[KS] Shanghai Provisional Gov't

[Michael Robinson]

Dear Doc Rock: 

Some of us who worked at the Asea munje yon'guso during the mid 1970s were privileged to know Kim Junyop and he was full of such stories. I've never done research in this period, but knowing Kim I believe his story.  He, of course, was a far different person than Rhee and with much more progressive politics, Although had he maneuvered his way into power, who knows what his politics might have been. 

Mike R.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Dr. Edward D. Rockstein 
  To: Korean Studies Discussion List 
  Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 9:58 AM
  Subject: Re: [KS] Shanghai Provisional Gov't


  Below is a comment (slightly edited) which I posted on Frog in a Well 15 Mar 2006 and may or may not be of interest:

  March 15th, 2006 at 7:20 am 

  While this is only tangentially related, it may be of some interest: In 1967 when I was
  going to Korea as a Fulbright Fellow from Princeton to be attached to the Asiatic Research
  Center (?¼s??-î}³x¾¿Ëù) at Koryo University, I met Kim Jun-hyop from the Center, first at
  Princeton and later in Seoul. In the course of our association he told me how he had been
  in the Japanese Army in China and deserted to join the Korean government in absentia in
  Shanghai. He related an interesting anecdote about the end of the war in the Pacific:
  apparently there was a race on between the State Department, on one hand, and the OSS to gain control in Seoul as the Japanese were forced to withdraw. According to Kim (and my
  fading memory), the OSS loaded up its guys, including Kim, onto an airplane and flew them to (I believe) Kimp¡¯o to try to set up a new government while State was hustling Syngman Rhee and his cohort off from Hawaii. The OSS timing, apparently, was a bit premature, and the aircraft arrived at Kimp¡¯o before the turnover by the Japanese, the plane was not permitted to land. In the interim, the turnover took place, Rhee came into power and, the rest, as they say, was history.  I wonder if anyone has corroborating or different information on such a race for control of post-occupation Korea?

  Regards,
  Doc Rock




  Dr. Edward D. Rockstein 
  Senior Language Instructor 
  Language Learning Center (LLC) 
  Office 410-859-5672
  Fax 410-859-5737 
  ed4linda at yahoo.com 
    
  "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.  "  Thomas Jefferson


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