[KS] Koreanstudies Digest, Vol 123, Issue 14

[Frank Hoffmann]

Hello Bill and others:

Just to put this into a context: the first response last month was more 
than anything to the add-on posting by Ross King who was interested in 
the PhD thesis. So I simply wanted to identify the author, and Marion 
Eggert did the same at the same time. Retranslations of titles of 
wartime or postwar military and intelligence service offices is not 
something I am familiar with. But I can certainly help with Joan Baez, 
Victor Jara, or The Clash song titles, if needed … multi-lingual :)  
In short, you may be absolutely right.

Now to your latest points quoted below: 
Here again the link given in an earlier posting:
http://db.history.go.kr/url.jsp?ID=im_109_20228
That is the biographic file of the Korean History Compilation Committee 
(국사편찬위원회). Their new English name seems now to be National 
Institute of Korean History, if I see that right. They have an 
absolutely outstanding library, and in the past 10 or 15 years more and 
more of their documents have been made available online (you can search 
the DB from the above link). The "biographic files," like the one above 
URL points to about the thesis author and Princeton PhD holder exist 
about a huge number of Koreans who have *ever* been mentioned more than 
once in any sort of historical documents. These short bios by no means 
perfect, especially if we come to non-Korean names or the English 
rendering of Korean names overseas (such as "Chung Kei-won"), but they 
get better every year. For any sort of historical research this is a 
great starting point! These short bios are based on the documents that 
the same DB provides the originals or text versions for. You will find 
all kinds of errors in there. Mostly, however, those errors are based 
on errors in the historic documents themselves (such as dates, wrong 
Chinese characters, wrong family relationships, or wrong office 
titles). Still, because the bios are based on documents they are 
relatively reliable. As pointed out earlier, our "Chung Kei-won," that 
is Chŏng Ki-wŏn, was after 1945 active as a politician in and for Pusan 
(see http://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/정기원), and so there are all kind of 
official documents with his vita available. I suggest to check out the 
Korean National Assembly Library (http://www.nanet.go.kr/), another 
outstanding library for any sort of research on modern and contemporary 
Korean history. That first mentioned vita (first here listed link) 
lists Chŏng's offices in a *rough* chronological order, but also in 
order of different kind of occupations. The here discussed office comes 
right on top, and in that context suggest that suggests to me that it 
is during World War II. But yes … I agree, to be really sure you will 
need to do a little more research. Given his post-war offices in Korea 
it should not be difficult to get some sort of official vita somewhere.


Best regards,
Frank


On Sun, 15 Sep 2013 09:23:52 -0700 (PDT), Bill Streifer wrote:
> Frank,
> 
> I know nothing about the Korean language but I do know a little about 
> the OSS during WWII. First of all, the OSS disbanded on October 1, 
> 1946. Also, the Department of Defense was established in 1949, 
> combining the Navy Dept,  the War Dept, and the Dept of the Air Force 
> among others. It's even confusing in English. When the OSS was 
> disbanded, parts were transferred to the U.S. State Department while 
> other parts became "Central Intelligence" (Central Intelligence 
> Group, CIG). Then in 1947, the CIG became the CIA. So to correctly 
> translate "미국방성 아세아정보국장" into English, you need to know 
> the context and the date Chong held that office. If it is referring 
> to WWII, then it refers to OSS (I know he was an OSS informant) or it 
> might refer to G-2 (U.S. Army Intelligence). But if it refers to 
> post-WWII, then it might refer to any number of intelligence 
> organizations including the CIA.
> 
> Bill

--------------------------------------
Frank Hoffmann
http://koreanstudies.com