Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record. A "documentary film" was originally a movie shot on film stock—the only medium available—but now includes video and digital productions that can be either direct-to-video or made for a television program. "Documentary" has been described as a "filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception" that is continually evolving and is without clear boundaries.

Defining ''documentary''

In popular myth, the word, ''documentary'' was coined by Scottish documentarian John Grierson in his review of Robert Flaherty's film ''Moana'' (1926), published in the ''New York Sun'' on 8 February 1926, written by "The Moviegoer" (a pen name for Grierson).

Grierson's principles of documentary were that cinema's potential for observing life could be exploited in a new art form; that the "original" actor and "original" scene are better guides than their fiction counterparts to interpreting the modern world; and that materials "thus taken from the raw" can be more real than the acted article. In this regard, Grierson's views align with Vertov's contempt for dramatic fiction as "bourgeois excess", though with considerably more subtlety. Grierson's definition of documentary as "creative treatment of actuality" has gained some acceptance, though it presents philosophical questions about documentaries containing stagings and reenactments.

In his essays, Dziga Vertov argued for presenting "life as it is" (that is, life filmed surreptitiously) and "life caught unawares" (life provoked or surprised by the camera).

Pare Lorentz defines a documentary film as "a factual film which is dramatic." Others further state that a documentary stands out from the other types of non-fiction films for providing an opinion, and a specific message, along with the facts it presents.

Documentary Practice is the complex process of creating documentary projects. It refers to what people do with media devices, content, form, and production strategies in order to address the creative, ethical, and conceptual problems and choices that arise as they make documentaries.

There are clear connections in terms of practice with magazine and newspaper feature-writing and indeed to non-fiction literature. Many of the generic forms of documentary, for example the biopic or profile; or the observational piece. These generic forms are explored on the University of Winchester Journalism Department 'features web' where 'long form journalism' is classified by genre or content, rather than in terms of production as film, radio or 'print'.

History

Pre-1900

Early film (pre-1900) was dominated by the novelty of showing an event. They were single-shot moments captured on film: a train entering a station, a boat docking, or factory workers leaving work. These short films were called "actuality" films; the term "documentary" was not coined until 1926. Many of the first films, such as those made by Auguste and Louis Lumière, were a minute or less in length, due to technological limitations.

Films showing many people (for example,, leaving a factory) were often made for commercial reasons: the people being filmed were eager to see, for payment, the film showing them. One notable film clocked in at over an hour and a half, ''The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight''. Using pioneering film-looping technology, Enoch J. Rector presented the entirety of a famous 1897 prize-fight on cinema screens across the country.

The French surgeon Eugène-Louis Doyen started a series of surgical films sometime before July 1898. Until 1906, the year of his last film, Doyen recorded more than 60 operations. As Doyen said that his first films taught him how to correct professional errors he had been unaware of. For scientific purposes, after 1906 Doyen combined 15 of his films into three compilations, two of which survive, the six-film series ''Extirpation des tumeurs encapsulées'' (1906), and the four-film ''Les Opérations sur la cavité crânienne'' (1911). These and five other of Doyen's films survive.

Between July 1898 and 1901 the Romanian professor Gheorghe Marinescu made several science films in his neurology clinic in Bucharest: ''The walking troubles of organic hemiplegy'' (1898), ''The walking troubles of organic paraplegies'' (1899), ''A case of hysteric hemiplegy healed through hypnosis'' (1899), ''The walking troubles of progressive locomotion ataxy'' (1900) and ''Illnesses of the muscles'' (1901). All these short films have been preserved. The professor called his works "studies with the help of the cinematograph", and published the results, along with several consecutive frames, in issues of "La Semaine Médicale" magazine from Paris, between 1899 and 1902. In 1924, Auguste Lumiere recognized the merits of Marinescu's science films: "I've seen your scientific reports about the usage of the cinematograph in studies of nervous illnesses, when I was still receiving "La Semaine Médicale", but back then I had other concerns, which left me no spare time to begin biological studies. I must say I forgot those works and I am thankful to you that you reminded them to me. Unfortunately, not many scientists have followed your way."

1900–1920

Travelogue films were very popular in the early part of the 20th century. They were infrequently known as "scenics." Scenics were among the most popular sort of films at the time. An important early film to move beyond the concept of the scenic was ''In the Land of the Head Hunters'' (1914), which embraced primitivism and exoticism in a staged story presented as truthful re-enactments of the life of Native Americans.

Early color motion picture processes such as Kinemacolor and Prizmacolor used travelogues to promote the new color process. (In contrast, Technicolor concentrated primarily on getting their process adopted by Hollywood studios for fictional feature films.)

Also during this period Frank Hurley's documentary film, ''South'' (1919), about the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, was released. It documented the failed Antarctic expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in 1914.

1920s

Romanticism

With Robert J. Flaherty's ''Nanook of the North'' in 1922, documentary film embraced romanticism; Flaherty filmed a number of heavily staged romantic films during this time period, often showing how his subjects would have lived 100 years earlier and not how they lived right then. For instance, in ''Nanook of the North'' Flaherty did not allow his subjects to shoot a walrus with a nearby shotgun, but had them use a harpoon instead. Some of Flaherty's staging, such as building a roofless igloo for interior shots, was done to accommodate the filming technology of the time.

Paramount Pictures tried to repeat the success of Flaherty's ''Nanook'' and ''Moana'' with two romanticized documentaries, ''Grass'' (1925) and ''Chang'' (1927), both directed by Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack.

The city symphony

The continental, or realist, tradition focused on humans within human-made environments, and included the so-called "city symphony" films such as Walter Ruttmann's ''Berlin, Symphony of a City'' (of which Grierson noted in an article that ''Berlin'' represented what a documentary should not be), Alberto Cavalcanti's ''Rien que les heures'', and Dziga Vertov's ''Man with the Movie Camera''. These films tend to feature people as products of their environment, and lean towards the avant-garde.

Kino-Pravda

Dziga Vertov was central to the Soviet Kino-Pravda (literally, "cinematic truth") newsreel series of the 1920s. Vertov believed the camera — with its varied lenses, shot-counter shot editing, time-lapse, ability to slow motion, stop motion and fast-motion — could render reality more accurately than the human eye, and made a film philosophy out of it.

Newsreel tradition

The newsreel tradition is important in documentary film; newsreels were also sometimes staged but were usually re-enactments of events that had already happened, not attempts to steer events as they were in the process of happening. For instance, much of the battle footage from the early 20th century was staged; the cameramen would usually arrive on site after a major battle and re-enact scenes to film them.

1920s–1940s

The propagandist tradition consists of films made with the explicit purpose of persuading an audience of a point. One of the most notorious propaganda films is Leni Riefenstahl's film ''Triumph of the Will'' (1935), which chronicled the 1934 Nazi Party Congress and was commissioned by Adolf Hitler. Leftist filmmakers Joris Ivens and Henri Storck directed ''Borinage'' (1931) about the Belgian coal mining region. Luis Buñuel directed a "surrealist" documentary ''Las Hurdes'' (1933).

Pare Lorentz's ''The Plow That Broke the Plains'' (1936) and ''The River'' (1938) and Willard Van Dyke's ''The City'' (1939) are notable New Deal productions, each presenting complex combinations of social and ecological awareness, government propaganda, and leftist viewpoints. Frank Capra's ''Why We Fight'' (1942–1944) series was a newsreel series in the United States, commissioned by the government to convince the U.S. public that it was time to go to war. Constance Bennett and her husband Henri de la Falaise produced two feature length documentaries, ''Legong: Dance of the Virgins'' (1935) filmed in Bali, and ''Kilou the Killer Tiger'' (1936) filmed in Indochina.

In Canada the Film Board, set up by John Grierson, was created for the same propaganda reasons. It also created newsreels that were seen by their national governments as legitimate counter-propaganda to the psychological warfare of Nazi Germany (orchestrated by Joseph Goebbels).

In Britain, a number of different filmmakers came together under John Grierson. They became known as the Documentary Film Movement. Grierson, Alberto Cavalcanti, Harry Watt, Basil Wright, and Humphrey Jennings amongst others succeeded in blending propaganda, information, and education with a more poetic aesthetic approach to documentary. Examples of their work include ''Drifters'' (John Grierson), ''Song of Ceylon'' (Basil Wright), ''Fires Were Started'' and ''A Diary for Timothy'' (Humphrey Jennings). Their work involved poets such as W. H. Auden, composers such as Benjamin Britten, and writers such as J. B. Priestley. Among the best known films of the movement are ''Night Mail'' and ''Coal Face''.

1950s–1970s

Cinéma-vérité

Cinéma vérité (or the closely related direct cinema) was dependent on some technical advances in order to exist: light, quiet and reliable cameras, and portable sync sound.

Cinéma vérité and similar documentary traditions can thus be seen, in a broader perspective, as a reaction against studio-based film production constraints. Shooting on location, with smaller crews, would also happen in the French New Wave, the filmmakers taking advantage of advances in technology allowing smaller, handheld cameras and synchronized sound to film events on location as they unfolded.

Although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there are important differences between cinéma vérité (Jean Rouch) and the North American "Direct Cinema" (or more accurately "Cinéma direct"), pioneered by, among others, Canadians Allan King, Michel Brault and Pierre Perrault, and Americans Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, Frederick Wiseman and Albert and David Maysles.

The directors of the movement take different viewpoints on their degree of involvement with their subjects. Kopple and Pennebaker, for instance, choose non-involvement (or at least no overt involvement), and Perrault, Rouch, Koenig, and Kroitor favor direct involvement or even provocation when they deem it necessary.

The films ''Primary'' and ''Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment'' (both produced by Robert Drew), ''Harlan County, USA'' (directed by Barbara Kopple), ''Dont Look Back'' (D. A. Pennebaker), ''Lonely Boy'' (Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor) are all frequently deemed cinéma vérité films.

The fundamentals of the style include following a person during a crisis with a moving, often handheld, camera to capture more personal reactions. There are no sit-down interviews, and the shooting ratio (the amount of film shot to the finished product) is very high, often reaching 80 to one. From there, editors find and sculpt the work into a film. The editors of the movement — such as Werner Nold, Charlotte Zwerin, Muffie Myers, Susan Froemke, and Ellen Hovde — are often overlooked, but their input to the films was so vital that they were often given co-director credits.

Famous cinéma vérité/direct cinema films include ''Les Raquetteurs'', ''Showman'', ''Salesman'', ''Near Death'', ''The Children Were Watching'', and ''Grey Gardens''.

Political weapons

In the 1960s and 1970s, documentary film was often conceived as a political weapon against neocolonialism and capitalism in general, especially in Latin America, but also in a changing Quebec society. ''La Hora de los hornos'' (''The Hour of the Furnaces'', from 1968), directed by Octavio Getino and Fernando E. Solanas, influenced a whole generation of filmmakers. Among the many political documentaries early 1970s; "Chile: A Special Report," a public television's first in depth expository look of the September 1973 overthrow of the legitimate Salvador Allende, Chilean government by the Pinochet armed forces, who ruled by terror. With the support of the Nixon administration, produced by documentarians Ari Martinez and José Garcia.

Modern documentaries

Box office analysts have noted that this film genre has become increasingly successful in theatrical release with films such as ''Fahrenheit 9/11'', ''Super Size Me'', ''Earth'', ''March of the Penguins'', and ''An Inconvenient Truth'' among the most prominent examples. Compared to dramatic narrative films, documentaries typically have far lower budgets which makes them attractive to film companies because even a limited theatrical release can be highly profitable.

The nature of documentary films has expanded in the past 20 years from the cinema verité style introduced in the 1960s in which the use of portable camera and sound equipment allowed an intimate relationship between filmmaker and subject. The line blurs between documentary and narrative and some works are very personal, such as the late Marlon Riggs's ''Tongues Untied'' (1989) and ''Black Is...Black Ain't'' (1995), which mix expressive, poetic, and rhetorical elements and stresses subjectivities rather than historical materials.Historical documentaries, such as the landmark 14-hour ''Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years'' (1986 – Part 1 and 1989 – Part 2) by Henry Hampton, ''Four Little Girls'' (1997) by Spike Lee, and ''The Civil War'' by Ken Burns, UNESCO awarded independent film on slavery 500 Years Later, expressed not only a distinctive voice but also a perspective and point of views. Some films such as ''The Thin Blue Line'' by Errol Morris incorporated stylized re-enactments, and Michael Moore's ''Roger & Me'' placed far more interpretive control with the director. The commercial success of these documentaries may derive from this narrative shift in the documentary form, leading some critics to question whether such films can truly be called documentaries; critics sometimes refer to these works as "mondo films" or "docu-ganda." However, directorial manipulation of documentary subjects has been noted since the work of Flaherty, and may be endemic to the form due to problematic ontological foundations.

Although the increasing popularity of the documentary genre, and the advent of DVDs, has made documentaries financially more viable, funding for documentary film production remains elusive. Within the past decade the largest exhibition opportunities have emerged from within the broadcast market, making filmmakers beholden to the tastes and influences of the broadcasters who have become their largest funding source.

Modern documentaries have some overlap with television forms, with the development of "''reality television''" that occasionally verges on the documentary but more often veers to the fictional or staged. The ''making-of'' documentary shows how a movie or a computer game was produced. Usually made for promotional purposes, it is closer to an advertisement than a classic documentary.

Modern lightweight digital video cameras and computer-based editing have greatly aided documentary makers, as has the dramatic drop in equipment prices. The first film to take full advantage of this change was Martin Kunert and Eric Manes' ''Voices of Iraq'', where 150 DV cameras were sent to Iraq during the war and passed out to Iraqis to record themselves.

Documentaries without words

Films in the documentary form without words have been made. From 1982, the Qatsi trilogy and the similar ''Baraka'' could be described as visual tone poems, with music related to the images, but no spoken content. ''Koyaanisqatsi'' (part of the Qatsi trilogy) consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse photography of cities and many natural landscapes across the United States. ''Baraka'' tries to capture the great pulse of humanity as it flocks and swarms in daily activity and religious ceremonies.

''Bodysong'' was made in 2003 and won a British Independent Film Award for "Best British Documentary".

The 2004 film ''Genesis'' shows animal and plant life in states of expansion, decay, sex, and death, with some, but little, narration.

Other documentary forms

Compilation films

Compilation films were pioneered in 1927 by Esfir Schub with ''The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty''. More recent examples include ''Point of Order'' (1964), directed by Emile de Antonio about the McCarthy hearings and ''The Atomic Cafe'' which is made entirely out of found footage that various agencies of the U.S. government made about the safety of nuclear radiation (for example,, telling troops at one point that it's safe to be irradiated as long as they keep their eyes and mouths shut). Similarly, ''The Last Cigarette'' combines the testimony of various tobacco company executives before the U.S. Congress with archival propaganda extolling the virtues of smoking.

See also

Animated documentary

Citizen media

Concert film

Docudrama

Docufiction

Documentary film festivals

Documentary mode

Documentary Practice

Ethnofiction

Ethnographic film

Filmmaking

List of documentaries

List of motion picture-related topics

Lists of directors and producers of documentaries

Mockumentary

Mondo film

Nature documentary

Participatory video

Political Cinema

Public-access television

Reality film

Rockumentary

Travel documentary

Visual anthropology

Web documentary

Women's Cinema

Some Documentary Film Awards

Academy Award for Documentary Feature

Joris Ivens Award, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), (named after Joris Ivens)

Grand Prize Visions du Réel

Notes and references

Sources and bibliography

Aitken, Ian (ed.). ''Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film''. New York: Routledge, 2005. ISBN 978-1-57958-445-0.

Barnouw, Erik. ''Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film'', 2nd rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN 978-0-19-507898-5. Still a useful introduction.

Ron Burnett. "Reflections on the Documentary Cinema"

Burton, Julianne (ed.). ''The Social Documentary in Latin America''. Pittsburgh, Penn.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990. ISBN 978-0-8229-3621-3.

Dawson, Jonathan. "Dziga Vertov".

Ellis, Jack C., and Betsy A. McLane. "A New History of Documentary Film". New York: Continuum International, 2005. ISBN 978-0-8264-1750-3, ISBN 978-0-8264-1751-0.

Goldsmith, David A. ''The Documentary Makers: Interviews with 15 of the Best in the Business''. Hove, East Sussex: RotoVision, 2003. ISBN 978-2-88046-730-2.

Klotman, Phyllis R. and Culter, Janet K.(eds.). ''Struggles for Representation – African American Documentary Film and Video'' Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999. ISBN 978-0-253-21347-1.

Leach, Jim, and Jeannette Sloniowski (eds.). ''Candid Eyes: Essays on Canadian Documentaries''. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-8020-4732-8, ISBN 978-0-8020-8299-2.

Nichols, Bill. ''Introduction to Documentary'', Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2001. ISBN 978-0-253-33954-6, ISBN 978-0-253-21469-0.

Nichols, Bill. ''Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary''. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1991. ISBN 978-0-253-34060-3, ISBN 978-0-253-20681-7.

Nornes, Markus. ''Forest of Pressure: Ogawa Shinsuke and Postwar Japanese Documentary''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8166-4907-5, ISBN 978-0-8166-4908-2.

Nornes, Markus. ''Japanese Documentary Film: The Meiji Era through Hiroshima''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-8166-4045-4, ISBN 978-0-8166-4046-1.

Rotha, Paul, ''Documentary diary; An Informal History of the British Documentary Film, 1928–1939''. New York: Hill and Wang, 1973. ISBN 978-0-8090-3933-3.

Saunders, Dave. ''Direct Cinema: Observational Documentary and the Politics of the Sixties''. London: Wallflower Press, 2007. ISBN 978-1-905674-16-9, ISBN 978-1-905674-15-2.

Saunders, Dave. ''Documentary: The Routledge Film Guidebook''. London: Routledge, 2010.

Tobias, Michael. ''The Search for Reality – the Art of Documentary Filmmaking''. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions 1997. ISBN 0-941188-62-0

Walker, Janet, and Diane Waldeman (eds.). ''Feminism and Documentary''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. ISBN 978-0-8166-3006-6, ISBN 978-0-8166-3007-3.

Wyver, John. ''The Moving Image: An International History of Film, Television & Radio''. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd. in association with the British Film Institute, 1989. ISBN 978-0-631-15529-4.

Murdoch.edu, Documentary – reading list

Ethnographic film

Emilie de Brigard, "The History of Ethnographic Film", in ''Principles of Visual Anthropology'', ed. Paul Hockings. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1995, pp. 13–43.

Leslie Devereaux, "Cultures, Disciplines, Cinemas", in ''Fields of Vision. Essays in Film Studies, Visual Anthropology and Photography'', ed. Leslie Devereaux & Roger Hillman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995, pp. 329–339.

Faye Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod and Brian Larkin (eds.), ''Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain''. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002. ISBN 978-0-520-23231-0.

Anna Grimshaw, ''The Ethnographer’s Eye: Ways of Seeing in Modern Anthropology''. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 978-0-521-77310-2.

Karl G. Heider, ''Ethnographic Film''. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994.

Luc de Heusch, ''Cinéma et Sciences Sociales'', Paris: UNESCO, 1962. Published in English as ''The Cinema and Social Science. A Survey of Ethnographic and Sociological Films''. UNESCO, 1962.

Fredric Jameson, ''Signatures of the Visible''. New York & London: Routledge, 1990.

Pierre-L. Jordan, ''Premier Contact-Premier Regard'', Marseille: Musées de Marseille. Images en Manoeuvres Editions, 1992.

André Leroi-Gourhan, "Cinéma et Sciences Humaines. Le Film Ethnologique Existe-t-il?", ''Revue de Géographie Humaine et d'Ethnologie'' 3 (1948), pp. 42–50.

David MacDougall, ''Transcultural Cinema''. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998. ISBN 978-0-691-01234-6.

David MacDougall, "Whose Story Is It?", in ''Ethnographic Film Aesthetics and Narrative Traditions'', ed. Peter I. Crawford and Jan K. Simonsen. Aarhus, Intervention Press, 1992, pp. 25–42.

Fatimah Tobing Rony, ''The Third Eye: Race, Cinema and Ethnographic Spectacle''. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0-8223-1840-8.

Georges Sadoul, ''Histoire Générale du Cinéma''. Vol. 1, ''L'Invention du Cinéma 1832–1897''. Paris: Denöel, 1977, pp. 73–110.

Pierre Sorlin, ''Sociologie du Cinéma'', Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1977, pp. 7–74.

Charles Warren, "Introduction, with a Brief History of Nonfiction Film", in ''Beyond Document. Essays on Nonfiction Film'', ed. Charles Warren. Hanover and London: Wesleyan University Press, 1996, pp. 1–22.

Ismail Xavier, "Cinema: Revelação e Engano", in ''O Olhar'', ed. Adauto Novaes. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1993, pp. 367–384.

External links

Berkeley.edu, Documentary Classics – Videography of essential documentary films via UC Berkeley Media Resources Center

Documentary films database for educational purpose - online database of documentaries and social impact films

Documentary film Research Database - research database of documentaries online

DFGdocs.com, The Documentary Filmmakers Group, UK's largest documentary organisation

Documentary Films.net, news, reviews, and filmmaker resources

Documentary.org, International Documentary Association

Doculink - Online listserv for documentarians

Category:Film genres Film Category:Investigative journalism Category:Journalism genres

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Conflict	Korean War
Partof	the Cold War
Date	25 June 1950 – present (Armistice signed 27 July 1953) ()
Place	Korean Peninsula
Casus	North Korean invasion in South Korea
Territory	DMZ; both gained little border territory at the 38th parallel.
Status	Cease-fire armistice North Korean invasion of South Korea repelled UN invasion of North Korea repelled Chinese invasion of South Korea repelled Korean Demilitarized Zone established, little territorial change at the 38th parallel border, essentially ''uti possidetis''
Combatant1	(UN Resolution 84)
Combatant2	(limited)
Commander1	Rhee Syngman Chung Il-kwon Paik Sun-yup Harry S. Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower Douglas MacArthur Matthew Ridgway Mark Wayne Clark Clement Attlee Robert Menzies Louis St. Laurent Elpidio Quirino Fidel V. Ramos Tahsin Yazıcı
Commander2	Kim Il-sung Pak Hon-yong Choi Yong-kun Kim Chaek Mao Zedong Peng Dehuai Joseph Stalin
Strength1	590,911 480,000 63,000 26,791 17,000 7,430 5,455 3,972 3,421 2,163 1,389 1,273 1,271 1,068 900 826 44 Total: 1,207,010
Strength2	260,000 926,000 26,000 Total: 1,212,000Note: The figures vary by source; peak unit-strength varied during war.
Casualties1	Republic of Korea137,899 KIA450,742 WIA24,495 MIA8,343 POWUnited States36,516 dead (including 2,830 non-combat deaths)92,134 wounded8,176 MIA7,245 POWUnited Kingdom1,109 dead2,674 wounded1,060 MIA or POWTurkey721 dead2,111 wounded168 MIA216 POWCanada516 dead1,042 woundedAustralia339 dead1,200 woundedFrance300 KIA or MIAGreece194 KIA459 woundedColombia163 dead 448 wounded2 MIA28 POWThailand129 KIA1,139 wounded5 MIANetherlands123 KIAPhilippines112 KIABelgium101 KIA478 Wounded5 MIANew Zealand33 KIASouth Africa28 KIA and 8 MIALuxembourg2 KIATotal: 778,053
Casualties2	D.P.R. Korea:215,000 dead303,000 wounded120,000 MIA or POWP.R. China''(Official data)'':183,108 dead (including non-combat deaths)383,218 wounded25,621 MIA21,400 POW''(U.S. estimate)'':400,000+ dead486,000 wounded21,000 POWSoviet Union:282 deadTotal: 1,187,682–1,545,822
Casualties3	Total civilians killed/wounded: 2.5 million (est.)South Korea: 990,968 373,599 killed229,625 wounded387,744 abducted/missingNorth Korea: 1,550,000 (est.)
Campaignbox	}}

The Korean War (25 June 1950 – armistice signed 27 July 1953) was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China (PRC), with military material aid from the Soviet Union. The war was a result of the physical division of Korea by an agreement of the victorious Allies at the conclusion of the Pacific War at the end of World War II. The Korean peninsula was ruled by Japan from 1910 until the end of World War II. Following the surrender of Japan in 1945, American administrators divided the peninsula along the 38th Parallel, with United States troops occupying the southern part and Soviet troops occupying the northern part.

