Failure After the Fall of Inchon
O'NEILL, WILLIAM L.
Failure After the Fall of Inchon Korea: The First War We Lost By Bevin Alexander Hippocrene. 588 pp. $24.95. Reviewed by William L. O'Neill Professor of history, Rutgers; author, "A Better...
...That is not to excuse Truman, his advisers and the Pentagon for their numerous blunders...
...Inexplicably, these were ignored, as was the appearance in the area of large numbers of Chinese troops...
...Things started to unravel with the ill-fated, piecemeal decision to conquer North Korea...
...Sometimes MacArthur was right, notably in undertaking an amphibious landing at Inchon, far behind enemy lines...
...Despite total control of the skies, the Air Force was unable to keep the Chinese out of Korea, cut their supply lines, budge them from prepared positions, or force them to the peace table...
...As it actually happened, MacArthur was not authorized to go over the border in pursuit of the North Korean forces until 12 days after Inchon, and it took him another 12 days to launch his offensive...
...And Vietnam would demonstrate again that more and belter machines are not enough againsl such a foe...
...The Inchon victory thus had the unfortunate result of puffing up MacArthur's already huge vanity and willfulness while undermining the self-confidence of strategists in Washington...
...At best it could be termed a strategic victory, since, as some authorities who make the case have pointed out, the original goal of saving South Korea was achieved...
...First it was decided to cross the 38th parallel and finish off the North Korean Army...
...His success at what had been considered a long shot gave him an edge over his nominal superiors in Washington...
...preferred to continue fighting during the negotiations, however, hoping thereby to hasten their conclusion...
...it is only to suggest the total picture...
...Conversely, if the parallel was lobe respected, a I lirust above Seoul prior to taking it would have trapped a majority of those who ended up getting away...
...Curiously, no thought had been given to what should follow the Communists' defeat...
...as it happens, except for a mere 63 pages, he devotes all of his text to the first year of War...
...He writes well too, moving briskly through the masses of data such a work entails...
...After losing Seoul a second time, the UN forces eventually pushed China back above the parallel, whereupon both sides dug in...
...MacArthur maintained that the Chinese were not present in strength...
...What followed, of course, was catastrophic: When the Chinese attacked on November 25, the UN forces were strung out all over North Korea and easily expelled...
...After they shattered three South Korean divisions and an American regiment in October, he insisted they would not attack again...
...Thereafter it was MacArthur who did the forcing, by strenuous argument and even more by initiating actions that Washington felt constrained to endorse...
...It was not even determined how far Mac-Arthur should go until he was deep inside North Korea...
...air supremacy...
...Firing MacArthur enabled Washington, for the first time, to gain control of the fighting...
...Peace talks began in July 195 1, but an armistice was not effected until two years later...
...Prominent among his book's virtues is its making clear how events outran decision makers in the period from June 25, 1950, when the North Koreans attacked South Korea, until April 10, 1951, when General Douglas MacAr-thur was relieved of his command...
...During that time the United States lost more men than in the year of fierce fighting that preceded the protracted negotiations...
...These were the seeds of disaster...
...North Korea forced Washington's hand at the outset by invading the South and driving the UN forces down to a small defensive perimeter at the very tip of Korea...
...The talks, after all, began in response to a Soviet proposal for an immediate cease-fire, with a settlement to be worked out later .The U.S...
...Had it been determined in advance to cross the parallel, a drive through the undefended territory on the east coast, from Inchon lo Wonsan, would have bagged all the enemy survivors...
...But most historians feel that while both sides shared responsibility for the appalling and inexcusable delay in arriving at peace terms, it was the Chinese and their North Korean proxies who were by far the more intransigent...
...Yet as Alexander argues, the move was far from agamble...
...No other account makes so clear the regrettable legacy of America's previous wars...
...Regardless of circumstances, Americans— preeminently MacArthur—were conditioned to see victory exclusively in terms of unconditional surrender...
...rather, it was by dint of skill, persistence and resourcefulness...
...The approach turned out to be a tragically mistaken one, and needless casualties mounted as peace terms were endlessly haggled over...
...And from the point of view of military history, Bevin Alexander's is the best to date...
...That was only necessary to begin with because the failure to exploit the Inchon victory allowed perhaps a third of the enemy to escape...
...By the time he was instructed to take the whole country— which had not been part of the original American mission and offered nosignif-icant advantages to the United States— China had already sent numerous and specific warnings of how it would react...
...it is that MacArthur had such a hard time getting the go-ahead for it...
...Alexander might have agreed if he had analyzed the negotiations as carefully as he examines the military campaigns...
...That MacArthur was able to bully the Truman Administration and the Joint Chiefs into accepting his rosy prognosis, in defiance of all the evidence and plain common sense is as baffling today as it was then...
...Still, Alexander's almost exclusive attention to military aspects of the struggle should not obscure the broader themes emerging from his book...
...The decision to pursue came too late and was arrived at with too little thought...
...Alexander points out that two options existed...
...author, "A Better World: The Great Schism-Stalinism and the American Intellectuals" Long neglected, the Korean War has begun to attract considerable interest, judging by the recent outpouring of books on the subject...
...At worst the War ended in a draw...
...The wonder is not that Inchon succeeded...
...Moreover, World War II in particular led to an excessive reliance upon U.S...
...Alexander blames Washington for the situation...
...The title is an exaggeration...
...As Alexander shows, it was not simply because of superior numbers that China was a formidable adversary even without air cover...
...Until then it had been dragged along both by the enemy and MacArthur...
...This is partly because Alexander could take advantage of all the previous specialized studies of the conflict, but it also reflects the author's considerable experience and great confidence as a professional military historian...
...Had Washington been the sole cause of the painfully slow progress at Pan-munjon, as Alexander suggests, the Truman Administration would have much to answer for...
...It was, in fact, the obvious counterstroke, pitting America's strengths—firepower and mobility—against the enemy's greatest weakness—overextended lines of supply...
...Although Alexander has little new to add in the way of facts, he brings shrewdness and authority to the interpretation of familiar matters...
...Whether defined as a win or a tie, the outcome was expensively bought...
...It is this defeat that prompts Alexander to call his book Korea: The First War We Lost...
...or that if they did, they would be destroyed by air power...
Vol. 69 • August 1986 • No. 11
