실은 H. Truman 이나 Dean Rusk가 설치기 훨씬 전에 F. Roosevelt가 Stalin에게 한반도를 둘로 나누자고 제안했었다. Stalin이 처음에는 별로 달갑게 여기지 않다가, 나중에 생각해보니 중공군이 장개석 군대를 파죽지세로 밀고나가는 것으로 봐서 조만간 중국이 통일될 것을 내다보았다. 쏘련의 아시아쪽 강대국이 생기는 것을 염려했던 바라 한국을 분단하자는 미국의 제안을 받아들였던 것이다. 실제로 1943년에 카이로에서 장개석까지 참석한 자리에서 한반도 분단이 거론됐었다.

그것이 얄타회담에서 구체화 되면서 Stalin이 마음을 결정하였고 마침 루즈벨트가 죽고 투루만이 들어서자 딘 러스크에게 어느 선에서 가르는가를 결정했고, Stalin이 그 제안을 받아들였다. 루즈벨트는 만주의 관동군이 일본토로 이동해서 태평양에서 고전하다가 본토로 상륙할 적에 엄청난 미군병사의 손실을 염려했던 것이다.

하지만 Stalin은 일본을 만주에서 쫒아내는 것에 치중했던 바였으나 미국 측에서 38선으로 하자고 해서 수락했던 것이다. 당시에 Stalin이 약속한 것은 태평양 전쟁이 치열하던 3개월 전에 만주를 침공하겠다 했으나 일본에 원자탄을 떨어뜨린다는 비밀을 KGB가 보고한 것을 참조해서 8월 초에 북한으로 내려왔던 것이다.

Dean Rusk가 "자기네 미국이 한국의 반쪽이나마 자유민주국가로 만든 공로를 감사해야 한다"는 쪼의 얘기는 어불성설이다. 미국의 연극에 스탈린이 어부지리를 보게 된 것임을 알아야 한다. 진실을 말하자면...

With the war's end in sight in August 1945, the Allied powers had still failed to reach consensus on Korea's fate. Many Koreans on the peninsula had made their own plans for the future of Korea, and few of these plans included the re-occupation of Korea by foreign forces. Following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, Soviet soldiers invaded Manchuria,[4] in fulfilment of Stalin's agreement with Roosevelt and Churchill at the Yalta Conference of February 1945.
However, American leaders were suspicious of the people's committees forming all over the Korean peninsula, and suspected that without American intervention the whole peninsula would come under Communist government and Soviet influence. Soviet forces arrived in Korea by 14 August 1945,[5] but occupied only the northern half, stopping at the 38th parallel, per an agreement with the United States.[6]
On August 10, 1945 two young officers – Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel – were assigned to define an American occupation zone. Working on extremely short notice and completely unprepared, they used a National Geographic map to decide on the 38th parallel. They chose it because it divided the country approximately in half but would leave the capital Seoul under American control. No experts on Korea were consulted. The two men were unaware that forty years before, Japan and Russia had discussed sharing Korea along the same parallel. Rusk later said that had he known, he "almost surely" would have chosen a different line.[7] Regardless, the decision was hastily written into General Order No. 1 (approved on 17 August 1945) for the administration of postwar Japan.

The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held from February 4 to 11, 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Premier Joseph Stalin, respectively, for the purpose of discussing Europe's post-war reorganization. The conference convened in the Livadia Palace, near Yalta, in Crimea.

Roosevelt wanted the USSR to enter the Pacific War with the Allies. One Soviet precondition for a declaration of war against Japan was an American official recognition of Mongolian independence from China (Mongolian People's Republic had already been the Soviet satellite state in World War One and World War Two), and a recognition of Soviet interests in the Manchurian railways and Port Arthur (but not asking the Chinese to lease), as well as deprivation of Japanese soil (such as Sakhalin and Kuril Islands) to return to Russian custody since the Treaty of Portsmouth; these were agreed without Chinese representation, consultation or consent, with the American desire to end war early by reducing American casualties. Stalin agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the Pacific War three months after the defeat of Germany. Stalin pledged to Roosevelt to keep the nationality of the Korean Peninsula intact as Soviet Union entered the war against Japan.

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