The failure to hold free elections throughout the Korean Peninsula in 1948 deepened the division between the two sides, and the North established a Communist government. The 38th Parallel increasingly became a political border between the two Koreas. Although reunification negotiations continued in the months preceding the war, tension intensified. Cross-border skirmishes and raids at the 38th Parallel persisted. The situation escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950. It was the first significant armed conflict of the Cold War.

The United Nations, particularly the United States, came to the aid of South Korea in repelling the invasion, but within two months the defenders were pushed back to the Pusan perimeter, a small area in the south of the country, before the North Koreans were stopped. A rapid UN counter-offensive then drove the North Koreans past the 38th Parallel and almost to the Yalu River, and the People's Republic of China (PRC) entered the war on the side of the North. The Chinese launched a counter-offensive that pushed the United Nations forces back across the 38th Parallel. The Soviet Union materially aided the North Korean and Chinese armies. In 1953, the war ceased with an armistice that restored the border between the Koreas near the 38th Parallel and created the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a wide buffer zone between the two Koreas. Minor outbreaks of fighting continue to the present day.

With both North and South Korea sponsored by external powers, the Korean War was a proxy war. From a military science perspective, it combined strategies and tactics of World War I and World War II: it began with a mobile campaign of swift infantry attacks followed by air bombing raids, but became a static trench war by July 1951.

Background

Etymology

In the United States, the war was initially described by President Harry S. Truman as a "police action" as it was conducted under the auspices of the United Nations. Colloquially, it has been referred to in the United States as The Forgotten War or The Unknown War. The issues concerned were much less clear than in previous and subsequent conflicts, such as World War II and the Vietnam War. To a significant degree, the war has been "historically overshadowed by World War II and Vietnam".

In South Korea the war is usually referred to as "625" or the 6–2–5 War (yug-i-o jeonjaeng), reflecting the date of its commencement on 25 June. In North Korea the war is officially referred to as the Fatherland Liberation War (Choguk haebang chǒnjaeng). Alternatively, it is called the Chosǒn chǒnjaeng ("Chosǒn war", Chosǒn being what North Koreans call Korea). In the People's Republic of China the war is called the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea (). The "Korean War" (朝鮮戰爭/朝鲜战争; pinyin: Cháoxiǎn zhànzhēng) is more commonly used today. ''Cháoxiǎn'' is the Chinese pronunciation of the Korean name "Chosǒn".

Japanese rule (1910–1945)

Upon defeating the Qing Dynasty in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–96), the Empire of Japan occupied the Korean Empire – a peninsula strategic to its sphere of influence. A decade later, defeating Imperial Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), Japan made Korea its protectorate with the Eulsa Treaty in 1905, then annexed it with the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty in 1910.

Korean nationalists and the intelligentsia fled the country, and some founded the Provisional Korean Government in 1919, which was headed by Syngman Rhee in Shanghai. This government-in-exile was recognized by few countries. From 1919 to 1925 and beyond, Korean communists led and were the primary agents of internal and external warfare against the Japanese.

Korea under Japanese rule was considered to be part of the Empire of Japan as an industrialized colony along with Taiwan, and both were part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. In 1937, the colonial Governor–General, General Jirō Minami, commanded the attempted cultural assimilation of Korea's 23.5 million people by banning the use and study of Korean language, literature, and culture, to be replaced with that of mandatory use and study of their Japanese counterparts. Starting in 1939, the populace was required to use Japanese names under the Sōshi-kaimei policy. In 1938, the Colonial Government established labor conscription.

In China, the National Revolutionary Army and the Communist People's Liberation Army helped organize refugee Korean patriots and independence fighters against the Japanese military, which had also occupied parts of China. The Nationalist-backed Koreans, led by Yi Pom-Sok, fought in the Burma Campaign (December 1941 – August 1945). The Communists, led by Kim Il-sung, fought the Japanese in Korea and Manchuria.

During World War II, the Japanese used Korea's food, livestock, and metals for their war effort. Japanese forces in Korea increased from 46,000 soldiers in 1941 to 300,000 in 1945. Japanese Korea conscripted 2.6 million forced laborers controlled with a collaborationist Korean police force; some 723,000 people were sent to work in the overseas empire and in metropolitan Japan. By 1942, Korean men were being conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army. By January 1945, Koreans comprised 32% of Japan's labor force. In August 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, around 25% of those killed were Koreans. At the end of the war, other world powers did not recognize Japanese rule in Korea and Taiwan.

Meanwhile, at the Cairo Conference (November 1943), Nationalist China, the United Kingdom, and the United States decided "in due course Korea shall become free and independent". Later, the Yalta Conference (February 1945) granted to the Soviet Union European "buffer zones"—satellite states accountable to Moscow—as well as an expected Soviet pre-eminence in China and Manchuria, in return for joining the Allied Pacific War effort against Japan.

Soviet invasion of Manchuria (1945)

Toward the end of World War II, as per a US-Soviet agreement, the USSR declared war against Japan on 9 August 1945. By 10 August, the Red Army occupied the northern part of the Korean peninsula as agreed, and on 26 August halted at the 38th parallel for three weeks to await the arrival of US forces in the south.

On 10 August 1945, with the 15 August Japanese surrender near, the Americans doubted whether the Soviets would honor their part of the Joint Commission, the US-sponsored Korean occupation agreement. A month earlier, Colonel Dean Rusk and Colonel Charles H. Bonesteel III divided the Korean peninsula at the 38th parallel after hurriedly deciding (in thirty minutes) that the US Korean Zone of Occupation had to have a minimum of two ports.

Explaining why the occupation zone demarcation was positioned at the 38th parallel, Rusk observed, "even though it was further north than could be realistically reached by US forces, in the event of Soviet disagreement ... we felt it important to include the capital of Korea in the area of responsibility of American troops", especially when "faced with the scarcity of US forces immediately available, and time and space factors, which would make it difficult to reach very far north, before Soviet troops could enter the area." The Soviets agreed to the US occupation zone demarcation to improve their negotiating position regarding the occupation zones in Eastern Europe, and because each would accept Japanese surrender where they stood.

Chinese Civil War (1945–1949)

After the end of Second Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Civil War resumed between the Chinese Communists and the Chinese Nationalists. While the Communists were struggling for supremacy in Manchuria, they were supported by the North Korean government with materiel and manpower. According to Chinese sources, the North Koreans donated 2,000 railway cars worth of material while thousands of Korean "volunteers" served in the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) during the war. North Korea also provided the Chinese Communists in Manchuria with a safe refuge for non-combatants and communications with the rest of China.

The North Korean contributions to the Chinese Communist victory were not forgotten after the creation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. As a token of gratitude, between 50,000 to 70,000 Korean veterans that served in the PLA were sent back along with their weapons, and they would later play a significant role in the initial invasion of South Korea. China promised to support the North Koreans in the event of a war against South Korea. The Chinese support created a deep division between the Korean Communists, and Kim Il-Sung's authority within the Communist party was challenged by the Chinese faction led by Pak Il-yu, who was later purged by Kim.

After the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese government named the Western nations, led by the United States, as the biggest threat to its national security. Basing this judgment on China's century of humiliation beginning in the early 19th century, American support for the Nationalists during the Chinese Civil War, and the ideological struggles between revolutionaries and reactionaries, the Chinese leadership believed that China would become a critical battleground in the United States' crusade against Communism. As a countermeasure and to elevate China's standing among the worldwide Communist movements, the Chinese leadership adopted a foreign policy that actively promoted Communist revolutions throughout territories on China's periphery.

Korea divided (1945–1949)

At the Potsdam Conference (July–August 1945), the Allies unilaterally decided to divide Korea—without consulting the Koreans—in contradiction of the Cairo Conference.

On 8 September 1945, Lt. Gen. John R. Hodge of the United States arrived in Incheon to accept the Japanese surrender south of the 38th parallel. Appointed as military governor, General Hodge directly controlled South Korea via the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK 1945–48). He established control by restoring to power the key Japanese colonial administrators and their Korean police collaborators. The USAMGIK refused to recognise the provisional government of the short-lived People's Republic of Korea (PRK) because he suspected it was communist. These policies, voiding popular Korean sovereignty, provoked civil insurrections and guerrilla warfare. On 3 September 1945, Lieutenant General Yoshio Kozuki, Commander, Japanese Seventeenth Area Army, contacted Hodge, telling him that the Soviets were south of the 38th parallel at Kaesong. Hodge trusted the accuracy of the Japanese Army report.

In December 1945, Korea was administered by a US–USSR Joint Commission, as agreed at the Moscow Conference (1945). The Koreans were excluded from the talks. The commission decided the country would become independent after a five-year trusteeship action facilitated by each régime sharing its sponsor's ideology. The Korean populace revolted; in the south, some protested, and some rose in arms; to contain them, the USAMGIK banned strikes on 8 December 1945 and outlawed the PRK Revolutionary Government and the PRK People's Committees on 12 December 1945.

On 23 September 1946 an 8,000-strong railroad worker strike began in Pusan. Civil disorder spread throughout the country in what became known as the Autumn uprising. On 1 October 1946, Korean police killed three students in the Daegu Uprising; protesters counter-attacked, killing 38 policemen. On 3 October, some 10,000 people attacked the Yeongcheon police station, killing three policemen and injuring some 40 more; elsewhere, some 20 landlords and pro-Japanese South Korean officials were killed. The USAMGIK declared martial law.

The right-wing Representative Democratic Council, led by nationalist Syngman Rhee, opposed the Soviet–American trusteeship of Korea, arguing that after 35 years (1910–45) of Japanese colonial rule most Koreans opposed another foreign occupation. The USAMGIK decided to forego the five year trusteeship agreed upon in Moscow, given the 31 March 1948 United Nations election deadline to achieve an anti-communist civil government in the US Korean Zone of Occupation.

On 3 April what began as a demonstration commemorating Korean resistance to Japanese rule ended with the Jeju massacre of as many as 60,000 citizens by South Korean soldiers.

On 10 May, South Korea convoked their first national general elections that the Soviets first opposed, then boycotted, insisting that the US honor the trusteeship agreed to at the Moscow Conference.

North Korea held parliamentary elections three months later on 25 August 1948.

The resultant anti-communist South Korean government promulgated a national political constitution on 17 July 1948, elected a president, the American-educated strongman Syngman Rhee on 20 July 1948. The elections were marred by terrorism and sabotage resulting in 600 deaths. The Republic of Korea (South Korea) was established on 15 August 1948. In the Russian Korean Zone of Occupation, the USSR established a Communist North Korean government led by Kim Il-sung. President Rhee's régime expelled communists and leftists from southern national politics. Disenfranchised, they headed for the hills, to prepare for guerrilla war against the US-sponsored ROK Government.

As nationalists, both Syngman Rhee and Kim Il-Sung were intent upon reunifying Korea under their own political system. With Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong fighting over the control of the Korean Peninsula, the North Koreans gained support from both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. They escalated the continual border skirmishes and raids and then prepared to invade. South Korea, with limited matériel, could not match them. During this era, at the beginning of the Cold War, the US government assumed that all communists, regardless of nationality, were controlled or directly influenced by Moscow; thus the US portrayed the civil war in Korea as a Soviet hegemonic maneuver.

In October 1948, South Korean left-wing soldiers rebelled against the government's harsh clampdown in April on Jeju island in the Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion.

The Soviet Union withdrew as agreed from Korea in 1948. U.S. troops withdrew from Korea in 1949, leaving the South Korean army relatively ill-equipped. On 24 December 1949, South Korean forces killed 86 to 88 people in the Mungyeong massacre and blamed the crime on communist marauding bands.

Course of the war

The conflict begins (June 1950)

In April 1950 Kim Il-sung travelled to Moscow and secured Stalin's support for a policy to unify Korea under his authority. Although agreeing with the invasion of South Korea in principle, Stalin refused to become directly involved in Kim's plans, and advised Kim to enlist Chinese support instead. In May 1950 Kim visited Beijing, and succeeded in gaining Mao's endorsement. At the time, Mao's support for Kim was largely political (he was contemplating the invasions of Taiwan and Tibet), and was unaware of Kim's precise intentions or the timing of Kim's attack. When the Korean war broke out, the Chinese were in the process of demobilizing half of the PLA's 5.6 million soldiers.

After the US missions had left the People's Republic of China, CIA China station officer Douglas Mackiernan volunteered to remain and conduct spy operations. Afterward, he and a team of indigenous personnel then escaped China in a months-long horse trek across the Himalaya mountains; he was killed within miles of Lhasa. His team delivered the intelligence to headquarters that invasion was imminent. Thirteen days later on 25 June 1950, the North Korean People's Army (KPA) crossed the 38th parallel border and invaded South Korea. Mackiernan was posthumously awarded the CIA Intelligence Star for valor.

Under the guise of counter-attacking a South Korean provocation raid, the KPA crossed the 38th parallel behind artillery fire at dawn on Sunday 25 June 1950. The KPA said that Republic of Korea Army (ROK Army) troops, under command of the régime of the "bandit traitor Syngman Rhee", had crossed the border first, and that they would arrest and execute Rhee. Both Korean armies had continually harassed each other with skirmishes and each continually staged raids across the 38th parallel border.

On 27 June, Rhee evacuated from Seoul with government officials. Rhee ordered the Bodo League massacre, which started on 28 June.

On 28 June, South Korea bombed the bridge across the Han River to stop the North Korean army.

Early on in the fighting, South Korea put its forces under the authority of the United Nations Command (Korea).

Factors in US intervention

The Truman Administration was caught at a crossroads. Before the invasion, Korea was not included in the strategic Asian Defense Perimeter outlined by Secretary of State Acheson. Military strategists were more concerned with the security of Europe against the Soviet Union than East Asia. At the same time, the Administration was worried that a war in Korea could quickly widen into another world war should the Chinese or Soviets decide to get involved as well.

One facet of the changing attitude toward Korea and whether to get involved was Japan. Especially after the fall of China to the Communists, "…Japan itself increasingly appeared as the major East Asian prize to be protected". US East Asian experts saw Japan as the critical counterweight to the Soviet Union and China in the region. While there was no United States policy that dealt with South Korea directly as a national interest, its proximity to Japan pushed South Korea to the fore. "The recognition that the security of Japan required a non-hostile Korea led directly to President Truman’s decision to intervene… The essential point… is that the American response to the North Korean attack stemmed from considerations of US policy toward Japan." The United States wanted to shore up Japan to make it a viable counterweight against the Soviet Union and China, and Korea was seen as integral to that end.

The other important part of committing to intervention lay in speculation about Soviet action in the event that the United States intervene. The Truman administration was fretful that a war in Korea was a diversionary assault that would escalate to a general war in Europe once the US committed in Korea. At the same time, "[t]here was no suggestion from anyone that the United Nations or the United States could back away from [the conflict]". In Truman’s mind, this aggression, if left unchecked, would start a chain reaction that would destroy the United Nations and give the go ahead to further Communist aggression elsewhere. Korea was where a stand had to be made, the difficult part was how. The UN Security council approved the use of force to help the South Koreans and the US immediately began using air and naval forces in the area to that end. The Administration still refrained from committing on the ground because some advisors believed the North Koreans could be stopped by air and naval power alone. Also, it was still uncertain if this was a clever ploy by the Soviet Union to catch the US unawares or just a test of US resolve. The decision to commit ground troops and to intervene eventually became viable when a communiqué was received on 27 June from the Soviet Union that alluded it would not move against US forces in Korea. "This opened the way for the sending of American ground forces, for it now seemed less likely that a general war—with Korea as a preliminary diversion—was imminent". With the Soviet Union’s tacit agreement that this would not cause an escalation, the United States now could intervene with confidence that other commitments would not be jeopardized.

United Nations Security Council Resolutions

On 25 June 1950, the United Nations Security Council unanimously condemned the North Korean invasion of the Republic of Korea, with United Nations Security Council Resolution 82. The USSR, a veto-wielding power, had boycotted the Council meetings since January 1950, protesting that the Republic of China (Taiwan), not the People's Republic of China, held a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. After debating the matter, the Security Council, on 27 June 1950, published Resolution 83 recommending member states provide military assistance to the Republic of Korea. On 27 June President Truman ordered US air and sea forces to help the South Korean régime. On 4 July the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister accused the US of starting armed intervention on behalf of South Korea.

The USSR challenged the legitimacy of the war for several reasons. The ROK Army intelligence upon which Resolution 83 was based came from US Intelligence; North Korea was not invited as a sitting temporary member of the UN, which violated UN Charter Article 32; and the Korean conflict was beyond UN Charter scope, because the initial north–south border fighting was classed as a civil war. The Soviet representative boycotted the UN to prevent Security Council action, and to challenge the legitimacy of the UN action; legal scholars posited that deciding upon an action of this type required the unanimous vote of the five permanent members.

Comparison of military forces

The North Korean Army launched the "Fatherland Liberation War" with a comprehensive air–land invasion using 231,000 soldiers, who captured scheduled objectives and territory, among them Kaesong, Chuncheon, Uijeongbu, and Ongjin. Their forces included 274 T-34-85 tanks, some 150 Yak fighters, 110 attack bombers, 200 artillery pieces, 78 Yak trainers, and 35 reconnaissance aircraft. In addition to the invasion force, the North Korean KPA had 114 fighters, 78 bombers, 105 T-34-85 tanks, and some 30,000 soldiers stationed in reserve in North Korea. Although each navy consisted of only several small warships, the North Korean and South Korean navies fought in the war as sea-borne artillery for their in-country armies.

In contrast, the ROK Army defenders were vastly unprepared, and the political establishment in the south, while well aware of the threat to the north, were unable to convince American administrators of the reality of the threat. In ''South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu'' (1961), R.E. Appleman reports the ROK forces' low combat readiness as of 25 June 1950. The ROK Army had 98,000 soldiers (65,000 combat, 33,000 support), no tanks (they had been requested from the US military, but requests were denied), and a 22–piece air force comprising 12 liaison-type and 10 AT6 advanced-trainer airplanes. There were no large foreign military garrisons in Korea at invasion time, but there were large US garrisons and air forces in Japan.

Within days of the invasion, masses of ROK Army soldiers—of dubious loyalty to the Syngman Rhee régime—were either retreating southwards or were defecting en masse to the northern side, the KPA.

United Nations response (July – August 1950)

Despite the rapid post–Second World War Allied demobilizations, there were substantial US forces occupying Japan; under General Douglas MacArthur's command, they could be made ready to fight the North Koreans. Only the British Commonwealth had comparable forces in the area.

On Saturday, 24 June 1950, US Secretary of State Dean Acheson informed President Truman by telephone, "Mr. President, I have very serious news. The North Koreans have invaded South Korea." Truman and Acheson discussed a US invasion response with defense department principals, who agreed that the United States was obligated to repel military aggression, paralleling it with Adolf Hitler's 1930s aggressions, and said that the mistake of appeasement must not be repeated. In his autobiography, President Truman acknowledged that fighting the invasion was essential to the American goal of the global containment of communism as outlined in the National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68) (declassified in 1975):

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President Truman announced that the US would counter "unprovoked aggression" and "vigorously support the effort of the [UN] security council to terminate this serious breach of peace." Because the US had sent the Seventh Fleet to "neutralize" the Taiwan Strait, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai criticized both the UN and US initiatives as "armed aggression on Chinese territory."

The Battle of Osan, the first significant American engagement of the Korean War, involved the 540-soldier Task Force Smith, which was a small forward element of the 24th Infantry Division. On 5 July 1950, Task Force Smith attacked the North Koreans at Osan but without weapons capable of destroying the North Koreans' tanks. They were unsuccessful; the result was 180 dead, wounded, or taken prisoner. The KPA progressed southwards, pushing back the US force at Pyongtaek, Chonan, and Chochiwon, forcing the 24th Division's retreat to Taejeon, which the KPA captured in the Battle of Taejon; the 24th Division suffered 3,602 dead and wounded and 2,962 captured, including the Division's Commander, Major General William F. Dean. Overhead, the KPAF shot down 18 USAF fighters and 29 bombers; the USAF shot down five KPAF fighters.

By August, the KPA had pushed back the ROK Army and the Eighth United States Army to the vicinity of Pusan, in southeast Korea. In their southward advance, the KPA purged the Republic of Korea's intelligentsia by killing civil servants and intellectuals. On 20 August, General MacArthur warned North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung that he was responsible for the KPA's atrocities. By September, the UN Command controlled only the Pusan perimeter, enclosing only about 10% of Korea, in a line partially defined by the Nakdong River.

Although Kim's early successes had led him to predict that he would end the war by the end of August, Chinese leaders were more pessimistic. To counter the possibility of American invasion, Zhou Enlai secured a Soviet commitment to have the USSR support Chinese forces with air cover, and deployed 260,000 soldiers along the Korean border, under the command of Gao Gang. Zhou commanded Chai Chengwen to conduct a topographical survey of Korea, and directed Lei Yingfu, Zhou's military advisor in Korea, to analyze the military situation in Korea. Lei concluded that Macarthur would most likely attempt a landing at Incheon. After conferring with Mao that this would be MacArthur's most likely strategy, Zhou briefed Soviet and North Korean advisers of Lei's findings, and issued orders to Chinese army commanders deployed on the Korean border to prepare for American naval activity in the Korea Strait.

Escalation (August – September 1950)

In the resulting Battle of Pusan Perimeter (August–September 1950), the US Army withstood KPA attacks meant to capture the city at the Naktong Bulge, P'ohang-dong, and Taegu. The United States Air Force (USAF) interrupted KPA logistics with 40 daily ground support sorties that destroyed 32 bridges, halting most daytime road and rail traffic. KPA forces were forced to hide in tunnels by day and move only at night. To deny materiel to the KPA, the USAF destroyed logistics depots, petroleum refineries, and harbors, while the US Navy air forces attacked transport hubs. Consequently, the over-extended KPA could not be supplied throughout the south.

