Episode 44: Talking & Fighting picks up from last time with the Korean peace process, as the allies managed to sit down at last and talk face to face with the communists, at a place called Kaesong. As we’ll discover, getting the communists to sit and talk with them was only half the battle. The Chinese and North Koreans were well equipped to turn even the most genuine peace initiative into a great propaganda victory. When they weren’t applying their own brand of spin to the latest talks, they were talking in public and preparing for more war in private. 

Indeed, the first year of peace talks was to be one of immense frustration to the allies, who were made to look like supplicant puppets in the communist propaganda, and then like fools when those same communists took advantage of the lull in hostilities to prepare a defensive line which would, with some small changes, remain unchanged for the next two thirds of the war. Peace initiatives thus had their price, but as the allies and the communists well understood, peace initiatives were the only means by which the Korean War could be ended, and the suffering soldiers be returned home. Dilemmas such as these were a dime a dozen in the wearisome conflict, and Korea was by no means finished with the allies yet.

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Music used:

“Is There Still Room For Me ‘Neath the Old Apple Tree”, by Albert Campbell and Henry Burr, released in 1916. Available: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Albert_Campbell_and_Henry_Burr/Antique_Phonograph_Music_Program_01202015/Is_There_Still_Room_for_Me_Neath_the_Old_Apple_Tree_-_Albert_Campbell_and_Henry_Burr

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