New, daily updating edition

   Headlines  |  Alternate Histories  |  International Edition


Home Page

Announcements 

Alternate Histories

International Edition

List of Updates

Want to join?

Join Writer Development Section

Writer Development Member Section

Join Club ChangerS

Editorial

Chris Comments

Book Reviews

Blog

Letters To The Editor

FAQ

Links Page

Terms and Conditions

Resources

Donations

Alternate Histories

International Edition

Alison Brooks

Fiction

Essays

Other Stuff

Authors

If Baseball Integrated Early

Counter-Factual.Net

Today in Alternate History

This Day in Alternate History Blog



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stop ‘Em At The 38th Parallel:

The Soviet Intervention In Korea

 

By Chris Oakley

Part 11

 

 

April 1953-January 1954

April 16th, 1953--Kim Il Sung is rushed to a Chinese military hospital after suffering a stroke.

April 19th, 1953--Just before midnight, U.N. and Communist negotiators in Geneva finally reach a cease-fire agreement to end World War III; the agreement will be signed two days later and take effect as of noon European central time April 23rd.

April 21st, 1953--U.N. and Communist diplomats sign the cease- fire accord officially ending World War III. That same day, the North Korean government in exile announces the death of Kim Il Sung.

April 23rd, 1953--The cease-fire agreement takes effect. On orders from General Douglas MacArthur, U.N. ground forces in China begin pulling back to the southern banks of the Yalu River; likewise, Soviet occupation troops in central Europe start preparations to withdraw from Hungary and Poland.

April 24th, 1953--Kim Il Sung’s body is cremated and the ashes scattered over the site of the guerrilla camp in the mountains of China where his parents lived while waging guerilla attacks against the Japanese during the Second World War.

April 26th, 1953--Under the terms of the cease-fire agreement, the U.N. and the Communist bloc begin repatriating prisoners of war.

April 29th, 1953--For the first time in almost three years, the Soviet U.N. delegation takes its place at the General Assembly; the U.S.S.R. had been boycotting the organization in protest of the original resolution proposing to send troops to defend South Korea against the North’s original invasion in 1950.

May 1st, 1953--CPSU First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev gives a radio address to the Soviet people warning them that “serious sacrifices” will be necessary to get the U.S.S.R. back on its feet in the aftermath of World War III. Some Soviet citizens wonder how much there can possibly be left to sacrifice, given that a good deal of the Soviet Union’s economic and industrial resources have already been lost to the conflict(particularly in those areas subjected to NATO nuclear attack).

May 2nd, 1953--The U.N. General Assembly convenes for a four-day special session on the question of what steps should be taken to expedite post-World War III recovery efforts in Europe and Asia.

May 4th, 1953--The New Awakening movement holds a protest rally in Bryansk to denounce the CPSU government’s abusive treatment of ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union. Some CIA analysts are quick to note similarities between this demonstration and anti- lynching crusades then being organized by blacks in the American South.

May 6th, 1953--The U.N. General Assembly concludes its four-day special session by approving a ten-year, multi-million dollar recovery aid program designed to hasten the completion of post- World War III rebuilding programs in Europe and Asia.

May 7th, 1953--Syngman Rhee announces that a “national unity plebiscite” to settle the question of Korea’s reunification will be held within three months. The United States, which had been hoping to defer the reunification question until early 1954, is startled and somewhat disappointed by this unilateral action on Rhee’s part.

May 9th, 1953--Seeking to improve relations between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, which had become strained as a result of the Soviet air attacks on Belgrade during World War III, Nikita Khrushchev invites Marshal Josip Broz Tito to Moscow for a five- day summit.

May 14th, 1953--Marshal Tito returns to Belgrade; although he and Khrushchev were unable to agree on most of the key issues being discussed at their Moscow summit, his official report regarding the Moscow summit states there have been some encouraging signs that Khrushchev has renounced the late Joseph Stalin’s animus in regard to the Tito government.

May 20th, 1953--General Douglas MacArthur returns to the United States amid a ticker tape parade in New York City and rumors in Washington that he may campaign for the presidency in 1956.

May 23rd, 1953--Joseph McCarthy’s proposed bill to reform the Supreme Court is withdrawn, having failed to gain even lukewarm support from McCarthy’s peers in the Senate.

May 28th, 1953--Suspecting that Korean aid to their fight for independence from France will not be forthcoming, the Viet Minh quietly extend peace feelers to the Saigon headquarters of the French colonial administration for Vietnam.

June 2nd, 1953--The U.S. ambassador in Inchon meets with South Korean president Syngman Rhee in attempt to persuade him to call off or at least reschedule his “national unity plebiscite”. The talks come to nothing, as Rhee makes it clear the plebiscite is to go forward; in fact, he hints he may hold it a month early.