Meanwhile, US garrisons in Japan continually dispatched soldiers and materiel to reinforce defenders in the Pusan Perimeter. Tank battalions deployed to Korea directly from the United States mainland from the port of San Francisco to the port of Pusan, the largest Korean port. By late August, the Pusan Perimeter had some 500 medium tanks battle ready. In early September 1950, ROK Army and UN Command forces outnumbered the KPA 180,000 to 100,000 soldiers. The UN forces, once prepared, counterattacked and broke out of the Pusan Perimeter.

Battle of Inchon (September 1950)

Against the rested and re-armed Pusan Perimeter defenders and their reinforcements, the KPA were undermanned and poorly supplied; unlike the UN Command, they lacked naval and air support. To relieve the Pusan Perimeter, General MacArthur recommended an amphibious landing at Inchon, well over behind the KPA lines. On 6 July, he ordered Major General Hobart R. Gay, Commander, 1st Cavalry Division, to plan the division's amphibious landing at Incheon; on 12–14 July, the 1st Cavalry Division embarked from Yokohama, Japan to reinforce the 24th Infantry Division inside the Pusan Perimeter.

Soon after the war began, General MacArthur had begun planning a landing at Incheon, but the Pentagon opposed him. When authorized, he activated a combined United States Army, United States Marine Corps, and ROK Army force. The X Corps, led by General Edward Almond, Commander, consisted of 40,000 men of the 1st Marine Division, the 7th Infantry Division and around 8,600 ROK Army soldiers. By the 15 September attack date, the amphibious assault force faced few KPA defenders at Incheon: military intelligence, psychological warfare, guerrilla reconnaissance, and protracted bombardment facilitated a relatively light battle. However, the bombardment destroyed most of the city of Incheon.

After the Incheon landing the 1st Cavalry Division began its northward advance from the Pusan Perimeter. "Task Force Lynch"—3rd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, and two 70th Tank Battalion units (Charlie Company and the Intelligence–Reconnaissance Platoon)— effected the "Pusan Perimeter Breakout" through of enemy territory to join the 7th Infantry Division at Osan. The X Corps rapidly defeated the KPA defenders around Seoul, thus threatening to trap the main KPA force in Southern Korea,.

On 18 September Stalin dispatched General H.M. Zakharov to Korea to advise Kim Il-sung to halt his offensive around the Pusan perimeter and to redeploy his forces to defend Seoul. Chinese commanders were not briefed on North Korean troop numbers or operational plans. As the overall commander of Chinese forces, Zhou Enlai suggested that the North Koreans should attempt to eliminate the enemy forces at Inchon only if they had reserves of at least 100,000 men; otherwise, he advised the North Koreans to withdraw their forces north.

On 25 September Seoul was recaptured by South Korean forces. American air raids caused heavy damage to the KPA, destroying most of its tanks and much of its artillery. North Korean troops in the south, instead of effectively withdrawing north, rapidly disintegrated, leaving Pyongyang vulnerable. During the general retreat only 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers managed to rejoin the Northern KPA lines. On 27 September Stalin convened an emergency session of the Politburo, in which he condemned the incompetence of the KPA command and held Soviet military advisers responsible for the defeat.

UN forces cross partition line (September – October 1950)

On 27 September, MacArthur received the top secret National Security Council Memorandum 81/1 from Truman reminding him that operations north of the 38th parallel were authorized only if "at the time of such operation there was no entry into North Korea by major Soviet or Chinese Communist forces, no announcements of intended entry, nor a threat to counter our operations militarily..." On 29 September MacArthur restored the government of the Republic of Korea under Syngman Rhee. On 30 September, Defense Secretary George Marshall sent an eyes-only message to MacArthur: "We want you to feel unhampered tactically and strategically to proceed north of the 38th parallel."

On 30 September Zhou Enlai warned the United States that it was prepared to intervene in Korea if the United States crossed the 38th parallel. Zhou attempted to advise North Korean commanders on how to conduct a general withdrawal by using the same tactics which had allowed Chinese communist forces to successfully escape Chiang Kai-shek's Encirclement Campaigns in the 1930s. North Korean commanders did not utilize these tactics effectively.

By 1 October 1950, the UN Command repelled the KPA northwards, past the 38th parallel; the ROK Army crossed after them, into North Korea. MacArthur made a statement demanding the KPA's unconditional surrender. Six days later, on 7 October, with UN authorization, the UN Command forces followed the ROK forces northwards. The X Corps landed at Wonsan (in southeastern North Korea) and Riwon (in northeastern North Korea), already captured by ROK forces. The Eighth United States Army and the ROK Army drove up western Korea and captured Pyongyang city, the North Korean capital, on 19 October 1950. The 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team ("Rakkasans") made their first of the only two combat jumps during the Korean War on 20 October 1950 at Sunchon and Sukchon, North Korea. The missions of the 187th were to cut the road north going to China, preventing North Korean leaders from escaping from Pyongyang; and to rescue American prisoners of war. At month's end, UN forces held 135,000 KPA prisoners of war.

Taking advantage of the UN Command's strategic momentum against the communists, General MacArthur believed it necessary to extend the Korean War into China to destroy depots supplying the North Korean war effort. President Truman disagreed, and ordered caution at the Sino-Korean border.

China intervenes (October – December 1950)

On 27 June 1950, two days after the KPA invaded and three months before the Chinese entered the war, President Truman dispatched the United States Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait, to protect the Nationalist Republic of China (Taiwan) from the People's Republic of China (PRC). On 4 August 1950, with the PRC invasion of Taiwan aborted, Mao Zedong reported to the Politburo that he would intervene in Korea when the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Taiwan invasion force was reorganized into the PLA North East Frontier Force.

On 20 August 1950, Premier Zhou Enlai informed the United Nations that "Korea is China's neighbor... The Chinese people cannot but be concerned about a solution of the Korean question". Thus, via neutral-country diplomats, China warned that in safeguarding Chinese national security, they would intervene against the UN Command in Korea. President Truman interpreted the communication as "a bald attempt to blackmail the UN", and dismissed it.

1 October 1950, the day that UN troops crossed the 38th parallel, was also the first anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. On that day the Soviet ambassador forwarded a telegram from Stalin to Mao and Zhou requesting that China send five to six divisions into Korea, and Kim Il-sung sent frantic appeals to Mao to request Chinese military intervention. At the same time, Stalin made it clear that Soviet forces themselves would not directly intervene.

In a series of emergency meetings that lasted from 2–5 October, Chinese leaders debated whether to send Chinese troops into Korea. There was considerable resistance among many leaders, including senior military leaders, to confronting the United States in Korea. Mao strongly supported intervention, and Zhou was one of the few Chinese leaders who firmly supported him. After General Lin Biao refused Mao's offer to command Chinese forces in Korea (citing poor health), Mao called General Peng Dehuai to Beijing to hear his views. After listening to both sides' arguments, Peng supported Mao's position, and the Politburo agreed to intervene in Korea. Later, the Chinese claimed that US bombers had violated PRC national airspace while en route to bomb North Korea ''before'' China intervened. On 8 October 1950, Mao Zedong redesignated the PLA North East Frontier Force as the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (PVA).

In order to enlist Stalin's support, Zhou traveled to Stalin's summer resort on the Black Sea on 10 October. Stalin initially agreed to send military equipment and ammunition, but warned Zhou that the USSR's air force would need two or three months to prepare any operations. In a subsequent meeting, Stalin told Zhou that he would only provide China with equipment on a credit basis, and that the Soviet air force would only operate over Chinese airspace, and only after an undisclosed period of time. Stalin did not agree to send either military equipment or air support until March 1951. Mao did not find Soviet air support especially useful, as the fighting was going to take place on the south side of the Yalu. Soviet shipments of materiel, when they did arrive, were limited to small quantities of trucks, grenades, machine guns, and the like.

Immediately on his return to Beijing on 18 October 1950, Zhou met with Mao Zedong, Peng Dehuai, and Gao Gang, and the group ordered two hundred thousand Chinese troops to enter North Korea, which they did on 25 October. After consulting with Stalin, on 13 November, Mao appointed Zhou the overall commander and coordinator of the war effort, with Peng as field commander. Orders given by Zhou were delivered in the name of the Central Military Commission.

UN aerial reconnaissance had difficulty sighting PVA units in daytime, because their march and bivouac discipline minimized aerial detection. The PVA marched "dark-to-dark" (19:00–03:00), and aerial camouflage (concealing soldiers, pack animals, and equipment) was deployed by 05:30. Meanwhile, daylight advance parties scouted for the next bivouac site. During daylight activity or marching, soldiers were to remain motionless if an aircraft appeared, until it flew away; PVA officers were under order to shoot security violators. Such battlefield discipline allowed a three-division army to march the from An-tung, Manchuria to the combat zone in some 19 days. Another division night-marched a circuitous mountain route, averaging daily for 18 days.

Meanwhile, on 10 October 1950, the 89th Tank Battalion was attached to the 1st Cavalry Division, increasing the armor available for the Northern Offensive. On 15 October, after moderate KPA resistance, the 7th Cavalry Regiment and Charlie Company, 70th Tank Battalion captured Namchonjam city. On 17 October, they flanked rightwards, away from the principal road (to Pyongyang), to capture Hwangju. Two days later, the 1st Cavalry Division captured Pyongyang, the North's capital city, on 19 October 1950.

On 15 October 1950, President Truman and General MacArthur met at Wake Island in the mid-Pacific Ocean. This meeting was much publicized because of the General's discourteous refusal to meet the President on the continental US. To President Truman, MacArthur speculated there was little risk of Chinese intervention in Korea, and that the PRC's opportunity for aiding the KPA had lapsed. He believed the PRC had some 300,000 soldiers in Manchuria, and some 100,000–125,000 soldiers at the Yalu River. He further concluded that, although half of those forces might cross south, "if the Chinese tried to get down to Pyongyang, there would be the greatest slaughter" without air force protection.

After secretly crossing the Yalu River on 19 October, the PVA 13th Army Group launched the First Phase Offensive on 25 October, attacking the advancing UN forces near the Sino-Korean border. After decimating the ROK II Corps at the Battle of Onjong, the first confrontation between Chinese and US military occurred on 1 November 1950; deep in North Korea, thousands of soldiers from the PVA 39th Army encircled and attacked the US 8th Cavalry Regiment with three-prong assaults—from the north, northwest, and west—and overran the defensive position flanks in the Battle of Unsan. The surprise assault resulted in the UN forces retreating back to the Ch'ongch'on River, while the Chinese unexpectedly disappeared into mountain hideouts following victory. It is unclear why the Chinese did not press the attack and follow-up their victory.

The UN Command, however, were unconvinced that the Chinese had openly intervened due to the sudden Chinese withdrawal. On 24 November, the Home-by-Christmas Offensive was launched with the US Eighth Army advancing in northwest Korea, while the US X Corps were attacking along the Korean east coast. But the Chinese were waiting in ambush with their Second Phase Offensive.

On 25 November at the Korean western front, the PVA 13th Army Group attacked and over-ran the ROK II Corps at the Battle of the Ch'ongch'on River, and then decimated the US 2nd Infantry Division on the UN forces' right flank. The UN Command retreated; the US Eighth Army's retreat (the longest in US Army history) was made possible because of the Turkish Brigade's successful, but very costly, rear-guard delaying action near Kunuri that slowed the PVA attack for two days (27–9 November). On 27 November at the Korean eastern front, a US 7th Infantry Division Regimental Combat Team (3,000 soldiers) and the US 1st Marine Division (12,000–15,000 marines) were unprepared for the PVA 9th Army Group's three-pronged encirclement tactics at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, but they managed to escape under Air Force and X Corps support fire—albeit with some 15,000 collective casualties.

By 30 November, the PVA 13th Army Group managed to expel the US Eighth Army from northwest Korea. Retreating from the north faster than they had counter-invaded, the Eighth Army crossed the 38th parallel border in mid December. The UN morale hit rock bottom when commanding General Walton Walker of the US Eighth Army was killed on 23 December 1950 in an automobile accident. In the northeast Korea by 11 December, the US X Corps managed to cripple the PVA 9th Army Group while establishing a defensive perimeter at the port city of Hungnam. The X Corps were forced to evacuate by 24 December in order to reinforce the badly depleted US Eighth Army to the south.

During the Hungnam evacuation, about 193 shiploads of UN Command forces and materiel (approximately 105,000 soldiers, 98,000 civilians, 17,500 vehicles, and 350,000 tons of supplies) were evacuated to Pusan. The ''SS Meredith Victory'' was noted for evacuating 14,000 refugees, the largest rescue operation by a single ship, even though it was designed to hold only 12 passengers. Before escaping, the UN Command forces razed most of Hungnam city, especially the port facilities; and on 16 December 1950, President Truman declared a national emergency with Presidential Proclamation No. 2914, 3 C.F.R. 99 (1953), which remained in force until 14 September 1978.

Fighting around the 38th parallel (January – June 1951)

With Lieutenant-General Matthew Ridgway assuming the command of the US Eighth Army on 26 December, the PVA and the KPA launched their Third Phase Offensive (also known as the "Chinese New Year's Offensive") on New Year's Eve of 1950. Utilizing night attacks in which UN Command fighting positions were encircled and then assaulted by numerically superior troops who had the element of surprise. The attacks were accompanied by loud trumpets and gongs, which fulfilled the double purpose of facilitating tactical communication and mentally disorienting the enemy. UN forces initially had no familiarity with this tactic, and as a result some soldiers "bugged out," abandoning their weapons and retreating to the south. The Chinese New Year's Offensive overwhelmed UN forces, allowing the PVA and KPA to conquer Seoul for the second time on 4 January 1951. These setbacks prompted General MacArthur to consider using nuclear weapons against the Chinese or North Korean interiors, intending radioactive fallout zones would interrupt the Chinese supply chains. However, upon the arrival of the charismatic General Ridgway, the ''esprit de corps'' of the bloodied Eighth Army immediately began to revive.

UN forces retreated to Suwon in the west, Wonju in the center, and the territory north of Samcheok in the east, where the battlefront stabilized and held. The PVA had outrun its logistics capability and thus was forced to recoil from pressing the attack beyond Seoul; food, ammunition, and materiel were carried nightly, on foot and bicycle, from the border at the Yalu River to the three battle lines. In late January, upon finding that the PVA had abandoned their battle lines, General Ridgway ordered a reconnaissance-in-force, which became ''Operation Roundup'' (5 February 1951). A full-scale X Corps advance gradually proceeded while fully exploiting the UN Command's air superiority, concluded with the UN reaching the Han River and recapturing Wonju near Seoul.

In mid-February, the PVA counterattacked with the Fourth Phase Offensive and achieved initial victory at Hoengseong. But the offensive was soon blunted by the IX Corps positions at Chipyong-ni in the center. Units of the US 2nd Infantry Division and the French Battalion fought a short but desperate battle that broke the attack's momentum. The battle is sometimes known as the Gettysburg of the Korean War. The battle saw 5,600 Korean, American and French defeat a numerically superior Chinese force. Surrounded on all sides, the US 2nd Infantry Division Warrior Division’s 23rd Regimental Combat Team with an attached French Battalion was hemmed in by more than 25,000 Chinese Communist Forces. United Nations Forces had previously retreated in the face of large Communist forces instead of getting cut off, but this time they stood and fought. The allies fought at odds of roughly 15 to 1.

In the last two weeks of February 1951, ''Operation Roundup'' was followed by ''Operation Killer'', carried out by the revitalized Eighth Army. It was a full-scale, battlefront-length attack staged for maximum exploitation of firepower to kill as many KPA and PVA troops as possible. ''Operation Killer'' concluded with I Corps re-occupying the territory south of the Han River, and IX Corps capturing Hoengseong. On 7 March 1951, the Eighth Army attacked with ''Operation Ripper'', expelling the PVA and the KPA from Seoul on 14 March 1951. This was the city's fourth conquest in a years' time, leaving it a ruin; the 1.5 million pre-war population was down to 200,000, and people were suffering from severe food shortages.

On 1 March 1951 Mao sent a cable to Stalin, in which he emphasized the difficulties faced by Chinese forces and the urgent need for air cover, especially over supply lines. Apparently impressed by the Chinese war effort, Stalin finally agreed to supply two air force divisions, three anti-aircraft divisions, and six thousand trucks. PVA troops in Korea continued to suffer severe logistical problems throughout the war. In late April Peng Dehuai sent his deputy, Hong Xuezhi, to brief Zhou Enlai in Beijing. What Chinese soldiers feared, Hong said, was not the enemy, but that they had nothing to eat, no bullets to shoot, and no trucks to transport them to the rear when they were wounded. Zhou attempted to respond to the PVA's logistical concerns by increasing Chinese production and improving methods of supply, but these efforts were never completely sufficient. At the same time, large-scale air defense training programs were carried out, and the Chinese Air Force began to participate in the war from September 1951 onward.

On 11 April 1951, Commander-in-Chief Truman relieved the controversial General MacArthur, the Supreme Commander in Korea. There were several reasons for the dismissal. MacArthur had crossed the 38th parallel in the mistaken belief that the Chinese would not enter the war, leading to major allied losses. He believed that whether or not to use nuclear weapons should be his own decision, not the President's. MacArthur threatened to destroy China unless it surrendered. While MacArthur felt total victory was the only honorable outcome, Truman was more pessimistic about his chances once involved in a land war in Asia, and felt a truce and orderly withdrawal from Korea could be a valid solution. MacArthur was the subject of congressional hearings in May and June 1951, which determined that he had defied the orders of the President and thus had violated the US Constitution. A popular criticism of MacArthur was that he never spent a night in Korea, and directed the war from the safety of Tokyo.

General Ridgway was appointed Supreme Commander, Korea; he regrouped the UN forces for successful counterattacks, while General James Van Fleet assumed command of the US Eighth Army. Further attacks slowly depleted the PVA and KPA forces; Operations ''Courageous'' (23–28 March 1951) and ''Tomahawk'' (23 March 1951) were a joint ground and airborne infilltration meant to trap Chinese forces between Kaesong and Seoul. UN forces advanced to "Line Kansas," north of the 38th parallel. The 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team ("Rakkasans") second of two combat jumps were on Easter Sunday, 1951 at Munsan-ni, South Korea codenamed Operation Tomahawk. The mission was to get behind Chinese forces and block their movement north. The 60th Indian Parachute Field Ambulance provided the medical cover for the operations, dropping an ADS and a surgical team and treating over 400 battle casualties apart from the civilian casualties that formed the core of their objective as the unit was on a humanitarian mission.

The Chinese counterattacked in April 1951, with the Fifth Phase Offensive (also known as the "Chinese Spring Offensive") with three field armies (approximately 700,000 men). The offensive's first thrust fell upon I Corps, which fiercely resisted in the Battle of the Imjin River (22–25 April 1951) and the Battle of Kapyong (22–25 April 1951), blunting the impetus of the offensive, which was halted at the "No-name Line" north of Seoul. On 15 May 1951, the Chinese commenced the second impulse of the Spring Offensive and attacked the ROK Army and the US X Corps in the east. After initial success, they were halted by 20 May. At month's end, the US Eighth Army counterattacked and regained "Line Kansas," just north of the 38th parallel. The UN's "Line Kansas" halt and subsequent offensive action stand-down began the stalemate that lasted until the armistice of 1953.

Stalemate (July 1951 – July 1953)

For the remainder of the Korean War the UN Command and the PVA fought, but exchanged little territory; the stalemate held. Large-scale bombing of North Korea continued, and protracted armistice negotiations began 10 July 1951 at Kaesong. On the Chinese side, Zhou Enlai directed peace talks, and Li Kenong and Qiao Guanghua headed the negotiation team. Combat continued while the belligerents negotiated; the UN Command forces' goal was to recapture all of South Korea and to avoid losing territory. The PVA and the KPA attempted similar operations, and later effected military and psychological operations in order to test the UN Command's resolve to continue the war.

The principal battles of the stalemate include the Battle of Bloody Ridge (18 August – 15 September 1951), the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge (13 September – 15 October 1951), the Battle of Old Baldy (26 June – 4 August 1952), the Battle of White Horse (6–15 October 1952), the Battle of Triangle Hill (14 October – 25 November 1952), the Battle of Hill Eerie (21 March – 21 June 1952), the sieges of Outpost Harry (10–8 June 1953), the Battle of the Hook (28–9 May 1953) and the Battle of Pork Chop Hill (23 March – 16 July 1953).

Chinese troops suffered from deficient military equipment, serious logistical problems, overextended communication and supply lines, and the constant threat of UN bombers. All of these factors generally led to a rate of Chinese casualties that was far greater than the casualties suffered by UN troops. The situation became so serious that, on November 1951, Zhou Enlai called a conference in Shenyang to discuss the PVA's logistical problems. At the meeting it was decided to accelerate the construction of railways and airfields in the area, to increase the number of trucks available the army, and to improve air defense by any means possible. These commitments did little to directly address the problems confronting PVA troops.

In the months after the Shanyang conference Peng Dehuai went to Beijing several times to brief Mao and Zhou about the heavy casualties suffered by Chinese troops and the increasing difficulty of keeping the front lines supplied with basic necessities. Peng was convinced that the war would be protracted, and that neither side would be able to achieve victory in the foreseeable future. On 24 February 1952, the Military Commission, presided over by Zhou, discussed the PVA's logistical problems with members of various government agencies involved in the war effort. After the government representatives emphasized their inability to meet the demands of the war, Peng, in an angry outburst, shouted: "You have this and that problem... You should go to the front and see with your own eyes what food and clothing the soldiers have! Not to speak of the casualties! For what are they giving their lives? We have no aircraft. We have only a few guns. Transports are not protected. More and more soldiers are dying of starvation. Can't you overcome some of your difficulties?" The atmosphere became so tense that Zhou was forced to adjourn the conference. Zhou subsequently called a series of meetings, where it was agreed that the PVA would be divided into three groups, to be dispatched to Korea in shifts; to accelerate the training of Chinese pilots, to provide more anti-aircraft guns to the front lines; to purchase more military equipment and ammunition from the Soviet Union; to provide the army with more food and clothing; and, to transfer the responsibility of logistics to the central government.

Armistice (July 1953 – November 1954)

The on again, off again armistice negotiations continued for two years, first at Kaesong (southern North Korea), then relocated at Panmunjom (bordering the Koreas). A major, problematic negotiation point was prisoner of war (POW) repatriation. The PVA, KPA, and UN Command could not agree on a system of repatriation because many PVA and KPA soldiers refused to be repatriated back to the north, which was unacceptable to the Chinese and North Koreans. In the final armistice agreement, a Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission was set up to handle the matter.

In 1952 the US elected a new president, and on 29 November 1952, the president-elect, Dwight D. Eisenhower, went to Korea to learn what might end the Korean War. With the United Nations' acceptance of India's proposed Korean War armistice, the KPA, the PVA, and the UN Command ceased fire with the battle line approximately at the 38th parallel. Upon agreeing to the armistice, the belligerents established the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which has since been patrolled by the KPA and ROKA, US, and Joint UN Commands.

The Demilitarized Zone runs northeast of the 38th parallel; to the south, it travels west. The old Korean capital city of Kaesong, site of the armistice negotiations, originally lay in the pre-war ROK, but now is in the DPRK. The United Nations Command, supported by the United States, the North Korean Korean People's Army, and the Chinese People's Volunteers, signed the Armistice Agreement on 27 July 1953 to end the fighting. The Armistice also called upon the governments of South Korea, North Korea, China and the United States to participate in continued peace talks. For his part, ROK President Rhee attacked the peace proceedings. The war is considered to have ended at this point, even though there was no peace treaty. North Korea nevertheless claims that it won the Korean War.

