Item COLD WAR 27/110 - Transcript of interview with Brigadier General Edwin Simmons, 1997

Typescript transcript of interview with US Brig Gen Edwin Simmons, US Marine Corps, Company commander, 3 Bn 1 Marine Regt, Korea, 1950, relating to the combat readiness of US forces at the outbreak of the Korean War, Jun 1950; the 'Iron Curtain' speech made by Rt Hon Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, USA, 5 Mar 1946; the proclamation of the People's Republic of China, Oct 1949; the detonation of the first Soviet atomic bomb, Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, USSR, 29 Aug 1949; the trial of Alger Hiss, a US State Department official charged with perjury for denying passing secret documents to Whitaker Chambers, a courier for the Communist Party, 1949-1950; the announcement by US Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy that he had evidence of over 250 Communist Party members and communist sympathisers working within the US State Department, Feb 1950; the readiness and effectiveness of the US 8 Army, Japan, 1950; the amphibious landing of UN forces at Inchon, Korea, 15 Sep 1950; the importance of the Inchon landings as a turning point in the Korean War, Sep 1950; the recapture of Seoul by the UN forces, 25 Sep 1950; Simmons' opinion of US Gen of the Army Douglas MacArthur, 1950-1951; the meeting between US President Harry S Truman and Gen MacArthur, Wake Island, Pacific Ocean, Oct 1950; the advance of UN troops to the Yalu River, North Korea, Sep-Oct 1950; the intervention in the Korean War by the armed forces of the People's Republic of China, Oct 1950; the Battle of Chosin reservoir, North Korea, Nov 1950; the morale and equipment of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, Korea, 1950; the UN withdrawal from the Yalu River, North Korea, 1950-1951; the effect of US Gen Matthew Bunker Ridgway's takeover in command of UN forces in Korea, 1951; Simmons'opinion of fighting a limited war in Korea, 1950-1953; the positive effect of the Korean War on the economy of Japan, 1950-1953. 41pp