Video: 'Eisenhower Talks On Korea Armistice In White House (1950)'

(Sunday, July 26, 1953, 10:00 p.m. EDT; during the Korean War, part of the Cold War) — U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower greeted the news of the Korean War Agreement, signed 59 minutes ago, with prayers of thanksgiving tonight but warned the nation that the Allies had won an armistice only on a single battleground and had not achieved peace in the world.

The President, who spoke over radio and television networks, said the United States and all the free world must not relax its guard, or fail to be vigilant against “the possibility of untoward developments.”

The war began on June 25, 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea following clashes along the border and rebellions in South Korea.

North Korea was supported by China and the Soviet Union while South Korea was supported by the United States and allied countries.

The armistice agreement created the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to separate North and South Korea, and allowed the return of prisoners. However, no peace treaty was ever signed, and the two Koreas are technically still at war, engaged in a frozen conflict.

In April 2018, the leaders of North and South Korea met at the DMZ and agreed to work toward a treaty to end the Korean War formally.

The Korean War was among the most destructive conflicts of the modern era, with approximately 3 million war fatalities and a larger proportional civilian death toll than World War II or the Vietnam War.

It incurred the destruction of virtually all of Korea’s major cities, thousands of massacres by both sides, including the mass killing of tens of thousands of suspected communists by the South Korean government, and the torture and starvation of prisoners of war by the North Koreans.