In Washington President Harry Truman and his top advisers debated the enemy's intentions. Every bit of news from the battlefield was negative. In the early weeks of the invasion, the Communist offensive was a stunning success. Some six months earlier, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, in a colossal gaffe, had neglected to include South Korea in America's Asian defense perimeter, and the only American forces then in the country, part of a tiny advisory mission, were almost completely unprepared for the attack. On June 25, 1950, nearly seven divisions of elite North Korean troops, many of whom had fought for the Communist side in the Chinese civil war, crossed the border into South Korea, with the intention of conquering the entire South in three weeks.
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