Challenge Accepted

This time, when the challenge came, the U.S. accepted it.

The bulletins on the invasion of South Korea jerked Washington out of the wilted weariness of a steamy summer weekend. Secretary of State Dean Acheson first heard the news by telephone at his Sandy Spring, Md. farm, promptly put through a call to Harry Truman, who was off in Independence, Mo. for a "back porch" visit.

At first the President determined to go through with his round of visiting, partly to keep from upsetting the world by a dramatic return to Washington. But by Sunday noon, after Acheson's second report, he climbed aboard The Independence so fast that he left two of his military aides behind. "Don't make it alarmist,'' he admonished reporters just before takeoff. "It could be a dangerous situation, but I hope it isn't."

Two-Barreled Question. Dean Acheson and Defense Secretary Johnson met him at Washington's National Airport, quickly brought him up to date. Before the U.N. Security Council, the U.S. had already drawn up its moral position against the Korean Communist invaders. That decision had been beaten out in Saturday night conferences. The big question left for Harry Truman to decide was not whether to help, but how. As the tense White House conferences stretched through Sunday night and Monday, that question merged with another: Would the rapidly retreating South Koreans be able to hold out long enough for the U.S. to act? By Tuesday both questions were answered.

Shortly after 11 a.m., the U.S.'s political and military policymakers began to arrive at the White House from the State Department, the Pentagon and Capitol Hill. By 11:30 they had closed the high doors of the Cabinet Room behind them. Outside 100 reporters thronged the executive lobby or stood by telephones in the adjacent press room. Exactly at noon, Presidential Secretary Charles Ross stirred them into a whirlwind as he passed out the text of the gravest, hardest-hitting answer to aggression that the U.S. has ever made in its peacetime history.

"Beyond Subversion." 'The attack upon Korea," said the President of the U.S., "makes it plain beyond all doubt that Communism has passed beyond the use of subversion to conquer independent nations and will now use armed invasion and war." To meet this clear challenge, thus clearly recognized, he ordered:

1) U.S. air and sea forces to give the Korean government troops "cover and support." Presumably this meant, as the Korean government had been desperately telling its people, that U.S. planes would bomb any South Korean city or military positions held by the Communist invaders.

2) The Navy's Seventh Fleet* "to prevent any attack on Formosa." Thus if the Korean invasion was a feint and a prelude to a Chinese Communist attack on Formosa, the U.S. would be there to block it. In exchange for this protection, Harry Truman called on Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's government to cease provocative bombardment of the Communist-held mainland.

3) Immediate strengthening of U.S. forces in the Philippines, and a speedup in military aid for the Philippine government.

4) Faster delivery of arms to the French and anti-Communist native forces in Indo-China, "and the dispatch of a military mission to provide closer working relations with those forces."

Soundings at Night. Although the big decisions had undeniably been made by the President himself, they had been taken in close consultation with other members of the U.N. Security Council. All the preceding night U.S. delegates had been scurrying through the New York area, sounding out foreign emissaries and getting their endorsements of the U.S. plan. In effect, the U.S. was acting as the Security Council's powerful police arm.

But that did little to mitigate the enormous threat that hung over Harry Truman's decision. Would powerful, swift U.S. action throughout the Far East bring war with Russia? The U.S. frankly did not know. President Truman had sent word to Stalin through the highest diplomatic channels that the U.S. meant to keep the peace and would fight anyone, including Russia, to preserve it.

The U.S. had drawn upon its conscience and its best judgment, would draw upon them again to meet the next threat--if it came.

* Based in the Western Pacific Area and consisting of one aircraft carrier, two cruisers, twelve destroyers, four submarines.

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