The Korean War: A History (37 page)

9.
Quoted in Richard Falk, “The Vietnam Syndrome,”
The Nation
(July 9, 2001), 22.

10.
See Cumings (1981), 335–37.

11.
New York Times
, Aug. 2, 1950; Dean (1954), 49; Cumings (1990), 400.

12.
“A Leader Turned Ghost,”
New York Times
(July 22, 2008), A10. (Note that this AP report carried no byline.)

13.
In Chongwon at least seven thousand people were murdered over a weeklong period. See Chae Sang-hun, “Unearthing War’s Horrors Years Later in South Korea,”
New York Times
(Dec. 3, 2007).

14.
Winter (2006), 55–57.

15.
South African statements quoted in Minow (1998), 55. See also her useful catalog of ways to achieve truth, justice, and reconciliation, 88.

16.
London,
Daily Worker
, Aug. 9, 1950.

17.
NRC, RG242, SA2009, item 6/70, KPA HQ,
Choson inmin ûn tosalja Mije wa Yi Sûng-man yokdodûl ûi yasujon manhaeng e pukssu harira
(The Korean people will avenge the beastly atrocities of the American imperialist butchers and the Syngman Rhee traitors), no date, but late 1950, 40–41. The
Haebang Ilbo
(Liberation Daily), a North Korean newspaper published in Seoul on Aug. 10, 1950, put the figure at four thousand.

18.
Appleman (1961), 587–88, 599.

19.
HST, PSF, “Army Intelligence—Korea,” box 262, joint daily sitrep no. 6, July 2–3, 1950; HST, National Security Council (NSC) file, box 3, CIA report of July 3, 1950.

20.
NA, 795.00 file, box 4267, London Embassy to State, Aug. 11, 1950; Public Record Office, London Foreign Office records, FO317, piece no. 84178, Tokyo Chancery to FO, Aug. 15, 1950; Gascoigne to FO, Aug. 15, 1950; Chancery to FO, Aug. 17, 1950. (J. Underwood must have been from the well-established Underwood missionary family in Korea.) Another British report said that when reporters photographed brutal beatings of prisoners by ROK police, American and ROK authorities prohibited publication of the photos (Chancery to FO, Sept. 13, 1950).

21.
Col. Donald Nichols,
How Many Times Can I Die?
(Brooksville, Fla.: Brownsville Printing Co., 1981), cited in Korea Web Weekly,
www.kimsoft.com
. Nichols wrote, “The worst part about this whole affair was that I learned later that not all people killed were communists.”

22.
The Crime of Korea
(1950), Armed Forces Screen Report, issue #125. No place of production, but such films were prepared in the Pentagon for public distribution.

23.
New York Times
(Sept. 30, 1999), A16. On police massacres of civilians more generally after the war broke out, see Chae Sang-hun, “Unearthing War’s Horrors Years Later in South Korea,”
New York Times
(Dec. 3, 2007).

24.
Choe Sang-Hun, “South Korean Commission Details Civilian Massacres Early in Korean War,”
New York Times
(Nov. 27, 2009), A5, A8.

25.
Tokyo Australian mission to British Foreign Office, July 10, 1950 (courtesy Gavan McCormack);
New York Times
, July 1, 1950.

26.
NRC, RG349, box 465, CIC report, Aug. 17, 1950. This report also said that, according to ROK officials, “approximately 80 percent of the South Korean population would offer no resistance to North Korean forces.”

27.
MA, RG6, box 60, G-2 report of July 22, 1950; NDSM, July 6, 1950; NA, State Department Office of Intelligence Research file, report no. 5299.17, July 16–17, 1950.

28.
Cumings (1981), 172, 175, 504–5; Noble (1975), 26–27, 152, 253n; Sawyer (1962), 15.

29.
Blair (1987), 141.

30.
Haebang ilbo
, July 29, 1950 (copies of which are available in the National Records Center, Record Group 242);
New York Times
, July 22, 1950. The diary is translated in MA, RG6, box 78, Allied Translator and Interpreter Service, issue no. 2, Oct. 5, 1950.

31.
New York Times
, July 14, 1950; interview with Keyes Beech, Thames Television, Feb. 1987; State Department, Office of Intelligence Research file, report no. 5299.22, July 21–22, 1950; also
New York Times
, July 26, 1950.

