and to a communication of the Secretary-General of June 29 asking to be advised of the type of assistance the members were prepared to furnish was prompt and overwhelmingly favorable. In order better to utilize the various offers of assistance and to unify the operations in defense of the Republic of Korea, the Security Council adopted on July 7 by a vote of 7 to 0, with three abstentions and one absence, a resolution requesting the nations supplying forces and other assistance to put them under a unified command headed by the United States. This resolution was immediately complied with by the United States and the member states concerned, and General MacArthur was designated as Commander-in-Chief of the U.N. forces. Besides the United States, 15 other U.N. members subsequently provided military forces to the unified command. In addition, medical units were furnished by 5 nations, and supporting contributions of various kinds were made by many other countries.

In a resolution of July 31, 1950, the Security Council also recognized the hardships and privations to which the people of Korea were being subjected as a result of the unlawful attack by the north Korean forces. The resolution requested the unified command to determine the requirements for the relief and support of the civilian population of Korea and to establsh procedures for providing such relief. It also called upon the Secretary-General, the Economic and Social Council and other U.N. organs, the specialized agencies, and appropriate nongovernmental organizations to provide such assistance as the unified command might request.

U.N. COMMISSION'S REPORT ON BACKGROUND OF THE WAR

In a report of September 4, 1950, the U.N. Commission on Korea gave its considered conclusion as to the origin and nature of the conflict. The Commission declared that the north Korean invasion was "an act of aggression initiated without warning and without provocation, in execution of a carefully prepared plan." It found this plan to be "an essential part of the policy of the North Korean authorities, the object of which was to secure control over the whole of Korea." The Commission ascribed the origin of the conflict to the artificial division of Korea whose people, "one in race, language and culture, fervently desire to live in a unified and independent Korea.” While affirming that unification could be the only aim in Korea, the Commission observed that even prior to the aggression the north Korean attitude had been such that this aim could not be achieved by negotiation if such negotiation involved the holding of internationally supervised elections on a democratic basis in all of Korea.

MILITARY OPERATIONS, JUNE-OCTOBER 1950

After being compressed in the first weeks of fighting into a small beachhead perimeter in the Pusan area, the United Nations forces took the offensive in September 1950, executing an amphibious landing at Inchon and attacking out of the Pusan perimeter. They soon regained most of the territory of the Republic of Korea and in the process largely destroyed the north Korean army as an effective fighting force.

On October 7, 1950, the General Assembly, by a vote of 47–5, with 7 absentions, adopted a resolution recommending that various actions be taken for the establishment of a unified, independent, and democratic government in the sovereign state of Korea, and that "all appropriate steps be taken to ensure conditions of stability throughout Korea [italics added]." On October 1 and again on October 9 the U.N. Commander called for the surrender of the north Korean forces. When these calls were rejected by the Communists, the U.N. forces, acting under the authority of the General Assembly resolution of October 7, crossed the 38th parallel and advanced into the north of Korea.

ESTABLISHMENT OF UNCURK AND UNKRA

By the same resolution of October 7, 1950, a U.N. Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea (UNCURK), consisting of Australia, Chile, Netherlands, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, and Turkey, was established to replace the U.N. Commission on Korea. UNCURK was given the responsibility of representing the United Nations in bringing about the establishment of a unified, independent, and democratic government in all Korea and of carrying on relief and rehabilitation work at the General Assembly's direction. Because of the magnitude of the suffering and devastation caused by the war, it was later decided to set up a special authority with broad powers to direct the relief and rehabilitation program. This authority, known as the United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency (UNKRA), was established by the General Assembly's resolution of December 1, 1950.

THE COMMUNIST CHINESE INTERVENTION

On November 5 the U.N. Command reported that Communist Chinese forces had intervened in the Korean conflict. Under pressure of a massive Communist Chinese offensive in late November employing an aggregate strength of over 200,000 men, the U.N. troops were

forced to withdraw southward. The Chinese intervention had created what the U.N. Commander-in-Chief called "an entirely new war."

The Security Council immediately took up this new threat to the peace. On November 8 it invited a representative of the Communist Chinese regime to be present at the Council's discussion of the report of Chinese intervention received from the United Nations Command. Communist Chinese Premier and Foreign Minister Chou En-lai telegraphed a rejection of the Council's invitation on the grounds that the terms of the invitation would preclude his representative from discussing what he termed the question of U.S. intervention in Korea and aggression against China. On November 27, 1950, the Security Council adopted an agenda containing two questions under one item: (a) complaint of armed invasion of Taiwan and (b) complaint of aggression against the Republic of Korea. Representatives of the Communist Chinese regime and of the Republic of Korea were invited to attend discussions of this agenda.

