Resolution 82


“The Security Council called upon all members of the United Nations to render every assistance to the 

United Nations in the execution of this resolution.”


- 33rd president of United States, Harry S. Truman at United Nations Involvement in Korea Speech (1590)

Security Council

Resolution 82



“I felt certain that if South Korea was allowed to fall Communist leaders would be emboldened to override nations closer 

to our own shores. If the Communists were permitted to force their way into the Republic of Korea without opposition 

from the free world, no small nation would have the courage to resist threats and aggression by stronger 

Communist neighbors. If this was allowed to go unchallenged it would mean a Third World War, just as 

similar incidents had brought on the Second World War. It was clear to me that the foundations 

and the principles of the United Nations were at stake unless this unprovoked attack on 

Korea could be stopped.”


- 33rd president of United States, Harry S. Truman explaining his thoughts on the resolution. 

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The United Nations' Security Council adopted Resolution 82 on June 25, 1950. The resolution demanded that North Korea ends its invasion of South Korea. The resolution passed with one abstention from the Soviets, against nine supporting votes.

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“In my generation, this was not the first occasion when 

the strong had attacked the weak….Communism was 

acting in Korea just as Hitler, Mussolini, and the 

Japanese had acted ten, fifteen, and twenty years earlier. ”


- 33rd President of United States, Harry S. Truman

This political cartoon by David Low demonstrates the significance of UN's military action, and also what killed the League of Nations, lack of military actions.

“I am not worried about the Communist Party taking over the Government of the United States, but I am against a 

person, whose loyalty is not to the Government of the United States, holding a Government job. They 

are entirely different things. I am not worried about this country ever going Communist. We have too much sense for that.”


  • - President Truman responding to a question at his press conference (February 28, 1947)

President Truman's Aid

““Communism in Korea could get off to a better start than practically anywhere else in the world.”
 
A US commander admitted in 1945: “hen we came in, we found the communists actually ruling and controlling South 

Korea”. Russian troops had been advancing from the North for some time but a genuinely popular rising was under 

way. In the brief period between the collapse of the Japanese war effort and the arrival of US troops, workers had begun to 

take control over their workplaces, to form unions and to take responsibility for management. Peasant 

unions were organizing land take-overs and rice collection, storage and distribution.”


- Edwin W. Pauley, Truman's ambassador investigating reparations, traveling to Korea in June 1946