June 6th, 1953--Soviet occupation forces begin withdrawing from Hungary and Poland.

June 11th, 1953--The U.S. Senate starts hearings on a motion to censure Joseph McCarthy, whose abusive tactics in going after alleged Communists within the federal government are provoking increasing outrage among his critics along with fears McCarthy may try again to revive the Anti-Communist Security Act.

June 12th, 1953--The foreign ministers of eleven European nations meet in London to begin a three-day summit whose main goal is to create a workable long-term policy regarding the decontamination and reconstruction of a nuclear-devastated Berlin.

June 13th, 1953--The South Korean government announces that the “national unity plebiscite” will be held on August 1st.

June 15th, 1953--The London summit adjourns after three days with the participating nations having agreed to begin decontamination work in Berlin before the end of the European summer.

June 18th, 1953--Nikita Khrushchev flies to Belgrade for his second summit with Marshal Tito.

June 24th, 1953--British Communist Party general secretary Harry Pollitt resigns. Less than two months later the party itself will dissolve, sparking what one London newspaper calls a “domino effect” of Marxist and socialist political parties across western Europe collapsing in the aftermath of World War III.

June 28th, 1953--The old East German state is officially dissolved.

July 7th, 1953--The Rhee government in Inchon holds its “national unity plebiscite” a full month ahead of the originally scheduled date. Official tallies claim the vote is 85 percent in favor of reunification under Rhee’s administration; unofficially, though, independent observers suspect the tally is closer to 60 percent. July 8th, 1953--Korea’s two largest opposition parties hold a rally in Inchon demanding a recount of the previous day’s vote on the “national unity plebiscite”.

July 13th, 1953--Defying protests from his critics at home and pressure from his allies overseas, Syngman Rhee declares the results of the July 7th “national unity plebiscite” to be fully legitimate under Korean law and insists there will not be any recount of the ballots. This touches off another surge of anti- Rhee demonstrations, one of which escalates into a riot lasting thirty-six hours.

July 17th, 1953--Rhee government security forces arrest fifteen prominent figures connected with the movement to force a recount of the July 7th national unity vote.

July 22nd, 1953--By a vote of 89-10 the U.S. Senate formally censures Joseph McCarthy; his political career ruined by the censure, McCarthy goes into swift and steady physical decline and will die of liver failure eight months later.

July 28th, 1953--Riots break out in the Korean city of Pusan when Rhee government security personnel attempt to arrest the editor of a local newspaper which has been persistent in calling for a recount of the ballots cast in the national unity vote three weeks earlier. Forty-one people are killed and more than a hundred and fifty others injured before the riots are finally suppressed; a dozen members of the Korean national parliament resign in protest of the brutal tactics used to quash the local anti-Rhee demonstrators.

August 8th, 1953--Defying international opinion and critics in his own country, Syngman Rhee formally declares Korea to be reunified as a republic under his administration. In response the PLA begins doubling the number of troops it has stationed near the China-Korea border.

August 12th, 1953--Hungary elects its first non-Communist government in more than five years. The new administration’s first official act is to reopen the investigation into the previous year’s assassination attempt on former premier Istvan Dobi.

August 21st, 1953--Representatives from France, the Viet Minh, and the French-backed Vietnamese state headed by Emperor Bao Dai meet in Vienna to sign the peace accord officially ending the seven-year guerrilla between the French and the Vietnamese Communist insurgents. Under the terms of the accord Vietnam is to be granted autonomy, with the transition to full independence scheduled to be completed by 1956.

August 27th, 1953--President Eisenhower visits Korea for a two- day summit with Syngman Rhee to attempt to persuade him to agree to a recount of the “national unity plebiscite”. Unfortunately for the U.S. president, the summit comes to nothing as Rhee says point-blank that the results of the plebiscite vote will stand unchanged.

September 2nd, 1953--Syngman Rhee’s interior minister resigns amid accusations of corruption, casting further doubts on the legitimacy of the Rhee government.

September 10th, 1953--General Douglas MacArthur addresses cadets at West Point in an hour-long speech about his experiences in Korea. He ends his address with the memorable line “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away”.

September 16th, 1953--The chairman of Korea’s largest opposition party is arrested after defying a Rhee government ban against non-sanctioned public gatherings and giving a speech in Taegu calling for a recount on the July 7th “national unity plebiscite” as well as a greater role in the post-reunification government for opposition parties.

September 18th, 1953--Under the terms of the peace accord signed with the French the previous month, the Viet Minh begin handing over their weapons stockpiles to U.N. peacekeepers dispatched to Vietnam to help supervise its transition from colonial status to autonomy and later full independence.

