This is a VERY detailed episode, and can be best divided into three parts.

1) Explaining the different NSC reports and papers, and how they were reconciled as new developments affected a change in US foreign policy.

2) Stalin's decision to walk out of the UN Security Council, and why he did it!

3) Acheson's speech to the National Press Club on 12th January 1950 - so long lambasted as an example of the Secretary of State's carelessness, but in actual fact representing a veiled attempt to appeal to Mao Zedong.

As detailed as it is, it's also chock full of fascinating info, so listen in!

Episode 11: Coming Full Circle ties together the last six episodes that examined the Sino-Soviet and Sino-American relations in their different boxes. The countless ways in which American, Soviet and Chinese interests overlapped in the world made hammering out satisfactory deals somewhat difficult, but as 1950 dawned, the Chinese were finally closing in on signing the deal with the Soviets, but not if Dean Acheson had anything to say about it!

In the course of his last efforts to drive that wedge between China and Russia, Acheson performed the now infamous speech at the National Press Club on 12th January 1950. Ever since that moment, Acheson came to be regarded as the man who led the world to believe that the US did not care about South Korea, and thus he is sometimes criticised for giving the green light to Kim Il-sung, who interpreted his speech as saying that Washington would leave Seoul to its fate. The reality, as we'll discover, was a bit more complicated, FAR more interesting and had, at its goal, the friendship of China.

Acheson was not going down without a fight, but within days, everything he held to be true about American foreign policy would change. See how such an incredible story unfolded, in our latest episode of the Korean War!

******

Music used:

"Smoky Mountain Blues" by Wallace Chains, released in 1939. Available:http://www.museumsyndicate.com/item.php?item=82680

 

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