,448 battles continued to rage. 1139 01:11:21,104 --> 01:11:23,969 At Pork Chop Hill, an 800-foot-high ridge near 1140 01:11:24,003 --> 01:11:28,214 the 38th parallel, the US army lost nearly 1,000 men 1141 01:11:28,249 --> 01:11:31,735 to death or injury fighting over a plot of land 1142 01:11:31,770 --> 01:11:35,221 of no strategic or tactical value. 1143 01:11:35,256 --> 01:11:37,327 To the soldiers in the trenches, 1144 01:11:37,362 --> 01:11:40,641 it seemed the fighting would never end. 1145 01:11:40,675 --> 01:11:43,782 We didn't know too much about what was going 1146 01:11:43,816 --> 01:11:48,373 on with negotiations except they were happening. 1147 01:11:48,925 --> 01:11:51,859 All of us hoped and thought any day we were going 1148 01:11:51,893 --> 01:11:56,001 to have a treaty signed. 1149 01:11:56,553 --> 01:11:58,693 You always thought, I don't want to be the last 1150 01:11:58,728 --> 01:12:02,283 one to die in this war. 1151 01:12:04,250 --> 01:12:08,358 Eventually the two sides agreed not to accept 1152 01:12:08,393 --> 01:12:10,291 the 38th parallel. 1153 01:12:10,326 --> 01:12:12,811 They would accept a demilitarized zone on each 1154 01:12:12,845 --> 01:12:16,124 side of the line of battle, so there would be a minor retreat 1155 01:12:16,159 --> 01:12:19,576 of anywhere from three to five kilometers at the end 1156 01:12:19,611 --> 01:12:23,925 of the war, but it would be essentially the battle line. 1157 01:12:24,685 --> 01:12:25,962 Then the exodus begins, 1158 01:12:25,996 --> 01:12:28,654 and from the disputed hills hundreds of thousands of men 1159 01:12:28,689 --> 01:12:32,417 pull back, and there's not a regret in a truckload... 1160 01:12:33,210 --> 01:12:36,041 While US forces were happy to pull back, 1161 01:12:36,075 --> 01:12:39,044 for many Koreans the location of the new border 1162 01:12:39,078 --> 01:12:41,564 had serious consequences. 1163 01:12:41,598 --> 01:12:45,326 Families would be permanently separated as territory once 1164 01:12:45,361 --> 01:12:49,365 situated in the south suddenly came under northern control. 1165 01:12:51,021 --> 01:12:53,748 Park Kyung Soon's hometown of Kaesong was one such 1166 01:12:53,783 --> 01:12:58,374 city that was now caught behind enemy lines. 1167 01:12:58,891 --> 01:13:01,515 Kyung Soon lived at home with her two younger siblings. 1168 01:13:03,171 --> 01:13:06,105 Her mother, fearing what might happen to her daughter 1169 01:13:06,140 --> 01:13:10,040 in North Korea, told her to flee. 1170 01:14:04,578 --> 01:14:08,305 On July 27th, 1953, an armistice was finally 1171 01:14:08,340 --> 01:14:12,240 reached between the UN, China and North Korea. 1172 01:14:12,689 --> 01:14:16,141 It called for a cessation of hostilities and armed force 1173 01:14:16,175 --> 01:14:19,696 until an official peace treaty is signed. 1174 01:14:20,248 --> 01:14:23,286 North Korea was completely destroyed, 1175 01:14:23,320 --> 01:14:24,908 not a building left standing. 1176 01:14:24,943 --> 01:14:27,497 South Korea was completely destroyed. 1177 01:14:27,532 --> 01:14:29,672 China lost a million people. 1178 01:14:29,706 --> 01:14:31,328 Mao lost his own son. 1179 01:14:31,363 --> 01:14:32,571 And U.S. too, 1180 01:14:32,606 --> 01:14:35,436 what do we accomplish after three years of destruction? 1181 01:14:35,471 --> 01:14:37,300 We're left with where we started, 1182 01:14:37,334 --> 01:14:41,477 with the, with the DMZ and the 38th parallel. 1183 01:15:00,439 --> 01:15:06,392 โ™ช Some people love to love โ™ช 1184 01:15:07,748 --> 01:15:11,648 โ™ช While some people seem to wait... โ™ช 1185 01:15:11,783 --> 01:15:18,341 Most of us when we came back really felt like 1186 01:15:18,375 --> 01:15:21,586 we had not accomplished much. 1187 01:15:21,793 --> 01:15:24,381 The American people generally, 1188 01:15:24,416 --> 01:15:27,799 most of them really didn't even know where we'd been. 1189 01:15:27,833 --> 01:15:31,216 A number of the Korean veterans that I know of that 1190 01:15:31,250 --> 01:15:33,839 came back home would walk down the street and 1191 01:15:33,874 --> 01:15:36,428 their friends would ask them, 'Where have you been?' 1192 01:15:36,462 --> 01:15:39,155 And they said, 'Oh, we've been in a war in Korea.' 1193 01:15:39,189 --> 01:15:41,537 'Where's Korea?' 1194 01:15:41,571 --> 01:15:44,401 No one could gin up enthusiasm for a victory 1195 01:15:44,436 --> 01:15:46,507 parade because there wasn't a victory. 1196 01:15:46,542 --> 01:15:50,062 In fact, when the troops came home there was this armistice. 1197 01:15:50,097 --> 01:15:54,204 There was the possibility that they might have to go back. 1198 01:15:58,105 --> 01:16:00,556 Despite the end of major combat, 1199 01:16:00,590 --> 01:16:03,075 the Korean War was far from over. 1200 01:16:03,110 --> 01:16:05,319 There was no official peace treaty, 1201 01:16:05,353 --> 01:16:09,634 thousands of POWs were still awaiting repatriation 1202 01:16:09,668 --> 01:16:11,843 and tensions along the DMZ would require 1203 01:16:11,877 --> 01:16:14,742 President Eisenhower to commit tens of thousands 1204 01:16:14,777 --> 01:16:19,057 of troops to act as a standing force along the border. 1205 01:16:21,922 --> 01:16:26,582 But at home, Americans were tired of war and had long lost 1206 01:16:26,616 --> 01:16:30,102 interest in events in Korea. 1207 01:16:30,413 --> 01:16:33,692 Americans conclude that not that much 1208 01:16:33,727 --> 01:16:36,143 was at stake in Korea. 1209 01:16:36,177 --> 01:16:39,249 We're not going to World War III over Korea, 1210 01:16:39,284 --> 01:16:43,460 and the Communists aren't going to take over South Korea. 1211 01:16:43,944 --> 01:16:47,948 It didn't seem to be threatening to America's 1212 01:16:47,982 --> 01:16:51,158 actual life and livelihood. 1213 01:16:51,192 --> 01:16:52,677 Let's just forget about this. 1214 01:17:05,448 --> 01:17:07,657 The luxury of forgetting the war was not 1215 01:17:07,692 --> 01:17:10,487 possible on the Korean peninsula. 