# data[].attributes.body
Confrontation between the United States and the Union (1962) concerning the presence of Soviet missile site in Cuba.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
“Missile Crisis” redirects here. For the missile crisis in Cyprus, see Cypriot S-300 crisis.

# data[].attributes.body
Line of latitude that separated North and South Vietnam.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Compare and Contrast Korean and Vietnam Wars timeline.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Compare and Contrast Korean and Vietnam Wars, a timeline made with Timetoast's free interactive timeline making software.

# data[].attributes.body
A military conflict (1950-1975) between communist North Vietnam, supported by China and the Soviet Union, and non-communist South Vietnam , supported by the United States.

# data[].attributes.body
Line of latitude that separate North Korea from South Korea after WW ll.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
1950 Photo in Korea at the 38th Parallel on eBay

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The links to posts below show jeeps grouped by models, condition, and other ways. Some of these jeeps are for sale and others have been sold. If you are unsure whether a vehicle is still for sale or not, email me at d [at] ewillys.com for more info.

# data[].attributes.body
Conflict between North Korea, aided by China, and South Korea, aided by mostly American United.Nations troops that resulted in the Barrier between North and South Korea remaining at the 38th Parallel (1950-1953).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The shelling started on Sunday morning, before sunrise. It was June 25, 1950. A couple of hours later, dozens of Soviet-made, state-of-the-art battle tanks from the Korean People's Army - along with about 90,000 troops - began moving across the 38th parallel to attack South Korea.

Suddenly, the Cold War had turned into a full-blown shooting war.

A day later, from his base in Tokyo, General Douglas MacArthur sent a bleak assessment of the situation in Korea back to Washington.

"Complete collapse is imminent," MacArthur told the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

MacArthur would later tell Congress that there had been no possible way to predict the North Korean surprise attack ahead of time.

But there was a pretty simple way. If only the general had bothered to read some of the intelligence reports written by a young US Air Force intelligence officer in Korea named Donald Nichols.

"Nichols' hair had been on fire for a year," says Blaine Harden, author a new book about Nichols called, "King of Spies: The Dark Reign of America's Spymaster in Korea."

Nichols had arrived in Korea four full years before the war kicked off.

"The intelligence sources that [Nichols] had in North Korea had been telling him that the Russians had been shipping in planes, artillery and lots and lots of ammunition and guns," Harden says.

"He passed that information on, up the chain of command, to Douglas MacArthur's chief of intelligence, Charles Willoughby. And for his trouble, Charles Willoughby tried to have Nichols fired and thrown out of Korea."

But Nichols was not fired. And his intelligence reports were not ignored for long.

In the first few weeks of the war, US and South Korean military forces suffered big losses as they made a chaotic retreat to the southeast corner of the peninsula, outside of the port city of Busan. They needed every possible advantage to stave off a quick and total defeat.

North Korean forces vastly outnumbered the Americans and their allies, and the KPA might have delivered a knock-out blow if it hadn't been for the work of Don Nichols.

Nichols ran a team of codebreakers led by a North Korean defector, Harden says. Prior to the war, the defector had moved to the south, and brought North Korean army battle codes with him.

Harden writes about how Nichols and his team used those codes to relay information from intercepted North Korean radio transmissions in real-time to the US Eighth Army, which was surrounded and fighting for survival.

"Whenever the North Koreans were going to make an incursion on the perimeter to try to really kill off the Americans, the Eighth Army could prepare and they rebuffed these incursions until the Americans could bring enough forces into the theater of that war," Harden says.

"But for those few weeks, Nichols and the intelligence he was delivering were absolutely crucial to the war effort."

And Nichols was just getting started.

The old newsreels put out by the US military mention the American bombing campaign against North Korea, but they don't begin to describe the extent of the death and destruction brought down on the North by the US Air Force.

In large part, the bombing campaign was made possible by Nichols and his network of spies.

Harden says American bombers got to work quickly after the start of hostilities, systematically destroying the cities of North Korea. The bombing went on for three years, destroying 85 percent of the buildings and killing between 1 and 2 million civilians.

Throughout the war, Nichols ran an extensive network of spies, many of them defectors from the north. They fed Nichols information, including bombing targets inside North Korea.