32.
New York Times
, Aug. 1 and 3, 1950; Appleman (1961), 206–7.

33.
New York Times
, July 11, 1950; FO, FO317, piece no. 84178, Sawbridge to FO, July 25, 1950;
Manchester Guardian
, July 13, 1950; NRC, RG338, KMAG file, box 5418, report of Aug. 2, 1950. Most of the information and quotations about Kim are in Muccio’s report, 795.00 file, box 4267, “‘Tiger’ Kim vs. the Press,” May 12, 1951. Muccio wrongly placed Kim in Pusan when the war began, and got the date of his removal wrong (saying it was July 7, 1950, when it was definitely after August 2). See also NA, USFIK 11071 file, box 65/96, Yosu rebellion packet; also “The Yosu Operation, Amphibious Stage,” by Howard W. Darrow. At Yosu, Kim refused to follow the orders of two American advisers who told him not to try to land the 5th Regiment at Yosu; he tried to do so anyway, and failed. On the beheading incident, see NA, RG338, KMAG file, box 5418, entries for July 26 and Aug. 2, 1950. On Rhee and Tiger Kim, see Ridgway Papers, box 20, draft of a message Muccio planned to present to Rhee, May 3, 1951, chiding Rhee for relying on Tiger Kim and others, rather than the established agencies. On Kim and Emmerich in Pusan, see Charles J. Hanley and Jae-Soon Chang, “Korea Mass Executions,” Associated Press (July 7, 2008), based on American documents found and declassified by the
Pusan Ilbo
.

34.
See, for example, HST, PSF, CIA file, box 248, daily report for July 8, 1950; the North Korean document is in NA, RG242, SA2009, item 6/72,
Haksûp Chaeryojip
.

35.
NA, 795.00 file, box 4269, MacArthur to Army, Sept. 1, 1950; this report mentioned but two incidents: one on July 10, where two Americans were found, and one on Aug. 17, where forty-one were killed. On the post-Inchon killings see
New York Times
, Sept. 30, 1950.

36.
MA, RG6, box 78, ATIS issue no. 2, Oct. 5, 1950, document signed by Kim Chaek; issue no. 9, Nov. 27, 1950, document of Aug. 16, 1950. On July 26, the 715th KPA detachment also issued orders to stop incidents in which soldiers stole people’s property and used it for themselves. See NA, RG242, SA2010, item 3/81, secret military order of July 26, 1950.

37.
UNCURK, “Report on a Visit to Chunchon, Capital of Kangwon Province, Republic of Korea,” Nov. 30, 1950; I am indebted to Gavan McCormack for this reference. See also
New York Times
, Sept. 29, 1950. On the movement northward, see MA, RG6, box 14, G-2 report of Oct. 16, 1950; RG349, CIC, Nov. 6, 1950 report. The latter said that hundreds and sometimes thousands of South Korean civilians moved north with the retreating KPA.

38.
795.00 file, box 4299, Drumwright to State, Oct. 13, 1950; box 4269, Emmons to Johnson, Nov. 13, 1950; Thompson (1951), 92;
New York Times
, Oct. 20, 1950.

39.
NA, RG319, G-3 Operations file, box 122, UNC operations report for Nov. 16–30, 1950.

40.
NA, RG338, KMAG file, box 5418, KMAG journal, entry for Oct. 3, 1950; Harold Noble Papers, Philip Rowe account of Oct. 11, 1950.

41.
Handwritten minutes of a KWP meeting, apparently at a high level, Dec. 7, 1950, translated in MA, RG6, box 80, ATIS issue no. 29, March 17, 1951.

42.
HST, PSF, NSC file, box 3, CIA report of Oct. 4, 1950;
New York Times
, Oct. 6 and 14, 1950.

43.
War Crimes Division, Judge Advocate Section,
Extract of Interim Historical Report
(Korean Communication Zone, AP234, Cumulative to 30 June 1953), quoted in MacDonald (1986), 8, note 41.

44.
Here I draw on Cumings (1990), and on Callum MacDonald, “‘So Terrible a Liberation’—The UN Occupation of North Korea,”
Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars
23:2 (April–June 1991), 3–19. Professor MacDonald cited NSC 81/1 in “‘So Terrible a Liberation,’” 6; also Truman Presidential Library, Matthew Connelly Papers, box 1, Acheson remarks in cabinet meeting minutes for Sept. 29, 1950.