1216 01:17:10,522 --> 01:17:13,214 Three years of bloody conflict had left both 1217 01:17:13,249 --> 01:17:16,770 Koreas devastated, their cities flattened and 1218 01:17:16,804 --> 01:17:19,980 their economies destroyed. 1219 01:17:20,566 --> 01:17:22,948 After the armistice was signed, 1220 01:17:22,983 --> 01:17:26,503 the Korean peninsula was basically a field of rubble. 1221 01:17:26,538 --> 01:17:29,783 The United States dropped more ordinance on North Korea 1222 01:17:29,817 --> 01:17:32,958 in that three-year war than we dropped during the entire 1223 01:17:32,993 --> 01:17:36,065 Second World War, basically leveled the country. 1224 01:17:38,274 --> 01:17:41,622 The southern side of the peninsula was no better. 1225 01:17:41,657 --> 01:17:43,382 Everything was leveled. 1226 01:17:43,417 --> 01:17:46,523 They were starting very much from scratch. 1227 01:17:47,041 --> 01:17:49,734 Despite an influx of millions of American dollars 1228 01:17:49,768 --> 01:17:52,840 to rebuild South Korea, the country remained among 1229 01:17:52,875 --> 01:17:55,636 the world's poorest. 1230 01:17:55,947 --> 01:17:59,088 Syngman Rhee, who after the armistice continued his 1231 01:17:59,122 --> 01:18:03,126 authoritarian regime, ruled over a government rife with 1232 01:18:03,161 --> 01:18:06,543 corruption and mismanagement. 1233 01:18:06,820 --> 01:18:09,788 Syngman Rhee ruled the country ostensibly as a 1234 01:18:09,823 --> 01:18:13,619 constitutional democracy, but really in a very brutal and 1235 01:18:13,654 --> 01:18:18,728 ruthless way, very cliquish, focusing on providing benefits 1236 01:18:18,763 --> 01:18:23,008 to his followers, punishing his detractors, 1237 01:18:23,043 --> 01:18:25,735 and he essentially sought economic assistance from the 1238 01:18:25,770 --> 01:18:28,289 United States and from other countries, 1239 01:18:28,324 --> 01:18:32,121 but was using it largely to subsidize his own rule and 1240 01:18:32,155 --> 01:18:35,711 was not really putting it into an economic plan. 1241 01:18:37,643 --> 01:18:40,474 In the countryside and in major cities food 1242 01:18:40,508 --> 01:18:44,685 and basic resources remained scant for years. 1243 01:19:05,913 --> 01:19:08,088 I was raised in Gangnam, 1244 01:19:08,122 --> 01:19:11,574 Apgujeong-dong in Gangnam, with Psy, the singer, 1245 01:19:11,608 --> 01:19:13,093 sings about it. 1246 01:19:13,127 --> 01:19:16,406 So, I have a memory of that, when it was just a field, 1247 01:19:16,441 --> 01:19:19,409 and had none of these buildings. 1248 01:19:19,444 --> 01:19:21,549 South Korea, people forget, was one of the poorest 1249 01:19:21,584 --> 01:19:24,449 countries in the world. 1250 01:19:30,524 --> 01:19:32,802 In North Korea, despite the complete 1251 01:19:32,837 --> 01:19:34,977 destruction of its infrastructure, 1252 01:19:35,011 --> 01:19:38,221 Kim Il-sung quickly oversaw the complete transformation 1253 01:19:38,256 --> 01:19:42,432 of his country and rebuilt it in his image. 1254 01:19:43,226 --> 01:19:45,090 After the end of the Korean War, 1255 01:19:45,125 --> 01:19:47,783 the North Korean economy developed quite rapidly 1256 01:19:47,817 --> 01:19:50,199 because they had a great deal of support from the 1257 01:19:50,233 --> 01:19:53,823 Soviet Union and from Communist China. 1258 01:19:56,032 --> 01:19:59,829 Economic growth in North Korea through the '50s, 1259 01:19:59,864 --> 01:20:04,109 after the armistice and really into the early '60s, 1260 01:20:04,144 --> 01:20:08,493 was clearly greater than that of South Korea. 1261 01:20:10,909 --> 01:20:12,911 Kim Il-sung used the memory of the war 1262 01:20:12,946 --> 01:20:15,258 to double down on his authority. 1263 01:20:15,293 --> 01:20:18,675 In his re-writing of history, America and South Korea were 1264 01:20:18,710 --> 01:20:22,610 the aggressors who instigated the war and it was he who 1265 01:20:22,645 --> 01:20:26,822 lead North Korea to victory over American tyranny. 1266 01:20:27,892 --> 01:20:29,928 The way the North Koreans learn about the 1267 01:20:29,963 --> 01:20:32,655 Korean War is that the United States, first of all, 1268 01:20:32,689 --> 01:20:36,452 divided the Korean peninsula, then invaded North Korea, 1269 01:20:36,486 --> 01:20:39,317 but under the great leadership of Kim Il-sung, 1270 01:20:39,351 --> 01:20:41,906 the North Koreans emerged victorious, 1271 01:20:41,940 --> 01:20:44,770 yet you have to continually fight against the Americans, 1272 01:20:44,805 --> 01:20:47,912 because the Americans are bent on destruction of North Korea, 1273 01:20:48,705 --> 01:20:52,778 and this is sort of repeated over and over and over. 1274 01:20:53,020 --> 01:20:54,988 To strengthen this mythology and consolidate 1275 01:20:55,022 --> 01:20:59,647 his power, Kim enforced a series of brutal purges. 1276 01:21:00,648 --> 01:21:02,547 After the war, Kim Il-sung was in a very 1277 01:21:02,581 --> 01:21:06,137 vulnerable position, because he led the country into this 1278 01:21:06,171 --> 01:21:11,176 disaster but Kim Il-sung is a survivor and he then begins to 1279 01:21:11,211 --> 01:21:14,490 consolidate his power and then a huge purge happens 1280 01:21:14,524 --> 01:21:16,975 in '58 and '59. 1281 01:21:17,942 --> 01:21:21,704 Some people say like 100,000 people then are killed, 1282 01:21:21,911 --> 01:21:25,432 by '61, he's totally in power. 1283 01:21:25,881 --> 01:21:28,297 Kim even created his own political philosophy 1284 01:21:28,331 --> 01:21:29,988 in order to govern the country. 1285 01:21:30,023 --> 01:21:33,336 He called it "Juche" a revolutionary theory that 1286 01:21:33,371 --> 01:21:36,546 focused on independence, nationalism 1287 01:21:36,581 --> 01:21:39,618 and most importantly self-defense. 1288 01:21:59,397 --> 01:22:02,193 Before he defected to the south in 2004, 1289 01:22:02,227 --> 01:22:05,713 Jang Jin Sung was a prominent member of the North Korean 1290 01:22:05,748 --> 01:22:08,820 propaganda wing and was raised under the influence 1291 01:22:08,854 --> 01:22:10,787 of Kim Il-sung. 1292 01:22:47,617 --> 01:22:49,619 Though increasingly isolated, 1293 01:22:49,654 --> 01:22:53,037 Kim Il-sung's vision for his country remained true, 1294 01:22:53,071 --> 01:22:56,385 to build an army strong enough to defend itself from America 1295 01:22:56,419 --> 01:23:01,355 and South Korea and to one day unify the peninsula. 