Acheson bitterly wrote in his memoirs, referring to the Green Light charge, “for Australia and New Zealand were not included either.” Acheson argued that the color of his speech was not green, but rather red, an unambiguous “no go” for the communists to start any act of aggression. Acheson and his liberal allies have vehemently denied that his speech gave a green light for the outbreak of the war. But only two weeks after Acheson’s speech, as the post-Soviet Union archival releases have indicated, on January 30, 1950, Stalin finally issued a general approval for Kim Il-sung to launch the attack on the South. Ever since Moscow created the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 1948, Kim had been begging Stalin to approve his plan to attack South Korea, only to be repeatedly rejected by him on account of an assumed American military response. Stalin then immediately held secret deliberations with Mao, who had been in the USSR since late December 1949, about the seemingly changed military assessment concerning Korea. According to Soviet eyewitness accounts made available after the Soviet Union’s collapse in the early 1990s, Acheson’s speech was rushed to Stalin’s desk for a careful study. This reduced American “defense perimeter” encouraged communist forces in North Korea to take military actions without suffering American military reprisals, a key concern of Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Kim Il-sung prior to Acheson’s speech. “defense perimeter” that runs from Japan’s Ryukyu Islands to the Philippines. The speech is remembered for its crucial element: the exclusion of the Republic of Korea and Republic of China from a U.S. Acheson to the communists to invade South Korea on June 25, 1950. To most people, this was a veritable green light given by Mr.
and its allies in the Asia and Pacific region in general and the Korean Peninsula in particular. On January 12 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson gave a well-crafted speech at the National Press Club, a speech which has lived in infamy since its delivery, still haunting the U.S. Image credit: Poster Collection, CS 51, Hoover Institution Archives.
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