After the war, Operation Glory (July–November 1954) was conducted to allow combatant countries to exchange their dead. The remains of 4,167 US Army and US Marine Corps dead were exchanged for 13,528 KPA and PVA dead, and 546 civilians dead in UN prisoner-of-war camps were delivered to the ROK government. After Operation Glory, 416 Korean War unknown soldiers were buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (The Punchbowl), on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) records indicate that the PRC and the DPRK transmitted 1,394 names, of which 858 were correct. From 4,167 containers of returned remains, forensic examination identified 4,219 individuals. Of these, 2,944 were identified as American, and all but 416 were identified by name. From 1996 to 2006, the DPRK recovered 220 remains near the Sino-Korean border.

Division of Korea (1954–present)

The Korean Armistice Agreement provided for monitoring by an international commission. Since 1953, the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC) composed of members from the Swiss and Swedish Armed Forces has been stationed near the DMZ.

At the same time, there have been numerous incursions and acts of aggression from North Korea across the border, most notably the axe murder incident of 1976. Four infiltration tunnels leading to Seoul have been uncovered. In 2010, North Korea fired artillery shells on Yeonpyeong island, killing two military personnel and two civilians.

Characteristics

Casualties

According to the data from the US Department of Defense, the United States had suffered 33,686 battle deaths, along with 2,830 non-battle deaths during the Korean War and 8,176 missing in action. Western sources estimate the PVA had suffered between 100,000 to 1,500,000 deaths (most estimate some 400,000 killed), while the KPA had suffered between 214,000 to 520,000 deaths (most estimate some 500,000). Between some 245,000 to 415,000 South Korean civilian deaths were also suggested, and the entire civilian casualty during the war were estimated from 1,500,000 to 3,000,000 (most sources estimate some 2,000,000 killed).

Data from official Chinese sources, on the other hand, reported that the PVA had suffered 114,000 battle deaths, 34,000 non-battle deaths, 340,000 wounded, 7,600 missing and 21,400 captured during the war. Among those captured, about 14,000 defected to Taiwan while the other 7,110 were repatriated to China. Chinese sources also reported that North Korea had suffered 290,000 casualties, 90,000 captured and a "large" number of civilian deaths. In return, the Chinese and North Koreans estimated that about 390,000 soldiers from United States, 660,000 soldiers from South Korea and 29,000 other UN soldiers were "eliminated" from the battlefield.

Armored warfare

Initially, North Korean armor dominated the battlefield with Soviet T-34-85 medium tanks designed during the Second World War. The KPA's tanks confronted a tankless ROK Army armed with few modern anti-tank weapons, including American World War II–model 2.36-inch (60 mm) M9 bazookas, effective only against the 45 mm side armor of the T-34-85 tank. The US forces arriving in Korea were equipped with light M24 Chaffee tanks (on occupation duty in nearby Japan) that also proved ineffective against the heavier KPA T-34 tanks.

During the initial hours of warfare, some under-equipped ROK Army border units used American 105 mm howitzers as anti-tank guns to stop the tanks heading the KPA columns, firing high-explosive anti-tank ammunition (HEAT) over open sights to good effect; at the war's start, the ROK Army had 91 howitzers, but lost most to the invaders.

Countering the initial combat imbalance, the UN Command reinforcement materiel included heavier US M4 Sherman, M26 Pershing, M46 Patton, and British Cromwell and Centurion tanks that proved effective against North Korean armor, ending its battlefield dominance. Unlike in the Second World War (1939–45), in which the tank proved a decisive weapon, the Korean War featured few large-scale tank battles. The mountainous, heavily forested terrain prevented large masses of tanks from maneuvering. In Korea, tanks served largely as infantry support and mobile artillery pieces.

Aerial warfare

The Korean War was the first war in which jet aircraft played a central role. Once-formidable fighters such as the P-51 Mustang, F4U Corsair, and Hawker Sea Fury—all piston-engined, propeller-driven, and designed during World War II—relinquished their air superiority roles to a new generation of faster, jet-powered fighters arriving in the theater. For the initial months of the war, the P-80 Shooting Star, F9F Panther, and other jets under the UN flag dominated North Korea's prop-driven air force of Soviet Yakovlev Yak-9 and Lavochkin La-9s. The balance would shift with the arrival of the swept wing Soviet MiG-15 Fagot.

The Chinese intervention in late October 1950 bolstered the Korean People's Air Force (KPAF) of North Korea with the MiG-15 Fagot, one of the world's most advanced jet fighters. The fast, heavily armed MiG outflew first-generation UN jets such as the American F-80 and Australian and British Gloster Meteors, posing a real threat to B-29 Superfortress bombers even under fighter escort. Soviet Air Force pilots flew missions for the North to learn the West's aerial combat techniques. This direct Soviet participation is a ''casus belli'' that the UN Command deliberately overlooked, lest the war for the Korean peninsula expand, as the US initially feared, to include three communist countries—North Korea, the Soviet Union, and China—and so escalate to atomic warfare.

The USAF moved quickly to counter the MiG-15, with three squadrons of its most capable fighter, the F-86 Sabre, arriving in December 1950. Although the MiG's higher service ceiling— vs. —could be advantageous at the start of a dogfight, in level flight, both swept wing designs attained comparable maximum speeds of around . The MiG climbed faster, but the Sabre turned and dived better. The MiG was armed with one 37 mm and two 23 mm cannons, while the Sabre carried six .50 caliber (12.7 mm) machine guns aimed with radar-ranged gunsights.

By early 1951, the battle lines were established and changed little until 1953. In summer and autumn 1951, the outnumbered Sabres of the USAF's 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing—only 44 at one point—continued seeking battle in MiG Alley, where the Yalu River marks the Chinese border, against Chinese and North Korean air forces capable of deploying some 500 aircraft. Following Colonel Harrison Thyng's communication with the Pentagon, the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing finally reinforced the beleaguered 4th Wing in December 1951; for the next year-and-a-half stretch of the war, aerial warfare continued.

UN forces gradually gained air superiority in the Korean theater. This was decisive for the UN: first, for attacking into the peninsular north, and second, for resisting the Chinese intervention. North Korea and China also had jet-powered air forces; their limited training and experience made it strategically untenable to lose them against the better-trained UN air forces. Thus, the US and USSR fed materiel to the war, battling by proxy and finding themselves virtually matched, technologically, when the USAF deployed the F-86F against the MiG-15 late in 1952.

After the war, and to the present day, the USAF reports an F-86 Sabre kill ratio in excess of 10:1, with 792 MiG-15s and 108 other aircraft shot down by Sabres, and 78 Sabres lost to enemy fire. An uncited alternative source claims only 379 Sabre kills. The Soviet Air Force reported some 1,100 air-to-air victories and 335 MiG combat losses, while China's People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) reported 231 combat losses, mostly MiG-15s, and 168 other aircraft lost. The KPAF reported no data, but the UN Command estimates some 200 KPAF aircraft lost in the war's first stage, and 70 additional aircraft after the Chinese intervention. The USAF disputes Soviet and Chinese claims of 650 and 211 downed F-86s, respectively, as more recent US figures state only 230 losses out of 674 F-86s deployed to Korea. The differing tactical roles of the F-86 and MiG-15 may have contributed to the disparity in losses: MiG-15s primarily targeted B-29 bombers and ground-attack fighter-bombers, while F-86s targeted the MiGs.

The Korean War marked a major milestone not only for fixed-wing aircraft, but also for rotorcraft, featuring the first large-scale deployment of helicopters for medical evacuation (medevac). In 1944–1945, during the Second World War, the YR-4 helicopter saw limited ambulance duty, but in Korea, where rough terrain trumped the jeep as a speedy medevac vehicle, helicopters like the Sikorsky H-19 helped reduce fatal casualties to a dramatic degree when combined with complementary medical innovations such as Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals. The limitations of jet aircraft for close air support highlighted the helicopter's potential in the role, leading to development of the AH-1 Cobra and other helicopter gunships used in the Vietnam War (1965–75).

Bombing North Korea

On 12 August 1950 the USAF dropped 625 tons of bombs on North Korea; two weeks later, the daily tonnage increased to some 800 tons. Bruce Cummings, a historian at the University of Chicago, has said that U.S. warplanes dropped more napalm and bombs on North Korea than they did during the whole pacific campaign of WW2.

As a result, eighteen of North Korea's cities were more than 50% destroyed. The war's highest-ranking American POW, US Major General William F. Dean, reported that most of the North Korean cities and villages he saw were either ruins or snow-covered wastelands.

As well as conventional bombing, the Communist side claimed that the USA had used biological weapons.

Naval warfare

Because neither Korea's navies were large, the Korean War featured few naval battles; mostly the combatant navies served as naval artillery for their in-country armies. A skirmish between North Korea and the UN Command occurred on 2 July 1950; the US Navy cruiser USS ''Juneau'', the Royal Navy cruiser HMS ''Jamaica'', and the frigate HMS ''Black Swan'' fought four North Korean torpedo boats and two mortar gunboats, and sank them.

During most of the war, the UN navies patrolled the west and east coasts of North Korea and sank supply and ammunition ships to deny the sea to North Korea. Aside from very occasional gunfire from North Korean shore batteries, the most threat to US and UN navy ships were from magnetic mines the North Koreans employed for defensive purposes.

The USS ''Juneau'' sank ammunition ships that had been present in her previous battle. The last sea battle of the Korean War occurred at Inchon, days before the Battle of Incheon; the ROK ship ''PC 703'' sank a North Korean mine layer in the Battle of Haeju Island, near Inchon. Three other supply ships were sunk by ''PC-703'' two days later in the Yellow Sea.

U.S. threat of atomic warfare

On 5 April 1950, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) issued orders for the retaliatory atomic bombing of Manchurian PRC military bases, if either their armies crossed into Korea or if PRC or KPA bombers attacked Korea from there. The President ordered the transfer of nine Mark 4 nuclear bombs "to the Air Force's Ninth Bomb Group, the designated carrier of the weapons ... [and] signed an order to use them against Chinese and Korean targets", which he never transmitted.

President Truman did not immediately threaten nuclear warfare after the October 1950 Chinese intervention, but, 45 days later, remarked about the possibility of using it after the PVA repelled the UN Command from North Korea.

In ''The Origins of the Korean War'' (1981, 1990), US historian Bruce Cumings reports that in a 30 November 1950 press conference, President Truman's allusions to attacking the KPA with nuclear weapons "was a threat based on contingency planning to use the bomb, rather than the faux pas so many assumed it to be." On 30 November 1950, the USAF Strategic Air Command was ordered to "augment its capacities, and that this should include atomic capabilities."

The Indian Ambassador, K. Madhava Panikkar, reports "that Truman announced that he was thinking of using the atom bomb in Korea. But the Chinese seemed totally unmoved by this threat ... The propaganda against American aggression was stepped up. The 'Aid Korea to resist America' campaign was made the slogan for increased production, greater national integration, and more rigid control over anti-national activities. One could not help feeling that Truman's threat came in very useful to the leaders of the Revolution, to enable them to keep up the tempo of their activities."

President Truman remarked that his government was actively considering using the atomic bomb to end the war in Korea but that only he—the US President—commanded atomic bomb use, and that he had not given authorization. The matter of atomic warfare was solely a US decision, not the collective decision of the UN. Truman met on 4 December 1950 with UK prime minister and Commonwealth spokesman Clement Attlee, French Premier René Pleven, and Foreign Minister Robert Schuman to discuss their worries about atomic warfare and its likely continental expansion. The US's forgoing atomic warfare was not because of "a disinclination by the USSR and PRC to escalate" the Korean War, but because UN allies—notably from the UK, the Commonwealth, and France—were concerned about a geopolitical imbalance rendering NATO defenseless while the US fought China, who then might persuade the USSR to conquer Western Europe.

On 6 December 1950, after the Chinese intervention repelled the UN Command armies from northern North Korea, General J. Lawton Collins (Army Chief of Staff), General MacArthur, Admiral C. Turner Joy, General George E. Stratemeyer, and staff officers Major General Doyle Hickey, Major General Charles A. Willoughby, and Major General Edwin K. Wright, met in Tokyo to plan strategy countering the Chinese intervention; they considered three potential atomic warfare scenarios encompassinging the next weeks and months of warfare.

In the first scenario: If the PVA continued attacking in full and the UN Command is forbidden to blockade and bomb China, and without Nationalist Chinese reinforcements, and without an increase in US forces until April 1951 (four National Guard divisions were due to arrive), then atomic bombs might be used in North Korea.

In the second scenario: If the PVA continued full attacks and the UN Command have blockaded China and have effective aerial reconnaissance and bombing of the Chinese interior, and the Nationalist Chinese soldiers are maximally exploited, and tactical atomic bombing is to hand, then the UN forces could hold positions deep in North Korea.

In the third scenario: if the PRC agreed to not cross the 38th parallel border, General MacArthur recommended UN acceptance of an armistice disallowing PVA and KPA troops south of the parallel, and requiring PVA and KPA guerrillas to withdraw northwards. The US Eighth Army would remain to protect the Seoul–Incheon area, while X Corps would retreat to Pusan. A UN commission should supervise implementation of the armistice.

In 1951, the US escalated closest to atomic warfare in Korea. Because the PRC had deployed new armies to the Sino-Korean frontier, pit crews at the Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, assembled atomic bombs for Korean warfare, "lacking only the essential pit nuclear cores." In October 1951, the US effected ''Operation Hudson Harbor'' to establish nuclear weapons capability. USAF B-29 bombers practised individual bombing runs from Okinawa to North Korea (using dummy nuclear or conventional bombs), coordinated from Yokota Air Base in east-central Japan. ''Hudson Harbor'' tested "actual functioning of all activities which would be involved in an atomic strike, including weapons assembly and testing, leading, ground control of bomb aiming". The bombing run data indicated that atomic bombs would be tactically ineffective against massed infantry, because the "timely identification of large masses of enemy troops was extremely rare."

War crimes

Civilian deaths and massacres

In occupied areas, North Korean Army political officers purged South Korean society of its intelligentsia by assassinating every educated person—academic, governmental, religious—who might lead resistance against the North; the purges continued during the NPA retreat. Immediately after the invasion in June 1950 the South Korean Government ordered the nation-wide "pre-emptive apprehension" of politically suspect or disloyal citizens.

The military police and right-wing paramilitary (civilian) armies executed thousands of left-wing and communist political prisoners at Daejeon Prison and in the Jeju Uprising (1948–49). The Americans on the island documented the events, but never intervened.

US diplomat Gregory Henderson, then in Korea, calculates some 100,000 pro-North political prisoners were killed and buried in mass graves. The South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission has compiled reports of hundreds of thousands of civilian killings before and during the war.

In addition to conventional military operations, North Korean soldiers fought the UN forces by infiltrating guerrillas among refugees. These soldiers disguised as refugees would approach UN forces asking for food and help, then open fire and attack. US troops acted under a "shoot-first-ask-questions-later" policy against any civilian refugee approaching US battlefield positions, a policy that led US Soldiers to kill between 8 and 400 civilians at No Gun Ri (26–29 July 1950) in central Korea because they believed some of the refugees killed to be North Korean soldiers in disguise.

The Korean armies forcibly conscripted available civilian men and women to their war efforts. In ''Statistics of Democide'' (1997), Prof. R. J. Rummel reports that the North Korean Army conscripted some 400,000 South Korean citizens. The South Korean Government reported that the North abducted some 83,000 citizens before the US recaptured Seoul in September 1950; the North says they defected.

Bodo League anti–communist massacre

To outmaneuver a possible fifth column in the Republic of Korea, President Syngman Rhee's régime assassinated its "enemies of the state"—South Koreans who are allegedly communists, pro-North Korea, or leftist—by first imprisoning them for political re-education in the ''Gukmin Bodo Ryeonmaeng'' (National Rehabilitation and Guidance League, also known as the Bodo League). The true purpose of the anti–communist Bodo League, abetted by the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK), was the régime's assassination of some 10,000 to 100,000 "enemies of the state" whom they dumped in trenches, mines, and the sea, before and after the 25 June 1950 North Korean invasion. Contemporary calculations report some 200,000 to 1,200,000. USAMGIK officers were present at one political execution site; at least one US officer sanctioned the mass killings of political prisoners whom the North Koreans would have freed after conquering the peninsular south.

The South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission reports that petitions requesting explanation of the summary execution of leftist South Koreans outnumber, six-to-one, the petitions requesting explanation of the summary execution of rightist South Koreans. These data apply solely to South Korea, because North Korea is not integral to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The father of Bodo League massacre survivor Kim Jong-chol was press-ganged to work with the KPA and later executed by the Rhee Government as a collaborator; his grandparents and a seven-year-old sister also were assassinated. About his experience in Namyangju city, he says:

USAMGIK officers photographed the mass killings at Daejon city in central South Korea, where the Truth Commission believe some 3,000 to 7,000 people were shot and buried in mass graves in early July 1950. Other declassified records report that a US Army Lieutenant Colonel approved the assassination of 3,500 political prisoners by the ROK Army unit to which he was military advisor when the KPA reached the southern port city of Pusan. US diplomats reported having urged the Rhee régime's restraint against its political opponents, and that the USAMGIK, who formally controlled the peninsular south, did not halt the mass assassinations.

Prisoners of war

The US reported that North Korea mistreated prisoners of war: soldiers were beaten, starved, put to forced labor, marched to death, and summarily executed.

The KPA killed POWs at the battles for Hill 312, Hill 303, the Pusan Perimeter, and Daejeon—discovered during early after-battle mop-up actions by the UN forces. Later, a US Congress war crimes investigation, the ''United States Senate Subcommittee on Korean War Atrocities of the Permanent Subcommittee of the Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations'' reported that "... two-thirds of all American prisoners of war in Korea died as a result of war crimes".

Although the Chinese rarely executed prisoners like their Korean counterparts, mass starvation and diseases swept through the Chinese run POW camps during the winter of 1950–51. About 43 percent of all US POWs died during this period. The Chinese defended their actions by stating that all Chinese soldiers during this period were suffering mass starvation and diseases due to the lack of competent logistics system. The UN POWs, however, disputed the claim by pointing out that most of the Chinese camps were located near the easily supplied Sino-Korean border, and that starvation was used to force the prisoners to accept the communism indoctrinations programs, which were running in full swing after the starvation was over. The North Korean Government reported some 70,000 ROK Army POWs; 8,000 were repatriated. South Korea repatriated 76,000 Korean People's Army POWs. Besides the 12,000 UN Command forces POWs dead in captivity, the KPA might have press-ganged some 50,000 ROK POWs into the North Korean military. Per the South Korean Ministry of Defense, there remained some 560 Korean POWs detained in North Korea in 2008; from 1994 until 2009, some 79 ROK POWs escaped the North.

The North Korean Government denied having POWs from the Korean War, and, via the Korean Central News Agency, reported that the UN forces killed some 33,600 KPA POWs; that on 19 July 1951, in POW Camp No. 62, some 100 POWs were killed as machine-gunnery targets; that on 27 May 1952, in the 77th Camp, Koje Island (now in Geoje), the ROK Army incinerated with flamethrowers some 800 KPA POWs who rejected "voluntary repatriation" south, and instead demanded repatriation north.

Starvation

In December 1950, National Defense Corps was founded, the soldiers were 406,000 drafted citizens. In the winter of 1951, 50,000 to 90,000 South Korean National Defense Corps soldiers starved to death while marching southward under the Chinese offensive when their commanding officers embezzled funds earmarked for their food. This event is called the National Defense Corps Incident.

Aftermath

Effect on China

Mao Zedong's decision to involve China in the Korean War was a conscientious effort to confront the most powerful country in the world, undertaken at a time when the regime was still consolidating its own power after winning the Chinese Civil War. Mao primarily supported intervention not to save North Korea or to appease the Soviet Union, but because he believed that a military conflict with the United States was inevitable after UN forces crossed the 38th parallel. A secondary motive of Mao's was to improve his own prestige inside the communist international community by demonstrating that his Marxist concerns were international. In his later years Mao believed that Stalin only gained a positive opinion of him after China's entrance into the Korean War. Inside China, the war improved the long-term prestige of Mao, Zhou, and Peng.

China emerged from the Korean War united by a sense of national pride, despite the war's enormous costs. The Chinese people were educated to believe that the war was initiated by the United States and Korea, and not by a fraternal communist state in the north. In Chinese propaganda, the Chinese war effort was portrayed and accepted as an example of China's engaging the strongest power in the world with an under-equipped army, forcing it to retreat, and fighting it to a military stalemate. These successes were contrasted with China's historical humiliations by Japan and by Western powers over the previous hundred years in order to promote the image of the PLA and the CCP. The most significant negative long-term consequence of the war (for China) was that it led the United States to guarantee the safety of Chiang Kai-shek's regime in Taiwan, effectively ensuring that Taiwan would remain outside of PRC control until the present day.

Defection

Operation Moolah was a USAF effort during the Korean War to capture a fully mission capable Soviet MiG-15. The MiG-15 was introduced by Communist forces on 1 November 1950 over the skies of Korea. USAF pilots would later report that the performance of the MiG-15 was superior against all United Nations (U.N.) aircraft, including the USAF's newest plane, the F-86 Sabre. The operation focused on influencing Communist pilots to defect to South Korea with a fully mission capable MiG for a financial award and political freedom. The success of the operation is disputable since not a single Communist pilot defected before the armistice was signed on 27 July 1953. But on 21 September 1953, Lieutenant (LT) No Kum-Sok flew his MiG-15 to the Kimpo Air Base, South Korea unaware of Operation Moolah.

Proxy war

The Korean War (1950–53) was the first major proxy war in the Cold War (1945–91), the prototype of the following sphere-of-influence wars such as the Vietnam War (1959–75). The Korean War established proxy war as one way that the nuclear superpowers indirectly conducted their rivalry in third-party countries. The NSC-68 Containment Policy extended the cold war from occupied Europe to the rest of the world.

DMZ

Fighting ended at the 38th parallel and the Korean Demilitarized Zone, a strip of land 248x4 km (155x2.5 mi), now divides the two countries. Even so, skirmishes, incursions, and incidents between the combatants have continued since the Armistice was signed.

Racial integration of U.S. Forces

The beginning of racial integration efforts in the U.S. military began during the Korean War, where African Americans fought in integrated units for the first time. Among the 1.8 million American soldiers who fought in the Korean War there were more than 100,000 African Americans.

Turkey

The Korean War affected other participant combatants. Turkey, for example, entered NATO in 1952 and a foundation of bilateral diplomatic and trade relations was enhanced.

Post-war economies

Post-war recovery was different in the two Koreas. South Korea stagnated in the first post-war decade, but later industrialized and modernized. Contemporary North Korea remains underdeveloped. South Korea had one of the world's fastest growing economies from the early 1960s to the late 1990s. In 1957 South Korea had a lower per capita GDP than Ghana, and by 2008 it was 17 times as high as Ghana's. The economy of South Korea is a modern free market economy, and South Korea is a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and G-20 groups.