45.
FO, FO317, piece no. 84100, John M. Chang to Acheson, Sept. 21, 1950, relayed to the FO by the State Department; see also
Foreign Relations of the United States
(FR) (1950), 3: 1154–58, minutes of preliminary meetings for the September Foreign Ministers’ Conference, Aug. 30, 1950.

46.
A sixteen-page diary on American plans for military government in the North is available in Hoover Institution, Alfred Connor Bowman Papers (Bowman was then chief of the army’s Military Government Division). American officers sought specifically to keep ROK officials out of this administration. See also M. Preston Goodfellow Papers, box 1, Goodfellow to Rhee, Oct. 3, 1950.

47.
FO, FO317, piece no. 84072, Washington Embassy to FO, Nov. 10, 1950, enclosing State Department paper on the occupation. The State Department’s John Allison told the British that Ben Limb’s claim that the ROK government was “the only legitimate government of all Korea” was “in direct conflict with the position taken by the U.S. Government” and by the UN, both of which saw the ROK as having jurisdiction only in those areas where UNCOK observed elections. 795.00 file, box 4268, Allison to Austin, Sept. 27, 1950. On the UN resolution, see London
Times
, Nov. 16, 1950.

48.
Rhee quoted by Hugh Baillie (the president of United Press International), in Baillie,
High Tension
(London: Harper, 1960), 267–68, as cited in MacDonald (1986), 8, note 51.

49.
795.00 file, box 4268, Durward V. Sandifer to John Hickerson, Aug. 31, 1950, top secret.

50.
A State Department study dated Dec. 27, 1950, said that the ROK occupation included “the extension of the Tai Han Youth corps, the use of ROK CIC detachments, the use of ROK military police and railway guards, and some use of ROK police, particularly in the northeastern area.” See MacDonald (1986), 10. This does not appear to include people whom the KNP specially recruited for the occupation.

51.
NA, 795.00 file, box 4268, Acheson to Muccio, Oct. 12, 1950. Acheson wanted Muccio to assure that the KNP would operate under UN command. See also box 4299, Drumwright to State, Oct. 14, 1950;
New York Times
, Oct. 20, 1950.

52.
Manchester Guardian
, Dec. 4, 1950.

53.
Ibid., handwritten FO notes on FK1015/303, U.S. Embassy press translations for Nov. 1, 1950; piece no. 84125, FO memo by R. Murray, Oct. 26, 1950; piece no. 84102, Franks memo of discussion with Rusk, Oct. 30, 1950; Heron in London
Times
, Oct. 25, 1950.

54.
FO, FO317, piece no. 84073, Korea to FO, Nov. 23, 1950.

55.
NA, RG338, KMAG file, box 5418, KMAG journal, entries for Nov. 5, 24, 25, and 30, 1950.

56.
Thompson (1951), 274; NA, 795.00 file, box 4270, carrying UPI and AP dispatches dated Dec. 16, 17, and 18, 1950; FO317, piece no. 92847, original letter from Private Duncan, Jan. 4, 1951; Adams to FO, Jan. 8, 1951; UNCURK reports cited in Truman Presidential Library, PSF, CIA file, box 248, daily summary, Dec. 19, 1950. See also London
Times
, Dec. 18, 21, and 22, 1950.

57.
Almond Papers, General Files, X Corps, “Appendix 3 Counterintelligence,” Nov. 25, 1950; William V. Quinn Papers, box 3, X Corps periodic intelligence report dated Nov. 11, 1950. (Quinn was the X Corps G-2 chief.) Emphasis added.

58.
FO, FO317, piece no. 84073, Tokyo to FO, Nov. 21, 1950.

59.
Carlisle Military Barracks, William V. Quinn Papers, box 3, X Corps HQ, McCaffrey to Ruffner, Oct. 30, 1950; Ridgway Papers, box 20, highlights of a staff conference, with Ridgway and Almond present, Jan. 8, 1951.

60.
MacDonald (1986), 13.

61.
Ibid., 11.

62.
Department of State documents, cited in ibid., 17, note 136, and other information cited on 18–19.

63.
Hwang Sok-yong,
The Guest
, trans. Kyung-ja Chun and Maya West (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2007), 79–103, 203–6.