Trouble In China
Meanwhile a new problem had arisen in the Far East, where Chinese Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek and Communists under Mao Zedong were warring for control. In 1946, Truman had sent General Marshall to China in an effort to negotiate an agreement between the two factions. After more than a year of futile talks, Marshall reported no progress and recommended the termination of his mission. Civil War ensued, and the communists gradually extended their control. This action, together with evidence that certain State Department officials sympathized with the Communists in the belief that they were mere "agrarian reformers," led to Republican charges that the administration was responsible for the loss of China to the Reds.
Associated with this issue were charges by the House Committee on Un-American Activities and by Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin that the administration was "coddling Communists" within the government, especially in the State Department. Truman angrily denounced these allegations as a "red herring." He had set up a Federal Loyalty Board to weed out subversives among government employees. But a federal court convicted Alger Hiss, a former State Department official and Yalta Conference advisor, of perjury for denying before a Senate committee that he had relayed official documents to a Soviet agent.
Relations with the U.S.S.R. continued to deteriorate until the two countries became engaged in what was described as the "Cold War." It developed into a shooting affair on June 25, 1950, when North Korean Communists attacked South Korea. Truman acted promptly. Committing U.S. forces, representing the United Nations, without prior authorization by Congress, he announced that the U.S. had no aggressive or imperialistic aims in China. He further requested Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalists' leader in Formosa, to not attack the mainland. General Douglas MacArthur was named commander of the United Nations' forces in Korea.
After initial reverses which forced the United Nations forces to withdraw into a small area around Pusan in southeast Korea, General MacArthur launched an amphibious attack at Inchon, far behind the North Korean lines. By November 1950, most of Korea was under U.N. control. The whole complexion of the military scene changed later that month, however, when Chinese Communists reinforced the North Koreans and dealt a severe setback to the U.N. forces (of which the majority were Americans). President Truman then placed the U.S. on a semi war basis, calling for a greatly expanded defense establishment, partial mobilization of industry, huge appropriations, and controls of wages, prices, and materials.
Next: Emergency Declared