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6. Syngman Rhee (standing, fifth from right) and Mrs. Rhee (at Rhee’s right) with members of the Foreign Affairs Department of the Korean Provisional Government in Washington, May 28, 1944. This photograph dates from the period when Rhee was pressing for formal recognition of the Korean Provisional Government and for a guarantee of Korea’s independence at the end of World War II. (Pacific Stars and Stripes Photo)
The communiqué issued after the Yalta conference mentioned neither Korea nor the main purpose of the meeting, the obtaining of Soviet agreement to enter the war against Japan. But Rhee, convinced that his country had been sacrificed on the altar of Soviet intervention, leaped to the attack. In a press conference he charged a “deal” at Yalta aimed at turning Korea over to the Soviets. Repetition of his charges, which brought a denial from the State Department and then from the White House, further discredited Rhee in the eyes of American officials. These disclaimers, however, merely reinforced Rhee’s belief in the existence of a conspiracy against Korea. To friends he wrote:
“In view of the anxiety in some quarters to get Russia into the Asiatic War, recognition [of the Provisional Government] may have been withheld pending a clearer formulation of Russia’s desires in regard to Korea. If this were a factor, it represented either a crass willingness to trade the independence of a small nation for the support of a large one, or a timid fear of developing any foreign policy until we were able to ascertain that it would please a powerful ally. Either motive would be one we should not expect to be avowed.”8
In the eight months between the Yalta conference and Rhee’s return to Korea, great and calamitous events marked the end of World War II and the early stages of the cold war between the Communist and Free World blocs. In April 1945, Franklin Roosevelt, who had personally dominated American foreign policy during the war years, died; May brought the surrender of Germany and the long-awaited victory in Europe; in August, Japan felt the weight of the first atomic bomb.
The United States was unprepared for V-J Day. In the confusion which followed Japan’s surrender, Korea was one of many problems for Pentagon planners attempting to formulate a plan for the surrender of Japanese troops. No one had foreseen the speedy capitulation of theJapanese, and the new Truman administration was still being briefed on the details of Roosevelt’s personal diplomacy.
Gradually, however, the occupation of Korea loomed as a race between the Russians and the Americans. On August 12, Soviet troops began moving into North Korea. From Moscow, Ambassador Harriman and reparations representative Edwin W. Pauley, citing evidence of growing Soviet intransigence, urged that the United States occupy of as much of Korea and Manchuria as possible. On August 15, General Order No. 1, cabled to General MacArthur in Tokyo, directed U.S. forces to accept the surrender of Japanese forces in Korea south of the thirty-eighth parallel. The Soviets made no comment.9
Carl Berger writes: “The sad truth was that Korea was the only important area occupied by American troops in the Pacific for which detailed, concrete preparation had not been made by any branch of the United States Government.”10 Syngman Rhee, however, had waited years for this day. At an age when most men had long retired, Rhee fought State Department red tape in an attempt to return to Korea ahead of his Shanghai rivals. For him, the day of deliverance was at hand.
His exile over, Rhee nevertheless found himself in an anomalous position with respect to his own role in Korean politics. On one hand, years of agitation on behalf of Korean independence had made his name nearly a legend even in Korea itself. In addition, he spoke the language and knew the ways of Korea’s liberators—a considerable advantage considering the provinciality of his rivals.
On the other hand, even in the Orient, Rhee’s advanced age was a handicap to his political prospects. He was no longer president of the Provisional Government, and he faced younger and powerful rivals in Kim Koo and Kim Kyu-sic. In North Korea an ominous note was the publicity being accorded by the Soviets to an obscure guerrilla leader, Kim Il-sung. Finally, Rhee was not exactly a favorite of the Americans. Years of sniping at the State Department had had an effect, and when the American army entered Korea it was hardly to set Syngman Rhee up as president.
As for Rhee himself, four decades of life in the United States had neither mellowed his outlook nor broadened his perspective beyond the borders of Korea. Never an original thinker, in his old age Rhee tended increasingly to follow set channels of thinking: hatred of the Japanese, fear of the Soviets, and a driving ambition to go down in history as the first president of a united Korean republic. By 1945, he had come to regard himself as the embodiment of the new Korea, a Moses who had led his people out of the wilderness.
The Syngman Rhee who returned to Korea after World War II was a strange mixture of Western idealism and Oriental guile. He believed in collective security with a Wilsonian fervor, and viewed the American occupation of South Korea as a fortuitous guarantee of American interest in Korea. He wanted Korea to be set up as a democratic republic, but only if he could be chief executive and his power could be supreme. To protect his position and increase his power he was prepared to make use of every means available. Rhee’s dealings with Korean exiles in Hawaii, however discordant, had been educational. In Honolulu there were a church and a school to testify that when Rhee could not destroy his rivals he could still forge his own way.
Divided in half by foreign occupation, and projected overnight into the stuggle between Communist and Free World blocs, “liberated” Korea seemed hardly better off than under the Japanese. And from all sides came ambitious political exiles, anxious to fill and exploit what political vacuum might exist under the aegis of the occupying powers.
6: Divided
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