1296 01:23:15,024 --> 01:23:18,338 By 1968 South Korea had emerged from the era of 1297 01:23:18,372 --> 01:23:21,306 corruption and economic stagnation that had marred 1298 01:23:21,341 --> 01:23:24,137 Syngman Rhee's administration. 1299 01:23:25,517 --> 01:23:28,244 Under the leadership of General Park Chung Hee, 1300 01:23:28,279 --> 01:23:31,247 a military leader with an eye toward modernity, 1301 01:23:31,282 --> 01:23:34,009 South Korea's economy was booming. 1302 01:23:36,459 --> 01:23:38,634 By the late 1960s and early '70s, 1303 01:23:38,668 --> 01:23:42,431 Park Chung-hee implemented an export-oriented economy and 1304 01:23:42,465 --> 01:23:45,537 it was through his guidance that South Korea as we 1305 01:23:45,572 --> 01:23:49,231 know it really began to take off economically. 1306 01:23:50,301 --> 01:23:54,581 I mean he was also a dictator, but he was able to create the 1307 01:23:54,615 --> 01:23:58,171 economic platform from which South Korea could 1308 01:23:58,205 --> 01:24:01,381 then develop into a democracy. 1309 01:24:01,760 --> 01:24:04,694 And of course South Korea's rise and global power and 1310 01:24:04,729 --> 01:24:07,939 success then reflected back on the success 1311 01:24:07,973 --> 01:24:10,942 of the American war. 1312 01:24:10,976 --> 01:24:13,565 While South Korea's prosperity was heralded across 1313 01:24:13,600 --> 01:24:17,604 the Western world, to Kim Il-sung and North Korea 1314 01:24:17,638 --> 01:24:20,227 it was a threat. 1315 01:24:23,679 --> 01:24:25,508 As South Korea started to take off 1316 01:24:25,543 --> 01:24:28,856 economically, North Korea then saw the window for 1317 01:24:28,891 --> 01:24:32,550 reunification closing because it had surpassed 1318 01:24:32,584 --> 01:24:34,103 North Korea's economy. 1319 01:24:34,138 --> 01:24:36,623 North Korea was going down economically, 1320 01:24:36,657 --> 01:24:39,177 South Korea was going up. 1321 01:24:39,695 --> 01:24:42,974 With thousands of American troops sitting on its border, 1322 01:24:43,008 --> 01:24:45,770 and a well-armed South Korean military, 1323 01:24:45,804 --> 01:24:48,186 Kim Il-sung saw his opportunities to unite the 1324 01:24:48,221 --> 01:24:52,087 peninsula under his own control shrinking by the day. 1325 01:24:53,812 --> 01:24:59,439 Between 1967 and 1972, it did look like that 1326 01:24:59,473 --> 01:25:03,098 North Koreans really wanted to restart hostilities and 1327 01:25:03,132 --> 01:25:07,412 maybe create havoc by successful assassinations 1328 01:25:07,447 --> 01:25:10,484 of high level officials. 1329 01:25:10,726 --> 01:25:13,901 So, a short period which is sometimes called 1330 01:25:13,936 --> 01:25:16,801 the second Korean war began. 1331 01:25:17,422 --> 01:25:19,321 And it was at that point that North Korea then 1332 01:25:19,355 --> 01:25:22,013 begins a series of provocative actions in order 1333 01:25:22,047 --> 01:25:25,568 to unify the peninsula under Kim Il-sung's rule. 1334 01:25:26,673 --> 01:25:29,296 On January 21st 1968, 1335 01:25:29,331 --> 01:25:32,403 Kim Il-sung ordered his most brazen military operation 1336 01:25:32,437 --> 01:25:36,131 since the signing of the 1953 armistice. 1337 01:25:36,510 --> 01:25:39,479 A unit of highly trained North Korean commandos cut their way 1338 01:25:39,513 --> 01:25:43,828 through barbed wire along the DMZ and snuck into the south. 1339 01:25:44,898 --> 01:25:48,212 Donning South Korean military uniforms and credentials, 1340 01:25:48,246 --> 01:25:50,904 the commandos stormed the Blue House, 1341 01:25:50,938 --> 01:25:53,976 the private residence of President Park Chung Hee. 1342 01:25:55,184 --> 01:25:57,186 The commandos' orders, which came directly from 1343 01:25:57,221 --> 01:26:01,501 Kim Il-sung, were concise and explicit. 1344 01:26:01,708 --> 01:26:03,330 The instructions were basically, 1345 01:26:03,365 --> 01:26:06,368 to go to the Blue House to kill the South Korean 1346 01:26:06,402 --> 01:26:09,198 president, Park Chung-Hee, to cut off his head and 1347 01:26:09,233 --> 01:26:11,545 bring it back to North Korea. 1348 01:26:13,064 --> 01:26:14,686 The North Koreans got within yards of 1349 01:26:14,721 --> 01:26:17,033 the president before they were discovered, 1350 01:26:17,068 --> 01:26:19,967 and the assassination was thwarted. 1351 01:26:20,554 --> 01:26:23,074 And I sincerely hope Kim Il-sung 1352 01:26:23,108 --> 01:26:28,459 and his people up north recognize the futility and 1353 01:26:28,493 --> 01:26:32,566 the unwisdom of continuing this action. 1354 01:26:33,567 --> 01:26:36,294 But just days later, North Korea captured the USS 1355 01:26:36,329 --> 01:26:40,850 Pueblo which had been sailing off of the coast of Korea. 1356 01:26:40,885 --> 01:26:44,440 The 82-man crew was bound, blindfolded, 1357 01:26:44,475 --> 01:26:46,753 and transported to Pyongyang, 1358 01:26:46,787 --> 01:26:49,928 where they were charged as spies. 1359 01:26:52,310 --> 01:26:55,624 For eleven months, the ship's crew was tortured 1360 01:26:55,658 --> 01:26:58,799 and subjected to harsh interrogations. 1361 01:26:59,110 --> 01:27:01,146 The North Koreans committed yet 1362 01:27:01,181 --> 01:27:04,391 another wanton and aggressive act by 1363 01:27:04,426 --> 01:27:08,533 seizing an American ship and its crew. 1364 01:27:08,568 --> 01:27:12,261 Clearly, this cannot be accepted. 