By the time the war began, Nichols had learned the Korean language and made powerful friends in the South Korean military and political establishment, including President Syngman Rhee. Harden says Nichols was both shrewd and ruthless, and he grew into a real-life version of Colonel Kurtz from the film, "Apocalypse Now."

"He became increasingly free to do as he wished," says Harden. He adds that Nichols went off the deep end with his personal behavior.

"[Nichols] threw people out of airplanes, pushed them out of boats. He had a shootout with some of his own intelligence people, who were reluctant to go to North Korea because they kept dying."

Nichols shot several of his own men in his own headquarters but the incident was never officially reported.

Harden says Nichols was praised by some of his generals as "invaluable," as "the best asset in the field," and "a one-man war." But after the war, US military and government officials decided that something needed to be done about Nichols.

"In the summer of 1957, US Air Force [military police] came for Nichols in the middle of the night and, according to an eye witness, put him in a straightjacket," Harden says.

"He was given months of electroshock and he told his family at the time that the US Air Force was trying to destroy his memory," he says. "They didn't destroy his memory, because he ended up living for another 30 years. But they did destroy his credibility and they erased him as an important actor in the war."

Officially, Harden says Nichols became a footnote in the US military's telling of the Korean War. But he was far more than that, dark side and all. Harden's book fills in a lot of the gaps about this middle-school dropout who would eventually become to be known to the North Koreans as, "the king of US spies."

Harden quotes one of Nichols' own commanders saying that this was someone you wanted on your side during a time of war, but after the war was over, you needed to put him jail.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
This American spymaster from the Korean War was nearly forgotten

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The shelling started on Sunday morning, before sunrise. It was June 25, 1950. A couple of hours later, dozens of Soviet-made, state-of-the-art battle tanks from the Korean People's Army - along with about 90,000 troops - began moving across the 38th parallel to attack South Korea.

# data[].attributes.body
A guarded wall built in 1961 by the communist between East and West Berlin that closed off East German access to West Berlin.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In November the Berlin Wall will have been down for 28 years. This is as long as the period, 1961 to 1989, that it was up.

Ponder that. Something that once seemed permanent was instead a blip - a very long blip, granted, and a deadly one - in the course of history.

Did you know the wall came down in part due to a press conference? Travel restrictions from communist East Germany were going to be eased after mass protests. When would this new policy take effect? The notes handed to the press secretary didn't specify, so he guessed and said, "immediately, without delay."

Rarely has winging it in front of reporters led to so much chaos. (For a more contemporary example, see Tuesday.)

I vacationed in Berlin earlier this month, and the story of the wall kept intruding. Little of the wall remains, as once it opened on Nov. 9, 1989, people on both sides understandably began to hammer it apart, and many slabs were sold by the government.

But a few pieces and short segments were left as reminders. The longest, nearly a mile, has been turned into a series of murals known as the East Side Gallery.

I saw that, and also visited the former Checkpoint Charlie, where a bit of wall and the border crossing station remain as tourist attractions. Displays delve into the story of the wall's rapid construction in 1961, the political effects, family separations and East Germans' attempts to escape - some of them ingenious, few of them successful and many of them fatal.

To an outsider, the wall was fascinating. An entire city, cleaved cleanly by block walls, barbed wire and guards, designed by a government determined to keep its own citizens prisoners. Its audacity is chilling.

What we call the Berlin Wall, by the way, was termed by the East German government the "anti-fascist protection rampart," thus equating West Germany and NATO with fascists. False equivalencies from heads of state are nothing new, it seems.

But American presidents showed moral leadership in the wall era. Two visited West Berlin, which was a protected but anxious enclave inside East Germany. In 1963, John Kennedy rallied the free world, and an audience of 450,000, with his expression of solidarity, "Ich bin ein Berliner."

My German is rusty, but I believe this translates as "You had a group on one side that was bad and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent."

Also, it's impossible to forget the stirring moment in 1987 when Ronald Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate and declared in ringing tones, "There is blame on both sides."

Sorry, I might have that one wrong too.

After Germany's postwar division, life on the East German side was no bed of roses. Berlin's DDR Museum pays sad but cheeky tribute to the days when store shelves were stocked with flawed East German products, your neighbor might be informing on you and your wallpaper would be hideous.

One exhibit hit home for me as a tourist: Many East Germans had never seen Munich and Frankfurt, on the other side of the dividing line, due to travel restrictions, and for the same reason "would-be world travelers" weren't allowed to go much farther than Poland or Hungary.

