Mark Scott Smith's Blog: Enemy in the Mirror, page 59
March 26, 2020
UCLA Red Cell
With the rise of anti-Communist rhetoric reminiscent of the post-WWI Great Red Scare, the University of California system was accused in the late 1940s of harboring Communist infiltrators.
In 1949 the Regents of the University adopted a policy requiring all faculty and staff to swear a loyalty oath that disavowed membership in the Communist Party.
AllPosters.com
In October 1950 the Saturday Evening Post ran an investigative report by William L. Worden, entitled “UCLA’s Red Cell: Case History of College Communism.”
Worden claimed that the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) was infiltrated by Communists, and student protests against racial discrimination were examples of their influence.
Worden labeled the 50 Communist Party members identified in the 17,000 member university a Communist cell. His report stimulated calls to investigate the entire California state university system.
Source Wikipedia
By August 1950, 36 members of the faculty and 62 other UC employees were dismissed for refusing to sign the loyalty oath.
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March 23, 2020
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
In 1950 C. S. Lewis, a Christian apologist, published The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first of seven children’s fantasy novels in The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–1956).
The story follows four English children, evacuated to an old country house during wartime, as they pass through a magic wardrobe to visit Narnia, a land of talking animals and mythical creatures ruled by the evil White Witch.
Because the character Aslan, appearing in all seven books of the series, is widely accepted as based on Jesus Christ, The Chronicles of Narnia developed a large Christian following (although some objected to recurrent themes of paganism and occultism).
Source: Wikipedia
In 2005, the story was adapted for a movie co-produced by Walt Disney and Walden Media.
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March 18, 2020
U.S. Intelligence Mistakes in Korea
This “solid intelligence” might be a bit overstated…
By early 1950 military build-up of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) forces and equipment along the 38th parallel was clearly identified by both U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Army G2 surveillance networks.
However, regarding a possible North Korean attack, the dominant themes in U.S. intelligence analysis were:
DPRK forces could not mount a successful attack without Soviet assistancean attack would signal a world-wide Communist offensiveemerging from WWII and Civil War, neither the USSR nor Communist China would initiate a worldwide conflict
https://vividmaps.com/korean-war-1950...
Throughout early June 1950, intelligence reports from South Korea and the CIA reported:
On June 25, 1950 North Korea invaded South Korea.
PaperlessArchives.com
In September 1950, two months into the war, a CIA Intelligence Memorandum assumed that the Chinese were already providing covert assistance to the DPRK, but overt assistance by Communist China would require Soviet approval to risk a general war. The CIA memorandum concluded that although reports of Chinese troop buildups along the Manchurian border made intervention possible, there were no direct indications that China would intervene,
Wikipedia
At the end of September 1950, the US Ambassador in Moscow reported that Soviet and Chinese contacts told both the British and Dutch Ambassadors that if foreign troops cross the 38th parallel, China would intervene.
These warnings were ignored, and although General MacArthur was ordered to advance only South Korean troops to the Yalu River,, US-UN forces continued to push the DRPK forces northward.
Source: Two Strategic Intelligence Mistakes in Korea, 1950 — Central Intelligence Agency
WikipediaOn November 25 1950 a 300,000-man Chinese offensive caught U.N. forces off guard.
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March 16, 2020
George Burns and Gracie Allen
The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show was a popular half-hour CBS television series broadcast from 1950 to 1958.
Burns and Allen, vaudevillians in the 1920s, and radio stars in the 1930-40s, received Emmy Award nominations for their TV comedy series throughout its eight-year run.
After Gracie Allen, tired and troubled by a heart condition, retired in 1958, George Burns tried to continue the show with the remaining cast, but lasted only one year.
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March 12, 2020
Sinchon Massacre
This rather, robotic-voiced discussion seems a reasonable review of the facts surrounding this dark page in Korean War history.
In October 1950, North Korea (DPRK) claims that, during the retreat of the DPRK’s Korean Peoples Army from Hwanghae Province, Southern Korea (ROK) military forces (authorized by U.S. military) killed ~35,000 people.