1365 01:27:12,296 --> 01:27:14,263 By the winter of 1968, 1366 01:27:14,298 --> 01:27:16,886 it seemed America was once again being pulled into 1367 01:27:16,921 --> 01:27:20,304 the conflict in Korea just as their war in Vietnam 1368 01:27:20,338 --> 01:27:22,547 was heating up. 1369 01:27:22,582 --> 01:27:24,446 The seizure of the Pueblo happened almost 1370 01:27:24,480 --> 01:27:27,656 conterminously with the Tet offensive and was designed 1371 01:27:27,690 --> 01:27:30,452 to put pressure on the US by the North Koreans, 1372 01:27:30,486 --> 01:27:32,143 who were helping the North Vietnamese 1373 01:27:32,177 --> 01:27:35,526 as pilots and things like that. 1374 01:27:35,560 --> 01:27:38,253 The Pueblo incident kind of illustrates 1375 01:27:38,287 --> 01:27:41,808 the dilemma that the Americans have always been in, 1376 01:27:41,842 --> 01:27:44,500 because we do have major interests in Korea, 1377 01:27:44,535 --> 01:27:46,985 but we have global interests as well. 1378 01:27:47,020 --> 01:27:50,920 So the Americans were deeply engaged in Vietnam, 1379 01:27:50,955 --> 01:27:54,269 and were scared to death that Park Chung Hee would take some 1380 01:27:54,303 --> 01:27:58,721 kind of action that would create a renewed Korean war. 1381 01:27:59,343 --> 01:28:01,241 Park Chung-hee is furious. 1382 01:28:01,276 --> 01:28:02,760 He wants to go north. 1383 01:28:02,794 --> 01:28:06,626 He wants to seek revenge for the Blue House raid, 1384 01:28:06,660 --> 01:28:09,180 but all the other powers around the Korean Peninsula, 1385 01:28:09,214 --> 01:28:13,460 of course, are not interested in restarting the Korean War. 1386 01:28:13,495 --> 01:28:16,912 The Americans are bogged down in Vietnam. 1387 01:28:16,946 --> 01:28:19,708 The Soviet Union has distractions in Eastern 1388 01:28:19,742 --> 01:28:23,090 Europe, it invades Czechoslovakia in 1968, 1389 01:28:24,368 --> 01:28:28,406 and the Chinese are involved in their cultural revolution, 1390 01:28:28,993 --> 01:28:32,341 so the outside powers outside of the Korean Peninsula have 1391 01:28:32,376 --> 01:28:35,620 no interest in starting the Korean War, 1392 01:28:35,655 --> 01:28:39,383 but the two Koreas want, again, to start a war. 1393 01:28:40,315 --> 01:28:42,282 With pressure from America Korean 1394 01:28:42,317 --> 01:28:45,630 President Park stood down. 1395 01:28:45,941 --> 01:28:48,184 The American crew of the Pueblo were released in 1396 01:28:48,219 --> 01:28:52,327 December 1968 but the ship was never returned. 1397 01:28:56,952 --> 01:29:00,265 I think it's fair to say that after the initial hot war 1398 01:29:00,300 --> 01:29:02,440 between North and South Korea, 1399 01:29:02,475 --> 01:29:04,373 there was a cold war competition between the 1400 01:29:04,408 --> 01:29:07,169 North and the South that was quite intense. 1401 01:29:07,203 --> 01:29:09,792 Lots of hostilities day to day along the border, 1402 01:29:09,827 --> 01:29:12,899 and every time in that history whenever we saw the south 1403 01:29:12,933 --> 01:29:16,696 Koreans doing something good, the North Koreans would always 1404 01:29:16,730 --> 01:29:19,492 seek to spoil that party. 1405 01:29:19,526 --> 01:29:21,390 Simmering tensions between the two Koreas 1406 01:29:21,425 --> 01:29:25,360 continued throughout the 70's and 80's. 1407 01:29:26,775 --> 01:29:29,881 Then as the decade wound down, 1408 01:29:29,916 --> 01:29:33,126 North Korea would strike yet again, 1409 01:29:33,160 --> 01:29:36,405 this time while the whole world watched. 1410 01:29:50,523 --> 01:29:53,042 These games were widely seen worldwide as 1411 01:29:53,077 --> 01:29:56,632 a triumph of the south Korean anti-communist regimes. 1412 01:29:57,530 --> 01:30:02,258 And well, North Koreans wanted to spoil the show. 1413 01:30:02,535 --> 01:30:06,366 In November of 1987, just weeks before South Korea 1414 01:30:06,401 --> 01:30:09,542 was to hold its first democratic elections while 1415 01:30:09,576 --> 01:30:12,372 busily preparing for the Olympic games, 1416 01:30:12,407 --> 01:30:15,582 two North Korean agents working under orders from 1417 01:30:15,617 --> 01:30:20,863 the Kim regime planted a bomb aboard Korean air flight 858. 1418 01:30:22,106 --> 01:30:26,628 All 104 passengers and 11 crew members were killed. 1419 01:30:28,492 --> 01:30:30,563 The republic of Korea has produced evidence 1420 01:30:30,597 --> 01:30:34,014 that KAL 858 was destroyed by an act of terrorism 1421 01:30:34,049 --> 01:30:36,431 by North Korea. 1422 01:30:40,504 --> 01:30:43,886 This bombing of the Korean Airlines plane was 1423 01:30:43,921 --> 01:30:48,408 just a part of their efforts to create a climate of fear, 1424 01:30:48,719 --> 01:30:52,516 to prevent people from going to the Seoul Olympic Games. 1425 01:30:55,588 --> 01:30:57,313 But the desperate act of terror by 1426 01:30:57,348 --> 01:31:00,213 Kim Il-sung backfired. 1427 01:31:00,247 --> 01:31:02,215 And it's at that point, that really, 1428 01:31:02,249 --> 01:31:05,908 you can say that the Korean War has been won 1429 01:31:05,943 --> 01:31:08,635 by South Korea. 1430 01:31:10,603 --> 01:31:14,848 The world to Seoul, Seoul to the world... 1431 01:31:20,129 --> 01:31:22,269 And then the Soviet Union establishes diplomatic 1432 01:31:22,304 --> 01:31:24,375 relations with South Korea in 1990. 1433 01:31:24,409 --> 01:31:27,274 China follows in 1992. 1434 01:31:27,309 --> 01:31:29,656 So North Korea is now diplomatically isolated, 1435 01:31:29,691 --> 01:31:31,762 humiliated by the Seoul Olympics, 1436 01:31:31,796 --> 01:31:36,076 and unable to deal with South Korea on any equal terms. 1437 01:31:36,974 --> 01:31:40,460 And it's that time then, that the North Korean regime 1438 01:31:40,495 --> 01:31:43,670 seeks its nuclear program for its own security. 1439 01:32:00,342 --> 01:32:03,932 On July 8th 1994, Kim Il-sung died. 1440 01:32:08,557 --> 01:32:11,042 Ordinary North Koreans were forced into a state 1441 01:32:11,077 --> 01:32:13,044 of prolonged mourning. 1442 01:33:12,345 --> 01:33:13,691 Kim's son, 1443 01:33:13,726 --> 01:33:16,763 Kim Jong-il was made supreme leader. 1444 01:33:16,798 --> 01:33:19,697 He inherited a country in crisis. 1445 01:33:19,732 --> 01:33:22,251 The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 90's 1446 01:33:22,286 --> 01:33:25,703 devastated the North Korean economy and a series 1447 01:33:25,738 --> 01:33:30,052 of successive famines killed an estimated one million Koreans. 