September 27th, 1953--Joseph McCarthy is hospitalized with chest pains.

October 8th, 1953--The last Soviet combat troops withdraw from Poland.

October 12th, 1953--In a dramatic rebuke to the Rhee government’s intransigence on the unity plebiscite question, Korea’s highest civil court rules that there are sufficient legal grounds to ask for a recount of the July 7th referendum.

October 17th, 1953--UN scientific and engineering teams arrive in Russia to begin the process of decontaminating and rebuilding as much of Moscow as can be salvaged in the aftermath of the U.S. nuclear attack on the old Soviet capital nearly three years earlier. October 21st, 1953--The New Awakening movement stages what it calls “a Day Of Rage” across Russia and the Ukraine to protest the lack of political freedom continuing to plague the Soviet Union despite Nikita Khrushchev’s efforts to implement reforms.

October 24th, 1953--Unable to resist international pressure or domestic protests any longer, Syngman Rhee finally consents to a recount of the July 7th “national unity plebiscite” vote.

October 26th, 1953--Under the watchful eyes of U.N. observers, Korean election officials begin their recount of the July 7th national unity referendum. It will take nearly four days before the tally is complete.

October 28th, 1953--Exhausted by months of fighting, and losing men and equipment faster than they can be replaced, Israel and her Arab neighbors agree to a U.N.-sponsored ceasefire to begin at 12 noon Tel Aviv time the next day.

October 30th, 1953--The recount of the voting results in the July 7th “national unity plebiscite” is completed; refuting the claims of Syngman Rhee that the vote went 85 percent in favor of having the reunified Korea put under his rule, the new tally hints just 57 percent of those who cast ballots in the referendum actually endorsed his government. As a result, the Rhee administration is now obliged to make more room for opposition parties in the new Korean government. Rhee’s critics hail the announcement as a win for democratic government in Korea, while his supporters warn it will open the door for left-wing extremists to attempt a revival of Korea’s defunct Communist party.

November 6th, 1953--Joseph McCarthy, his physical health starting its final decline and his mental state fragile to say the least, abruptly announces his resignation from Congress. He will spend most of the final four months of his life shuttling between his his home in Wisconsin and a hospital in Chicago.

November 13th, 1953--Three former high-ranking officers of the Communist-era Hungarian secret police are arrested in Budapest on suspicion of having aided and abetted the Soviet conspiracy to assassinate the late Istvan Dobi.

November 16th, 1953--Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, a U.S. Navy admiral who has long pushed for the expansion of its nuclear submarine fleet, testifies before the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee on the need to improve the fleet’s offensive capabilities. Rickover’s testimony will play a major part over the coming decade in shaping the next generation of U.S. subs.

November 21st, 1953--The last Soviet military personnel leave Hungary.

November 27th, 1953--Joseph McCarthy publishes a full-page ad in the Milwaukee Sentinel-Journal urging his supporters to continue the fight against Communism and to push for the reinstatement of the Anti-Communist Security Act.

December 2nd, 1953--The United States and the Korean Republic open negotiations for a mutual defense pact intended to bolster the reunified Korea against possible future threats of invasion from Communist China.

December 8th, 1953--The Czech Communist regime is officially dissolved; in reality, the old Soviet-backed regime collapsed months ago and Czechoslovakia since the end of World War III has been governed by an emergency administration operating by special decree pending elections to form a new government in the spring of 1954.

December 14th, 1953--In an interview later to be published in Time magazine, Douglas MacArthur reveals plans to retire from the U.S. Army in the coming year; he declines to confirm rumors of a possible presidential run in 1956 but does hint he might be interested in one day pursuing a post-Army career in politics.

December 21st, 1953--U.S. and Korean diplomats meet in Inchon to sign a ten-year mutual defense aid treaty.

December 24th, 1953--In his annual Christmas Eve mass at the Vatican, Pope Pius XII asks people around the world to pray for the health and souls of the millions of victims of radiation sickness still fighting for survival in the aftermath of World War III.

December 30th, 1953--Noted physicist Albert Einstein, whose theories helped make the atomic bomb possible, dies of cancer in Princeton, New Jersey. According to a longtime friend, the Nobel Prize-winner’s last words were: “I do not know which weapons World War IV will be fought with, but World War V will be fought with sticks and stones.”

January 1st, 1954--The New Awakening movement holds a New Year’s Day vigil just outside the ruins of Moscow to call attention to the group’s demands for political reform in Russia and the need for increased medical aid to the Russian civil population. January 5th, 1954--The former Soviet Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan declares its independence.

 

 

 

To Be Continued

Site Meter