By contrast, this American had traveled 6,023 miles to get to Berlin and roam freely.

I was visiting a journalist pal, Naomi Kresge, whose byline some longtime readers may recall from the Bulletin and Claremont Courier of the early 2000s. A Berlin resident for eight years, she and her boyfriend Philip, a Hamburg native, showed me around and filled me in.

They live in Prenzlauer Berg, a gentrifying neighborhood in the former East Berlin. After the Wall fell, artists and young urbanists flocked to the suddenly depopulated East for cheap or no rent and new frontiers, and development followed.

As we strolled, Naomi pointed out the vacant lots every block or two. Buildings on those plots had been demolished by bombs in World War II and were never replaced. Now green space, they also represent visible scars from the war seven decades ago.

Speaking of the war, a sign marks the spot of Hitler's bunker, which, rather hilariously, has been filled with dirt and lies under a parking lot.

There are no statues of Nazis. Hitler and his (cough) confederates are in the history books if one wants to read about them, and thus hardly erased or forgotten, but they're not venerated in public squares. Instead, their victims are.

I'll tell you more about my travels in an upcoming column or two. For now, let's return to the wall.

We rode the S-bahn subway and disembarked at Nordbanhof, during the Cold War a ghost station. Trains blew through without stopping and exits were bricked off to prevent anyone from making, shall we say, an unscheduled transfer to another form of government. Informational displays told the story.

The most poignant image was a photo shot in the few days of August 1961 where barbed wire at ground level preceded the Wall's construction. Two women, one on each side of the wire, held infants, who reached across and touched hands.

Passing into the open air through an exit that had once been closed, we crossed to a park that serves as a memorial to the wall.
This was the former no-man's-land between the inner and outer walls, both still standing in part. Between them used to be guard towers, barbed wire, lights and sand to hinder escapees.

"This was the death strip," Naomi said.

Now it was a gentle park, with grass, walking paths and somber displays. Incongruously, it was full of life. People strolled, lay, played, held hands and pushed strollers. Some read about escape attempts and shootings and examined remnants of the security system, once fearsome, but now curiosities of history.

Things do change - even the Berlin Wall. In weeks like this, in times like these, perhaps that lesson provides a small measure of comfort.
David Allen chips away Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Contact dallen@scng.com or 909-483-9339, visit insidesocal.com/davidallen, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on Twitter. And buy his books, "Getting Started" and "Pomona A to Z."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Berlin Wall pieces stand as warning against division

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In November the Berlin Wall will have been down for 28 years. This is as long as the period, 1961 to 1989, that it was up. Ponder that. Something that once seemed permanent was instead a blip - a v...

# data[].attributes.body
Cold War dividing line between communist Eastern Europe and democratic Western Europe.

# data[].attributes.body
Competition between the United States and the Soviet Union to explore space.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
US and China face off in the new global space race

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
After years of investment, China is on its way to becoming a space superpower.

# data[].attributes.body
A race between the United States and the Soviet Union to accumulate or develop weapons.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Cold War Nuclear Arms Race , a timeline made with Timetoast's free interactive timeline making software.

# data[].attributes.body
A military alliance established in 1955 of Eastern European countries, including the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland and Romania for the purpose of collective security (discourage attack by NATO)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
THE WARSAW PACT The Warsaw Pact was the name of the military alliance between the Soviet Union and Eastern European nations. This treaty included all communist...

# data[].attributes.body
NATO; established in 1949, an organization consisting of the United States, Canada, Great Britain and other European countries for the purpose of collective security (discourage attack by the Soviet Union)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
North Atlantic Treaty Organization - ppt video online download

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
NATO - Overview  What is NATO?  What does NATO do?  How does NATO work?

# data[].attributes.body
Effort by the United States, Great Britain and France to thwart the Blockade of Berlin by flying supplies to West Berlin.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
With the conclusion of World War II in Europe, Germany was divided into four occupation zones as had been discussed at the Yalta Conference. The Soviet zone was in eastern Germany while the Americans were in the south, the British the northwest, and the French the southwest. Administration of these zones was to be conducted through the Four Power Allied Control Council (ACC). The German capital, located deep in the Soviet zone, was similarly divided between the four victors.

