Korean War

S. history. General MacArthur, however, still wanted to be aggressive against the Chinese. Soon after MacArthur expressed these feelings against Truman's policy he was fired. He returned to the U.S. as a hero and spoke to Congress that the U.S. would have defeated the Chinese and the North Koreans if he were still in command. Truce talks began in the summer of 1951. The Eisenhower administration decided that if the armistice failed it would attack China using atomic weapons. As negotiations for a truce dragged on so did a bloody stalemate. .
             The controversy surrounding the armistice was centered around ROK president Syngman Rhee, who despite all attempts by the United States, stood firm in his belief that his country would not end the war until all of Korea became a unified nation. President Eisenhower, on the other hand, did not believe in using war to unify Korea. His intent was to promote peace in Korea. With the fate of Rhee's nation in the United Nations" hands, the truce talks became a long-lasting controversy, deeply rooted in the sharp contrast between the beliefs of Dwight D. Eisenhower and the United Nations against Syngman Rhee and the Republic of Korea. .
             "During the hectic four months before the cease-fire in Korea," General Mark W. Clark, Commander-in-Chief of the UN Command , commented in his memoirs, "the UN Command was confronted almost literally with a crisis a day. Never, it seemed to me, was it more thoroughly demonstrated that winning a satisfactory peace, even a temporary one, is more difficult than winning a war." It was ironic that the majority of the problems to which General Clark referred came from the shrewd actions of Syngman Rhee and the ROK government. All throughout the war, Syngman Rhee had been accused of destroying the armistice and refusing to follow UN orders. Legally, the UN did not need the approval of the ROK government to sign the armistice. President Rhee had placed the ROK military forces under the UN himself.