Mark Wayne Clark
马克·克拉克
1896–1984
- Commander in Chief of United Nations Command
- General of the United States Army
Biography
Military Career and Assumption of Korean Command
Mark Wayne Clark was born in New York State in 1896, graduated from West Point, and was a prominent commander in the Second World War, directing Allied operations in Italy. In May 1952 he succeeded Matthew Ridgway as Commander in Chief of the United Nations Command, at a point when armistice negotiations had been locked in a prolonged impasse over the prisoner repatriation issue. Clark took a hard line in the negotiations, found Syngman Rhee's unilateral release of prisoners a serious complication, but ultimately guided the talks to a conclusion.
Signing the Armistice
On 27 July 1953, Mark Clark signed the Armistice Agreement at Panmunjom on behalf of the United Nations Command. In his memoirs he wrote that he was the first American commander in history to sign an armistice without victory — a remark that reflected the American ambivalence about the war's outcome: neither a defeat nor a victory, but a limited war ending in stalemate. He retired from active service later that year.