In the immediate period following the war, there was great debate regarding what extent Germany should be allowed to rebuild.

During this time, Joseph Stalin actively worked to create and place in power the Socialist Unity Party in the Soviet zone. It was his intention that all of Germany should be communist and part of the Soviet sphere of influence. To this end, the Western Allies were only given limited access to Berlin along road and ground routes. While the Allies initially believed this to be short-term, trusting to Stalin's goodwill, all subsequent requests for additional routes were denied by the Soviets. Only in the air was a formal agreement in place which guaranteed three twenty-mile-wide air corridors to the city.

Tensions Increase

In 1946, the Soviets cut off food shipments from their zone into western Germany. This was problematic as eastern Germany produced the majority of the nation's food while western Germany contained its industry.

In reply, General Lucius Clay, commander of the American zone, ended shipments of industrial equipment to the Soviets. Angered, the Soviets launched an anti-American campaign and began to disrupt the work of the ACC. In Berlin, the citizens, who had been brutally treated by the Soviets in the closing months of the war, voiced their disapproval by electing a staunchly anti- communist city-wide government.

With this turn of events, American policymakers came to the conclusion that a strong Germany was necessary to protect Europe from Soviet aggression. In 1947, President Harry Truman appointed General George C. Marshall as Secretary of State. Developing his " Marshall Plan" for European recovery, he intended to provide $13 billion in aid money. Opposed by the Soviets, the plan led to meetings in London regarding reconstruction of Europe and the rebuilding of the German economy. Angered by these developments, the Soviets began stopping British and American trains to check the identities of the passengers.

Target Berlin

On March 9, 1948, Stalin met with his military advisors and developed a plan for forcing the Allies to meet his demands by "regulating" access to Berlin. The ACC met for the last time on March 20, when, after being informed that the results of the London meetings would not be shared, the Soviet delegation walked out. Five days later, Soviet forces began restricting Western traffic into Berlin and stated that nothing could leave the city without their permission. This led to Clay ordering an airlift to carry military supplies to the American garrison in the city.

Though the Soviets eased their restrictions on April 10, the pending crisis came to head in June with the introduction of a new, Western-backed German currency, the Deutsche Mark.

This was ardently opposed by the Soviets who wished to keep the German economy weak by retaining the inflated Reichsmark. Between June 18, when the new currency was announced, and June 24, the Soviets cut off all ground access to Berlin. The next day they halted food distribution in the Allied parts of the city and cut off electricity. Having cut off Allied forces in the city, Stalin elected to test the resolve of the West.

Flights Begin

Unwilling to abandon the city, American policymakers directed Clay to meet with General Curtis LeMay, commander of United States Air Forces in Europe, regarding the feasibility of supplying West Berlin's population by air. Believing that it could be done, LeMay ordered Brigadier General Joseph Smith to coordinate the effort. Since the British had been supplying their forces by air, Clay consulted his British counterpart, General Sir Brian Robertson, as the Royal Air Force had calculated the supplies required to sustain the city.

This amounted to 1,534 tons of food and 3,475 tons of fuel per day.

Before commencing, Clay met with Mayor-Elect Ernst Reuter to ensure that the effort had the support of the people of Berlin. Assured that it did, Clay ordered the airlift to move forward on July 26 as Operation Vittles (Plainfare). As the US Air Force was short on aircraft in Europe due to demobilization, the RAF carried the early load as American planes were moved to Germany. While the US Air Force began with a mix of C-47 Skytrains and C-54 Skymasters, the former was dropped due to difficulties in unloading them quickly. The RAF utilized a wide array of aircraft from C-47s to Short Sunderland flying boats.

While initial daily deliveries were low, the airlift quickly gathered steam. To ensure success, aircraft operated on strict flight plans and maintenance schedules. Using the negotiated air corridors, American aircraft approached from the southwest and landed at Tempelhof, while British aircraft came from the northwest and landed at Gatow. All aircraft departed by flying due west to Allied airspace and then returning to their bases. Realizing that the airlift would be a long-term operation, the command was given to Lieutenant General William Tunner under the auspices of the Combined Airlift Task Force on July 27.

Initially derided by the Soviets, the airlift was allowed to proceed without interference. Having overseen the supply of Allied forces over the Himalayas during the war, "Tonnage" Tunner quickly implemented a variety of safety measures after multiple accidents on "Black Friday" in August.

