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Hidden History of the Korean War

Monthly Review Press
September 1, 1969



Matthew Josephson on The Hidden History of the Korean War:

"I would nominate this for the Book-of-the-Year if there were such an award given for courage and honesty in writing of the crisis of our time. Here there are no sensational charges, no unfounded accusations. With his fine intelligence Mr. Stone analyzes events and statements, searching always for the motive behind the act, like a good historian-detective."

From the Author's Preface:

"I have tried to write this story as if I were writing a novel, with suspense and with three-dimensionality. In a good novel one does not know all the answers, and I do not know all the answers here. Much about the Korean War is still hidden, and much will long remain hidden. I believe I have succeeded in throwing new light on its origins, on the operations of MacArthur and Dulles, on the weaknesses of Truman and Acheson, on the way the Chinese were provoked to intervene, and on the way the truce talks have been dragged out and the issues muddied by American military men hostile from the first to negotiations. I have tried to bring as much of the hidden story to light as I could in order to put the people of the United States and the United Nations on guard."

From the Publisher's Foreword:

"We commend it to readers as a work of quite extraordinary importance. It is at once a tour de force of research, a brilliant piece of interpretation, and last but not least an exciting story. It is really what tits title says it is: The Hidden History of the Korean War. If enough Americans will read it, we are convinced that it can become one of those rare documents which, like Zola's J'accuse, play a role in shaping history."