1448 01:33:32,641 --> 01:33:35,230 But even as his people were starving, 1449 01:33:35,264 --> 01:33:37,750 Kim doubled down on his father's expensive 1450 01:33:37,784 --> 01:33:40,235 nuclear ambitions. 1451 01:33:41,408 --> 01:33:43,825 So everyone really thinks at that point that 1452 01:33:43,859 --> 01:33:46,793 North Korea's going to collapse and yet it doesn't. 1453 01:33:46,828 --> 01:33:50,107 Kim Jong-il continues with his nuclear program and 1454 01:33:50,141 --> 01:33:54,490 he knows that is the only leverage he has for survival. 1455 01:33:55,630 --> 01:33:57,942 The situation in Korea is serious, 1456 01:33:57,977 --> 01:33:59,495 we are examining what we can do, 1457 01:33:59,530 --> 01:34:03,707 we're talking to our South Korean partners... 1458 01:34:03,741 --> 01:34:06,261 In 1994, after it was discovered that the 1459 01:34:06,295 --> 01:34:10,161 North was secretly producing plutonium for a bomb, 1460 01:34:10,196 --> 01:34:12,543 President Bill Clinton dispatched a team of American 1461 01:34:12,577 --> 01:34:15,650 diplomats to Geneva to defuse the crisis. 1462 01:34:16,616 --> 01:34:17,962 We are pursuing our sanctions 1463 01:34:17,997 --> 01:34:20,275 discussions in the United Nations. 1464 01:34:20,309 --> 01:34:22,173 After months of negotiations, 1465 01:34:22,208 --> 01:34:25,107 Kim Jong-il consented to freeze his nuclear program 1466 01:34:25,142 --> 01:34:27,731 in exchange for increased aid. 1467 01:34:28,145 --> 01:34:31,113 They called it the "Agreed Framework." 1468 01:34:31,148 --> 01:34:33,633 Bill Clinton referred to the deal as the first step 1469 01:34:33,668 --> 01:34:37,361 on the road to a nuclear free Korean peninsula. 1470 01:34:38,327 --> 01:34:41,365 So, that was sort of the height of diplomacy. 1471 01:34:41,399 --> 01:34:43,401 Madeleine Albright as the Secretary of State went 1472 01:34:43,436 --> 01:34:45,921 to North Korea. 1473 01:34:45,956 --> 01:34:49,235 The problem is that North Koreans were pursuing 1474 01:34:49,269 --> 01:34:52,548 a separate track, a uranium enrichment program, 1475 01:34:52,583 --> 01:34:55,655 before the 1994 agreed framework, 1476 01:34:55,690 --> 01:34:59,210 during the negotiation, and after the agreed framework. 1477 01:34:59,245 --> 01:35:02,731 So, North Koreans were always bent on keeping some aspect 1478 01:35:02,766 --> 01:35:05,044 of their nuclear program. 1479 01:35:06,286 --> 01:35:08,599 For North Korea, nuclear weapons are not only 1480 01:35:08,633 --> 01:35:10,808 the ultimate sign of strength, 1481 01:35:10,843 --> 01:35:14,122 but they have meaning for North Korea and their history 1482 01:35:14,156 --> 01:35:19,161 because Kim Il-sung saw how Japan's occupation of Korea, 1483 01:35:19,196 --> 01:35:23,407 which looked like it would never end, 1484 01:35:23,441 --> 01:35:26,686 suddenly being terminated by two atomic bombs 1485 01:35:26,721 --> 01:35:29,758 that the United States dropped on Japan. 1486 01:35:29,793 --> 01:35:33,935 They saw China explode a nuclear device in 1964 and 1487 01:35:33,969 --> 01:35:38,180 then become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. 1488 01:35:39,803 --> 01:35:42,288 These are the interpretations, the lessons the North Koreans 1489 01:35:42,322 --> 01:35:45,532 learned from the ability to have nuclear weapons. 1490 01:35:57,027 --> 01:35:59,374 As North Korea retreated further and further 1491 01:35:59,408 --> 01:36:02,860 into isolation, South Korea was becoming a paragon of 1492 01:36:02,895 --> 01:36:06,036 capitalism, and democracy. 1493 01:36:06,070 --> 01:36:09,108 Even though the war between the two had not ended, 1494 01:36:09,142 --> 01:36:12,801 memories of it receded behind glowing monuments to economic 1495 01:36:12,836 --> 01:36:15,908 progress, spearheaded by the success of companies 1496 01:36:15,942 --> 01:36:19,083 like Samsung and Hyundai. 1497 01:36:20,015 --> 01:36:23,398 But by the late 90s, as democracy ripened and with it 1498 01:36:23,432 --> 01:36:27,126 a free press, harrowing truths about the war finally came 1499 01:36:27,160 --> 01:36:30,577 to light and threatened to strain the long standing 1500 01:36:30,612 --> 01:36:33,960 alliance between America and South Korea. 1501 01:36:51,391 --> 01:36:53,635 Choe Sang-Hun was reporter for the Associated 1502 01:36:53,669 --> 01:36:55,948 Press in Seoul in the late '90s. 1503 01:37:29,809 --> 01:37:32,156 Choe partnered with a team at AP's New York 1504 01:37:32,191 --> 01:37:35,435 bureau, led by Charles Hanley. 1505 01:37:35,850 --> 01:37:39,405 The investigation was a very detailed, 1506 01:37:39,439 --> 01:37:44,479 very arduous, onerous, drawn-out investigation. 1507 01:37:45,135 --> 01:37:47,862 It wasn't easy. 1508 01:37:47,896 --> 01:37:49,587 The team began to interview survivors who 1509 01:37:49,622 --> 01:37:52,142 described atrocities perpetrated by American 1510 01:37:52,176 --> 01:37:55,731 military in the earliest days of the war. 1511 01:37:57,250 --> 01:38:01,496 One of the worst was the massacre at No Gun Ri where 1512 01:38:01,530 --> 01:38:05,569 hundreds of South Korean civilian refugees were killed 1513 01:38:05,603 --> 01:38:08,986 while they huddled under a train overpass. 1514 01:38:49,199 --> 01:38:52,857 The stories from the Korean survivors 1515 01:38:52,892 --> 01:38:54,859 were just horrible. 1516 01:38:54,894 --> 01:38:59,968 And the key thing then was to find the Americans involved. 1517 01:39:00,003 --> 01:39:02,971 We needed to find corroboration. 1518 01:39:03,006 --> 01:39:05,732 My colleague Martha Mendoza and I began making 1519 01:39:05,767 --> 01:39:09,253 cold calls to these veterans. 1520 01:39:09,288 --> 01:39:11,255 Homer Garza was a 17 year old private with 1521 01:39:11,290 --> 01:39:13,223 the Army's 7th Cavalry. 1522 01:39:13,257 --> 01:39:17,089 He says he arrived at No Gun Ri just after the massacre ended. 1523 01:39:18,159 --> 01:39:21,610 There was two tunnels side by side. 1524 01:39:21,645 --> 01:39:24,717 When we got there, there must've been about 1525 01:39:24,751 --> 01:39:29,929 300 South Korean civilians that were killed there. 