In 1950, Harry S. Truman, using a UN Security Council resolution as a substitute for declaring war, had committed the United States to defend the southern part of that nation, divided at the 38th parallel, after an invasion from the Communist North. He wound up paying for it with his presidency. General Douglas MacArthur swiftly recovered almost the entire country, South and North, from North Korean forces in a campaign of tactical mastery, but when he had driven the North Koreans almost to the Yalu River along the Chinese border, China entered the war with hundreds of thousands of troops. The
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