Oral History 5^th Ed. Annotation

1United States-Taiwan Security Ties: From Cold War to beyond Containment,
Book by Dennis Van Vranken Hickey; Praeger Publishers, 1994

Introduction

Taiwan is situated between Japan and the Philippines and lies approximately 100 miles off the coast of the great land mass of Asia. At 14,000 square miles, it is roughly the size of the state of West Virginia. The island is home to 20 million people, 14 million motor vehicles, and the government of the Republic of China ( ROC or Taiwan).

Charles Maynes, editor of Foreign Policy, has noted that "the world has arrived at one of those rare periods in history when everything seems to change." Taiwan is a case in point. Martial law has been lifted, opposition parties have formed, and the government has ended its ban on economic and cultural exchanges with the People's Republic of China (PRC). On the international front, Taipei is seeking to rejoin international organizations, strengthen its substantive ties with other states, and join any collective security system that might emerge in post-Cold WarAsia. Despite these extraordinary changes, however, Taiwan's unique position in the international community means that its security will continue to rest primarily on two its relations with the United States.2 Indeed, the PRC has repeatedly refused to renounce the use of force to take Taiwan, and there is little prospect that any new international order will enhance Taiwan's security. THE FOCUSThis book is an...

2.Korea and the World: Beyond the Cold War,
Book by Young Whan Kihl; Westview Press, 1994

1 Korea After the Cold War: An Introduction

Young Whan Kihl

A new era dawned with the passing of the Cold War, the dominant dynamic in world politics in the years after World War II. During the Cold War era, the Korean security agenda was defined largely by considerations of the U.S. global strategy of ideological competition with the Soviet Union. U.S. strategy, as reflected in the Truman Doctrine, was to stem the tide of communist expansionism and contain Soviet power within its existing border. This containment policy was put to the test in Korea when war resulted from the communist North Korean invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950. The dominant analytical paradigm of this era regarding the Korean peninsula was geopolitical thinking; Korea played a sensitive role as the buffer and fulcrum in the balance of power among the major powers surrounding the Korean peninsula.

Now that the Cold War is over, a new perspective is needed on the Korean peninsula's strategic role in global and regional politics. The authors of this book address some of the new questions that have arisen in regard to Korea's changing role in the new world order. What are the implications of the dramatic end of the Cold War in global politics for East Asia and the Korean peninsula? Will peace and prosperity return to the region, followed by the reunification of divided Korea? Alternatively, will history repeat itself in East Asia in the form of the violence-prone conflict and rivalry of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? Answers to these and related questions will depend largely on an assessment of the emerging trends in the strategic environment of East Asia and Korea's place in it.

An end to the Cold War does not mean that security is no longer important in the international politics of East Asia. Rather, it means that a new concept of security is needed because the foreign policy issues are more complex and tend to be intertwined with economic issues and domestic politics. Korea's se-

3.Reaching across the Taiwan Strait: People-To-People Diplomacy,
Book by Ralph N. Clough; Westview Press, 1993

Introduction

SINCE 1949 when the People's Republic of China (PRC) was founded in Beijing and the government of the Republic of China (ROC) withdrew to Taiwan, the two governments have confronted each other as rival claimants to dominion over all China. For nearly 40 years there was little intercourse between Taiwan and mainland China. Taipei banned trade and travel across the Taiwan Strait and rejected PRC overtures for talks, declaring that thc ROC would have "no contact, no negotiation, and no compromise" with the Chinese Communists.

In 1987, however, President Chiang Ching-kuo of the ROC lifted the ban on travel. During the next four years an explosion of activity occurred between the two sides of the Strait. Residents of Taiwan made over three million visits to the mainland and 20,000 mainland residents visited Taiwan. Two-way trade soared to $5.8 billion by the end of 1991. Investment by Taiwan businesses on the mainland reached at least $3 billion. Journalists, athletes, scholars, scientists, actors, singers, politicians, and tourists from Taiwan visited the mainland in large and increasing numbers. The reverse flow was small and carefully controlled by the Taipei government, but it too was growing significantly. Both governments established quasi-official agencies so as to be able to negotiate with each other on practical problems without breaching the ROC's "three no's" policy.