1526 01:39:31,103 --> 01:39:36,108 One thing I'll never forget, there was a woman, a mother, 1527 01:39:36,142 --> 01:39:37,592 laying there on her back. 1528 01:39:37,626 --> 01:39:41,527 And she had a little baby about, probably about, 1529 01:39:41,561 --> 01:39:47,050 not more than 8 or 9 months old trying to nurse on the 1530 01:39:47,084 --> 01:39:50,570 dead body there, you know. 1531 01:39:51,778 --> 01:39:53,884 Garza contends American soldiers were not 1532 01:39:53,918 --> 01:39:58,026 to blame for the massacre but along with other veterans 1533 01:39:58,061 --> 01:39:59,994 he has confirmed that their orders during 1534 01:40:00,028 --> 01:40:02,686 the war were clear. 1535 01:40:02,720 --> 01:40:06,000 We received orders that anything in front of us 1536 01:40:06,034 --> 01:40:09,175 was the enemy, no matter who was in front of us. 1537 01:40:09,210 --> 01:40:14,008 If they didn't shoot at you, you would shoot at them. 1538 01:40:14,042 --> 01:40:15,112 Yeah. 1539 01:40:15,147 --> 01:40:18,667 Whether they was a male or a female. 1540 01:40:21,187 --> 01:40:24,639 Choe, Hanley, and a team of AP reporters dug 1541 01:40:24,673 --> 01:40:26,951 into the Pentagon's files, 1542 01:40:26,986 --> 01:40:29,885 many of them formerly classified 1543 01:40:29,920 --> 01:40:33,441 what they found there supported the survivors' accounts. 1544 01:40:33,682 --> 01:40:36,271 There were orders flying around the warfront 1545 01:40:36,306 --> 01:40:38,998 to treat civilians as enemy. 1546 01:40:40,793 --> 01:40:43,313 Orders from the very top command, the 8th Army, 1547 01:40:43,347 --> 01:40:47,213 to stop any refugee movement across lines. 1548 01:40:48,456 --> 01:40:53,116 This was just a prima facie case of a war crime. 1549 01:40:53,150 --> 01:40:56,050 Targeting noncombatants has always been considered 1550 01:40:56,084 --> 01:40:58,086 a war crime, 1551 01:40:58,121 --> 01:41:01,952 and these were the first documents like this 1552 01:41:01,986 --> 01:41:04,610 to be turned up. 1553 01:41:04,644 --> 01:41:07,578 On September 29, 1999, 1554 01:41:07,613 --> 01:41:09,822 the AP published the first piece of 1555 01:41:09,856 --> 01:41:11,755 their investigative report. 1556 01:41:11,789 --> 01:41:13,722 By the next day, Defense Secretary 1557 01:41:13,757 --> 01:41:17,554 William Cohen had ordered an Army investigation, 1558 01:41:17,588 --> 01:41:21,075 which dragged on for many months. 1559 01:41:22,593 --> 01:41:26,425 Somehow my name got all the way to the Pentagon. 1560 01:41:27,357 --> 01:41:30,843 And I got on the phone and he said, 1561 01:41:30,877 --> 01:41:32,293 "This is Colonel so-and-so." 1562 01:41:32,327 --> 01:41:35,986 Says, "We want to talk to you about No Gun Ri." 1563 01:41:36,193 --> 01:41:39,023 I says, "Neither one of you have been in combat so 1564 01:41:39,058 --> 01:41:41,509 you don't know what the hell you're talking about. 1565 01:41:41,543 --> 01:41:43,476 You're fighting to keep your ass alive. 1566 01:41:43,511 --> 01:41:45,444 That's what you're doing." 1567 01:41:47,446 --> 01:41:49,793 Outraged South Koreans demanded an official 1568 01:41:49,827 --> 01:41:53,762 apology from the U.S. but one never came. 1569 01:41:54,798 --> 01:41:56,075 We know things happen which 1570 01:41:56,110 --> 01:41:57,283 should not have happened. 1571 01:41:57,318 --> 01:41:59,837 And that things happen which were wrong. 1572 01:41:59,872 --> 01:42:02,840 President Clinton did not offer an apology. 1573 01:42:02,875 --> 01:42:06,844 An apology would be an admission of culpability. 1574 01:42:06,879 --> 01:42:10,089 What Clinton issued was a statement of regret. 1575 01:42:10,124 --> 01:42:13,679 Which of course simply says, "It's too bad this thing 1576 01:42:13,713 --> 01:42:17,441 happened to you, we really feel sorry for you." 1577 01:43:14,360 --> 01:43:16,086 A major disaster is occurring in New York City 1578 01:43:16,120 --> 01:43:17,329 this morning. 1579 01:43:17,363 --> 01:43:19,227 If you are a New York City firefighter, 1580 01:43:19,262 --> 01:43:20,332 drop what you're doing. 1581 01:43:20,366 --> 01:43:22,575 Report to your company. 1582 01:43:26,614 --> 01:43:29,755 Every nation, in every region, 1583 01:43:29,789 --> 01:43:32,482 now has a decision to make. 1584 01:43:32,516 --> 01:43:35,174 Either you're with us. 1585 01:43:35,209 --> 01:43:38,073 Or you are with the terrorists. 1586 01:43:38,419 --> 01:43:40,283 In a speech after the devastating terrorist 1587 01:43:40,317 --> 01:43:43,631 attacks on September 11th, 2001, 1588 01:43:43,665 --> 01:43:46,358 President Bush thrust North Korea back into America's 1589 01:43:46,392 --> 01:43:50,672 consciousness, using the rogue nation as justification for 1590 01:43:50,707 --> 01:43:53,744 his broader war on terror. 1591 01:43:53,779 --> 01:43:56,195 North Korea is a regime arming with missiles 1592 01:43:56,230 --> 01:43:59,405 and weapons of mass destruction while 1593 01:43:59,440 --> 01:44:01,925 starving its citizens. 1594 01:44:01,959 --> 01:44:05,446 States like these, and their terrorist allies, 1595 01:44:05,480 --> 01:44:09,243 constitute an axis of evil arming to threaten 1596 01:44:09,277 --> 01:44:11,797 the peace of the world. 1597 01:44:14,075 --> 01:44:16,042 President Bush took a hardline approach to 1598 01:44:16,077 --> 01:44:19,045 North Korea, applying economic sanctions to force 1599 01:44:19,080 --> 01:44:22,186 Kim Jong-il to give up his nuclear program, 1600 01:44:23,015 --> 01:44:25,707 but his efforts failed. 1601 01:44:27,399 --> 01:44:31,679 On October 9, 2006, Kim achieved the goal that he and 1602 01:44:31,713 --> 01:44:34,647 his father had long hoped for, 1603 01:44:34,682 --> 01:44:38,375 the successful test of a nuclear weapon. 1604 01:44:40,343 --> 01:44:43,311 What we don't know is his intentions. 1605 01:44:43,346 --> 01:44:45,002 And so, I think we've got to plan for the worst 1606 01:44:45,037 --> 01:44:46,970 and hope for the best. 1607 01:44:47,004 --> 01:44:49,144 And planning for the worst means to make sure that we 1608 01:44:49,179 --> 01:44:53,010 continue to send a unified message to Kim Jong-il that, 1609 01:44:53,045 --> 01:44:56,980 you know, we expect you to adhere to international norms. 