WHY WAR CAME IN KOREA ROBERT T. OLIVER FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS The Declan X. McMullen Company, Inc. Distributors New York 1950 CONTENTS Foreword ix 1. The Communist Empire Strikes 1 2. Ferment in Asia 23 3. Patterns of Colonialism 38 4. Our Ailing Diplomacy 58 5. Land of the Morning Calm 78 6. History of a Problem 91 7. Plea for Recognition 107 8. Divided and Occupied 132 9. The United Nations Approve 161 10. Constitutional Hopes 180 11. Statesman of the New Korea 197 12. Two Years of Progress 212 13. Korea and Japan 236 14. What of the Future 248 DEDICATED to the development of those exceptional Americans called for so wisely and urgently by DWIOHT EISENHOWER FOREWORD I HAVE LIVED WITH THE KOREAN QUESTION on intimate terms since 1942. During all that period it has been my unfortunate position to warn of dangers which were not realized and to suggest remedies which were not accepted. In view of the war which has broken out, there may be some pertinence in quoting from some of the articles I have written during this period, as a means of illustrating the successive stages through which the Korean situation has ad-IX vanced, and in order to permit the readers to judge for themselves whether the suggested pro grams would have been able to have averted the Communist attack From the Washington D. C. Post, Sunday, March, 1943 The Korean national program, as presented by its commission in Washington, is forthright and simple. Korea asks 1 Immediate admit tance to the United Nations. In those days there was no Russian veto. 2 Military supplies and aid under the lend-lease agreement at once. 3 The recognition of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea now. At that time the UnitedStates was free to take such action, unilaterally, as the one nation bearing the brunt of the Pacific war. From Asia and the Americas, March, 1943 In this global war Korea takes on new sig nificance ... It is an ideal base from which at tacks could be launched upon the industrial areas of Nippon. From World Affairs, June, 1943 Why, one may ask, should the State Depart ment treat Korea differently from the other gov ernments-in-exile . . . The answer which any impartial examiner will find is Russia. Does Russia want Korea incorporated into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics The London correspondent of the Chicago Sun re ported that that was precisely the solution of the Korean question which Anthony Eden and President Roosevelt discussed. Whatever his sources of information may have been, his con clusion was doubtless correct. It is inevitable that the topic must have come up. Present Russian policy unquestionably is to secure her borders by the absorption of strategically important neighboring states. And Korea is one of these. The question is whether it is good politics, good statesmanship, or good sense for the State Department to play this power politics game by continuing to maintain a hands off policy re garding Korea. Shall the situation be allowed to drift along to what appears now the inevitable solution Are we ready to junk the Atlantic Charter, to drop the whole idea of collective security, and to reconstruct the world on a bal ance-of - power basis Can we hope for peace by taking the power away from the Fascist nations and giving it to their chief foes Or if we hope to salvage a system of collective security at the end of the war can we do so by letting such XI problemsas the Korean question drift danger ously onto the shoals of power, politics with the hope of rescuing, it at the peace conference Arent we shaping the future world by our at titudes and policies right now From The Case for Korea, a pamphlet pub lished by the Korean American Council, April 5, 1945 The purpose of this pamphlet is to call the attention of the American public to a grave and puzzling paradox in our own handling of the case of Korea. This is a problem that is peculiarly our own...