All of this activity transformed the atmosphere between the two adversaries. Tension declined and the risk of military conflict receded. People on either side of the Strait gained a better understanding of conditions on the other side. Both governments encouraged the expansion of people-to-people interaction, but ROC authorities, fearful that Taiwan would be overwhelmed by its giant neighbor, tightly restricted visits from the mainland and banned direct trade and travel across the Strait. PRC authorities complained that Taipei's restrictions were excessive but expressed satisfaction with the growing web of rela-

tionships, which they believed would help to restrain Taiwan from drifting toward a formal declaration of independence. PRC leaders have become increasingly concerned over that issue since a multiparty democratic system emerged in Taiwan, with the chief opposition party campaigning...

4. Senso: The Japanese Remember the Pacific War: Letters to the Editor of Asahi Shimbun,
Book by Frank Gibney, Beth Cary, Beth Cary, Beth Cary; M.E. Sharpe, 1995 p.215

Chapter 8 "We Are All Prisoners"

When the reedy voice of Emperor Hirohito came over the radio on 15 August 1945, Japan underwent a sea change. Thousands of people wept. Shock mingled with disbelief, not merely at the thought of the imperial nation being beaten, but the fact that the God-Emperor himself announced the bad news. (Since the Emperor, incidentally, spoke in the stilted phraseology traditionally restricted for the imperial persona, the average Japanese had trouble understanding what he was saying; many had to ask their neighbors for a colloquial translation.) But there was no mistaking the words "We must endure the unendurable and bear the unbearable." This was the end.

Transfixed, the nation nervously awaited the new conquerors. As things turned out, the American Occupation brought relief rather than the murder and rapine which Japanese soldiery had visited on so much of Asia. Some unpleasant incidents occurred. There were cases where American troops stole from, raped, and cheated Japanese civilians. But for the most part, their behavior was good, if a bit uninhibited. The emotional release of the Japanese turned into something akin to gratitude, as the Occupation took over the work of feeding what was then a starving country.

The losses of the War had been extraordinary. About 1,500,000 Japanese soldiers were killed in action, according to final reports, and roughly 500,000 Imperial Navy sailors. More shocking was the death toll of civilians: probably 600,000 lost their lives in the War. This was due not only to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the wholesale firebombings of Tokyo, Nagoya, and other cities, but to the hardships and atrocities perpetrated on Japanese civilians in Korea, China, and Okinawa. Thousands of families were left broken and destitute in the collapse of Japan's colonial empire.

Soldiers taken prisoner did not have an easy time of it. The Chinese Communists, in many cases, were quite lenient with their captives, prefer-

5.A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975,
Book by Robert D. Schulzinger; Oxford University Press, 1998

Chapter4 "Good Intentions, a Clear Conscience, and to Hell with Everybody": May 1954-December 1960

IN LATE 1955 Graham Greene, an English novelist, published The Quiet American, a bitter story of a love triangle involving a youthful and apparently naive American embassy official, a world-weary British journalist, and a beautiful young Vietnamese woman attempting to survive the chaos of the final days of French rule in Indochina. The names of Greene's characters seemed to leap from the pages of the works of Charles Dickens. The endlessly soliloquizing American named Alden Pyle was indeed an unrelenting pain to many of the people he encountered in Saigon. Thomas Fowler, the cynical, disengaged British reporter, was Pyle's rival for Phuong, the Vietnamese woman. Phuong pronounced Fowler's name Fowl-aire, representing the stale and fetid attitudes of old European powers. For her part, Phuong's name called to mind a phoenix, rising from the ashes of colonial rule.

Greene drew a devastating portrait of an American innocent marching down the road to hell. Pyle had studied Asian history at Harvard University, and he had come to Vietnam, "determined," Fowler recalled, "to do good,

Enforced Disarmament: From the Napoleonic Campaigns to the Gulf War,
Book by Philip Towle; Clarendon Press, 1997

6Enforced Disarmament: From the Napoleonic Campaigns to the Gulf War,
Book by Philip Towle; Clarendon Press, 1997 p.1

Introduction

When they say, as they said before and will say again, that collectively, as a nation, they must be equal with ourselves and that 'equality' implies an equality of arms, then a man who has renounced vengeance and is undeluded by ideologies, even by his own, will know what answer to give . . . It would be an expense of spirit to hate them meanwhile, but suicide to trust them.

