On the morning of June 25, 1950, the vanguard of ninety thousand North Korean soldiers plunged south into the Republic of South Korea. Striking with great precision, the Communist North Korean divisions had little difficulty overwhelming the surprised and outnumbered defenders.

The United Nations organization, pledged to defend all nations from aggression, could not ignore this wanton invasion. Immediately the U.N. Security Council called an emergency session, and a few days later the United Nations began to rush troops and supplies to embattled South Korea. Other member nations also quickly dispatched troops and material. For the first time in history troops of a world organization were acting as a "police force" to fight an aggressor nation.

In The War in Korea Robert Leckie presents an authentic and lucid account of an unusual conflict which was fought on two battlefields—across the rugged Korean terrain, where troops met in bloody combat, and around the conference tables, where truce teams engaged in grueling negotiations to bring about a peace. 

From the book