[KS] Koreanstudies Digest, Vol 58, Issue 15

Thu Apr 17 13:28:03 EDT 2008

In re: Doc Rock's story, it is well documented that Preston  
Goodfellow, Deputy Director of the OSS, arranged for Rhee to be sent  
back first to Tokyo to meet Gen. Macrthur, and thence to Korea on  
MacArthur's personal plane, the Bataan, arriving October 16. The  
State Department objected to this and indeed had objected for years  
to Rhee's claim to represent an exile government; this smuggling of  
Rhee back into Korea (there was no commercial air traffic into  
Kimp'o) was done over State's strong objections. Rhee was then  
welcomed in Seoul by Gen. Hodge, who quickly worked up a welcoming  
ceremony for "UN troops" on October 20, in which Rhee was the  
featured speaker--thus suggesting that Rhee was the American man in  
Seoul (a Chalabi, as it were). Goodfellow had told Hodge that Rhee  
had "more of the American point of view." Within months Hodge grew to  
hate Rhee, but there is no question that this early American support  
greatly helped Rhee consolidate his power.

The OSS in China, led by Milton Miles and always working closely with  
Chiang Kai-shek's secret service under the notorious Tai Li, also  
tried to bring Yi Pom-sok (known to Americans as Bum Suck Lee) into  
Korea from Shanghai in August 1945; it is documented that they did  
so, but for reasons I have never seen explained, after a short time  
the plane turned around and took him back out. This may be the story  
Doc Rock has heard. Yi, who was quite close to Chiang, came back to  
Korea and by mid-1946 had a youth group (Korean National Youth)  
modeled on Chiang's "Blue Shirts" (the KNY wore blue, too). Blue was  
the chosen color in the 1930s because black (Mussolini), brown  
(Hitler) and green (Brazilian dictator) were already taken. Lee was  
defense minister in the 1948 ROK government.

Bruce Cumings

On Apr 17, 2008, at 11:00 AM, koreanstudies-request at koreaweb.ws wrote:

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> <<------------ KoreanStudies mailing list DIGEST ------------>>
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Freedom Fighter and member of the Shanghai Provisional
>       Government (Reggi Lee)
>    2. Re: Shanghai Provisional Gov't (Michael Robinson)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:24:00 +0900
> From: "Reggi Lee" <reggilee at gmail.com>
> Subject: [KS] Freedom Fighter and member of the Shanghai Provisional
> 	Government
> To: "Korean Studies Discussion List" <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
> Message-ID:
> 	<8b930470804170724g135faea5jac98a0d6cccacb20 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Dear members,
>
> I was wondering if anyone might have heard of a Korean Freedom  
> Fighter and
> member of the Shanghai Provisional Government (SPG) by the name of  
> LEE,
> Jung-? (surname LEE); he went by various aliases including:
>
> (in his younger days)
> - HONG, Pa
> - LEE, Hyup
>
> and finally,
>
> - LEE, Chang-il (which later became his legal name and was  
> registered in his
> "ho-juk doong-bun")
>
> He was from the "HyoRyung Dae-gun" clan, and his father was an  
> individual by
> the name of LEE, DalJae.
>
> I have heard that there was in existence (current whereabouts  
> unknown), an
> old photo of him as a young man sitting in the front row (on the  
> right I
> believe, with hair neatly parted to one side) in front of the  
> executive
> members of the SPG, including KIM, Ku, RHEE, SungMan, etc.  As far as
> distinguishing features, he had a small mole (birth mark) next to  
> his left
> upper lip.
>
> There a story that he was sent on a secret mission to Japan by the  
> SPG (for
> reasons unknown), but on his boat journey over, the Japanese police  
> decided
> to search passengers and check IDs.  Consequently, he was forced to  
> discard
> his belongings and abandon his mission.  Once in Japan however, he
> eventually met with his future wife, SUNG, SoAh, bore two daughters  
> and two
> sons, and later moved back to Korea before the outbreak of the
> Korean War.  At the beginning of the war, he was abducted by the North
> Koreans and presumably executed.  If still alive, he would be past  
> 100 years
> of age.
>
> Any information would be appreciated.  Thanks in advance for your
> consideration,
>
> -- 
> Reginald J. Lee
> Hanyang University
> Tel: 82-2-2220-1215
> Fax: 82-2-2291-4739
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:37:25 -0400
> From: "Michael Robinson" <robime at indiana.edu>
> Subject: Re: [KS] Shanghai Provisional Gov't
> To: "Korean Studies Discussion List" <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
> Message-ID: <001201c8a098$8e6e8520$6500a8c0 at Michael>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> 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 (???s???-?}?x????) 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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> End of Koreanstudies Digest, Vol 58, Issue 15
> *********************************************

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