Charles Morgan, Reflections in a Mirror, 1946

Disarmament and arms control are firmly associated in the public mind with efforts to maintain international peace through compromise and negotiation. However, there is a much older type of disarmament, which is not the product of give and take but is imposed upon a defeated enemy. Forced disarmament is the subject of this book. It was used frequently in the ancient world as an alternative to massacre or enslavement and it is the United Nations' policy today in Iraq. It was part of every major peace settlement from the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, through the Paris negotiations in 1815 and 1919, to the postwar agreements in 1945. Democracies almost automatically have recourse to it when they are in a position to impose peace upon their enemies, yet relatively little thought has been given to its efficacy.

Can it maintain the imbalance of forces created by war and, if so, for how long? Does it simply infuriate the defeated while bringing few advantages to the victorious states? How can the vanquished evade such measures and what can the victorious states do to prevent evasion? What role does public opinion play in supporting forced disarmament by the victors and backing its evasion in the defeated state? Is there any difference between the disarmament measures imposed after a limited and after a total war? Can states be disarmed even without going to war and, if so, in what circumstances?

6War Responsibility and Japanese Civilian Victims of Japanese Biological Warfare in China,
Journal article by Mariko Asano Tamanoi; Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars, 2000 p 13

The category of "war victim," in general terms refers to those killed in wars in which Japan was involved. But, specifically, who arethese Japanese war victims? In contemporary debates in Japan about war responsibility wat victims are thought to number approximately 3.1 million; including about 2.3 million members of the Japanese army and attached civilians and 80,000 civilians killed at home and overseas. These casualty figures are compiled from data on major conflicts — the Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japonese War, World War I, the Japan-China War, and World War II — as well as from other military, "invasions" and "incidents" throughout the twentieth century. No distinctions are made between the wars; the "war victims" are all presumed to have died for the sake of their country.

7.Taiwan in World Affairs,
Book by William R. Johnson, Robert G. Sutter; Westview Press, 1994

1

Taiwan's Role in World Affairs: Background, Status, and Prospects

Robert G. Sutter

Introduction

Backed by a vibrant economy and increasingly internationalized political and social atmosphere, Taiwan in recent years has emerged as an increasingly important actor in world affairs. As in the past, the main obstacle to Taiwan playing a greater role has to do with Beijing's strong opposition to Taiwan gaining official status as a separate entity in international affairs. Recent trends in Taiwan, in Taiwan-mainland relations, and in international developments on balance suggest that Taiwan will make greater progress in establishing itself as an important force in world economic, social, and political affairs in the years to come.

Beijing is not without influence in this situation, particularly as its vast and rapidly growing economy exerts extraordinary influence on decision makers throughout Asia and the world, including Taiwan. The wider range of political forces influencing government decision makers in Taipei contains those who advocate extreme positions on self determination and independence that could jeopardize Taiwan-mainland stability and promote conflict across the Taiwan Strait. Nonetheless, the economic and political changes on the mainland seem to reinforce a moderate stance toward Taiwan based on growing economic interdependence. And, despite the existence of extreme views in Taiwan, voters and politicians there have had several opportunities in recent years to stake out extreme political positions, but have invariably chosen amoderate course designed to avoid unnecessary tension while sustaining and strengthening Taipei de facto independent stature. Histotical ExperienceHistorically, Taiwan's importance in world affairs was more as an area acted upon by others, rather than as a significant force in its...

8. Taiwan in World Affairs,
Book by William R. Johnson, Robert G. Sutter; Westview Press, 1994 p.73

3

Taiwan in the International Arms Market

Harlan W. Jencks

Introduction

Until December 1979, the defense of the Republic of China on Taiwan (ROC) was based upon its Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States. ROC armed forces needed to defend Taiwan against invasion by the People's Republic of China (PRC) from the mainland long enough for U.S. forces to arrive and decisively repel the invading force. Accordingly, the United States provided virtually all of the ROC's weapons and equipment under various military aid and sales programs. The significant exception was the quiet ROC relationship with Israel. Taipei copied and modified the Israeli Gabriel anti-shipping missile and several classes of small patrol boats in the 1970s.

In 1979, the United States shifted diplomatic recognition from the ROC to the PRC. In April 1979, the U.S. Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), providing that "It is the policy of the United States...to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character." Nevertheless, ROC authorities recognized that they could no longer safely depend upon U.S. weapons supplies, so they began diversifying their overseas sources, and striving to import military technology to increase military-industrial self-sufficiency.

