Cold War Crises: Korea, Cuba, and Berlin

Korea: the Cold War turns hot in Asia

In June 1950 the Cold War became a shooting war when communist North Korea, led by Kim Il-sung and armed by the Soviet Union, invaded pro-Western South Korea. Korea had been divided at the 38th parallel after 1945, and the invasion appeared to Washington as proof that global communism was on the march, following the recent communist victory in China. Because the Soviet Union was boycotting the United Nations Security Council over the exclusion of communist China, the United States secured a UN resolution authorizing a military response. A largely American UN force under General Douglas MacArthur pushed the North Koreans back after a daring landing at Inchon and advanced toward the Chinese border.

This advance provoked massive Chinese intervention in la