Truman, the UN, and Korea?

Question

Why did President Truman involve the United Nations in the Korean conflict?

Answer 1

North Korea was led by a man at the time named Kim IL Sung. Kim IL Sung was given power by the Soviets after the Japanese were kicked out after WWII. Korea was split in two with the North under Soviet influence and the South under American influence. Kim IL Sung from his very address to the country that he would seek the reunify Korea with his military. With the help of the Soviets the North raised and trained 120,000 troops compared to the South's 60,000 troops. This is amazing because North Korea had half the population of South Korea.

How the war started is still unclear; the UN says that North Korea was the first to attack while North Korea says that South Korean troops were the first to attack. The North Korea quickly took over most of South Korea until the UN involved itself and took back South Korea. At this time South Korea was essentially a commonwealth of the US. When the US saw North Korea attack the South they saw a attempt by the Soviets to attack the US. No peace treaty was ever signed after the Korean War so we are still at war with North Korea.
Hope this helps.

Answer 2

The previous answer was good. Korea was divided into two administrative areas with elections supposedly to take place around 1948, but the US would not allow elections in the south and established their area as a separate country in violation of the Potsdam agreement. When the US took over in 1945 they allowed the Japanese to keep their arms, especially the Special Military Police (similar to the Nazi's Gestapo), and did not punish the Japanese collaborators in the south. The US also built up the armed forces under Sygnam (incorrect spelling) Rhee, a US puppet installed into power.
As the previous person stated, there is controversy about who started the war. Officially it said to have been the North who invaded the south. There is some evidence that it was in fact the south who invaded the north. One of these is the fact that two Australian servicemen, a naval Lt.Commander and a army Major, who were part of the UN inspection team, went on a tour just days prior to the war starting. They were accompanied by a British diplomat. They wrote a report that stated the south were building up troops in the south and there were large troop movement in the south all while the soldiers in the north were in their barracks and there was no build-up in the north. This report was sent to the Australian and British governments along with the UN, The US suppressed this document while the debate in the UN was taking place and it was not released until over a year after the war had been on.
You must remember that that Truman, although a Democrat, was very anti-communist, as was the rest of the United States and leading members of the US State Department and Military.