PENDLETON – The news out of North and South Korea Monday morning of upcoming summit talks for the first time between the leaders of the two nations, almost five decades after a truce was signed, is a reminder that one of the bloodiest conflicts in history still struggles to achieve recognition as a war on the eve of the 50th anniversary of its outbreak in June, 1950.

The news is all the more significant, considering it has been a generation since a million South Korean civilians were killed. Nearly 580,000 United Nations and South Korean troops, and 1,600,000 Communist troops were also killed, wounded or reported missing. Nine Umatilla County servicemen lost their lives during what was at first called a “police action.”

By September, 1950 General Douglas MacArthur had planned and executed the brilliant Inchon landing which turned the tide in the Allies favor, but, at the same time, while American troops were fighting in Korea and American ships carrying war supplies to the French in Vietnam, relations with the Soviet Union were becoming strained, creating a persistent undercurrent of fear that war with Russia was imminent.

At home, inflation, wage and price controls, civil defense efforts associated with the war, and the “Red” scare exploited by Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin kept families still reeling from World War II on edge. Building materials and other essentials became hard to get.

Early in 1951 State Rep. C. L. “Buck” Lieuallen urged every householder to have knowledge of first aid and fire fighting. A 125-page state guide to civilian defense was distributed. Fallout shelters were recommended and some were built.

Pendleton Mayor Morris Temple said it was unlikely that Pendleton would be a primary target for an atomic bomb but it could be the way-station for refugees fleeing by the thousands from Western Oregon. A ground observer corps was set up, phoning reports of plane sightings to a state center in Salem. In one two-day test the Pendleton corps spotted 52 planes – all presumably friendly.

The Umatilla Ordnance Depot returned to considerable activity, employment climbing 50 per cent to 1,100 in February 1951. Ammunition was shipped by barge on the Columbia River and loaded and unloaded near Irrigon, a dozen miles from the depot.

In White Sands, New Mexico, atomic testing began being carried out above ground. On February 6, 1951, Mrs. Walter Mackie of McNary Townsite was the first to report a flash in the sky that coincided with the time of an atomic blast.

The Umatilla County civil defense organization, under Lee Drake, was completed in the summer of 1951 about the time cease-fire talks in Korea were agreed to – talks that took months to get started and two years to produce a truce.

Early in 1953, with the peace talks making headway, the work force at the ordnance depot was reduced, 140 being laid off in the first cut. With the fighting ended with a fragile truce in July, 1953, and American involvement in Vietnam still confined to shipment of supplies, Umatilla was made a sub-depot under the Mt. Rainier Ordnance Depot near Tacoma.

Despite the easing of military action, civilian defense continued to occupy the attention of authorities, although people generally showed limited interest. State Civil defense officials said Umatilla County should plan on how to care for some 42,000 refugees in case of an attack. Briefings on radiation and fallout hazards were given to county Civil Defense workers and medical supplies and food were cached in igloos at the Umatilla Ordnance Depot, deep in McNary Dam and elsewhere.