Initially, Taipei's emphasis in the international arms market was to replace the lost American military deterrent. The ROC needed credible military forces to deter and, if necessary, resist air attack, naval blockade, or invasion. Increasingly, however, Taiwan was also adding an "outer layer" of political-economic deterrence. In 1986, the ROC government

10.Taiwan in World Affairs,
Book by William R. Johnson, Robert G. Sutter; Westview Press, 1994 p.235

8

Taiwan and Greater China

Harry Harding

The term "Greater China" is currently in vogue among both analysts and practitioners interested in Asian affairs. The phrase is controversial, for it has several contrasting connotations. To some observers, it denotes the emergence of a dynamic new marketplace, offering greater economic opportunity to Chinese and foreigners alike. To others, in contrast, it evokes the image of an aggressive China on the march, seeking to extend its sovereignty over territories and peoples it does not presently control. Notwithstanding the debate over the appropriateness of the term, "Greater China" undeniably provides a succinct and vivid way of characterizing the growing interaction among the members of what Joel Kotkin has called the global Chinese "tribe." Whatever its shortcomings, it is likely to become a permanent part of the vocabulary for discussing contemporary international issues.

"Greater China" subsumes a much larger number of related concepts that have been recently introduced in both Chinese and English, ranging from a "Chinese Common Market" and a "South China Economic Circle" to a "Chinese Civilizational Community" and a "Chinese Federation." Some of these terms are attempts to describe an emerging reality in international affairs, whereas others are efforts to forecast or prescribe what might happen in the future. Some focus on the prospects for the political integration of various Chinese societies; others on the economic and cultural ties between them. Although the different concepts therefore have different meanings, they all refer to aspects of a common phenomenon: the construction or revival of economic, political, and cultural ties among dispersed Chinese communities around the world as the political barriers to their interaction fall.

11• Taiwan in World Affairs,
Book by William R. Johnson, Robert G. Sutter; Westview Press, 1994 p.277

9

Taiwan's International Role: Implications for U.S. Policy

Richard Bush

Introduction

Half a century after the Cairo Conference, the relationship between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan remains the most obvious case of post-World War II unfinished business. The division of Vietnam was ended when the North Vietnamese army overran the South in 1975 and Hanoi arbitrarily incorporated the Saigon regime into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam one year later. Germany moved toward unity in the early 1970s with the general recognition of two states within one German nation. The collapse of the German Democratic Republic two decades later paved the way for the peaceful recreation of a united Germany on terms set by the Bonn government and the West. On the Korean peninsula, the existence of two states has been accepted. Whether, when, and how the two may combine into one is unclear, yet time does not seem to be on the side of the isolated and renegade North. In Taiwan's case, however, neither does the island have the generally recognized status of a sovereign state, nor is the nature of its ultimate relationship with the PRC at all defined. This case of unresolved sovereignty -- the one that was first de-linked from the U.S.Soviet conflict as a result of Richard Nixon's 1971-1972 opening to China -- is ironically the most up for grabs..

Because of the U.S. involvement in the Chinese civil war and its dominant position in Asia, every shift in the relationship of the PRC-Taiwan nexus with the international community has had implications for U.S. policy toward Taiwan. That was true when the

13Taiwan in World Affairs,
Book by William R. Johnson, Robert G. Sutter; Westview Press, 1994

6

Domestic Roots of Taiwan's Influence in World Affairs

Thomas B. Gold

Other chapters in this book examine some of Taiwan's activities in the international arena. It is clear that in spite of the fact that fewer than thirty countries recognize the Republic of China ( ROC) as a sovereign nation, through channels such as quasi-governmental organizations, businesses, citizens groups, and individuals, Taiwan has become a global player. This chapter shifts the focus away from the world scene to Taiwan itself, addressing social, political, and economic sources for its external impact. Although I will separate them for analytical purposes, in reality they are closely interrelated, and create a climate or environment for domestic and foreign actors.