In the 1990s North Korea faced significant economic disruptions. The North Korean famine is believed to have killed as many as 2.5 million people. The CIA World Factbook estimates North Korea's GDP (Purchasing power parity (PPP)) is $40 billion, which is 3.0% of South Korea's $1.196 trillion GDP (PPP). North Korean personal income is $1,800 per capita, which is 7.0% of the South Korean $24,500 per capita income.

ROK Anti-communism

Anti-communism remains in ROK politics. The Uri Party practiced a "Sunshine Policy" towards North Korea; the US often disagreed with the Uri Party and (former) ROK President Roh about relations between the Koreas. The conservative Grand National Party (GNP), the Uri Party's principal opponent, is anti-North Korea.

ROK Anti-Americanism sentiments

Korean anti-Americanism after the war was fueled by the presence and behavior of American military personnel (USFK) and U.S. support for authoritarian regime, a fact still evident during the country's democratic transition in the 1980s. In a February 2002 Gallup-Korea poll, only one-third of South Koreans viewed the United States favorably.

"G.I. Babies" and U.S. immigration law

In addition a large number of mixed race ‘G.I. babies’ (offspring of U.S. and other western soldiers and Korean women) were filling up the country’s orphanages. Korean traditional society places significant weight on paternal family ties, bloodlines, and purity of race. Children of mixed race or those without fathers are not easily accepted in Korean society. Thousands were adopted by American families in the years following the war, when their plight was covered on television.

The U.S. Immigration Act of 1952 removed race as a limiting factor in immigration, and made possible the entry of military spouses and children from South Korea after the Korean War. With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965, which substantially changed U.S. immigration policy toward non-Europeans, Koreans became one of the fastest growing Asian groups in the United States.

Popular culture

The Korean War has been the subject of films and books, and has been depicted in other media such as theatre and photography. The TV series ''M*A*S*H'' is one well known example. The 1959 novel ''The Manchurian Candidate'' has twice been made into films. The 1982 film ''Inchon'' depicted the invasion at Inchon. Many films about the war have been produced in Asian countries as well.

See also

Joint Advisory Commission, Korea

Operation Moolah

Korean reunification

List of Korean War weapons

List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll

List of wars extended by diplomatic irregularity

Military history of Australia during the Korean War

Pyongyang Sally

Korean DMZ Conflict (1966-1969)

Philippine Expeditionary Forces To Korea

UNCMAC—the UN Command Military Armistice Commission operating from 1953 to the present

UNCURK—the 1951 UN Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea

UNTCOK—the 1950 United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea

Vietnam War

War Memorial of Korea

South African Air Force

Notes

References

Carpenter, William M. "The Korean War: A Strategic Perspective Thirty Years Later." Comparative Strategy 2.4 (1980): 335–53. Print.

Casey, Steven. Selling the Korean War: Propaganda, Politics, and Public Opinion in the United States, 1950–1953. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.

Foot, Rosemary. The Wrong War: American Policy and the Dimensions of the Korean Conflict, 1950–1953. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1985. Print.

Hermes, Walter G. U.S. Army in the Korean War:. Washington D.C.: Center of Military History United States Army, 2005. Print.

Kim, Young C. Major Powers and Korea; [papers]. Silver Spring, MD: Research Institute on Korean Affairs, 1973. Print.

Millett, Allan Reed. The War for Korea, 1945–1950: a House Burning. Lawrence, Kan.: University of Kansas, 2005. Print.

O'Ballance, Edgar. Korea: 1950–1953. Hamden: Archon, 1969. Print.

Ohn, Chang-Il. "The Korean War of 1950–1953: U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and U.S. Strategy." Revue Internationale D'histoire Militaire 70 (1988): 211–41. Print.

Oliver, Robert T. Why War Came in Korea. New York: Fordham UP, 1950. Print.

Rees, David. Korea: the Limited War. New York: St Martin's, 1964. Print.

Srivastava, M. P. The Korean Conflict: Search for Unification. New Delhi: Prentice-Hall of India, 1982. Print.

Warrell, Kenneth P. "Across the Yalu: Rules of Engagement and the Communist Air Sanctuary during the Korean War." Journal of Military History 72.2 (2008): 451–76. Print.

Further reading

Combat studies, soldiers

Appleman, Roy E. ''South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu'' (1961), Official US Army history covers the Eighth Army and X Corps from June to November 1950

Appleman, Roy E.. ''East of Chosin: Entrapment and Breakout in Korea'' (1987); ''Escaping the Trap: The US Army in Northeast Korea, 1950'' (1987); ''Disaster in Korea: The Chinese Confront MacArthur'' (1989); ''Ridgway Duels for Korea'' (1990).

Blair, Clay. ''The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950–1953'' (1987), revisionist study that attacks senior American officials

Field Jr., James A. ''History of United States Naval Operations: Korea'', University Press of the Pacific, 2001, ISBN 0-89875-675-8. official US Navy history

Farrar-Hockley, General Sir Anthony. ''The British Part in the Korean War'', HMSO, 1995, hardcover 528 pages, ISBN 0-11-630962-8

Futrell, Robert F. ''The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950–1953,'' rev. ed. (Office of the Chief of Air Force History, 1983), official US Air Force history

Halberstam, David. ''The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War'', Hyperion, 2007, ISBN 1-4013-0052-9.

Hallion, Richard P. ''The Naval Air War in Korea'' (1986).

Hamburger, Kenneth E. ''Leadership in the Crucible: The Korean War Battles of Twin Tunnels and Chipyong-Ni.'' Texas A. & M. U. Press, 2003. 257 pp.

Hastings, Max. ''The Korean War'' (1987). British perspective

James, D. Clayton ''The Years of MacArthur: Triumph and Disaster, 1945–1964'' (1985), scholarly biography of MacArthur

James, D. Clayton with Anne Sharp Wells, ''Refighting the Last War: Command and Crises in Korea, 1950–1953'' (1993)

}}

Kindsvatter, Peter S. ''American Soldiers: Ground Combat in the World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam.'' U. Press of Kansas, 2003. 472 pp.

Millett, Allan R. ''Their War for Korea: American, Asian, and European Combatants and Civilians, 1945–1953.'' Brassey's, 2003. 310 pp.

Millett, Allan R. ''The War For Korea, 1950–1951: They Came From the North'' (University Press of Kansas; 2010) 644 pages

Montross, Lynn et al., ''History of US Marine Operations in Korea, 1950–1953,'' 5 vols. (Washington: Historical Branch, G-3, Headquarters, Marine Corps, 1954–72),

Mossman, Billy. ''Ebb and Flow'' (1990), Official US Army history covers November 1950 to July 1951.

Russ, Martin. ''Breakout: The Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Korea 1950'', Penguin, 2000, 464 pages, ISBN 0-14-029259-4

Toland, John. ''In Mortal Combat: Korea, 1950–1953'' (1991)

Varhola, Michael J. ''Fire and Ice: The Korean War, 1950–1953'' (2000)

Watson, Brent Byron. ''Far Eastern Tour: The Canadian Infantry in Korea, 1950–1953.'' 2002. 256 pp.

Flanagan, E.M. Jr., ''Airborne – A Combat History Of American Airborne Forces'', The Random House Publishing Group, 2002

Origins, politics, diplomacy

Chen Jian, ''China's Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation'' (Columbia University Press, 1994).

Cumings, Bruce. ''Origins of the Korean War'' (two volumes), Princeton University Press, 1981, 1990.

Goncharov, Sergei N., John W. Lewis; and Xue Litai, ''Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War'', Stanford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8047-2521-7, diplomatic

Kaufman, Burton I. ''The Korean War: Challenges in Crisis, Credibility, and Command''. Temple University Press, 1986, focus is on Washington

Matray, James. "Truman's Plan for Victory: National Self Determination and the Thirty-Eighth Parallel Decision in Korea," ''Journal of American History'' 66 (September, 1979), 314–33. in JSTOR

Millett, Allan R. ''The War for Korea, 1945–1950: A House Burning'' vol 1 (2005)ISBN 0-7006-1393-5, origins

– full text online

Spanier, John W. ''The Truman-MacArthur Controversy and the Korean War'' (1959).

Stueck, William. ''Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and Strategic History.'' Princeton U. Press, 2002. 285 pp.

Stueck, Jr., William J. ''The Korean War: An International History'' (Princeton University Press, 1995), diplomatic

Zhang Shu-gang, ''Mao's Military Romanticism: China and the Korean War, 1950–1953'' (University Press of Kansas, 1995)

Reference sources

Edwards, Paul M. ''The A to Z of the Korean War.'' The Scarecrow Press, 2005. 307 pp.

Edwards, Paul M. ''The Hill Wars of the Korean Conflict : A Dictionary of Hills, Outposts and other Sites of Military Action.'' McFarland & Co., 2006. 267 pp.

Edwards, Paul M. ''The Korean War: a Historical Dictionary.'' The Scarecrow Press, 2003. 367 pp.

Matray, James I. (ed.) ''Historical Dictionary of the Korean War.'' Greenwood Press, 1991. 626 pp.

Primary sources

Bassett, Richard M. ''And the Wind Blew Cold: The Story of an American POW in North Korea.'' Kent State U. Press, 2002. 117 pp.

Bin Yu and Xiaobing Li, eds. ''Mao's Generals Remember Korea'', University Press of Kansas, 2001, hardcover 328 pages, ISBN 0-7006-1095-2

S.L.A. Marshall, ''The River and the Gauntlet'' (1953) on combat

Matthew B. Ridgway, ''The Korean War'' (1967).

External links

Historical

The Cold War International History Project's Document Collection on the Korean War

Korean War Documentary

Facts and texts on the Korean War

Atrocities against Americans in the Korean War

Atrocities by Americans in the Korean War

Korean section of West Point Atlas of American Wars

POW films, brainwashing and the Korean War

North Korea International Documentation Project

Documents on the Korean Conflict at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library

Grand Valley State University Veteran's History Project digital collection

The Forgotten War, Remembered – four testimonials by ''The New York Times''

Collection of Books and Research Materials on the Korean War an online collection of the United States Army Center of Military History

The Korean War

War Memorial Korea

Korean-War.com

Media

The Korean War You Never Knew & Life in the Korean War – slideshows by ''Life magazine''

QuickTime sequence of 27 maps adapted from the West Point Atlas of American Wars

Animation for operations in 1950

Animation for operations in 1951

US Army Korea Media Center official Korean War online image archive

Rare pictures of the Korean War from the U.S. Library of Congress and National Archives

''Land of the Morning Calm Canadians in Korea'' – multimedia project including veteran interviews

Pathé Online newsreel archive featuring films on the war

CBC Digital Archives—Forgotten Heroes: Canada and the Korean War

Organizations

Korea Defense Veterans of America

Korean War Ex-POW Association

Korean War Veterans Association

The Center for the Study of the Korean War

Memorials

War Memorial of Korea Yongsan-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, South Korea

Korean War Memorial Wall, Brampton, Ontario.

National War Memorial (New Zealand)

UN Memorial Cemetery, Busan

War Memorial of Korea, Seoul The War Memorial's official website

Korean Children's War Memorial

Chinese 50th Anniversary Korean War Memorial

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name	Frank Capra
birth name	Francesco Capra
birth date	May 18, 1897
birth place	Bisacquino, Sicily, Italy
death date	September 03, 1991
death place	La Quinta, California, U.S.
occupation	Director, producer, writer
years active	1922–1961
spouse	Helen Howell (1923-1927)Lou Capra (1932-1984); 4 children}}

Frank Russell Capra (May 18, 1897 – September 3, 1991) was an Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s. His rags-to-riches story, having worked his way through college, has led film historians like Ian Freer to consider Capra the "American dream personified."

Capra became America's most powerful director during the 1930s, winning 3 Oscars as Best Director. Among his leading films was ''It Happened One Night'' (1934), which became the first film to win all five top Oscars, including Best Picture. Other leading films included ''Mr. Deeds Goes to Town'' (1936), ''Lost Horizon'' (1937), ''You Can't Take It With You'' (1938), ''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' (1939), ''Meet John Doe'' (1941), ''Arsenic and Old Lace'' (1944), ''It's a Wonderful Life'' (1946) and ''State of the Union'' (1948). Because of his early fame as a director, his name was listed "above the title" of his films when they were publicized. People "flocked to the theaters" during the 1930s and 1940s to see films directed by Frank Capra.

After World War II, however, Capra's career declined as his subjects were more out of tune with the mood of audiences. Critics described his films as being "simplistic" or "overly idealistic". However, the public nonetheless loved his films, especially during the Great Depression years, when audiences needed uplifting themes of inspiration. His pictures let viewers witness "a triumph of the individual over corrupt leaders", and experience "inherent qualities of kindness and caring for others." Most of his best works have been revived, and are today considered timeless fables filled with love and respect for the struggles of the common man.

Outside of directing, Capra was also active within the film industry, engaging in various political and social issues. He served as President of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, worked alongside the Screenwriters Guild, and was head of the Directors Guild of America. He enlisted in the army during World War I after graduating college, and again in World War II at the peak of his career, when he directed 11 documentary war films for the U.S. government's ''Why We Fight'' series, winning an Academy Award for one and a Distinguished Service Medal when the war ended.

Early life

Capra was born Francesco Capra in Bisacquino, Sicily, a village near Palermo. He was the youngest of seven children of Salvatore Capra, a fruit grower, and the former Sarah Nicolas. Capra's family was Roman Catholic.

The name "Capra", notes Capra's biographer Joseph McBride, represents his family's closeness to the land, and means "she-goat". He notes that the English word "capricious" derives from it, "evoking the animal's skittish temperament", adding that "the name neatly expresses two aspects of Frank Capra's personality: emotionalism and obstinacy."

Capra immigrated to the United States with his family in 1903, when he was six. They were placed in the steerage section of the boat, which was the cheapest way to gain passage. For Capra, the journey, which took 13 days, remained in his mind for the rest of his life as one of his worst experiences:

However, Capra remembers the ship's arrival into New York Harbor, where he saw "a statue of a great lady, taller than a church steeple, holding a torch above the land we were about to enter." He recalls his father's exclamation at the sight:

They eventually settled in an Italian ghetto in Los Angeles, where Capra's father worked as a fruit picker and young Capra sold newspapers after school for the next 10 years, until he graduated high school. Instead of finding full-time employment after graduating, as his parents wanted, he refused to end his education and instead enrolled in college. He worked his way through college at the California Institute of Technology, playing banjo at nightclubs and taking odd jobs, which included working at the campus laundry facility, waiting tables, and cleaning engines at a local power plant. He studied chemical engineering and graduated in the spring of 1918. Capra later wrote that his college education had "changed his whole viewpoint on life from the viewpoint of an alley rat to the viewpoint of a cultured person."

World War I and after

Soon after graduating college, Capra enlisted in the army as a second lieutenant, having already worked on the campus ROTC. In the army, he taught mathematics to artillerymen at Fort Scott, San Francisco. His father died the following year, 1919. In the army, Capra caught the Spanish flu, and was later medically discharged to return home to live with his mother. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1920, taking the name Frank Russell Capra.

Living at home with his siblings and mother, Capra was the only member of the family with a college education, yet was the only one who remained chronically unemployed. After a year without work, seeing how his siblings all had steady jobs of some sort, he felt he was a failure, which led to bouts of depression and abdominal pains, later discovered to have been an undiagnosed burst appendix.

After recovering at home, Capra then moved out and spent the next few years living in flophouses in San Francisco and hopping freight trains, wandering around the Western U.S. To support himself, he took odd jobs working on farms, as a movie extra, playing poker, or selling local oil well stocks. When he was 25, he took a sales job selling books written and published by American philosopher, Elbert Hubbard.

Capra recalled that he "hated being a peasant, being a scrounging new kid trapped in the Sicilian ghetto of Los Angeles ... All I had was cockiness—and let me tell you that gets you a long way."

Early career

Silent film comedies

During his book sales efforts, and nearly broke, Capra read a newspaper article about a new movie studio opening up in San Francisco. Capra phone them saying he had moved from Hollywood, and falsely implied that he had some experience in the budding film industry. Capra's only prior exposure to films, however, was in 1915 while attending Manual Arts High School. The studio's founder, Walter Montague, was nonetheless impressed by Capra and offered him $75 to direct a one-reel silent film. Capra, with the help of a cameraman he knew, made the film in two days and cast it with only amateurs.

After that first serious job in films, Capra then began focusing his efforts to finding similar openings in the film industry. He took another position with another minor San Francisco studio, and subsequently received an offer to work with producer Harry Cohn, at his new studio in Los Angeles. During this period, he worked as a property man, film cutter, title writer, and assistant director.

Capra later became a gag writer for Hal Roach's ''Our Gang'' series and then writer for slapstick comedy director, Mack Sennett, where he began writing scripts for comedian Harry Langdon. According to Capra, it was he who invented Langdon's character as an innocent fool living in a "naughty world."

When Langdon eventually left Sennett in order to make longer, feature-length movies with First National Studios, he took Capra with him to be his personal writer and director. They made three feature films together during 1926 and 1927, all of them becoming successful with the critics and the public. The films made Langdon a recognized comedian in the caliber of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Capra and Langdon later had a falling out, and Capra was fired. During the following years, however, Langdon's films went into decline without Capra's assistance. After splitting with Langdon, Capra directed a picture for First National, ''For the Love of Mike,'' (1927). This was a silent comedy about three bickering godfathers, a German, a Jew, and an Irishman, starring a budding actress, Claudette Colbert. The movie was considered a failure, however.

Columbia Pictures

;Early sound films Capra returned to Harry Cohn's studio, now renamed Columbia Pictures, which had then been producing short films and two-reel comedies used as "fillers", which played between main features. Columbia was one of the many start-up studios located on "Poverty Row" in Los Angeles, and like the others, was unable to compete with the larger studios which often had their own production facilities, distribution and theaters. Cohn rehired Capra in 1928 to help his studio produce new, full-length feature films, in order to compete against the major studios. By the end of his career, Capra would eventually do twenty films for Cohn's studio, including all of his classics.

Fortunately, because of Capra's engineering education, he adapted more easily to the new sound technology than most directors. He welcomed the transition to sound, recalling, "I wasn't at home in silent films." Most of the other studios were unwilling to invest in the new sound technology, assuming it was a passing fad. There were many in Hollywood who considered sound a threat to the industry and hoped it would pass quickly. However, McBride notes that "Capra was not one of them." When he saw Al Jolson singing in ''The Jazz Singer'' in 1927, considered the first talkie, Capra recalled his reaction:

Few of the studio heads or crew were aware of Capra's engineering background until he began directing ''The Younger Generation'' in 1929. The chief cinematographer who worked with Capra on a number of films, was likewise unaware. He describes this early period in sound for film:

During his first year with Columbia, Capra directed nine films, some of which became highly successful. After the first few, Harry Cohn said "it was the beginning of Columbia making a better quality of pictures." According to Barson, "Capra became ensconced as Harry Cohn's most trusted director." His films soon established Capra as a "bankable" director known throughout the industry, and Cohn raised Capra's initial salary of $1,000 per film to $25,000 per year. Capra also directed a film for MGM during this period, but soon realized he "had much more freedom under Harry Cohn's benevolent dictatorship", where Cohn also put Capra's "name above the title" of his films, a first for the movie industry. Capra wrote of this period and recalled the confidence that Cohn placed in Capra's vision and directing:

Capra directed his first "real" sound picture, ''The Younger Generation'', in 1929. It was a rags-to-riches romance comedy about a Jewish family's upward mobility in New York City, with their son later trying to deny his Jewish roots in order to keep his rich gentile girlfriend. According to Capra biographer Joseph McBride, Capra "obviously felt a strong identification with the story of a Jewish immigrant who grows up in the ghetto of New York... and feels he has to deny his ethnic origins to rise to success in America." Capra, however, denied any connection of the story with his own life.

Nonetheless, McBride insists that ''The Younger Generation'' "abounds with parallels to Capra's own life." McBride notes the "devastatingly painful climactic scene", where the young social-climbing son, embarrassed when his wealthy new friends first meet his parents, passes his mother and father off as house servants. That scene, notes McBride, "echoes the shame Capra admitted feeling toward his own family as he rose in social status."

During his years at Columbia, Capra worked often with screenwriter Robert Riskin (husband of Fay Wray,) and cameraman Joseph Walker. In many of Capra's films, the wise-cracking and sharp dialogue was often written by Riskin, and he and Capra went on to become Hollywood's "most admired writer-director team."

Film career (1934-1941)

''It Happened One Night'' (1934)

Capra's films in the 1930s enjoyed immense success at the Academy Awards. ''It Happened One Night'' (1934) became the first film to win all five top Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay). Written by Robert Riskin, it is one of the first of the "screwball comedies", and with its release during the period of the Great Depression, critics considered it an escapist story and a variation of the "American Dream". The film established the names of Capra, Columbia Pictures, stars Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable, in the movie industry. The film has been called ''Picaresque'', and was one of the earliest "road movies" which inspired variations on its theme by other filmmakers.

The film was followed by ''Broadway Bill'' (1934), another screwball comedy, this one about horse racing. The film became a turning point for Capra, however, as he began to conceive of an additional dimension to his movies. He started using his films to convey messages to the public. Capra explains his new thinking:

This added goal was inspired after meeting with a Christian Scientist friend who told him to view his talents in a different way:

Capra began to embody messages in his subsequent films, many of which conveyed "fantasies of goodwill." The first of those was ''Mr. Deeds Goes to Town'' (1936), for which Capra won his second Best Director Oscar. Critic Alistair Cooke observed that Capra was "starting to make movies about themes instead of people."

In 1938 he won his third Director Oscar in five years for ''You Can't Take It with You'', which also won Best Picture. In addition to his three directing wins, Capra received directing nominations for three other films (''Lady for a Day'', ''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'', and ''It's a Wonderful Life''). On May 5, 1936, Capra was also host of the 8th Academy Awards ceremony.

''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' (1939)

Although ''It's a Wonderful Life'' is his most well-known film, Friedman notes that it was ''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' (1939) which most represented the "Capra myth." That film expressed Capra's patriotism more than any of his others, and "presented the individual working within the democratic system to overcome rampant political corruption."

The film, however, became Capra's most controversial. In his research before filming, he was able to stand close to President Roosevelt during a press conference after the recent acts of war by Germany in Europe. Capra recalls his fears:

When the filming was completed, the studio sent preview copies to Washington. Joseph P. Kennedy, U.S. ambassador to the U.K., wrote to Columbia head Harry Cohn, "Please do not play this picture in Europe." In addition, the U.S. Senate voted 96-0 to have the film removed from public distribution. Politicians were concerned about the potential negative impact the film might have on the morale of the allies, as World War II had begun. Many of the other studio heads agreed, nor did they want negative feelings about Hollywood to be instilled in political leaders.

Nonetheless, Capra's vision about the film's significance was clear:

Capra pleaded with Cohn to allow the film to be distributed and remembers the intensity of their decision making:

Cohn and Capra chose to ignore all the negative publicity and demands, and released the film as planned. It was later nominated for 11 Academy Awards. It failed to win any Oscars partly because of the number of other major pictures that were nominated that year, including ''The Wizard of Oz'' and ''Gone with the Wind''.

