In Episode 2: The Force of Peace, we examine the founding moments of the United Nations, where the idea for it came from, why it was established and how it developed as an institution in the 1940s to have a leading role in the post-war world. The UN, as we'll see, was quite effective when its aims didn't conflict with the American or Soviet world views. Limited cooperation was, it seemed, a possibility in this shattered, traumatised world. Yet, this cooperation would only go so far.

Clouds were looming on the horizon, but these clouds were largely invisible to General Douglas MacArthur (pictured with Hirohito in an immensely controversial photograph for the time) the other interest of this episode. We look at MacArthur's days in post-war Japan, and how he managed to craft for himself an incredible legacy, with not a small amount of Japanese adoration to boot. MacArthur was busy creating not merely a post-war Japanese order, but also his own legend.

His success in this measure would lead in time to his appointment as Supreme Allied Commander in the critical early phases of the Korean War, at a time when his hubris could barely fit within the Japanese islands.

It was a recipe for disaster, or was it? Let's investigate, in this second episode of the Korean War!

Music used:

Ada Jones & Billy Watkins, 'By the Beautiful Sea', available at:

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ada_Jones_and_Billy_Watkins/Antique_Phonograph_Music_Program_03312015/By_the_Beautiful_Sea_-_Ada_Jones_and_Billy_Watkins

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