1610 01:44:58,084 --> 01:44:59,776 Kim Jong-il continued to defy the 1611 01:44:59,810 --> 01:45:01,950 international community, 1612 01:45:01,985 --> 01:45:05,678 refusing to allow nuclear inspections. 1613 01:45:05,713 --> 01:45:08,371 And after his sudden death in 2011, 1614 01:45:08,405 --> 01:45:12,133 his son Kim Jong-un vowed to carry on the family's 1615 01:45:12,167 --> 01:45:15,309 nuclear dreams. 1616 01:45:16,793 --> 01:45:19,761 At just 28 years of age, Kim Jong-un became the 1617 01:45:19,796 --> 01:45:23,696 youngest leader in North Korean history. 1618 01:45:24,421 --> 01:45:26,837 In order to solidify his authority he drew 1619 01:45:26,872 --> 01:45:30,185 on the imagery of his iconic grandfather. 1620 01:45:30,220 --> 01:45:32,395 You know, here is this guy, who's a young guy, 1621 01:45:32,429 --> 01:45:34,880 educated in the west, he was not introduced to the 1622 01:45:34,914 --> 01:45:36,985 North Korean public until a year before his 1623 01:45:37,020 --> 01:45:39,263 father's death in 2011. 1624 01:45:39,298 --> 01:45:42,370 And yet, he comes in there and is able to consolidate 1625 01:45:42,405 --> 01:45:44,234 his power so quickly. 1626 01:45:44,268 --> 01:45:47,306 That just shows the power of the Kim Il-sung myth, 1627 01:45:47,341 --> 01:45:48,790 and how it's still alive. 1628 01:45:48,825 --> 01:45:51,379 His power has something to do with the fact that he is 1629 01:45:51,414 --> 01:45:54,796 Kim Il-sung's grandson. 1630 01:45:54,969 --> 01:45:58,213 He knows that Kim Il-sung had popularity and 1631 01:45:58,248 --> 01:46:01,320 love of the Korean people, North Korean people. 1632 01:46:01,355 --> 01:46:03,426 So that's why he wanted to sort of even look like 1633 01:46:03,460 --> 01:46:06,843 his grandfather, the way he dresses, his haircut, 1634 01:46:06,877 --> 01:46:09,224 just the whole outer appearance looks like his 1635 01:46:09,259 --> 01:46:12,193 grandfather, and his behavior is also more like 1636 01:46:12,227 --> 01:46:14,195 his grandfather. 1637 01:46:15,921 --> 01:46:18,233 By 2016, President Obama, 1638 01:46:18,268 --> 01:46:21,133 hoping to pressure the young leader to end his pursuit 1639 01:46:21,167 --> 01:46:24,895 of nuclear weapons, piled on more sanctions. 1640 01:46:24,930 --> 01:46:26,863 North Korea's continued pursuit of nuclear 1641 01:46:26,897 --> 01:46:30,418 weapons is a path that leads only to more isolation. 1642 01:46:30,453 --> 01:46:32,731 It's not a sign of strength. 1643 01:46:32,765 --> 01:46:34,422 But rather than capitulate, 1644 01:46:34,457 --> 01:46:37,943 Kim Jong-un ratcheted up his nuclear program invoking 1645 01:46:37,977 --> 01:46:41,084 the memory of the Korean War. 1646 01:46:53,821 --> 01:46:56,306 In the final weeks of Obama's presidency, 1647 01:46:56,340 --> 01:46:59,896 North Korea tested their 5th nuclear warhead, 1648 01:46:59,930 --> 01:47:03,106 their most powerful yet. 1649 01:47:03,555 --> 01:47:06,454 The North Koreans, the message that their leaders 1650 01:47:06,489 --> 01:47:11,425 give them is that we're not going to let the United States 1651 01:47:11,459 --> 01:47:15,083 to do us what they did between 1950 and '53, 1652 01:47:15,118 --> 01:47:17,051 and that's why we need nuclear weapons and that's 1653 01:47:17,085 --> 01:47:20,088 why we need to have missiles that can deliver them 1654 01:47:20,123 --> 01:47:22,125 to the continental United States. 1655 01:47:24,576 --> 01:47:26,301 I just had the opportunity to have 1656 01:47:26,336 --> 01:47:30,305 an excellent conversation with President-elect Trump, 1657 01:47:30,340 --> 01:47:32,342 it was wide ranging... 1658 01:47:32,376 --> 01:47:34,240 In a meeting in the Oval Office, 1659 01:47:34,275 --> 01:47:38,106 Obama told his successor Donald Trump that North Korea 1660 01:47:38,141 --> 01:47:42,490 would be his greatest challenge as president. 1661 01:47:42,525 --> 01:47:45,424 Soon after, President Trump went on the offensive... 1662 01:47:45,459 --> 01:47:48,703 North Korea best not make any more threats 1663 01:47:48,738 --> 01:47:50,740 to the United States. 1664 01:47:50,774 --> 01:47:55,192 They will be met with fire and fury. 1665 01:47:55,227 --> 01:47:57,263 Starting a war of words with the North Korean 1666 01:47:57,298 --> 01:48:01,405 leader, that pushed the two nations toward World War III. 1667 01:48:01,440 --> 01:48:04,512 From Kim Jong-un, a first message in English, 1668 01:48:04,547 --> 01:48:07,791 vowing to make President Trump quote "pay dearly", 1669 01:48:07,826 --> 01:48:10,794 calling him a "mentally deranged dotard" 1670 01:48:10,829 --> 01:48:13,141 or senile old man. 1671 01:48:13,176 --> 01:48:15,074 Rocket man should have been handled 1672 01:48:15,109 --> 01:48:16,559 a long time ago. 1673 01:48:20,217 --> 01:48:22,772 Little rocket man. 1674 01:48:37,994 --> 01:48:40,030 North Korea better get their act together, 1675 01:48:40,065 --> 01:48:41,273 or they're going to be in trouble, 1676 01:48:41,307 --> 01:48:44,725 like few nations ever have been in trouble, 1677 01:48:44,759 --> 01:48:45,898 in this world. 1678 01:48:55,459 --> 01:48:57,392 To call Trump a bull in a China shop 1679 01:48:57,427 --> 01:48:58,911 is an understatement. 1680 01:48:58,946 --> 01:49:01,327 The United States has great strength and 1681 01:49:01,362 --> 01:49:04,848 patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its 1682 01:49:04,883 --> 01:49:10,095 allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy, 1683 01:49:10,129 --> 01:49:12,097 North Korea. 1684 01:49:12,131 --> 01:49:13,961 Threatening to totally destroy North Korea, 1685 01:49:13,995 --> 01:49:16,584 at the UN, without anybody pointing out that we already 1686 01:49:16,619 --> 01:49:19,760 did that during the Korean War. 1687 01:49:21,175 --> 01:49:23,177 But underneath the fiery rhetoric, 1688 01:49:23,211 --> 01:49:25,973 Trump was preparing a step none of his predecessors 1689 01:49:26,007 --> 01:49:29,114 were willing to take. 1690 01:49:29,563 --> 01:49:30,840 President Trump and Kim Jong-un 1691 01:49:30,874 --> 01:49:32,393 are scheduled to shake hands and 1692 01:49:32,427 --> 01:49:33,877 sit down for a summit meeting. 