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.Hence, in November the commanderordered that a wasteland be created between the front and theChinese border, destroying from the air every  installation, factory,city, and village over thousands of square miles.20 After whatamounted to a genocidal assault on helpless civilians the generalthen launched what he termed a  reconnaissance in force but whichwas really an effort to conquer North Korea entirely and unifyKorea on American terms.Now, hundreds of thousands of Americanand South Korean forces poured into North Korea virtually on theborder of China.China enters the warThe victory of China s communists had occurred only a yearpreviously and their leaders viewed their hold on power as tenuous,given the implacable hostility of the US and its western allies.Thus,MacArthur s march to the Yalu River, China s border with Korea,was seen as an acute threat to the revolution.The head of theCIA, General Walter Bedell Smith, had warned that the Chinesewould  probably genuinely fear an invasion of Manchuria itself184 WAR AND EMPIREand would establish a cordon sanitaire  regardless of the increasedrisk of general war.21 Zhou En-Lai, China s premier and foreignminister, told numerous foreign ambassadors that  the Chinesepeople& will not supinely tolerate seeing their neighbors savagelyinvaded by the imperialists.China would never  tolerate Americansoldiers crossing the parallel , the artificial boundary line created byboth the US and USSR separating northern and southern Korea.22MacArthur sneered at such claims saying  We are no longer fearfulof their intervention.They have no air force& if the Chinese triedto get down to Pyongyang there would be a great slaughter& weare the best. 23On November 27 approximately 400,000 Chinese plunged intoNorth Korea and  chopped the U.N.forces to pieces.24 Only threedays earlier MacArthur had declared his own  end-the-war offensiveand told his troops he would have them  home by Christmas.25American forces are in Korea to this day.The Soviet boundary was very close to Korea s and though theyhad not instigated the war, and were already at odds with communistChina, they would not have accepted the defeat of China or anAmerican army so close to their territory either.Having ignoredintelligence warnings that China would aid the North KoreansMacArthur was badly outmaneuvered and US forces began toretreat largely in disorganized and chaotic fashion.Before longcommunist forces had regained the territory lost earlier.Achesondeclared the rout the  worst defeat of U.S.forces since Bull Run ,saying later  the defeat of U.S.forces in Korea in December [1950]was an incalculable defeat to U.S.foreign policy.26Truman threatens to use the atomic bombWith panic gripping Washington Truman used the atomic threat,stating publicly that the use of the bomb was under  activeconsideration.The Strategic Air Command was put on alert  todispatch without delay medium bomb groups to the Far East& thisaugmentation should include atomic capabilities.27 On December 9MacArthur formally requested authority to employ A-bombs againstChina itself, though his request was denied.In later interviews hesaid his strategy would have won the war in ten days. I would havedropped between thirty and fifty atomic bombs& strung across theneck of Manchuria then spread behind us  from the Sea of Japanto the Yellow Sea  a belt of radioactive cobalt.it has an active lifeof between sixty and 120 years. 28 Since North Korea also borderedthe Soviet Union, the USSR at this point dispatched aircraft andCOLD WAR/HOT WAR: SAVAGE WARS OF PEACE? 185pilots to defend the airspace over North Korea and China.Theworld stared into the abyss of World War III.The Joint Chiefs sent word to MacArthur that China had thecapacity to force his troops out of Korea but that he should take nomeasures that would lead to general war.29 However, after drivingSouth Korean and American forces across the border the ChinesePeople s Army stopped and pulled back to the 38th Parallel.Russianpilots were ordered not to venture south of that line [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]