DRAFT RESOLUTION TO KEEP KOREAN-CHINESE FRONTIER INVIOLATE

In the meantime, on November 10 Cuba, Ecuador, France, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States had joined to sponsor in the Security Council a draft resolution designed to prevent action which might lead to the spread of the conflict to other areas and thereby further endanger international peace and security. The resolution called on all states and authorities to refrain from assisting or encouraging the north Korean authorities and to prevent their nationals or individuals or units of their ground forces from giving assistance to north Korean forces. It affirmed "that it is the policy of the United Nations to hold the Chinese frontier with Korea inviolate and fully to protect legitimate Chinese and Korean interests in the frontier zone." A meeting of the Security Council was held on November 30 to consider the agenda adopted on November 27. This meeting was attended by a representative of the Communist Chinese regime, General Wu Hsiu-Chuan, who, however, declined to answer questions relating to his government's action in Korea, maintaining that the Chinese soldiers fighting there were volunteers and that his government perceived no grounds for preventing their dispatch to Korea. The draft resolution of November 10 was placed before this meeting of the Council, as was also a Communist Chinese draft resolution sponsored by the U.S.S.R., calling for the withdrawal of foreign armed forces from Korea and Taiwan. The vote on the first of these was 9 to 1 in favor, but the resolution failed of adoption because the negative vote was cast by a permanent member of the Council, the

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Soviet Union. The Communist Chinese resolution was defeated by a vote of 9 against to 1 in favor (the Soviet Union).

GENERAL ASSEMBLY CEASE-FIRE EFFORTS

In view of the impasse in the Security Council, the sponsors of the draft resolution of November 10 asked the General Assembly on December 4 to take up the question of the Communist Chinese intervention in Korea as an important and urgent matter. On December 14, 1950, the General Assembly approved by a vote of 52 to 5, with 1 abstention (later supported by two other members then absent), a resolution sponsored by Afghanistan, Burma, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen to constitute a U.N. group to determine the basis on which a satisfactory cease-fire could be arranged.

The group, consisting of General Assembly President Nasrollah Entezam of Iran, Lester B. Pearson of Canada, and Sir Benegal N. Rau of India, sent messages to the Communist Chinese representative who was still in New York and also to Foreign Minister Chou En-lai in Peiping in an effort to consult with the Communist Chinese authorities. Foreign Minister Chou En-lai, however, in a statement on December 22, declared the General Assembly Cease-Fire Group was illegal and declined to make any contact with it. Nevertheless the Cease-Fire Group, on January 13, 1951, transmitted to Peiping a statement of five principles on which it believed a cease-fire agreement should be based and inquired whether they would be acceptable as a basis for a peaceful settlement. These principles were rejected by the Peiping regime on January 17.

COMMUNIST CHINESE NAMED AS AGGRESSORS

In these circumstances the General Assembly on February 1, 1951, noting that the Security Council, "because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, had failed to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintaining of international peace and security in regard to the Chinese Communist intervention in Korea," adopted a resolution by a vote of 44 to 7, with 9 abstentions, which held "that the Chinese Communists had engaged in aggression by giving aid to those who were already committing aggression in Korea and by engaging in hostilities against United Nations Forces."

In order to deny contributions to the military strength of the forces opposing the United Nations in Korea, the General Assembly, by a resolution approved on May 18, 1951, recommended that every state apply an embargo on the shipment to areas under the control of the

Communist Chinese and north Korean authorities of arms, ammunition, and implements of war, atomic energy materials, petroleum, transportation materials of strategic value, and items useful in the production of arms, ammunition, and implements of war.

Meanwhile, the Communist Chinese offensive was stopped south of Seoul in January 1951. In March 1951 the U.N. forces took the initiative and by June had succeeded in advancing to a line north of Seoul across central Korea.

ARMISTICE NEGOTIATIONS, JUNE 1951-JULY 1953

In June 1951 it appeared from statements issued by Communist spokesmen, notably the June 23 statement by Jacob A. Malik, the Soviet Representative at the United Nations, that the aggressor forces were willing to cease hostilities. The U.N. Command accordingly undertook to establish direct contact with the Communist command and arrangements were made in early July for the initiation of armistice negotiations. To insure that an armistice agreement would contribute to the achievement of the basic purposes of the U.N. military action in Korea-to repel the aggression against the Republic of Korea and to restore peace and security to the area-the U.N. Command insisted on the following basic requirements:

(1) The line of demarcation should be based upon military realities and afford defensible positions for the opposing forces. The 38th parallel did not meet these requirements.

(2) In order to provide maximum reasonable assurance against renewed aggression, the armistice agreement should contain provisions designed to prevent either side from increasing its relative military strength in Korea, and there should be adequate supervision to insure that no such increase took place.

(3) The arrangements for the exchange of prisoners of war should be based on international law, the Geneva Conventions, and humanitarian principles. The U.N. Command was unwilling to force Chinese and north Korean prisoners to return to their Communist homelands against their will.

The armistice negotiations, pursued over a period of 2 years, were protracted and tortuous. Because of Communist intransigence and failure to bargain in good faith on a number of issues, particularly the principle of nonforcible repatriation of prisoners of war, the talks were suspended on two separate occasions by the U.N. Command for periods totaling 9 months. Following the suspension of the armistice negotiations in October 1952 the General Assembly, by a resolution of December 3, 1952, affirmed the principle of nonforcible repatriation