1693 01:49:33,912 --> 01:49:36,500 The whole world will be watching. 1694 01:49:36,535 --> 01:49:38,433 Against the backdrop of North Korean 1695 01:49:38,468 --> 01:49:42,299 and American flags, Trump and Kim shook hands, 1696 01:49:43,197 --> 01:49:45,544 the first time in history leaders from these 1697 01:49:45,579 --> 01:49:48,616 two countries had ever met in person. 1698 01:49:48,651 --> 01:49:51,515 The two men spoke for a few hours and later signed 1699 01:49:51,550 --> 01:49:54,588 a declaration vowing to work toward peace 1700 01:49:54,622 --> 01:49:56,762 and denuclearization. 1701 01:49:56,797 --> 01:50:00,214 Despite the vague and tepid language of the document, 1702 01:50:00,248 --> 01:50:03,079 Trump left Singapore proclaiming victory. 1703 01:50:03,113 --> 01:50:04,356 They're gonna get rid of their nuclear 1704 01:50:04,390 --> 01:50:07,428 weapons, I really believe that he will, I've gotten to... 1705 01:50:07,462 --> 01:50:08,740 Did he tell you that? 1706 01:50:08,774 --> 01:50:10,258 In a short period of time, yeah sure, 1707 01:50:10,293 --> 01:50:13,261 it's denuc-denuclearize, he's denuking the whole place, 1708 01:50:13,296 --> 01:50:14,538 and he's going to start very quickly, 1709 01:50:14,573 --> 01:50:17,334 I think he's going to start now. 1710 01:50:17,369 --> 01:50:19,440 Trump administration thinks if Kim Jong-un is 1711 01:50:19,474 --> 01:50:21,822 saying, "I'm now interested in denuclearization of the 1712 01:50:21,856 --> 01:50:24,100 Korean peninsula," that he's now willing to give up 1713 01:50:24,134 --> 01:50:25,895 North Korea's nuclear weapons, 1714 01:50:25,929 --> 01:50:27,759 but that's not what Kim Jong-un is talking about. 1715 01:50:27,793 --> 01:50:30,451 Kim Jong-un is talking about concluding a peace treaty, 1716 01:50:30,485 --> 01:50:32,936 ending US/South Korea alliance, 1717 01:50:32,971 --> 01:50:35,456 and then he's saying, only then, 1718 01:50:35,490 --> 01:50:37,492 when the regime's security is guaranteed, 1719 01:50:37,527 --> 01:50:40,288 he will think about giving up nuclear weapons. 1720 01:50:40,703 --> 01:50:42,118 US intelligence says, 1721 01:50:42,152 --> 01:50:45,086 'no significant signs of denuclearization', 1722 01:50:45,121 --> 01:50:47,261 contradicting this tweet from President Trump 1723 01:50:47,295 --> 01:50:49,194 one day after Singapore. 1724 01:50:49,228 --> 01:50:51,679 Declaring, "There is no longer a nuclear threat 1725 01:50:51,714 --> 01:50:54,613 from North Korea." 1726 01:50:54,648 --> 01:50:55,787 The Trump administration is being 1727 01:50:55,821 --> 01:50:56,960 taken for a ride. 1728 01:50:56,995 --> 01:50:58,065 I think it's becoming increasingly clear 1729 01:50:58,099 --> 01:50:59,135 that he got played. 1730 01:50:59,169 --> 01:51:00,205 Are they playing us? 1731 01:51:00,239 --> 01:51:01,482 I don't know. 1732 01:51:01,516 --> 01:51:05,175 This is the last, best chance for peace right here. 1733 01:51:05,210 --> 01:51:07,522 The United States started entering negotiations from 1734 01:51:07,557 --> 01:51:10,077 the Clinton administration onwards. 1735 01:51:10,111 --> 01:51:12,873 And in all of these cases what the United States has put 1736 01:51:12,907 --> 01:51:16,704 on offer is remarkably consistent which is the promise 1737 01:51:16,739 --> 01:51:20,294 of normal political relations, the promise of a peace treaty 1738 01:51:20,328 --> 01:51:23,297 ending the Korean war, economic assistance, 1739 01:51:23,331 --> 01:51:24,919 energy assistance. 1740 01:51:24,954 --> 01:51:27,508 All of these things would be on offer to North Korea 1741 01:51:27,542 --> 01:51:31,339 if they did one thing which is give up their nuclear weapons 1742 01:51:31,374 --> 01:51:32,651 and ballistic missiles. 1743 01:51:32,686 --> 01:51:35,827 But I think the main lesson we've learned from all of this 1744 01:51:35,861 --> 01:51:37,898 is that the problem is not the United States. 1745 01:51:37,932 --> 01:51:39,520 The problem is that North Korea doesn't want 1746 01:51:39,554 --> 01:51:41,867 to give up its weapons. 1747 01:51:43,766 --> 01:51:46,389 In the end, the prospects for peace may depend 1748 01:51:46,423 --> 01:51:49,668 not on the United States, but on the two leaders of 1749 01:51:49,703 --> 01:51:53,568 this long-divided nation and on its people, 1750 01:51:53,603 --> 01:51:57,572 still separated by a never-ending conflict. 1751 01:53:34,083 --> 01:53:36,948 For these Koreans who wish for reunification, 1752 01:53:36,982 --> 01:53:39,191 their hope to see their families may only be 1753 01:53:39,226 --> 01:53:43,299 fulfilled with an official end to the war. 1754 01:53:43,540 --> 01:53:45,991 This is a blip in the history of Korea. 1755 01:53:46,026 --> 01:53:48,200 This division since 1945 and then the 1756 01:53:48,235 --> 01:53:50,927 Korean war since 1950. 1757 01:53:50,962 --> 01:53:54,344 It's the same ethnic make-up, same language, same culture. 1758 01:53:54,379 --> 01:53:57,278 The two Koreas were one Korea for thousands of years. 1759 01:53:57,313 --> 01:53:59,039 So I'm hoping that this division is 1760 01:53:59,073 --> 01:54:01,420 the anomaly in history. 1761 01:54:01,765 --> 01:54:03,526 We don't get fairy tale endings on 1762 01:54:03,560 --> 01:54:05,010 the Korean peninsula. 1763 01:54:05,045 --> 01:54:10,326 So whether it is the Japanese occupation of Korea, 1764 01:54:10,360 --> 01:54:13,087 the start of the Korean war in 1950, 1765 01:54:13,122 --> 01:54:15,814 democratization in South Korea in 1987, 1766 01:54:15,849 --> 01:54:17,126 the list goes on and on. 1767 01:54:17,160 --> 01:54:20,301 History has shown that change on the Korean peninsula 1768 01:54:20,336 --> 01:54:23,442 always comes suddenly, it never comes gradually. 140931

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