This essay will focus on the United Nations Archives and Records Management (UNARM) in the New York City, NY. This open-access archive preserves the unpublished documents of the UN since its establishment in 1945. I plan to use the sources in this archive to investigate the UN’s role in the repatriation of U.S. soldiers’ remains from North Korea.
Although the Korean War is always regarded as a conflict between the U.S. and China in support of South and North Korea respectively, the U.S. Armed Forces actually intervened in this war on behalf of the UN. American generals in Korea sometimes commanded troops from several countries in one battle. The UN and the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK) were the only signatories in the Korean
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The first one is the personal collection of the UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld (AG-001) and the second one is the files of UNCURK (AG-049). Hammarskjöld’s term is between 1953 and 1961, during which the attention to the missing soldiers in Korea from American public, military, and government firstly reached its climax between 1953 and 1956. Thus, his papers are most likely to contain the U.S. soldiers’ families’ petition to the UN for tracing the unrepatriated soldiers. The collection may also reflect the UN top officials opinions toward the prisoners of war/missing personnel repatriation during the Korean War truce negotiation. The files related to the Korean War primarily lay in the five folders titled Political-Korea (China)-UN Military and Korean Prisoners of War. I will also consult five folders related to the Geneva Conference, which was convened partially for the peaceful settlement of the Korean War.
Another useful entry in this collection is the Press Releases (1953-1961). I would like to count the times that Hammarskjöld mentioned the missing soldiers in the DPRK, in order to figure out whether the UN, like the U.S., gradually forgot the Korean War and the unreturned servicemen in the late 1950s. It may also hint whether other UN members had ever pushed the UN to search for their own missing personnel if the releases mention the progress in recovering the deceased personnel from other states participating the Korean
Blaine Harden, former national correspondent and writer for the New York Times, delivers an agonizing and heartbreaking story of one man’s extremely conflicted life in a labor camp and an endeavor of escaping this place he grew up in. This man’s name is Shin Dong-hyuk. Together, Blaine Harden and Shin Dong-hyuk tell us the story of this man’s imprisonment and escape into South Korea and eventually, the United States, from North Korea. This biography that takes place from 1982-2011, reports to its readers on what is really going on in “one of the world’s darkest nations” (back cover of the book), that is run under a communist state and totalitarian dictatorship that was lead by Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and currently lead by Kim-Jong un. In Escape from Camp 14, Shin shows us the adaptation of his life and how one man can truly evolve from an animal, into a real human being.
The United States vows to protect the democratic South Korea. American forces defend South Korea but are almost pushed on the peninsula . Douglas Mccarthur is in charge of the American forces. He stages an impressive counter attack that pushes the North Koreans all the way back to China. This is when China enters the warand pushes American forces back to the 38Th parallel. In 1953 , the war ended In a stalemate. (document C)
Pearson, Lester B. "Documents on the Korean Crisis." University of Manitoba. January 24, 1951. http://www.umanitoba.ca/libraries/units/archives/canada_war/tribune/website/clippings/korea/Documents_on_the_Korean_Crisis1.shtml (accessed December 18, 2011).
Office of the Historian (2014) U.S Department of State. Various Documents relating to NATO involvement in the Korean War (1945-1952)
Tucker, Spencer C., Jinwung Kim, Michael R, Nichols, Paul G. Pierpaoli, Priscilla Roberst, and Norman R. Zehr, eds. Encyclopedia of the Korean War: A Political, Social, and Military History. Vol. I. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000. Print. 89-90.
Delisle, Guy, and Helge Dascher. Pyongyang: a journey in North Korea. Montréal, Quebec: Drawn & Quarterly ;, 2007. Print.
During 1950 there was much opposition to the thought of ending the Korean War. While the United States of America and the United Nations Command sought out to peacefully end the war, both North Korea and South Korea were hell-bent towards unifying the Korean peninsula in their own image. While at this time South Korea, was an ally of
"History, UN, United Nations, Charter, Chronology." UN News Center. UN, n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2013. .
Harden, Blaine. Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West. New York: Viking, 2012. Print.
U.S. participation was centered on America’s foreign policy at the time. Although the War did not break out until June of 1950, several conflicts brewed over the attempt to take over the entire nation under one rule for several years after World War II. The majority of these conflicts took place at the 38th parallel where Korea was split. Decisions influenced by President Harry S. Truman and his doctrine, which was essentially the policy to contain the spread of communism, gave the United Nations an opportunity to prevent global domination through communism (“Teaching with Documents”). The fear of international communism from the powers of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China was the main reason that caused the United States to intervene.
Cho, G (2008). “Fleshing Out the Ghost”, in Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
North Korea is a rogue state, it's 25 million population is starving and heading on a road towards war with the major nations of the world, how did they end up here? North Korea is on this road to destruction because of their tyrannical god-like leader, but how did the founding fathers keep us from following a similar road? Tyranny defined as the accumulation of all powers in the hands of one, few or many, this group oppresses and infringes on the rights of the others. The founding fathers prevented this from happening by creating a constitution that distributed and spread out power between the different offices and people of the government so as one group could not accumulate or control all powers of the government and creating a system that
Heller, Francis. “The Korean War A 25-Year Perspective”. Kansas: The Regents Press of Kansas, 1977. Print
Throughout history the United States has fought in many wars. Whether the fighting took place in Europe such as WWI or in our own land like the civil war. The one war many people seem to forget is the Korean War. The Korean War also known as the “forgotten war” was a war between North Korea, South Korea and the US together with the South Koreans to help. The Korean War was fought on sea, land, and in the air over and near the Korean peninsula (Brown, p.2). On June 25, 1950, the North Koreans rumbled across the thirty-eighth parallel. The invasion was successful because the south was not expecting or even prepare for a war. The invasion was so successful that they pushed the south to a tiny defensive area around Pusan. That’s when President Truman steps in real quick to halt the invasion of the North Koreans. Truman ordered American armed forces under General Douglas MacArthur to support South Korea. The Korean War was a clash between Communist forces and Free World (Brown, p.2).
The Korean War explicitly portrayed the atrocious battle between both the North and South side which gave the United Nations its military role for the first time, thus expanding the war from a domestic to an international scale. Sometimes called “The Forgotten War”, the Korean War was mainly overshadowed in historical terms by the conflicts that occurred before and after it, World War II and the Vietnam War. The Korean War had raged for years without a true resolution and after years of battles, even the compromise that was made was not a complete one. The current situation regarding North and South Korea is quite volatile. In order to apprehend the Korean War, one has to look at events that took place before the war, how the war was conducted and the aftermath of the War.