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On September 15th, General MacArthur staged a surprise amphibious landing at the port city of Inch'on, which is 150 miles north of Pusan. The UN troops drove a wedge through the North Korean army. South Korean troops regained control of the city.

Even if this meant expanding the war into China, a grandiose plan was hatched to rid North Korea of the "red menace" at that point. Truman approved MacArthur's request to advance into North Korea so as to destroy its armies and allow the unification of the Koreas.

UN forces were about to capture the capital of North Korea. President Truman repeatedly asked the U.S. commander to meet with him, only to be turned down. The president flew to Wake Island to meet with the man who refused to salute him.

Even though they had massed troops on the Korean border, MacArthur dismissed Chinese threats at the meeting. The Chinese Communist government said it couldn't stand idly by as its North Korean allies were humiliated. On October 20, UN forces entered the North Korean capital and six days later, advance units reached the border with China.

By Christmas, MacArthur predicted victory. The U.S. forces were forced to retreat after 500,000 Chinese "volun teers" crossed into Korea. The commander of the army suggested that atomic weapons be used.

The Communist Chinese and North Koreans were in South Korea by January 15. One Amer ican soldier said they ran like animals. The war against the North Koreans and China's People's Liberation Army had become an unlimited war.

The UN lied in the late 1950s. By January 1951, they had secured their lines.

General MacArthur undermined President Truman by issuing an ulti matum for China to make peace or face an attack when Truman began negotiations with North Korea.

Truman had only two options, either accept or be fired, because of his open insubordination.

On April 11, 1951, Truman removed General MacArthur and replaced him with General Matthew B. Ridgway, who better understood how to conduct a modern war in pursuit of limited objectives. Truman told the nation that the war should be limited to Korea.

There are a number of events that have made it clear that General MacArthur did not agree with the policy of the Cold War and the Fair Deal.

Y opposed Truman's decision in the cartoon.

I did not fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, but because he was. The criticism was deflated by the fact that all of the top military leaders supported Truman's decision.

On June 24, 1951, the Soviet representative at the United Nations proposed a cease- fire in Korea along the 38th parallel, the original dividing line between North and South. The cease- fire was accepted by the Secretary of State. China and North Korea were positive.

The Truce talks that began on July 10, 1951, dragged on for two years. Many captured North Korean and Chinese soldiers did not want to go home, and South Korea's insistence on unification of the two Koreas were the main stumbling blocks.

By the time a truce was reached, Truman had retired and Eisenhower was president. Korea and Germany remained divided despite no peace treaty being signed. More than 103,000 people were wounded or missing in the war. South Korean casualties were around 2 million, while North Korean and Chinese casualties were around 3 million.

Truman's assump tion that the Soviets were behind the invasion of South Korea led him to deepen the American commitment to stop communism. He ordered a major expansion of U.S. military forces around the world because he was afraid that the Soviets would use the Korean conflict to invade Western Europe.

Truman began America's military involvement in Southeast Asia when he increased assistance to French troops fighting a Communist independence movement in the French colony of Indochina.

On March 21, 1947, President Truman signed an executive order known as the Loyalty Order, which was intended to blunt conservative Republicans' attacks on the patriotism of left- wing Democrats. All 2 million federal government workers had to go through a background investigation to make sure they didn't have ties to Communists.

Attorney General Tom Clark and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover believed that there were many spies in the federal government. Truman wanted to reduce the criticism that he wasn't doing enough to make sure the Soviets weren't working in government.

Truman thought that the concerns about Communists were overstated. More than 3 million government workers were cleared by the federal Civil Service Commission by early 1951. The Loyalty Order was revoked by President Eisenhower.

The HUAC launched a full blown inves tigation after being told that the movie industry was a hotbed of communism. Dozens of actors, producers, and direc tors were subpoenaed by the committee to testify. The witnesses argued that the questioning violated their First Amendment rights. All ten were given prison terms and blacklisted from the film industry for contempt of Congress.

The witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, at the end of the 17th century, were intended to alert audiences to the dangers of anti- Communist hysteria.

Several movie stars attended the HUAC hearings to support their friends and colleagues who were accused of being Communists. Left to right: Danny Kaye, Humphrey Bogart, and June Havoc.

Alger Hiss is the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In 1948, Whittaker Chambers told the HUAC that Hiss had given him secret documents ten years earlier, when Chambers was working for the Soviets. Chambers duced the State Department documents that he said Hiss had passed to him, after Hiss sued Chambers for libel. Hiss was convicted in 1950 despite denying the accusation.

He was found guilty of perjury, but he could not be tried for lying about espionage because the statute of limitations had expired.

There were more cases of Communist infiltration. The Smith Act of 1940 banned any conspiracy to advocate the overthrow of the government after eleven top leaders of the Communist party of the United States were convicted. The doctrine of a "clear and present danger" was upheld by the Supreme Court.