14Crisis and Commitment: United States Policy toward Taiwan, 1950-1955,
Book by Robert Accinelli; University of North Carolina Press, 1996 p.253

Conclusion: A Guarded Commitment

Between 1950 and 1955 American decision makers hammered out the major features of the U.S. military and political commitment to Taiwan on an anvil of crisis. After North Korean units crossed the 38th parallel in June 1950, President Truman placed the Seventh Fleet between Taiwan and mainland China, thereby reversing the nonmilitary policy toward the island that his administration had pursued since early 1949 and the noninterventionist position he had proclaimed on 5 January 1950. Truman's decision to neutralize the Taiwan Strait followed a reappraisal of the nonmilitary policy begun about two months earlier within the State and Defense Departments. Though wobbly on the eve of the Korean crisis, this policy was by no means fated to topple. By further energizing existing incentives for intervention and generating new ones, the Korean emergency functioned as a major cause for the neutralization.

The decision for intervention did not entail a long-term military commitment to the defense of Taiwan or a revitalized political commitment to Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government. American decision makers were undoubtedly intent on keeping Taiwan from the control of a hostile, Kremlinoriented China. The United States was far from the disinterested policeman in the Taiwan Strait that official statements alleged. All the same, the mission of the Seventh Fleet as a buffer between the island and the mainland was only provisional, and the United States maintained an arm's-length relationship with the Nationalist regime. Washington dispensed only modest amounts of economic and military aid to the Kuomintang and while continuing to recognize the Republic of China as the de jure government of China and stepping up efforts to safeguard the Nationalist seat in the United Nations, refrained from any long-range commitments to Taipei with respect to either recognition or UN representation. In the late summer of 1950 the State Department embarked on a plan to have the UN General Assembly mandate a military standstill in the Taiwan Strait and establish a commission that would analyze and report on Taiwan's future political status. State Department officials wanted to legitimize the U.S. neutralization, create an international deterrent against a Chinese Communist attack, and lay the groundwork for the possible establishment through the United Nations of an autonomous or

15The Road to Confrontation: American Policy Toward China and Korea, 1947-1950,
Book by William Whitney Stueck; University of North Carolina Press, 1981 p.3

Introduction

On 28 November 1950, General Douglas MacArthur wrote despondently to his superiors in Washington that United Nations forces in Korea faced "an entirely new war." Although prone to overstatement, the irrepressible general was not exaggerating this time. In the previous fortyeight hours, Chinese Communist forces had launched a massive counteroffensive south of the Yalu River. Instead of completing the military unification of the entire peninsula under non-Communist leadership, United Nations troops now reeled from an attack by numerically superior forces. The situation, at best, was uncertain, at worst disastrous.

Communist Chinese intervention in the Korean War had a momentous impact on American politics and foreign policy. Shortly after the end of his tenure as secretary of state in 1953, Dean Acheson correctly observed that

this Chinese Communist advance into North Korea . . . was one of the most terrific disasters that has occurred to American foreign policy, and certainly . . . the greatest disaster which occurred to the Truman administration. It did more to destroy and undermine American foreign policy than anything that I know about -- the whole Communistsin-government buusiness, the whole corruption outcry, was really just window-dressing put upon this great disaster.

After the first year of the Truman administration, to be sure, the "Communists-in-government business" was never far below the surface of American politics. In early 1950, with Senator Joseph R. McCarthy's charges of widespread Communist infiltration into the State Department, the issue moved to center stage. Yet the Sino-American confrontation in Korea gave tremendous momentum to the "Red Scare" at home. McCarthy's attacks centered on American China policy, and the extended conflict in Korea could only add weight to his charge that Chiang Kai-shek had been "sold down the river." Although many Americans continued to reject domestic "treason" as the source of their nation's trials in Asia, developments in Korea in November 1950 made the Truman administration's earlier failure to prevent a Communist victory in China look all the more catastrophic.

The Sino-American collision led directly to the clash over Asian strategy between the president and General MacArthur, which, in turn, bolstered Republican efforts to undermine public confidence in Democratic leadership. Chinese intervention turned what promised to be a badly needed American victory in Asia into a defeat from which the Truman administration never recovered, even after United Nations forces halted the Chinese advance and

largely reestablished the prewar boundary in Korea. In the spring of 1952, despite economic prosperity at home, the president's popularity in a national public opinion poll reached a low of 26 percent.4 The Republican party approached the presidential election of...

16The Road to Confrontation: American Policy Toward China and Korea, 1947-1950,
Book by William Whitney Stueck; University of North Carolina Press, 1981p.

