“So terrible a liberation”—The UN occupation of North Korea

Abstract

North Korea was the first and only country to be liberated from communism during the Cold War following the Truman administration's brief flirtation with rollback in the autumn of 1950. In October 1950 a United Nations force consisting of six Republic of Korea (ROK) divisions, four U.S. divisions, and a British Commonwealth brigade, all under U.S. command, entered the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). By November 1950 these troops had been reinforced by three additional U.S. divisions, a second British brigade, and contingents from Turkey and the Philippines. The United States, having controlled the UN war effort, also defined the terms of the UN occupation. Washington was conscious of the importance of the Korean example and proclaimed the goal of a free, independent, and democratic Korea that would serve as a model for all of Asia. Despite the unprecedented nature of this experiment, little has been written about the occupation of over 90 percent of the North in October–December 1950. Most Western authors concentrate on the earlier North Korean occupation of the South in June–September 1950, accusing the communists of launching a reign of terror there. According to one recent account, North Korean atrocities gave the UN cause “a moral legitimacy that has survived to this day,” and reports from Seoul on the fortieth anniversary of the war continued to dwell on the theme. The North Koreans have their own black legend of occupation, but their claims about events during the UN liberation have been ignored by the dominant anticommunist consensus. As Jon Halliday remarks, on this subject there is “one version and one silence.”