The significance of the film's message was established further in France, shortly after World War II began. When the French public were asked to select which film they wanted to see most, having been told by the Vichy government that soon no more American films would be allowed in France, the overwhelming majority chose it over all others. To France, soon to be invaded and occupied by Nazi forces, the film most expressed the "perseverance of democracy and the American way."

''Meet John Doe'' (1941)

In 1941 Capra directed ''Meet John Doe'' (1941), considered by some to be Capra's most controversial movie. The film's hero, played by Gary Cooper, was about a former baseball player now bumming around lacking any goals. He is selected by a news reporter to represent the "common man", used to capture the imagination of ordinary Americans. The film was released shortly before America became involved in World War II, and citizens were still in an isolationist mood. According to some historians, the film was made to convey a "deliberate reaffirmation of American values", although ones which seemed uncertain with respect to the future.

Film author Richard Glazer speculates that the film may have been autobiographical, "reflecting Capra's own uncertainties." Glazer describes how "John's accidental transformation from drifter to national figure parallels Capra's own early drifting experience and subsequent involvement in movie making ... ''Meet John Doe'', then, was an attempt to work out his own fears and questions."

World War II years: (1941-1945)

Enlisting after Pearl Harbor

Within four days after the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Capra quit his highly successful directing career in Hollywood and enlisted as a major in the United States Army. He also gave up his presidency of the Screen Directors Guild. Being 44 years of age, he was not asked to enlist, but, notes Friedman, "Capra had an intense desire to prove his patriotism to his adopted land."

Capra recalls some of his personal reasons for enlisting:

''Why We Fight'' series

During the next four years of World War II, he directed or co-directed eleven documentary war information films. Capra's job was to head a special section on morale in order to explain to soldiers "why the hell they're in uniform", writes Capra, and were not "propaganda" films, like those created by the Nazis and Japan.

Capra was assigned to work directly under Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, the most senior officer in command of the Army, who would later create the Marshall Plan and be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. Marshall chose to bypass the normal documentary filmmaking department, Signal Corps, as he felt they were not capable of producing "sensitive and objective troop information films." One colonel explained the importance of these future films to Capra:

During his first meeting with General Marshall, Capra was told his mission:

The completed films included the seven-episode ''Why We Fight'' series—consisting of ''Prelude to War'' (1942), ''The Nazis Strike'' (1942), ''The Battle of Britain'' (1943), ''Divide and Conquer'' (1943), ''The Battle of Russia'' (1943), ''The Battle of China'' (1944)— plus ''Know Your Enemy: Japan'' (1945), ''Tunisian Victory'' (1945), and ''Two Down and One to Go'' (1945) that do not bear the ''Why We Fight'' banner; as well as produced the African-American related, ''The Negro Soldier'' (1944).

After completion of the first few documentaries, government officials and Army staff found them to be powerful messages and excellent presentations of why it was necessary for the U.S. to fight in the war. All footage used came from military and government sources, many newsreels secretly found from enemy sources during earlier years. Animated charts were created by Walt Disney and his animators. A number of Hollywood composers wrote the background music, including Alfred Newman and Russian-born composer Dimitri Tiomkin. After the first completed film was viewed by General Marshall along with Army staff, Marshall approached Capra: "Colonel Capra, how did you do it? That is a most wonderful thing."

Officials made efforts to see that the films were also shown in theaters throughout the U.S. They were translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese for use by other countries. Winston Churchill ordered that ''all'' of them be shown to the British public in theaters. They are still often broadcast on television and used as a teaching aid.

The ''Why We Fight'' series is widely considered a masterpiece of war information documentaries, and won an Academy Award. ''Prelude to War'' won the 1942 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. When his career ended, Capra regarded these films as his most important works. As a colonel, he received the Distinguished Service Medal in 1945.

Post-war career (1946-1961)

''It's a Wonderful Life'' (1946)

After the war ended, Capra, along with directors, William Wyler and George Stevens founded Liberty Films. Their studio became the first independent company of directors whose goal was to make films without interference by studio bosses. However, the only picture completed by the studio was ''It's a Wonderful Life'' (1946). It was considered a box office disappointment, but was nonetheless nominated for five Academy Awards.

The American Film Institute named it one of the best films ever made, putting it at the top of the list of AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers, a list of what AFI considers to be the most inspirational American movies of all time. The film also appeared in another AFI Top 100 list: it placed at 11th on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list of the top American films. It would become Capra's last important film, and although he directed five more films over the next fourteen years, his successful years were now behind him.

For ''State of the Union'' (1948) Capra changed studios, working for the first and only time for MGM Pictures. Although the project had an excellent pedigree: stars Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, the film was not a success, and Capra's eyebrow-raising statement, "I think ''State of the Union'' was my most perfect film in handling people and ideas", has few adherents today.

Representing U.S. at International Film Festival

In January, 1952, Capra was requested by the U.S. Ambassador to India to represent the U.S. film industry at the International Film Festival to be held in India. A State Department friend of Capra asked him and explained why his trip would be important:

After two weeks in India, he discovered that Bowles' fears were warranted, as many film sessions were used by Russian and Chinese representatives to give long political speeches. At a lunch with fifteen Indian directors and producers, he stressed that "they must preserve freedom as artists, and that any government control would hinder that freedom. A totalitarian system— and they would become nothing but publicity men for the party in power." Capra had a difficult time communicating this, however, as he noted in his diary:

When he returned to Washington to give his report, Secretary of State Dean Acheson gave Capra his commendation for "virtually single-handedly forestalling a possible Communist take-over of Indian films." Amassador Bowles also conveyed gratitude to Capra for "one helluva job."

Disillusionment period – 1950s

Although ''It's a Wonderful Life'' and ''State of the Union'' were successful shortly after the war ended, Capra's themes were becoming more out of step with changes within the film industry and with the public mood. Friedman finds that while Capra's ideas were popular to depression-era and pre-war audiences, they became less relevant to attitudes of a prospering post-war America. Capra had become "disconnected from an American culture that had changed" during the previous decade. Biographer Joseph McBride argues that Capra's disillusionment was more related to the negative affect that the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) had on the film industry in general. The HUAC interrogations during the early 1950s ended many Hollywood careers. Capra himself was not called to testify, although he still became a prime target of the committee due to his past associations with many Hollywood blacklisted screenwriters.

Capra, however, blames his early retirement from films on the rising power of stars, which forced him to continually compromise his artistic vision. He also claims that increasing budgetary and scheduling demands were constraining his creative abilities. Film historian Michael Medved agrees with and understands Capra's impressions, noting that he walked away from the movie business because "he refused to adjust to the cynicism of the new order." In his autobiography written in 1971, Capra expressed of his feelings about the shifting film industry:

Capra added that in his opinion, "practically all the Hollywood filmmaking of today is stooping to cheap salacious pornography in a crazy bastardization of a great art to compete for the 'patronage' of deviates and masturbators."

Capra remained employable in Hollywood during and after the HUAC hearings, but chose nonetheless to demonstrate his loyalty by attempting to re-enlist in the Army at the outbreak of the Korean War, which began in 1950. He was rejected due to his age, however. He was later invited to join the Defense Department's newly-formed Think Tank project, VISTA, but was denied the necessary clearance. According to Friedman, "these two rejections were devastating to the man who had made a career of demonstrating American ideals in film", along with his directing award-winning documentary films for the Army. By 1952, at the age of 55, Capra effectively retired from Hollywood filmmaking and spent his later years working with Cal Tech, his alma mater, to produce educational films on science topics.

Later films (1950-1961)

Capra directed two films at Paramount Pictures starring Bing Crosby, ''Riding High'' (1950) and ''Here Comes the Groom'' (1951). From 1952-1956, Capra produced four science-related television specials in color for the American Telephone and Telegraph Company: ''Our Mr. Sun'' (1956), ''Hemo the Magnificent'' (1957), ''The Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays'' (1957), and ''Meteora: The Unchained Goddess'' (1958). These educational science documentaries were popular favorites for showing in school science classrooms. It was eight years before he directed another theatrical film, ''A Hole in the Head'' (1959) with Frank Sinatra, which was his first feature film in color.

Capra's final theatrical film was with Glenn Ford and Bette Davis, named ''Pocketful of Miracles'' (1961), a remake of his 1933 film ''Lady for a Day''. In the mid-1960s he worked on pre-production for an adaptation of Martin Caidin's novel ''Marooned'' but budgetary constraints made him eventually shelve it.

Capra's final film, ''Rendezvous in Space'' (1964), was an industrial film made for the Martin Marietta Company and shown at the 1964 New York World's Fair. It was exhibited at the New York Hall of Science after the Fair ended.

Directing style

Capra's directing style relied on improvisation to a great extent. He was noted for going onto the set with no more than the master scenes written down. He explained his reasoning:

According to some experts, Capra used great, yet unobtrusive craftsmanship when directing, and felt it was bad directing to distract the audience with fancy technical gimmicks. Film historian and author William S. Pechter described Capra's style as one "of almost classical purity." He adds that his style relied on editing to help his films sustain a "sequence of rhythmic motion." Pechter describes its effect:

Film critic John Raeburn discusses an early Capra film, ''American Madness'' (1932), as an example of how he had mastered the movie medium and expressed a unique style:

As for Capra's subject matter, film author Richard Griffith tries to summarize Capra's common theme:

Capra's personality when directing gave him a reputation for "fierce independence" when dealing with studio bosses. On the set he was said to be gentle and considerate, "a director who displays absolutely no exhibitionism."

Because Capra's films often carry a message about basic goodness in human nature, and show the value of unselfishness and hard work, his wholesome, feel-good themes have led some to term his style "Capra-corn." However, those who hold his vision in higher regard prefer the term ''Capraesque''.

Capra's basic themes of championing the common man, as well as his use of spontaneous, fast-paced dialogue and goofy, memorable lead and supporting characters, made him one of the most popular and respected filmmakers of the 20th century. His influence can be traced in the works of many directors, including Robert Altman, Ron Howard, Masaki Kobayashi, Akira Kurosawa, John Lasseter, David Lynch, John Milius, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone and François Truffaut

Personal life

Capra married actress Helen Howell in 1923 but they divorced in 1928. He married again in 1928 to Lucille Warner, with whom he had a daughter and three sons, one of whom died in infancy.

He was four times president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and three times president of the Directors Guild of America, which he helped found. Under his presidency he worked to give directors more artistic control of their films. During his career as a director, he retained an early ambition to teach science, and after his career declined in the 1950s he made some educational TV films related to science subjects.

Physically, he was short, stocky, and vigorous, and enjoyed outdoor activities such as hunting, fishing, and mountain climbing. In his much later years, he spent time writing short stories and songs, along with playing guitar.

His son Frank Capra, Jr. — one of the four children born to Capra's second wife, Lucille Capra — was the president of EUE Screen Gems Studios, in Wilmington, North Carolina, until his death on December 19, 2007. His grandson, Frank Capra III, is a Hollywood director and worked as an assistant director in the 1995 film ''The American President'', which referred to Frank Capra in the film's dialogue.

Death

Frank Capra died in La Quinta, California, of a heart attack in his sleep in 1991 at the age of 94. He was interred in the Coachella Valley Public Cemetery in Coachella, California.

He left part of his ranch in Fallbrook, California, to Caltech. Capra's personal papers and some of his film related materials are contained in the Wesleyan University Cinema Archives, which allows scholars and media experts from around the world full access.

Legacy

During the golden age of Hollywood, Capra's "fantasies of goodwill" made him one of the two or three most famous and successful directors in the world. Film historian Ian Freer notes that at the time of his death in 1991, his legacy still remained intact:

Although his stature as a director had declined during the 1950s, his films underwent a revival in the 1960s:

French film historian John Raeburn, editor of ''Cahiers du cinéma'', notes that that Capra's films were unknown in France, but there too his films underwent a fresh discovery by the public. He believes the reason for his renewed popularity had to do with his themes, which he made credible "an ideal conception of an American national character":

In 1982, the American Film Institute honored Frank Capra by giving him their AFI Life Achievement Award. The event was used to create the television film, ''The American Film Institute Salute to Frank Capra'', hosted by James Stewart. In 1986, Capra received the National Medal of Arts.

During his acceptance speech for the AFI award, he stressed his most important values:

Capra expanded on his visions in his 1971 autobiography:

Awards and honors

Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty, by vote of the the city council, declared May 12, 1962 as "Frank Capra Day." George Sidney, President of the Directors Guild, stated that "This is the first time in the history of Hollywood, that the city of Los Angeles has officially recognized a creative talent." At the event ceremony, director John Ford announced that Capra had also received the Order of British Empire (OBE) on the recommendation of Winston Churchill. Ford suggested publicly to Capra:

;Academy Awards Capra won a total of six Academy Awards. He was nominated six times for Best Director and six times for Outstanding Production/Best Picture. Out of six nominations for Best Director, Capra received the award three times. He briefly held the record for winning the most Best Director Oscars when he won for the third time in 1938, until this record was matched by John Ford in 1941, and then later surpassed by Ford in 1952. William Wyler also matched this record upon winning his third Oscar in 1959.

! Year	! Film	! Award	! Winner
			With Harry Cohn
			Hunt Stromberg – ''The Great Ziegfeld''
1937			Henry Blanke – ''The Life of Emile Zola''
	rowspan=2
1943	''Prelude to War''
1944	''The Battle of Russia''		''Desert Victory''
			Samuel Goldwyn – ''The Best Years of Our Lives''
	William Wyler – ''The Best Years of Our Lives''

;American Film Institute

Life Achievement Award (1982)

;Directors Guild of America

Best Director Nomination for ''A Hole in the Head'' (1959)

Life Achievement Award (1959)

Best Director Nomination for ''Pocketful of Miracles'' (1961)

;Golden Globe Award

Best Director Award for ''It's a Wonderful Life'' (1946)

;Venice Film Festival

Mussolini Cups for best foreign film Nomination for ''It Happened One Night'' (1934)

Mussolini Cups for best foreign film Nomination for ''Mr. Deeds Goes to Town'' (1936)

Golden Lion (1982)

;American Film Institute recognition

AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)

*''It's a Wonderful Life''...# 20

*''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington''...# 26

*''It Happened One Night''...# 46

AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers

*''It's a Wonderful Life''...# 1

*''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington''...# 5

*''Meet John Doe''...# 49

*''Mr. Deeds Goes to Town''...# 83

AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs

*''It Happened One Night''...# 8

*''Arsenic and Old Lace''...# 30

*''Mr. Deeds Goes to Town''...# 70

AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions

*''It's a Wonderful Life''...# 8

*''It Happened One Night''...# 38

AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains

*50 greatest movie heroes

*''It's a Wonderful Life''...George Bailey ...# 9

*''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington''...Jefferson Smith ...# 11

*50 greatest movie villains

*''It's a Wonderful Life''...Mister Potter ...# 6

AFI's 10 Top 10

*Fantasy

**''It's a Wonderful Life''...# 3

*Romantic Comedies

**''It Happened One Night''...# 3

;United States National Film Registry

''The Strong Man'' (1926)

''It Happened One Night'' (1934)

''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' (1939)

''Why We Fight'' Series of seven films (1942)

''It's a Wonderful Life'' (1946)

Filmography

{|class="wikitable sortable" width="100%" !Year||Title||Production Co.||Cast||Notes |- |colspan="8" align="center" style="background:LightSteelBlue"|Silent films |- |1915 || ''Our Wonderful Schools'' || Reliance Film Company || || Documentary; film editor |- style=background:#efefef; |- |1922 || ''Fultah Fisher's Boarding House'' || Fireside Productions || || Short film |- style=background:#efefef; |1926 || ''The Strong Man'' || Harry Langdon Corporation || Harry Langdon || |- |1927 || ''Long Pants'' || Harry Langdon Corporation || Harry Langdon || |- style=background:#efefef; |1927 || ''For the Love of Mike'' || Robert Kane Productions || Claudette Colbert / Ben Lyon || |- |1928 || ''That Certain Thing'' || Columbia || Viola Dana || |- style=background:#efefef; |1928 || ''So This is Love?'' || Columbia || Shirley Mason || |- |1928 || ''The Matinee Idol'' || Columbia || Bessie Love / Johnnie Walker || |- style=background:#efefef; |1928 || ''The Way of the Strong'' || Columbia || Mitchell Lewis / Alice Day / William Norton Bailey || |- |1928 || ''Say It with Sables'' || Columbia || Helene Chadwick / Francis X. Bushman / Margaret Livingston || |- style=background:#efefef; |1928 || ''Submarine'' || Columbia || Jack Holt / Ralph Graves / Dorothy Revier || |- |1928 || ''The Power of the Press'' || Columbia || Douglas Fairbanks Jr. || |- style=background:#efefef; |1928 || ''The Burglar'' || Mack Sennett || || Short film / Co-directed with Phil Whitman |- |colspan="8" align="center" style="background:LightSteelBlue"|Sound films |- |1929 || ''The Younger Generation'' || Columbia || Ricardo Cortez || Talking sequences |- style=background:#efefef; |1929 || ''The Donovan Affair'' || Columbia || Jack Holt || |- |1929 || ''Flight'' || Columbia || Jack Holt / Ralph Graves || |- style=background:#efefef; |1930 || ''Ladies of Leisure'' || Columbia || Barbara Stanwyck / Ralph Graves || |- |1930 || ''Rain or Shine'' || Columbia || Joe Cook || |- style=background:#efefef; |1931 || ''Dirigible'' || Columbia || Jack Holt / Ralph Graves / Fay Wray || |- |1931 || ''The Miracle Woman'' || Columbia || Barbara Stanwyck || |- style=background:#efefef; |1931 || ''Platinum Blonde'' || Columbia || Loretta Young / Robert Williams / Jean Harlow || |- |1932 || ''Forbidden'' || Columbia || Barbara Stanwyck / Adolphe Menjou || |- style=background:#efefef; |1932 || ''American Madness'' || Columbia || Walter Huston || Co-directed with Allan Dwan / Roy William Neill |- |1933 || ''The Bitter Tea of General Yen'' || Columbia || Barbara Stanwyck / Nils Asther || |- style=background:#efefef; |1933 || ''Lady for a Day'' || Columbia || May Robson / Warren William / Guy Kibbee || |- |1934 || ''It Happened One Night'' || Columbia || Clark Gable / Claudette Colbert || |- style=background:#efefef; |1934 || ''Broadway Bill'' || Columbia || Warner Baxter / Myrna Loy || |- |1936 || ''Mr. Deeds Goes to Town'' || Columbia || Gary Cooper / Jean Arthur || |- style=background:#efefef; |1937 || ''Lost Horizon'' || Columbia || Ronald Colman / Jane Wyatt || |- |1938 || ''You Can't Take It With You'' || Columbia || Lionel Barrymore / Jean Arthur / James Stewart || |- style=background:#efefef; |1939 || ''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' || Columbia || James Stewart / Jean Arthur || |- |1941 || ''Meet John Doe'' || Frank Capra Productions || Gary Cooper / Barbara Stanwyck || |- style=background:#efefef; |1943 || ''The Nazis Strike'' ||U.S. War Department || || Documentary / Short film / Co-directed with Anatole Litvak |- |1943 || ''Divide and Conquer'' || U.S. War Department || || Documentary / Co-directed with Anatole Litvak |- style=background:#efefef; |1943 || ''The Battle of Britain'' || Warner Bros. || || Documentary / Co-directed with Anthony Veiller |- |1943 || ''Prelude to War'' || U.S. War Department || || Documentary / Co-directed with Anatole Litvak |- style=background:#efefef; |1943 || ''The Battle of Russia'' || U.S. War Department || || Documentary / Co-directed with Anatole Litvak |- |1944 || ''The Battle of China'' || U.S. War Department || || Documentary / Co-directed with Anatole Litvak |- style=background:#efefef; |1944 || ''Tunisian Victory'' || U.S. War Department || || Documentary / Co-directed with Hugh Stewart |- |1944 || ''Arsenic and Old Lace'' || Warner Bros. || Cary Grant / Priscilla Lane || |- style=background:#efefef; |1945 || ''Your Job in Germany'' || || || Documentary / Short film |- |1945 || ''Know Your Enemy: Japan'' || U.S. War Department || || Documentary / Co-directed with Joris Ivens |- style=background:#efefef; |1945 || ''Two Down and One to Go'' || U.S. War Department || || Documentary / Short film |- |- |1945 || ''War Comes to America'' || U.S. War Department || || Documentary / Co-directed with Anatole Litvak |- style=background:#efefef; |1946 || ''It's a Wonderful Life'' || Liberty Films || James Stewart / Donna Reed || |- |1948 || ''State of the Union'' || Liberty Films || Spencer Tracy / Katharine Hepburn || |- style=background:#efefef; |1950 || ''Riding High'' || Paramount Pictures || Bing Crosby || Remake of ''Broadway Bill'' |- |1951 || ''Here Comes the Groom'' || Paramount Pictures || Bing Crosby / Jane Wyman || |- style=background:#efefef; |1959 || ''A Hole in the Head'' || Sincap Productions || Frank Sinatra / Edward G. Robinson || First color film |- |1961 || ''Pocketful of Miracles'' || Franton Production || Glenn Ford / Hope Lange / Bette Davis || Eastmancolor film / Remake of ''Lady for a Day'' |}

His Films with Academy Awards

{|class="wikitable" |- ! Year !! Film !! OscarNominations !! OscarWins !! Performances Nominations |- | 1933 | ''Lady for a Day'' | align="center"|4 | align="center"|0 | Best Actress for May Robson (nom) |- | 1934 | ''It Happened One Night'' | align="center"|5 | align="center"|5 | Best Actor for Clark GableBest Actress for Claudette Colbert |- | 1936 | ''Mr. Deeds Goes to Town'' | align="center"|5 | align="center"|1 | Best Actor for Gary Cooper (nom) |- | 1937 | ''Lost Horizon'' | align="center"|7 | align="center"|2 | Best Supporting Actor for H. B. Warner (nom) |- | 1938 | ''You Can't Take It With You'' | align="center"|7 | align="center"|2 | Best Supporting Actress for Spring Byington (nom) |- | 1939 | ''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' | align="center"|11 | align="center"|1 | Best Actor for James Stewart (nom)Best Supporting Actor for Harry Carey (nom)Best Supporting Actor for Claude Rains (nom) |- | 1941 | ''Meet John Doe'' | align="center"|1 | align="center"|0 |- | 1942 | ''Prelude to War'' | align="center"|1 | align="center"|1 | Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature |- | 1943 | ''The Battle of Russia'' | align="center"|1 | align="center"|0 | Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature |- | 1946 | ''It's a Wonderful Life'' | align="center"|5 | align="center"|0 | Best Actor for James Stewart (nom) |- | 1951 | ''Here Comes the Groom'' | align="center"|2 | align="center"|1 |- | 1959 | ''A Hole in the Head'' | align="center"|1 | align="center"|1 | |- | 1961 | ''Pocketful of Miracles'' | align="center"|3 | align="center"|0 | Best Supporting Actor for Peter Falk |- |}

See also

James Stewart

The Bell Laboratory Science Series

Frank Capra at the First International Film Festival of India, 1952

References

;Notes ;Citations ;Bibliography

Barney, Richard A. Conversations with Filmmakers Series).''">''David Lynch: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers Series).'' Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2009 ISBN 978-1604732375.

