The Korean War started 60 years ago today. I grew up knowing about the war as fictionalized by M*A*S*H. In history class, we never made it that far into the twentieth century and, unlike today, the conflict between North & South Korea never came up in our current events conversations, making it a forgotten war.

The University of Iowa Libraries digital collections have a small amount of material relevant for people interested in learning more about this conflict.

In an oral history interview, Otto Knauth, a former Des Moines register reporter, recounts putting together the story of the invasion.

“I think it was on June 25, 1950, and the North Koreans invaded South Korea. I got the job of editing that story. It was a Saturday night and it was for the Sunday Register. That was, by far, the biggest story that I had ever handled. I worked on it all night long because we kept getting updates all the way through. So, from edition to edition, it meant changing the story, maybe putting a new lead on it, expanding the text down below, and writing new headlines for it.”

According to the October 1950 issue of the Iowa Alumni Review, the war was featured as part of the 1950 summer lecture series, with three speakers giving different perspectives on the war.  One speaker, Max Lerner, stated “We must help the revolutionary forces in Asia become a democratic force. We must be on the side of racial equality and social reform everywhere—and at home, too.”

Our collections also include papers of Henry A. Wallace. His view towards communism changed due to the Korean War, so some of these letters are of particular importance for learning about the effects of the war on attitudes in the United States. A Feb 20 1951 letter to Harry Weinberg clarifies his differences of opinion with Truman.

“That I partially agree with the Administration on Korea does not mean I back all its foreign policy … I believe the USA should provisionally offer to the USSR and the World a genuine peace program to stimulate productivity and rapidly improve the standard of living of all backward and undeveloped areas of the world.”

Our government poster collection includes a chronology of phase 4 of the war, detailing events of 25 January-21 April 1951.  During this time the US and republic of Korea forces decided to cross the 38th parallel again and General MacArthur was relieved of duty.

You can also learn about the war from the broader social context in the United States, including the Cold war and fears of the “Red Menace”. One of the speakers on the Chautauqua circuit, Edward Hunter, the author of Brain-washing in Red China, advertised his talk about the communist brainwashing, by saying “Here is an expose of the Communists’ best kept secret, a glimpse behind the bamboo curtain at the sinister, ruthlessly effective technique by which the Reds are attempting to conquer the minds of men.”

This is not the only view presented on the Chautauqua circuit; our collections include a brochure for a movie by Thomas E. Benner showing life and culture of the Korean film, made before and after the communist invasion.

While the UI press book Memoirs of a Cold War Son doesn’t directly talk about the Korean War, it gives a first hand account of growing up in this era.

Our collections also include analyses of various aspects of the war. For example, we have a 1997 interview of Han Ki about the effect of the Korean War on literary production in Korea.  You can also listen to Marshall Poe’s interview of Julian E. Zelizer about his book Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security From WWII to the War on Terrorism.

Unfortunately, the armistice between North and South Korea is fragile and the world still is dealing with hostilities. Our Foreign Relations Council series includes several talks about North Korea, including a lecture by Scott Snyder on Dec 1, 2009 about the 6 party talks.

Spring of 1970 was a tumultuous time on college campuses. On April 30, President Richard Nixon announced that U.S forces would invade Cambodia because of the recent communist coup. Students around the country protested this escalation of the Vietnam War. On May 4, the National Guard fired on students at Kent State University, killing 4 and wounding 9 people, which ignited protests all over the country.

 

Anti-war protests were not new to Iowa City or to elsewhere in Iowa; protests had been occurring throughout the 1960s.

   

Spring of 1970 was different.

After the Kent State shootings, students marched on the National Guard Armory, broke windows there and also in some downtown businesses. The City Council gave the mayor curfew powers. On May 6 there was a student boycott of classes. That night about 400 people had a “sleep-in” in front of the Old Capitol.  That night about 50 people broke into the Old Capitol and set off a smoke bomb. The protestors left voluntarily when asked to do so. Around 2 AM Friday morning President Boyd requested arrest of the students on the Pentacrest by highway patrolmen, but the next day he regretted the mass arrests and said he had received faulty information. On May 8, President Boyd cancelled the 89^th annual Governor’s day ROTC observance for the following day. On Friday and Saturday a National Guard helicopter circled the Pentacrest.

In the early morning hours of Saturday, May 9, the Old Armory Temporary (O.A.T.), also known as “Big Pink”, which housed the writing lab, was burned down. This building was located was next to the Old Armory, where the Adler Journalism and Mass Communications building currently is located. O.A.T was said to be at the top of a list of buildings for burning, probably due to its poor condition and was considered a firetrap. The Iowa Alumni Review includes an article about the fire in which the author states: “Only the ends stayed upright. … On the south, Lou Kelly’s Writing lab bearing the sign ‘another mother for peace,’ escaped.” There was a second, smaller fire on Saturday evening in a restroom in the East Hall Annex.

By Sunday morning, President Boyd gave students the option to leave. Classes were not cancelled but students could leave and take the grade they currently had.

An account of the May 1970 protests can be read in the June-July issue of the Iowa Alumni Review.

In his autobiography, My Iowa Journey: The Life Story of the University of Iowa’s First African American Professor, Philip Hubbard (University Vice-Provost in 1970) gives an administrator’s perspective of all the protests of the 1960s.  He supported the student’s right to protest and in 1966 stated:

Students should not accept everything that is dished out to them. We don’t want to dictate what they should or should not do. However, student demonstrations should remain within the law and good taste without interfering with the university’s primary purpose of instructing students.

During this time there was also a strong ROTC presence on campus.

The 1970 yearbook includes many pictures of the men and women who chose to serve the country in this manner. Their presence on campus and the academic credit they received for their service was called into question by both students and faculty in the spring of 1970, but Boyd said he could not abolish ROTC. The Alumni Review had an article called “ROTC: Alive and well at Iowa” in the December 1969 issue which helps provide a more complete picture of this period in history.

More information about protests at the University of Iowa can be found by consulting the “University Archives Resource guide to Student Protest Movements.”