August 18, 1976: two American officers were hacked to death with axes in the Korean Demilitarized Zone—by North Korean soldiers, in broad daylight, under the watch of dozens of armed men. It was a brutal killing over a tree.

But what happened next nearly ended the world.

This is the story of Operation Paul Bunyan, a military show of force so overwhelming that it risked plunging the Cold War into open nuclear war. With bombers in the sky, troops on the ground, and the world holding its breath, a single symbolic act—cutting down a tree—became one of the most dangerous flashpoints in modern history.

What was so threatening about this tree? Why did North Korea escalate to murder? And how close did we come to global annihilation?

VAULT opens the file on a forgotten incident that nearly brought the world to the brink.