Barson, Michael. ''The Illustrated Who's Who of Hollywood Directors: The Sound Era .'' New York: Noonday Press, 1995. ISBN 0-374-52428-9,

Capra, Frank. ''Frank Capra, The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography''. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1971. ISBN 0-30680-771-8.

Chandler, Charlotte. ''The Girl Who Walked Home Alone: Bette Davis, A Personal Biography''. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006. ISBN 0-78628-639-3.

Dixon, Wheeler W. ''The Early Film Criticism of Francois Truffaut.'' Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993. ISBN 978-0253207715.

Freer, Ian. ''Movie Makers: 50 Iconic Directors from Chaplin to the Coen Brothers.'' London: Quercus Publishing Plc, 2009. ISBN 978-1847245120.

Kotsabilas-Davis, James and Myrna Loy. ''Being and Becoming''. New York: Primus, Donald I Fine Inc., 1987. ISBN 1-55611-101-0.

Medved, Michael. ''Hollywood vs. America: Popular Culture and the War on Traditional Values.'' New York: HarperCollins, 1992.

McBride, Joseph. ''Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success''. New York: Touchstone Books, 1992. ISBN 0-671-79788-3.

Oderman, Stuart. ''Talking To the Piano Player: Silent Film Stars, Writers and Directors Remember''. Albany, Georgia: BearManor Media, 2005. ISBN 1-59393-013-5.

Poague, Leland. ''Frank Capra: Interviews'' (Conversations With Filmmakers Series). Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2004. ISBN 78-1578066179.

Pendergast, Tom and Sara, eds. ''St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, Vol. 1.'' Detroit: St. James Press, 2000. ISBN 1-55862-348-5.

Stevens, George Jr. ''Conversations with the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood's Golden Age.'' New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. ISBN 978-1400040544.

Wakeman, John, ed. ''World Film Directors: Volume One, 1890-1945.'' New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1987. ISBN 78-0824207571.

Wiley, Mason and Damien Bona. ''Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards''. New York: Ballantine Books, 1987. ISBN 0-345-34453-7.

External links

Capra Smith and Doe: Filming the American Hero from American Studies at the University of Virginia

Retrieved on May 19, 2009 Retrieved on May 19, 2009

Bibliography

Capra before he became "Capraesque" BFI Sight & Sound magazine November 2010 article on Capra's early career, by Joseph McBride

"Sentimental Hogwash?: On Capra's ''It's A Wonderful Life''", ''Humanitas'', Vol. XVIII, No's 1&2, 2005

Video clips

;10th annual AFI Life Achievement Award ceremony, 1982

Frank Capra introduced

Frank Capra accepts Life Achievement Award

Charlton Heston introduction

James Stewart at the "Tribute to Frank Capra"

Bette Davis at the "Tribute to Frank Capra"

Jack Lemmon at the "Tribute to Frank Capra"

Frank Capra receiving Academy Awards, 3 separate years

;War documentaries

''World War II documentary'' (1945)

''The Battle of Britain'' (1943), from ''Why We Fight'' series

;Movie trailers and interviews

''It Happened One Night'' (1934)

''Mr. Deeds Goes to Town'' (1936)

''Lost Horizon'' (1937)

*Discussing ''Lost Horizon'' on Dick Cavett Show

''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' (1939)

*Scene

*Discussing ''Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' with Tom Snyder

''Meet John Doe'' (1941)

''It's a Wonderful Life'' (1946)

''State of the Union'' (1948)

''A Hole in the Head'' (1959)

Category:American anti-communists Category:American film directors Category:American Roman Catholics Category:American military personnel of World War I Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:Best Director Academy Award winners Category:Best Director Golden Globe winners Category:Presidents of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Category:Presidents of the Directors Guild of America Category:California Institute of Technology alumni Category:California Republicans Category:Cardiovascular disease deaths in California Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:American film directors of Italian descent Category:Italian emigrants to the United States Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:People from the Province of Palermo Category:Propaganda film directors Category:Recipients of the Distinguished Service Medal (United States) Category:American people of Sicilian descent Category:United States National Medal of Arts recipients Category:1903 births Category:1991 deaths Category:Burials at Coachella Valley Public Cemetery Category:American screenwriters Category:American film producers Category:United States Army Air Forces officers Category:First Motion Picture Unit personnel Category:United States Army officers

an:Frank Capra bn:ফ্রাংক কাপরা bs:Frank Capra ca:Frank Capra da:Frank Capra de:Frank Capra el:Φρανκ Κάπρα es:Frank Capra eo:Frank Capra eu:Frank Capra fa:فرانک کاپرا fr:Frank Capra hr:Frank Capra id:Frank Capra it:Frank Capra he:פרנק קפרה la:Franciscus Capra hu:Frank Capra nl:Frank Capra ja:フランク・キャプラ no:Frank Capra pl:Frank Capra pt:Frank Capra ro:Frank Capra ru:Капра, Фрэнк sah:Фрэнк Капра sq:Frank Capra scn:Frank Capra fi:Frank Capra sv:Frank Capra th:แฟรงก์ คาปรา tr:Frank Capra uk:Френк Капра zh:法蘭克·卡普拉

name	Frances Ann "Fran" Lebowitz
birth name	Frances Ann Lebowitz
birth date	October 27, 1950
birth place	Morristown, New Jersey
occupation	Author
nationality	American
website	}}

Frances Ann "Fran" Lebowitz (born October 27, 1950) is an American author.

Life

Born and raised in Morristown, New Jersey, Lebowitz is best known for her sardonic social commentary on American life as filtered through her New York sensibilities. Some reviewers have called her a modern-day Dorothy Parker. Lebowitz is of Jewish descent and is a second cousin of Judd Hirsch .

After being expelled from high school and receiving a GED, Lebowitz worked many odd jobs before being hired by Andy Warhol as a columnist for ''Interview''. This was followed by a stint at ''Mademoiselle''. Her first book was a collection of essays titled ''Metropolitan Life'', released in 1978, followed by ''Social Studies'' in 1981, both of which are collected (with a new introductory essay) in ''The Fran Lebowitz Reader''.

For more than twenty years she has been famous in part for writing ''Exterior Signs of Wealth'', a long-overdue novel purportedly about rich people who want to be artists, and artists who want to be rich. She also made several appearances on ''Late Night With David Letterman'' during the early part of its run. Recently she has made recurring appearances as Judge Janice Goldberg on the television drama ''Law & Order''. Lebowitz, herself a heavy smoker, is known for her advocacy of smokers' rights.

In September 2007, Fran Lebowitz was named one of the year's most stylish women in ''Vanity Fair'''s 68th Annual International Best-Dressed List, and she is known to sport tailored suits by the Savile Row tailor Anderson & Sheppard. On November 17, 2010, Fran made a return appearance on ''Late Show With David Letterman'' after a 16-year absence. She discussed her years-long writer's block, which she jokingly referred to as "writer's blockade". On November 22, 2010, HBO debuted a documentary about her entitled ''Public Speaking'', directed by Martin Scorsese, that consisted of interviews and clips from speaking engagements.

References

Books

''Metropolitan Life'', Dutton, 1978. ISBN 9780525155621

''Social Studies'', Random House, 1981. ISBN 9780394512457

''The Fran Lebowitz Reader'', Vintage Books, 1994, ISBN 9780679761808

''Mr. Chas and Lisa Sue Meet the Pandas'', Knopf, 1994. ISBN 9780679860525

External links

HBO Documentary Public Speaking, November 22, 2010

William Morris Agency">profile at the William Morris Agency

''Index'' magazine interview

Tips for Teens

Interview with Fran Lebowitz

''Black Book'' interview

''New York'' magazine interview

''The Onion A.V. Club'' interview

Category:1950 births Category:Living people Category:American humorists Category:American satirists Category:American writers Category:Jewish American writers Category:Jewish women writers Category:Jewish comedy and humor Category:People from Morristown, New Jersey

pt:Fran Lebowitz

Region	Western philosophy
Era	20th / 21st-century philosophy
Color	#B0C4DE
Name	Noam Chomsky
Other names	Avram Noam Chomsky
Birth date	December 07, 1928
Birth place	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Alma mater	University of Pennsylvania (BA 1949, MA 1951, PhD 1955)
School tradition	Generative linguistics, Analytic philosophy
Main interests	Linguistics PsychologyPhilosophy of languagePhilosophy of mind Politics Ethics
Alma mater	University of Pennsylvania
Religion	Atheist
Notable ideas	Generative grammar, universal grammar, transformational grammar, government and binding, X-bar theory, Chomsky hierarchy, context-free grammar, principles and parameters, Minimalist program, language acquisition device, poverty of the stimulus, Chomsky–Schützenberger theorem, Chomsky Normal Form, propaganda model
Influences	Dwight Macdonald, Pāṇini, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, John Dewey, Mikhail Bakunin, Karl Marx, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Adam Smith, Zellig Harris, Rudolf Rocker, Immanuel Kant, René Descartes, George Orwell, C. West Churchman, Alan Turing, W. V. O. Quine
Influenced	Niall McLaren, Colin McGinn, Edward Said, Christopher Hitchens, Steven Pinker, Peter Ludlow, Tanya Reinhart, Morris Halle, Gilbert Harman, Jerry Fodor, Howard Lasnik, Robert Fisk, Neil Smith, Ray Jackendoff, Norbert Hornstein, Jean Bricmont, Marc Hauser, Norman Finkelstein, Robert Lees, Hugo Chavez, Mark Baker, Julian Boyd, Ray C. Dougherty, Derek Bickerton, Amy Goodman, Michael Albert }}

Avram Noam Chomsky (; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and a major figure of analytic philosophy. His work has influenced fields such as computer science, mathematics, and psychology.

Chomsky is credited as the creator or co-creator of the Chomsky hierarchy, the universal grammar theory, and the Chomsky–Schützenberger theorem.

Ideologically identifying with anarchism and libertarian socialism, Chomsky is known for his critiques of U.S. foreign policy and contemporary capitalism, and he has been described as a prominent cultural figure. His media criticism has included ''Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media'' (1988), co-written with Edward S. Herman, an analysis articulating the propaganda model theory for examining the media.

According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992, and was the eighth most cited source overall. Chomsky is the author of over 100 books.

Life and career

Chomsky was born on the morning of December 7, 1928, to Jewish parents in the affluent East Oak Lane neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of noted professor of Hebrew at Gratz College and IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) member William Chomsky (1896–1977), a native of Ukraine. His mother, Elsie Chomsky (née Simonofsky)—a native of what is present-day Belarus—grew up in the United States and, unlike her husband, spoke "ordinary New York English". Chomsky's parents' first language was Yiddish, but Chomsky said it was "taboo" in his family to speak it. Although Chomsky's mother was part of the radical activism in the 1930s, he was influenced largely by his uncle who, having never passed 4th grade, owned a newsstand that acted as an "intellectual center [where] professors of this and that argu[ed] all night". Chomsky was influenced also by being a part of a Hebrew-based, Zionist organization, as well as by hanging around anarchist bookstores.

He describes his family as living in a sort of "Jewish ghetto", split into a "Yiddish side" and "Hebrew side", with his family aligning with the latter and bringing him up "immersed in Hebrew culture and literature", though he means more a "cultural ghetto than a physical one". Chomsky also describes tensions he experienced with Irish Catholics and German Catholics and anti-semitism in the mid-1930s. He recalls "beer parties" celebrating the fall of Paris to the Nazis. In a discussion of the irony of his staying in the 1980s in a Jesuit House in Central America, Chomsky explained that during his childhood, "We were the only Jewish family around. I grew up with a visceral fear of Catholics. They're the people who beat you up on your way to school. So I knew when they came out of that building down the street, which was the Jesuit school, they were raving anti-Semites. So childhood memories took a long time to overcome."

Chomsky remembers the first article he wrote was at age 10 while a student at Oak Lane Country Day School about the threat of the spread of fascism, following the fall of Barcelona in the Spanish Civil War. From the age of 12 or 13, he identified more fully with anarchist politics.

A graduate of Central High School of Philadelphia, Chomsky began studying philosophy and linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1945, taking classes with philosophers such as C. West Churchman and Nelson Goodman and linguist Zellig Harris. Harris's teaching included his discovery of transformations as a mathematical analysis of language structure (mappings from one subset to another in the set of sentences). Chomsky referred to the morphophonemic rules in his 1951 master's thesis—''The Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew''—as transformations in the sense of Carnap's 1938 notion of rules of transformation (vs. rules of formation), and subsequently reinterpreted the notion of grammatical transformations in a very different way from Harris, as operations on the productions of a context-free grammar (derived from Post production systems). Harris's political views were instrumental in shaping those of Chomsky. Chomsky earned a BA in 1949 and an MA in 1951.

In 1949, he married linguist Carol Schatz. They remained married for 59 years until her death from cancer in December 2008. The couple had two daughters, Aviva (b. 1957) and Diane (b. 1960), and a son, Harry (b. 1967). With his wife Carol, Chomsky spent time in 1953 living in HaZore'a, a kibbutz in Israel. Asked in an interview whether the stay was "a disappointment" Chomsky replied, "No, I loved it"; however, he "couldn't stand the ideological atmosphere" and "fervent nationalism" in the early 1950s at the kibbutz, with Stalin being defended by many of the left-leaning kibbutz members who chose to paint a rosy image of future possibilities and contemporary realities in the USSR. Chomsky notes seeing many positive elements in the commune-like living of the kibbutz, in which parents and children lived together in separate houses, and when asked whether there were "lessons that we have learned from the history of the kibbutz", responded, that in "some respects, the kibbutzim came closer to the anarchist ideal than any other attempt that lasted for more than a very brief moment before destruction, or that was on anything like a similar scale. In these respects, I think they were extremely attractive and successful; apart from personal accident, I probably would have lived there myself – for how long, it's hard to guess."

Chomsky received his PhD in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1955. He conducted part of his doctoral research during four years at Harvard University as a Harvard Junior Fellow. In his doctoral thesis, he began to develop some of his linguistic ideas, elaborating on them in his 1957 book ''Syntactic Structures'', one of his best-known works in linguistics.

Chomsky joined the staff of MIT in 1955 and in 1961 was appointed full professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics (now the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy). From 1966 to 1976 he held the Ferrari P. Ward Professorship of Modern Languages and Linguistics, and in 1976 he was appointed Institute Professor. As of 2010, Chomsky has taught at MIT continuously for 55 years.

In February 1967, Chomsky became one of the leading opponents of the Vietnam War with the publication of his essay, "The Responsibility of Intellectuals", in ''The New York Review of Books''. This was followed by his 1969 book, ''American Power and the New Mandarins,'' a collection of essays that established him at the forefront of American dissent. His far-reaching criticisms of U.S. foreign policy and the legitimacy of U.S. power have raised controversy he is frequently sought out for his views by publications and news outlets internationally. In 1977 he delivered the Huizinga Lecture in Leiden, the Netherlands, under the title: ''Intellectuals and the State''.

Chomsky has received death threats because of his criticisms of U.S. foreign policy. He was also on a list of planned targets created by Theodore Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber; during the period that Kaczynski was at large, Chomsky had all of his mail checked for explosives. He states that he often receives undercover police protection, in particular while on the MIT campus, although he does not agree with the police protection.

Chomsky resides in Lexington, Massachusetts, and travels often, giving lectures on politics.

Contributions to linguistics

Chomskyan linguistics, beginning with his ''Syntactic Structures'', a distillation of his '' Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory'' (1955, 75), challenges structural linguistics and introduces transformational grammar. This approach takes utterances (sequences of words) to have a syntax characterized by a formal grammar; in particular, a context-free grammar extended with transformational rules.

Perhaps his most influential and time-tested contribution to the field, is the claim that modeling knowledge of language using a formal grammar accounts for the "productivity" or "creativity" of language. In other words, a formal grammar of a language can explain the ability of a hearer-speaker to produce and interpret an infinite number of utterances, including novel ones, with a limited set of grammatical rules and a finite set of terms. He has always acknowledged his debt to Pāṇini for his modern notion of an explicit generative grammar although it is also related to rationalist ideas of a priori knowledge.

It is a popular misconception that Chomsky proved that language is entirely innate and discovered a "universal grammar" (UG). In fact, Chomsky simply observed that while a human baby and a kitten are both capable of inductive reasoning, if they are exposed to exactly the same linguistic data, the human child will always acquire the ability to understand and produce language, while the kitten will never acquire either ability. Chomsky labeled whatever the relevant capacity the human has which the cat lacks the "language acquisition device" (LAD) and suggested that one of the tasks for linguistics should be to figure out what the LAD is and what constraints it puts on the range of possible human languages. The universal features that would result from these constraints are often termed "universal grammar" or UG.

The Principles and Parameters approach (P&P;)—developed in his Pisa 1979 Lectures, later published as ''Lectures on Government and Binding'' (LGB)—makes strong claims regarding universal grammar: that the grammatical principles underlying languages are innate and fixed, and the differences among the world's languages can be characterized in terms of parameter settings in the brain (such as the pro-drop parameter, which indicates whether an explicit subject is always required, as in English, or can be optionally dropped, as in Spanish), which are often likened to switches. (Hence the term principles and parameters, often given to this approach.) In this view, a child learning a language need only acquire the necessary lexical items (words, grammatical morphemes, and idioms), and determine the appropriate parameter settings, which can be done based on a few key examples.

Proponents of this view argue that the pace at which children learn languages is inexplicably rapid, unless children have an innate ability to learn languages. The similar steps followed by children all across the world when learning languages, and the fact that children make certain characteristic errors as they learn their first language, whereas other seemingly logical kinds of errors never occur (and, according to Chomsky, should be attested if a purely general, rather than language-specific, learning mechanism were being employed), are also pointed to as motivation for innateness.

More recently, in his Minimalist Program (1995), while retaining the core concept of "principles and parameters," Chomsky attempts a major overhaul of the linguistic machinery involved in the LGB model, stripping from it all but the barest necessary elements, while advocating a general approach to the architecture of the human language faculty that emphasizes principles of economy and optimal design, reverting to a derivational approach to generation, in contrast with the largely representational approach of classic P&P.;

Chomsky's ideas have had a strong influence on researchers of the language acquisition in children, though many researchers in this area such as Elizabeth Bates and Michael Tomasello argue very strongly against Chomsky's theories, and instead advocate emergentist or connectionist theories, explaining language with a number of general processing mechanisms in the brain that interact with the extensive and complex social environment in which language is used and learned.

His best-known work in phonology is ''The Sound Pattern of English'' (1968), written with Morris Halle (and often known as simply ''SPE''). This work has had a great significance for the development in the field. While phonological theory has since moved beyond "SPE phonology" in many important respects, the SPE system is considered the precursor of some of the most influential phonological theories today, including autosegmental phonology, lexical phonology and optimality theory. Chomsky no longer publishes on phonology.

Generative grammar

The Chomskyan approach towards syntax, often termed generative grammar, studies grammar as a body of knowledge possessed by language users. Since the 1960s, Chomsky has maintained that much of this knowledge is innate, implying that children need only learn certain parochial features of their native languages. The innate body of linguistic knowledge is often termed universal grammar. From Chomsky's perspective, the strongest evidence for the existence of Universal Grammar is simply the fact that children successfully acquire their native languages in so little time. Furthermore, he argues that there is an enormous gap between the linguistic stimuli to which children are exposed and the rich linguistic knowledge they attain (the "poverty of the stimulus" argument). The knowledge of Universal Grammar would serve to bridge that gap.

Chomsky's theories have been immensely influential within linguistics, but they have also received criticism. One recurring criticism of the Chomskyan variety of generative grammar is that it is Anglocentric and Eurocentric, and that often linguists working in this tradition have a tendency to base claims about Universal Grammar on a very small sample of languages, sometimes just one. Initially, the Eurocentrism was exhibited in an overemphasis on the study of English. However, hundreds of different languages have now received at least some attention within Chomskyan linguistic analyses. In spite of the diversity of languages that have been characterized by UG derivations, critics continue to argue that the formalisms within Chomskyan linguistics are Anglocentric and misrepresent the properties of languages that are different from English. Thus, Chomsky's approach has been criticized as a form of linguistic imperialism. In addition, Chomskyan linguists rely heavily on the intuitions of native speakers regarding which sentences of their languages are well-formed. This practice has been criticized on general methodological grounds. Some psychologists and psycholinguists, though sympathetic to Chomsky's overall program, have argued that Chomskyan linguists pay insufficient attention to experimental data from language processing, with the consequence that their theories are not psychologically plausible. Other critics (see language learning) have questioned whether it is necessary to posit Universal Grammar to explain child language acquisition, arguing that domain-general learning mechanisms are sufficient.

Today there are many different branches of generative grammar; one can view grammatical frameworks such as head-driven phrase structure grammar, lexical functional grammar and combinatory categorial grammar as broadly Chomskyan and generative in orientation, but with significant differences in execution.

Chomsky hierarchy

Chomsky is famous for investigating various kinds of formal languages and whether or not they might be capable of capturing key properties of human language. His Chomsky hierarchy partitions formal grammars into classes, or groups, with increasing expressive power, i.e., each successive class can generate a broader set of formal languages than the one before. Interestingly, Chomsky argues that modeling some aspects of human language requires a more complex formal grammar (as measured by the Chomsky hierarchy) than modeling others. For example, while a regular language is powerful enough to model English morphology, it is not powerful enough to model English syntax. In addition to being relevant in linguistics, the Chomsky hierarchy has also become important in computer science (especially in compiler construction and automata theory). Indeed, there is an equivalence between the Chomsky language hierarchy and the different kinds of automata. Thus theorems about languages are often dealt with as either languages (grammars) or automata.

An alternate method of dealing with languages is based upon Formal Power series. Formal Power series as well as the relationship between languages and semi-groups continued to occupy M. P. Schützenberger at the Sorbonne. Formal Power Series are similar to the Taylor Series one encounters in a course on Calculus, and is especially useful for languages where words (terminal symbols) are commutative.

Contributions to psychology

Chomsky's work in linguistics has had profound implications for modern psychology. For Chomsky, linguistics is a branch of cognitive psychology; genuine insights in linguistics imply concomitant understandings of aspects of mental processing and human nature. His theory of a universal grammar was seen by many as a direct challenge to the established behaviorist theories of the time and had major consequences for understanding how children learn language and what, exactly, the ability to use language is.

In 1959, Chomsky published an influential critique of B.F. Skinner's ''Verbal Behavior'', a book in which Skinner offered a theoretical account of language in functional, behavioral terms. He defined "Verbal Behavior" as learned behavior that has characteristic consequences delivered through the learned behavior of others. This makes for a view of communicative behaviors much larger than that usually addressed by linguists. Skinner's approach focused on the circumstances in which language was used; for example, asking for water was functionally a different response than labeling something as water, responding to someone asking for water, etc. These functionally different kinds of responses, which required in turn separate explanations, sharply contrasted both with traditional notions of language and Chomsky's psycholinguistic approach. Chomsky thought that a functionalist explanation restricting itself to questions of communicative performance ignored important questions. (Chomsky—Language and Mind, 1968). He focused on questions concerning the operation and development of innate structures for syntax capable of creatively organizing, cohering, adapting and combining words and phrases into intelligible utterances.