9

PART I The Decline of China and the Rise of Korea in American Foreign Policy

For the first forty-five years of the twentieth century, American concerns about China and Korea followed a neatly reversed pattern. As the century began, the United States was in the midst of a diplomatic struggle to prevent the division of China into European spheres of influence. Yet, when Japan expanded into Korea soon thereafter, Washington scarcely bothered to protest. Again, in the 1930s, Japanese aggression, this time against China, led to rapidly mounting tensions in relations with the United States. In 1941, it was a major source of the diplomatic impasse leading to the attack on Pearl Harbor. In contrast, Japan's continued subjugation of Korea attracted little American attention. During World War II, China remained a constant topic of Allied discussions, and, despite limited American military operations in the China theater, Chiang Kai-shek's government received massive amounts of aid to support its struggle against Japan. Korea, on the other hand, rarely appeared on the agenda of wartime conferences: its fate simply did not much concern Allied wartime planners.

America's lack of interest in Korea, in stark contrast to China, is easily explained. Whether missionaries, businessmen, concession-hunters or diplomats, interested Americans agreed enthusiastically on the potential significance of China. Its size and population alone commanded respect. Korea, hardly larger than the state of Minnesota, remained chiefly of regional importance. The great powers of northern Asia -- Japan and Russia -- viewed the peninsula as a convenient east-west stepping-stone of considerable strategic value. But, to a nation located thousands of miles eastward across the' Pacific, the "Land of the Morning Calm" was never of serious concern.

By 1947, however, some forty thousand American troops were stationed in Korea. Meanwhile, American forces in China, which had numbered more than a hundred thousand immediately following the Japanese surrender, had dwindled to a mere ten thousand. The dispatch of forces to Korea resulted in a new American commitment to that country, one that departed sharply from the traditional pattern of non-involvement. Although the Truman administration never cut off aid to the Chinese National government, a fact of far-reaching consequences for the United States in East Asia, the gradual withdrawal of American troops from China during 1946 did aim at limiting

17The Road to Confrontation: American Policy Toward China and Korea, 1947-1950,
Book by William Whitney Stueck; University of North Carolina Press, 1981 p.1776 The Attack and the Response

The Crisis Week: The Three Stages of Intervention

At four o'clock on Sunday morning, 25 June, North Korean armed forces launched major attacks at seven points along the thirty-eighth parallel and amphibious landings in two areas on the eastern coast of South Korea. The offensive took the south by surprise. Many South Korean troops stationed along the thirty-eighth parallel were away on weekend passes. Because General Roberts had left the peninsula en route to the United States and a new assignment, the American military advisory group was without a permanent commander. Its acting chief, Colonel W. H. Sterling Wright, was in Tokyo.

Policymakers in the United States were also caught off guard. The attack occurred at about three o'clock Saturday afternoon, Washington time. President Truman was in his home town of Independence, Missouri, and Secretary Acheson was at his farm in Maryland. The first official word of fighting in Korea reached the State Department at 9:26 P.M. Ambassador Muccio reported that the North Korean attack appeared to be "an all-out offensive against the Republic of Korea." By midnight all top administration officials, except Paul Nitze, who was salmon fishing in Nova Scotia, and George Kennan, who lacked a telephone at his Pennsylvania farm, had received the news. The seven days between the North Korean attack and the commitment on 30 June of American combat troops to the peninsula have received scrutiny in several published works and therefore warrant only brief review in this volume.

American action occurred in three stages. In the first, the United States took the Korean issue to the Security Council of the United Nations. The decision to do this was made on 24 June, only hours after Washington officialdom received word of the attack. It was perhaps the only move in the crisis period that had been planned in advance.

When the Security Council convened in emergency session on the following afternoon, the United States presented a resolution calling on North Korea to cease hostilities and withdraw its forces to the thirty-eighth parallel. The United Nations Commission on Korea was to observe such a retreat and inform the Security Council of the implementation of the resolution. Members of the Security Council were "to render every assistance to the United Nations" in executing these measures and "to refrain from giving assistance to North Korean authorities."The Security Council passed the proposals -- by a 9-0 margin ( Yugoslavia abstained) -- with only minor adjust-ments in wording.7 The action was made possible by the absence of the Soviet Union, which had been boycotting the body since mid-January to protest the continued seating of Nationalist rather than Communist China. American leaders regarded the resolution as...