Also, to speed up operations, he hired German work crews to unload aircraft and had food delivered to pilots in the cockpit so they would not need to deplane in Berlin. Learning that one of his flyers had been dropping candy to the city's children, he institutionalized the practice in the form of Operation Little Vittles. A morale-boosting concept, it became one of the iconic images of the airlift.

Defeating the Soviets

By the end of July, the airlift was delivering around 5,000 tons a day. Alarmed the Soviets began harassing incoming aircraft and attempted to lure them off course with fake radio beacons. On the ground, the people of Berlin held protests and the Soviets were forced to establish a separate municipal government in East Berlin. As winter approached, airlift operations increased to meet the city's demand for heating fuel. Battling severe weather, the aircraft continued their operations. To aid in this, Tempelhof was expanded and a new airport built at Tegel.

With the airlift progressing, Tunner ordered a special "Easter Parade" which saw 12,941 tons of coal delivered in a twenty-four hour period on April 15-16, 1949. On April 21, the airlift delivered more supplies by air than typically reached the city by rail in a given day. On average an aircraft was landing in Berlin every thirty seconds. Stunned by the success of the airlift, the Soviets signaled an interest in ending the blockade. An agreement was soon reached and ground access to the city reopened at midnight on May 12.

The Berlin Airlift signaled the West's intention to stand up to Soviet aggression in Europe. Operations continued until September 30 with the goal of building a surplus in the city. During its fifteen months of activity, the airlift provided 2,326,406 tons of supplies which were carried on 278,228 flights. During this time, twenty-five aircraft were lost and 101 people killed (40 British, 31 American). Soviet actions led many in Europe to support the formation of a strong West German state.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Supplying a City: Berlin Airlift and Blockade During the Cold War

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
With the conclusion of World War II in Europe, Germany was divided into four occupation zones as had been discussed at the Yalta Conference. The Soviet zone was in eastern Germany while the Americans were in the south, the British the northwest, and the French the southwest.

# data[].attributes.body
Period in 1948, in which the Soviet Union blockaded all land and rail routes into west Berlin in an attempt to create a unified East Germany by forcing the US, great Britain and France to turn over control of West Berlin.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
1948. Politics and the Black Market in West Germany

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The stories and reports of war correspondent Bill Downs, from Stalingrad to D-Day and beyond.

# data[].attributes.body
A united States program (1948-1952) providing financial aid to Western European countries for reconstruction after World War ll so That their economies take-over would be prevented.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Marshall Plan: Saving Europe, Rebuilding Austria
Gunter Bischof and Hans Petschar
Hardcover
336 Pages
2017

On June 5, 1947, George C. Marshall delivered a speech at Harvard University that would change the world. With that speech, the U.S. Secretary of State, and close confidant of President Truman, ushered in the European Recovery Program (ERP), which would soon burgeon into the most successful political project in U.S. and European history. Underwritten by the American taxpayer, an unbelievable fourteen billion dollars was made available between 1948 and 1952 for the Marshall Plan, money that continues to have multiple benefits for Austria's state, economy, and society. Wonderfully balancing the text with pictures and illustrations, Günter Bischof and Hans Petschar tell the thrilling success story of the Marshall Plan and its undiminished vitality.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Marshall Plan: Saving Europe, Rebuilding Austria

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Marshall Plan: Saving Europe, Rebuilding AustriaGunter Bischof and Hans PetscharHardcover336 Pages2017On June 5, 1947, George C. Marshall delivered a speech at Harvard University that would change the world. With that speech, the U.S. Secretary of State, and close confidant of President Truman, ushered in the European Recovery Program (ERP), which would soon burgeon into the most successful political project in U.S.

# data[].attributes.body
US president Harry Truman's Policy of providing economic and military aid to any country threatened by communism or totalitarian ideology (1947).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If you ever take a course on the history of American foreign policy, you are bound to get tested on doctrines. The first president to lend his name t...

# data[].attributes.body
A policy of preventing the expansion of communism to other countries by creating alliances or providing economic threatened by communism take-over.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Cold War: The Geography of Containment

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
American administrations from Truman to George H.W. Bush pursued the strategy of containment in one form or another.The actions of the Soviet Union during the Cold War and the American response to those actions through the containment policy can be viewed in relation to the Heartland concept of Sir Alfred J.