Other sources dispute the death toll and accuse Korean right-wing security police and communists of the killings.
Source: Wikipedia
North Korea claims the event (referred to as the Sinchon Massacre) resulted in the deaths of ~1/4 of the population of Sinchon over the course of 52 days before a counterattack by Chinese and North Korean forces.
Here is what North Koreans are told today at the Sinchon Museum of American War Atrocities.
The Sinchon massacre “cannot be understood simply as killings between the left and the right,” South Korean historian Han Sung Hoon alleges. It must be understood three-dimensionally, as the explosive result of the contradictions emanating from the colonial period after liberation, combined with the division and establishment of two separate states in the North and South, and eventual war, which exacerbated the internal problems of class, hierarchy, and religion.”
“
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March 9, 2020
China Invades Tibet
In 1913 Tibet declared independence from China.
Potala palace – WikipediaIn October 1950 China invaded Tibet.
ZanderSchubert – WikipediaIn May 1951, Tibet affirmed China’s sovereignty and established an autonomous administration led by Dalai Lama.
Wikimedia Commons
In 1959 the Dalai Lama fled to northern India and established the Central Tibetan Administration.
Emblem of Exiled Tibetan People’s Organisation – WikimediaThe Tibet Autonomous Region within China was officially established in 1965.[1]
Source: History of Tibet (1950–present)
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March 5, 2020
Heart Pacemaker
In 1950, Canadian electrical engineer John Hopps built the first external pacemaker based upon observations by cardio-thoracic surgeons at Toronto General Hospital. With vacuum tube technology, powered by AC from a wall socket, the device posed the potential hazard of electrocution, might produce dangerous ventricular fibrillation and was painful to the patient.
In 1952 a smaller, but still bulky transcutaneous pacing devices was developed using a large rechargeable battery as the power supply.
In 1957, William L. Weirich demonstrated the restoration of heart rate, cardiac output and blood pressure in animals with complete heart block through the use of a myocardial electrode.
In 1958 the Alberto Vejarano Laverde and Jorge Reynolds Pombo constructed a 45kg external pacemaker, powered by a 12 volt car battery and connected to the heart by electrode.
The 1956 invention of the silicon transistor led to rapid development of practical cardiac pacemaking.
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March 2, 2020
Truman & MacArthur on Wake Island
Source: October 1950 – Wikipedia
On October 15, 1950 (one day after the Chinese army had crossed the Yalu) U.S. President Harry S. Truman and General Douglas MacArthur met on Wake Island to confer about the progress of the Korean War.
Truman and MacArthur met privately at the conference and, therefore, there is no record of their conversation. However, by most reports, MacArthur assured Truman that Communist China would not send troops into Korea, and if they did, he would would destroy them.
In his fascinating book, Arthur Herman describes the Wake Island meeting:
“What are the chances of Chinese or Soviet interference?” Truman asked.
“Very little,” MacArthur replied, puffing on his pipe…”Had they interfered in the first or second months it would have been decisive. We are no longer fearful of their intervention.”
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February 27, 2020
Tom Corbett Space Cadet
Developed by the writer Joseph Greene, and inspired by the Robert A. Heinlein‘s 1948 novel Space Cadet, the TV series Tom Corbett Space Cadet first appeared on CBS TV in 1950.
The series followed Corbett and other cadets at the Space Academy as they trained to become members of the Solar Guard. The action took place at the academy, aboard the rocket cruiser Polaris and on alien worlds.
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February 24, 2020
Vietnam Uprising
In October 1950, led by Võ Nguyên Giáp, Communist troops in the northern region of the French colony of Vietnam began a series of attacks on French colonial fortresses along the border with China.
10,000 French troops. isolated in jungle forts fell by the middle of October,1950.
In a speech in the French National Assembly that month, Pierre Mendés France advocated negotiating a cease fire with the Communists. Later, as Premier of France in 1954, he ended the French involvement in Vietnam.
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