In 1950, the FBI uncovered a spy network involving American and British Communists who had passed information about the development of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. The disclo led to the arrest of Klaus Fuchs, a German-born English nuclear physicist who worked in the United States and helped to develop the atomic bomb.

The former Communists of New York were part of the same spy ring. Their claims of innocence were undermined by their brother who admitted to being a spy.

Republican charges that Truman's administration was not doing enough to hunt down Commu nist agents were fueled by the convictions of Fuchs and the Rosenbergs. The case, called the crime of the century by J. Edgar Hoover, heightened fears that a vast Soviet network of spies and sympathizers was operating in the United States. Kaufman, the federal judge who sentenced the Rosenbergs to death, said that murder is dwarfed. They were the first Americans to be executed for espionage.

Evidence of Soviet espionage encouraged some to fear the Communists. Early in 1950, a little- known Republican senator, Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin, surfaced as the most ruthless of anti- Communists.

On February 9, 1950, McCarthy delivered a fiery speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, in which he charged that the State Department was filled with Communists. He claimed to have their names.

McCarthy's stunt made him famous. The crusading the next four years, McCarthy made senator who was determined to more irresponsible accusations, initialy "sweep" Communists out of the against many Democrats, whom he federal government.

McCarthy had the support of fellow Republicans who wanted to hurt Democrats in the 1950 congressional elections by saying they weren't tough enough in fighting communism. McCarthy was the sorriest senator in Washington according to Senator Lyndon B. Johnson.

McCarthy's goal was to create a reign of terror and he didn't care about truth or fair play.

McCarthy never found a Communist agent in the federal government. His campaign of defamation, which had a chilling effect on free speech, was largely ignored until the end of the Korean War. During the Red Scare, left-wing activists were not hired because of their past political associations.

Fears of Soviet spies working with American sympathizers led Congress in 1950 to pass the McCarran Internal Security Act, which made it illegal to combine, con spire, or agree with any other person to perform any act.

The legislation required Communist organizations to register with the Justice Department.

Immigrants who belonged to communists in their home countries were barred from entering the United States and Communists were to be sent to concentration camps during future national emergencies.

Immigration policy was shaped by communist concerns.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 was pushed through by Senator McCarran. The German- born wife and daughter of an American GI are being questioned by immigration inspectors at Ellis Island.

The Immigration Act of 1924 established a national origins quota system that favored newcomers from northern and western Europe. The act allocated 85 percent of the visas to people from northern and Western European nations.

The ban on Asian immigrants was removed, as well as a system of preferences based on family ties. The number of Asians allowed into the United States was small. Gays and lesbians were barred from suspected "subversives" and the "immoral". Congress overrode Truman's veto.

The civil liberties of innocent people were violated by the Red Scare. The anti- Communist hysteria may have been worsened by the creation of a government loyalty program. He promised to contain communism everywhere. George F. Kennan confessed that he had failed to clarify the limits of the containment policy and that the United States needed to prioritize its responses to Soviet adventurism.

After the Second World War, the United States became committed to a large mili tary establishment, along with shadowy new government agencies such as the National Security Council, the National Security Agency, and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Fears of communism and a Soviet spy network in the U.S. mushroomed into paranoia. Many Communist sympathizers were Jews from Eastern Europe.

Republicans used the Red Scare to claim that Democrats were soft on communism and encouraged widespread confor mity of thought and behavior. It was dangerous to criticize anything associated with the American way of life by 1950.

On March 30, 1952, Harry Truman announced that he wouldn't be seeking a second term.

People were questioning Truman's strategy in the war against communism. The negotiations to end the war in Korea had bogged down, the red- baiting of McCarthyism was growing, and the conservative southern Democrats had defeated most of his Fair Deal proposals. Many blamed the president for the higher taxes and higher prices caused by the war. The American people would appreciate how effective Truman had been in dealing with so many com plex problems.

Truman thought of himself as an ordinary per son in extraordinary times. Truman told reporters at one of his last press confer ences that he had tried his best to give the nation everything he had. There are many people. At the end of one difficult day in the White House, Truman growled, "They talk about the power of the President, how I can just push a button to get things done."

The cold war became part of the American way of life when he left the White House. The joys of unexpected prosperity counterbalanced fears about communism.

At the end of Truman's presidency, the economy began to grow at the fastest rate in history, transforming social and cultural life and becoming the marvel of the world.

The cold war was an ideological contest between the Western democracies and communist countries.

Truman was successful in expanding Social Security, desegregating the military, and banning racial discrimination in the hiring of federal employees. He proposed civil rights, national health insurance, federal aid to education, and new farm subsidies after winning a second term in 1948.

Communists won a long civil war in China in 1949 and then started a war in Korea, which proved to be less effective than containment policies. Truman decided to go to war after North Korean troops invaded South Korea. The demilitarized zone in Korea was established after a truce.

The cold war caused another Red Scare. In the 1950's, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy exploited fears of Soviet spies in the U.S. government.

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