In the review Chomsky emphasized that the scientific application of behavioral principles from animal research is severely lacking in explanatory adequacy and is furthermore particularly superficial as an account of human verbal behavior because a theory restricting itself to external conditions, to "what is learned," cannot adequately account for generative grammar. Chomsky raised the examples of rapid language acquisition of children, including their quickly developing ability to form grammatical sentences, and the universally creative language use of competent native speakers to highlight the ways in which Skinner's view exemplified under-determination of theory by evidence. He argued that to understand human verbal behavior such as the creative aspects of language use and language development, one must first postulate a genetic linguistic endowment. The assumption that important aspects of language are the product of universal innate ability runs counter to Skinner's radical behaviorism.

Chomsky's 1959 review has drawn fire from a number of critics, the most famous criticism being that of Kenneth MacCorquodale's 1970 paper ''On Chomsky’s Review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior'' (''Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,'' volume 13, pages 83–99). MacCorquodale's argument was updated and expanded in important respects by Nathan Stemmer in a 1990 paper, ''Skinner's Verbal Behavior, Chomsky's review, and mentalism'' (''Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,'' volume 54, pages 307–319). These and similar critiques have raised certain points not generally acknowledged outside of behavioral psychology, such as the claim that Chomsky did not possess an adequate understanding of either behavioral psychology in general, or the differences between Skinner's behaviorism and other varieties. Consequently, it is argued that he made several serious errors. On account of these perceived problems, the critics maintain that the review failed to demonstrate what it has often been cited as doing. As such, it is averred that those most influenced by Chomsky's paper probably either already substantially agreed with Chomsky or never actually read it. The review has been further critiqued for misrepresenting the work of Skinner and others, including by quoting out of context. Chomsky has maintained that the review was directed at the way Skinner's variant of behavioral psychology "was being used in Quinean empiricism and naturalization of philosophy."

It has been claimed that Chomsky's critique of Skinner's methodology and basic assumptions paved the way for the "cognitive revolution", the shift in American psychology between the 1950s through the 1970s from being primarily behavioral to being primarily cognitive. In his 1966 ''Cartesian Linguistics'' and subsequent works, Chomsky laid out an explanation of human language faculties that has become the model for investigation in some areas of psychology. Much of the present conception of how the mind works draws directly from ideas that found their first persuasive author of modern times in Chomsky.

There are three key ideas. First is that the mind is "cognitive", or that the mind actually contains mental states, beliefs, doubts, and so on. Second, he argued that most of the important properties of language and mind are innate. The acquisition and development of a language is a result of the unfolding of innate propensities triggered by the experiential input of the external environment. The link between human innate aptitude to language and heredity has been at the core of the debate opposing Noam Chomsky to Jean Piaget at the Abbaye de Royaumont in 1975 (''Language and Learning. The Debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky,'' Harvard University Press, 1980). Although links between the genetic setup of humans and aptitude to language have been suggested at that time and in later discussions, we are still far from understanding the genetic bases of human language. Work derived from the model of selective stabilization of synapses set up by Jean-Pierre Changeux, Philippe Courrège and Antoine Danchin, and more recently developed experimentally and theoretically by Jacques Mehler and Stanislas Dehaene in particular in the domain of numerical cognition lend support to the Chomskyan "nativism". It does not, however, provide clues about the type of rules that would organize neuronal connections to permit language competence. Subsequent psychologists have extended this general "nativist" thesis beyond language. Lastly, Chomsky made the concept of "modularity" a critical feature of the mind's cognitive architecture. The mind is composed of an array of interacting, specialized subsystems with limited flows of inter-communication. This model contrasts sharply with the old idea that any piece of information in the mind could be accessed by any other cognitive process (optical illusions, for example, cannot be "turned off" even when they are known to be illusions).

Approach to science

Chomsky sees science as a straightforward search for explanation, and rejects the views of it as a catalog of facts or mechanical explanations. In this light, the majority of his contributions to science have been frameworks and hypotheses, rather than "discoveries."

As such, he considers certain so-called post-structuralist or postmodern critiques of logic and reason to be nonsensical:

I have spent a lot of my life working on questions such as these, using the only methods I know of; those condemned here as "science", "rationality," "logic," and so on. I therefore read the papers with some hope that they would help me "transcend" these limitations, or perhaps suggest an entirely different course. I'm afraid I was disappointed. Admittedly, that may be my own limitation. Quite regularly, "my eyes glaze over" when I read polysyllabic discourse on the themes of poststructuralism and postmodernism; what I understand is largely truism or error, but that is only a fraction of the total word count. True, there are lots of other things I don't understand: the articles in the current issues of math and physics journals, for example. But there is a difference. In the latter case, I know how to get to understand them, and have done so, in cases of particular interest to me; and I also know that people in these fields can explain the contents to me at my level, so that I can gain what (partial) understanding I may want. In contrast, no one seems to be able to explain to me why the latest post-this-and-that is (for the most part) other than truism, error, or gibberish, and I do not know how to proceed.

Although Chomsky believes that a scientific background is important to teach proper reasoning, he holds that science in general is "inadequate" to understand complicated problems like human affairs:

Science talks about very simple things, and asks hard questions about them. As soon as things become too complex, science can’t deal with them... But it’s a complicated matter: Science studies what’s at the edge of understanding, and what’s at the edge of understanding is usually fairly simple. And it rarely reaches human affairs. Human affairs are way too complicated.

Debates

Chomsky has been known to vigorously defend and debate his views and opinions, in philosophy, linguistics, and politics. He has had notable debates with Jean Piaget, Michel Foucault, William F. Buckley, Jr., Christopher Hitchens, George Lakoff, Richard Perle, Hilary Putnam, Willard Quine, and Alan Dershowitz, to name a few. In response to his speaking style being criticized as boring, Chomsky said that "I'm a boring speaker and I like it that way.... I doubt that people are attracted to whatever the persona is.... People are interested in the issues, and they're interested in the issues because they are important." "We don't want to be swayed by superficial eloquence, by emotion and so on."

Political views

Chomsky has stated that his "personal visions are fairly traditional anarchist ones, with origins in the Enlightenment and classical liberalism" and he has praised libertarian socialism. Although Chomsky tries to avoid the ambiguity of labels, his political views are often characterized in news accounts as "leftist" or "left-wing," and he has described himself as an anarcho-syndicalist. He is a member of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy and the Industrial Workers of the World international union. He published a book on anarchism titled ''Chomsky on Anarchism'', published by the anarchist book collective AK Press in 2006.

Chomsky has engaged in political activism all of his adult life and expressed opinions on politics and world events, which are widely cited, publicized and discussed. Chomsky has in turn argued that his views are those the powerful do not want to hear and for this reason he is considered an American political dissident.

Chomsky asserts that authority, unless justified, is inherently illegitimate and that the burden of proof is on those in authority. If this burden can't be met, the authority in question should be dismantled. Authority for its own sake is inherently unjustified. An example given by Chomsky of a legitimate authority is that exerted by an adult to prevent a young child from wandering into traffic. He contends that there is little moral difference between chattel slavery and renting one's self to an owner or "wage slavery". He feels that it is an attack on personal integrity that undermines individual freedom. He holds that workers should own and control their workplace, a view held (as he notes) by the Lowell Mill Girls.

Chomsky has strongly criticized the foreign policy of the United States. He claims double standards in a foreign policy preaching democracy and freedom for all while allying itself with non-democratic and repressive organizations and states such as Chile under Augusto Pinochet and argues that this results in massive human rights violations. He often argues that America's intervention in foreign nations, including the secret aid given to the Contras in Nicaragua, an event of which he has been very critical, fits any standard description of terrorism, including "official definitions in the US Code and Army Manuals in the early 1980s." Before its collapse, Chomsky also condemned Soviet imperialism; for example in 1986 during a question/answer following a lecture he gave at Universidad Centroamericana in Nicaragua, when challenged about how he could "talk about North American imperialism and Russian imperialism in the same breath," Chomsky responded: "One of the truths about the world is that there are two superpowers, one a huge power which happens to have its boot on your neck; another, a smaller power which happens to have its boot on other people's necks. I think that anyone in the Third World would be making a grave error if they succumbed to illusions about these matters."

Regarding the death of Osama bin Laden, Chomsky stated: "We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a 'suspect' but uncontroversially the 'decider' who gave the orders to commit the 'supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole' (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, [and] the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region."

He has argued that the mass media in the United States largely serve as a "bought priesthood" of the U.S. government and U.S.-based corporations, with the three intertwined through common interests. In a famous reference to Walter Lippmann, Chomsky along with his coauthor Edward S. Herman has written that the American media manufactures consent among the public. Chomsky has condemned the 2010 US Supreme Court ''Citizens United'' ruling revoking the limits on campaign finance, calling it a "corporate takeover of democracy."

Chomsky opposes the U.S. global "war on drugs", claiming its language is misleading, and refers to it as "the war on certain drugs." He favors drug policy reform, in education and prevention rather than military or police action as a means of reducing drug use. In an interview in 1999, Chomsky argued that, whereas crops such as tobacco receive no mention in governmental exposition, other non-profitable crops, such as marijuana are attacked because of the effect achieved by persecuting the poor. He has stated:

U.S. domestic drug policy does not carry out its stated goals, and policymakers are well aware of that. If it isn't about reducing substance abuse, what is it about? It is reasonably clear, both from current actions and the historical record, that substances tend to be criminalized when they are associated with the so-called dangerous classes, that the criminalization of certain substances is a technique of social control.

Chomsky is critical of the American "state capitalist" system and big business, he describes himself as a socialist, specifically an anarcho-syndicalist, and is critical of "authoritarian" communist branches of socialism. He also believes that socialist values exemplify the rational and morally consistent extension of original unreconstructed classical liberal and radical humanist ideas to an industrial context. He believes that society should be highly organized and based on democratic control of communities and work places. He believes that the radical humanist ideas of his two major influences, Bertrand Russell and John Dewey, were "rooted in the Enlightenment and classical liberalism, and retain their revolutionary character."

Chomsky has stated that he believes the United States remains the "greatest country in the world", a comment that he later clarified by saying, "Evaluating countries is senseless and I would never put things in those terms, but that some of America's advances, particularly in the area of free speech, that have been achieved by centuries of popular struggle, are to be admired." He has also said "In many respects, the United States is the freest country in the world. I don't just mean in terms of limits on state coercion, though that's true too, but also in terms of individual relations. The United States comes closer to classlessness in terms of interpersonal relations than virtually any society."

Chomsky objects to the criticism that anarchism is inconsistent with support for government welfare, stating in part:

One can, of course, take the position that we don't care about the problems people face today, and want to think about a possible tomorrow. OK, but then don't pretend to have any interest in human beings and their fate, and stay in the seminar room and intellectual coffee house with other privileged people. Or one can take a much more humane position: I want to work, today, to build a better society for tomorrow – the classical anarchist position, quite different from the slogans in the question. That's exactly right, and it leads directly to support for the people facing problems today: for enforcement of health and safety regulation, provision of national health insurance, support systems for people who need them, etc. That is not a sufficient condition for organizing for a different and better future, but it is a necessary condition. Anything else will receive the well-merited contempt of people who do not have the luxury to disregard the circumstances in which they live, and try to survive.

Chomsky holds views that can be summarized as anti-war but not strictly pacifist. He prominently opposed the Vietnam War and most other wars in his lifetime. He expressed these views with tax resistance and peace walks. In 1968, he signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. He published a number of articles about the war in Vietnam, including "The Responsibility of Intellectuals". He maintains that U.S. involvement in World War II to defeat the Axis powers was probably justified, with the caveat that a preferable outcome would have been to end or prevent the war through earlier diplomacy. He believes that the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were "among the most unspeakable crimes in history".

Chomsky has made many criticisms of the Israeli government, its supporters, the United States' support of the government and its treatment of the Palestinian people, arguing that " 'supporters of Israel' are in reality supporters of its moral degeneration and probable ultimate destruction" and that "Israel's very clear choice of expansion over security may well lead to that consequence." Chomsky disagreed with the founding of Israel as a Jewish state, saying, "I don't think a Jewish or Christian or Islamic state is a proper concept. I would object to the United States as a Christian state." Chomsky hesitated before publishing work critical of Israeli policies while his parents were alive, because he "knew it would hurt them" he says, "mostly because of their friends, who reacted hysterically to views like those expressed in my work." On May 16, 2010, Israeli authorities detained Chomsky and ultimately refused his entry to the West Bank via Jordan. A spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister indicated that the refusal of entry was simply due to a border guard who "overstepped his authority" and a second attempt to enter would likely be allowed. Chomsky disagreed, saying that the Interior Ministry official who interviewed him was taking instructions from his superiors. Chomsky maintained that based on the several hours of interviewing, he was denied entry because of the things he says and because he was visiting a university in the West Bank but no Israeli universities.

Chomsky has a broad view of free-speech rights, especially in the mass media, and opposes censorship. He has stated that "with regard to freedom of speech there are basically two positions: you defend it vigorously for views you hate, or you reject it and prefer Stalinist/fascist standards". With reference to the United States diplomatic cables leak, Chomsky suggested that "perhaps the most dramatic revelation ... is the bitter hatred of democracy that is revealed both by the U.S. Government -- Hillary Clinton, others -- and also by the diplomatic service." Chomsky refuses to take legal action against those who may have libeled him and prefers to counter libels through open letters in newspapers. One notable example of this approach is his response to an article by Emma Brockes in ''The Guardian'' which alleged he denied the existence of the Srebrenica massacre. Chomsky's complaint prompted The Guardian to publish an apologetic correction and to withdraw the article from the paper's website.

Chomsky has frequently stated that there is no connection between his work in linguistics and his political views and is generally critical of the idea that competent discussion of political topics requires expert knowledge in academic fields. In a 1969 interview, he said regarding the connection between his politics and his work in linguistics:

I still feel myself that there is a kind of tenuous connection. I would not want to overstate it but I think it means something to me at least. I think that anyone's political ideas or their ideas of social organization must be rooted ultimately in some concept of human nature and human needs.

Some critics have accused Chomsky of hypocrisy when, in spite of his political criticism of American and European military imperialism, early research at the institution (MIT) where he did his linguistic research had been substantially funded by the American military. Chomsky makes the argument that because he has received funding from the U.S. military, he has an even greater responsibility to criticize and resist its immoral actions.

He is also an outspoken advocate against the use of the death penalty and has spoken against the execution of Steven Woods.

I think the death penalty is a crime no matter what the circumstances, and it is particularly awful in the Steven Woods case. I strongly oppose the execution of Steven Woods on September 13, 2011.

Influence in other fields

''Chomskyan'' models have been used as a theoretical basis in several other fields. The Chomsky hierarchy is often taught in fundamental computer science courses as it confers insight into the various types of formal languages. This hierarchy can also be discussed in mathematical terms and has generated interest among mathematicians, particularly combinatorialists. Some arguments in evolutionary psychology are derived from his research results.

The 1984 Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine and Physiology, Niels K. Jerne, used Chomsky's generative model to explain the human immune system, equating "components of a generative grammar ... with various features of protein structures". The title of Jerne's Stockholm Nobel lecture was "The Generative Grammar of the Immune System".

Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee who was the subject of a study in animal language acquisition at Columbia University, was named after Chomsky in reference to his view of language acquisition as a uniquely human ability.

Famous computer scientist Donald Knuth admits to reading Syntactic Structures during his honeymoon and being greatly influenced by it. "...I must admit to taking a copy of Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures along with me on my honeymoon in 1961 ... Here was a marvelous thing: a mathematical theory of language in which I could use a computer programmer's intuition!".

Another focus of Chomsky's political work has been an analysis of mainstream mass media (especially in the United States), its structures and constraints, and its perceived role in supporting big business and government interests.

Edward S. Herman and Chomsky's book ''Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media'' (1988) explores this topic in depth, presenting their "propaganda model" of the news media with numerous detailed case studies demonstrating it. According to this propaganda model, more democratic societies like the U.S. use subtle, non-violent means of control, unlike totalitarian systems, where physical force can readily be used to coerce the general population. In an often-quoted remark, Chomsky states that "propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state." (Media Control)

The model attempts to explain this perceived systemic bias of the mass media in terms of structural economic causes rather than a conspiracy of people. It argues the bias derives from five "filters" that all published news must "pass through," which combine to systematically distort news coverage.

In explaining the first filter, ownership, he notes that most major media outlets are owned by large corporations. The second, funding, notes that the outlets derive the majority of their funding from advertising, not readers. Thus, since they are profit-oriented businesses selling a product—readers and audiences—to other businesses (advertisers), the model expects them to publish news that reflects the desires and values of those businesses. In addition, the news media are dependent on government institutions and major businesses with strong biases as sources (the third filter) for much of their information. Flak, the fourth filter, refers to the various pressure groups that attack the media for supposed bias. Norms, the fifth filter, refer to the common conceptions shared by those in the profession of journalism. (Note: in the original text, published in 1988, the fifth filter was "anticommunism". However, with the fall of the Soviet Union, it has been broadened to allow for shifts in public opinion.) The model describes how the media form a decentralized and non-conspiratorial but nonetheless very powerful propaganda system, that is able to mobilize an elite consensus, frame public debate within elite perspectives and at the same time give the appearance of democratic consent.

Chomsky and Herman test their model empirically by picking "paired examples"—pairs of events that were objectively similar except for the alignment of domestic elite interests. They use a number of such examples to attempt to show that in cases where an "official enemy" does something (like murder of a religious official), the press investigates thoroughly and devotes a great amount of coverage to the matter, thus victims of "enemy" states are considered "worthy". But when the domestic government or an ally does the same thing (or worse), the press downplays the story, thus victims of US or US client states are considered "unworthy."

They also test their model against the case that is often held up as the best example of a free and aggressively independent press, the media coverage of the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. Even in this case, they argue that the press was behaving subserviently to elite interests.

Academic achievements, awards and honors

In early 1969, he delivered the John Locke Lectures at Oxford University; in January 1970, the Bertrand Russell Memorial Lecture at University of Cambridge; in 1972, the Nehru Memorial Lecture in New Delhi; in 1977, the Huizinga Lecture in Leiden; in 1988 the Massey Lectures at the University of Toronto, titled "Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies"; in 1997, The Davie Memorial Lecture on Academic Freedom in Cape Town, and many others.

Chomsky has received many honorary degrees from universities around the world, including from the following:

University of London

University of Chicago

Loyola University of Chicago

Swarthmore College

University of Delhi

Bard College

University of Massachusetts

University of Pennsylvania

Georgetown University

Amherst College

University of Cambridge

University of Colorado

University of Buenos Aires

McGill University

Rovira i Virgili University

Columbia University

Villanova University

University of Connecticut

University of Maine

Scuola Normale Superiore

University of Western Ontario

University of Toronto

Harvard University

Universidad de Chile

University of Bologna

Universidad de La Frontera

University of Calcutta

Universidad Nacional de Colombia

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Santo Domingo Institute of Technology

Uppsala University

University of Athens

University of Cyprus

Central Connecticut State University

National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)

Peking University National Tsing Hua University He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. In addition, he is a member of other professional and learned societies in the United States and abroad, and is a recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association, the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, the Helmholtz Medal, the Dorothy Eldridge Peacemaker Award, the 1999 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science, and others. He is twice winner of The Orwell Award, granted by The National Council of Teachers of English for "Distinguished Contributions to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language" (in 1987 and 1989).

He is a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Department of Social Sciences.

In 2005, Chomsky received an honorary fellowship from the Literary and Historical Society. In 2007, Chomsky received The Uppsala University (Sweden) Honorary Doctor's degree in commemoration of Carolus Linnaeus. In February 2008, he received the President's Medal from the Literary and Debating Society of the National University of Ireland, Galway. Since 2009 he is an honorary member of IAPTI.

In 2010, Chomsky received the Erich Fromm Prize in Stuttgart, Germany. In April 2010, Chomsky became the third scholar to receive the University of Wisconsin's A.E. Havens Center's Award for Lifetime Contribution to Critical Scholarship.

Chomsky has an Erdős number of four.

Chomsky was voted the leading living public intellectual in The 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll conducted by the British magazine ''Prospect''. He reacted, saying "I don't pay a lot of attention to polls". In a list compiled by the magazine ''New Statesman'' in 2006, he was voted seventh in the list of "Heroes of our time".

Actor Viggo Mortensen with avant-garde guitarist Buckethead dedicated their 2006 album, called ''Pandemoniumfromamerica'', to Chomsky.

On January 22, 2010, a special honorary concert for Chomsky was given at Kresge Auditorium at MIT. The concert, attended by Chomsky and dozens of his family and friends, featured music composed by Edward Manukyan and speeches by Chomsky's colleagues, including David Pesetsky of MIT and Gennaro Chierchia, head of the linguistics department at Harvard University.

In June 2011, Chomsky was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize, which cited his "unfailing courage, critical analysis of power and promotion of human rights".

In 2011, Chomsky was inducted into IEEE Intelligent Systems' AI's Hall of Fame for the "significant contributions to the field of AI and intelligent systems".

Bibliography

Filmography

''Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media'', Director: Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick (1992)

''Last Party 2000'', Director: Rebecca Chaiklin and Donovan Leitch (2001)

''Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times'', Director: John Junkerman (2002)

''Distorted Morality—America's War On Terror?'', Director: John Junkerman (2003)

''Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without a Pause'' (TV), Director: Will Pascoe (2003)

''The Corporation'', Directors: Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott; Writer: Joel Bakan (2003)

''Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land'', Directors: Sut Jhally and Bathsheba Ratzkoff (2004)

''On Power, Dissent and Racism: A discussion with Noam Chomsky'', Journalist: Nicolas Rossier; Producers: Eli Choukri, Baraka Productions (2004)

''Lake of Fire'', Director: Tony Kaye (2006)

''American Feud: A History of Conservatives and Liberals'', Director: Richard Hall (2008)

''Chomsky & Cie'' Director: Olivier Azam (out in 2008)

''An Inconvenient Tax'', Director: Christopher P. Marshall (out in 2009)

''The Money Fix,'' Director: Alan Rosenblith (2009)

''Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space'', Director: Denis Delestrac (2010)

''Article 12: Waking up in a surveillance society'', Director: Juan Manuel Biaiñ (2010)

See also

American philosophy

Axiom of categoricity

Chomskybot

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously"

English studies

Knowledge worker

List of American philosophers

Important publications in computability

''The Anti-Chomsky Reader''

References

External links

chomsky.info official website

Noam Chomsky at MIT

Noam Chomsky articles on libcom.org

Noam Chomsky at ''Democracy Now!''

Column archive at ''The Guardian''

Articles and videos featuring Noam Chomsky at AnarchismToday.org

;Interviews and articles

Talks by Noam Chomsky at A-Infos Radio Project

Interview about Human Rights by scholars (English with French subtitles) – 2009

Chomsky media files at the Internet Archive

Noam Chomsky interviewed by Alyssa McDonald on ''New Statesman'', September 2010.

The Real News (TRNN) ">Noam Chomsky Interviews on The Real News (TRNN)

Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance – discussion on the "Bush doctrine" and its implications, C-SPAN, Feb 2004

Philosophies of Language & Politics – talk at The Commonwealth Club, October 2009

Thought Economics Interviews Noam Chomsky – Noam Chomsky interviewed on global democracy, April 2011

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