America in Korea: a failed occupation?

Summary

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History Extra Podcast: "America in Korea: A Failed Occupation?"

Date: September 25, 2025
Host: Rob Attar
Guest: Professor Cornell Chang, author of A Fractured Liberation

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Overview

This episode of the History Extra podcast examines the US occupation of southern Korea (1945-1948) and explores the historical roots of the peninsula’s persistent division. Drawing from his book, A Fractured Liberation, shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize, Professor Cornell Chang shares both his family’s personal history and deep scholarly research. The conversation challenges the familiar “either/or” narrative – that Korea had to choose between authoritarian communism or decades of US-backed dictatorship – and uncovers missed opportunities for a better outcome.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Personal Connection to Korean History

• Cornell Chang’s Family Experience
  • Chang reflects on how stories of war and migration, particularly his grandparents’ flight from Pyongyang in 1946, shaped his understanding of Korean history.
  • Quote:

    “My oldest uncle... would consistently say, 'If it wasn’t for the Americans, we would all be living under the Communists now.' That statement... stayed with me.” (03:48)

  • As a scholar, Chang was motivated to challenge binary narratives and explore complexities surrounding occupation, division, and missed historical opportunities.

2. Korea under Japanese Occupation (1910-1945)

• Colonial Context & Resistance
  • Korea was annexed in 1910 after an initial protectorate status in 1905.
  • The March 1st Movement (1919) sparked political organizing both in Korea and abroad.
  • Different independence activists (Syngman Rhee, Kim Gu, Kim Il Sung, etc.) developed divergent political visions during exile.

3. Why Was Korea Divided and Occupied?

• Ambiguous Promises & Trusteeship
  • WWII declarations (Atlantic Charter, Cairo Declaration) vaguely promised Korean independence “in due time.”
  • FDR’s concept of a “trusteeship” posited that the US, USSR, China, and Britain would collectively oversee the transition to independence.
  • Koreans were unwilling to accept an extended period of tutelage after 40 years of colonial rule; Stalin backed a shorter timeline.

4. The Origins of Division (The 38th Parallel)

• Last-Minute Decisions and Geopolitics
  • US planners, fearing an all-Soviet occupation of Korea (as the Red Army was closer), hastily drew a dividing line at the 38th parallel to keep Seoul under American control.
  • The Soviets unexpectedly accepted this partition, likely preferring control of half the peninsula to limit future Japanese threats.
  • Quote:

    “Dean Rusk... admitted in his own memoirs that there was no real logic [to the 38th parallel] other than... wanting Seoul on the American side.” (09:10)

5. ‘Asia’s Spring’: Brief Interregnum of Korean Self-Rule (Aug-Sept 1945)

• Korean Grassroots Initiatives
  • US troops were delayed; for several weeks, Koreans governed themselves, seizing Japanese property and debating reforms.
  • Broad support existed among Koreans for land reform, workers’ rights, and a reckoning with collaborators.

6. Arrival and Aims of the American Occupation

• Initial Korean Reception
  • US troops were mostly welcomed as liberators, with the expectation that they’d quickly depart and enable Korean self-determination.
• Confusion & Lack of Planning
  • The original plan for multinational trusteeship was scrambled by FDR’s death and hurried postwar events.
  • General John Hodge, the occupation’s leader, arrived with little clear guidance and defaulted to prioritizing stability.

7. American Response to Korean Aspirations

• Split Within US Military Government
  • Some US reformers understood and supported Korean demands, while Gen. Hodge—an anti-communist seeking order—retained much of the colonial police and bureaucracy, including collaborators.
  • Initial consideration was even given to leaving Japanese administrators in place, but Korean outrage made this untenable.
  • Quote:

    “Hodge... prizes stability and order. When he arrives... he sees [change] as chaos... and thinks the best way is preserving the pre-liberation status quo.” (20:03)

8. Missed Opportunities (1946-1947)

• Centrist Coalition
  • US advisors supported a centrist coalition (Kim Kyu Sik & Yo Han Yong) committed to reform, winning brief endorsements from Hodge.
  • Popular unrest (the Autumn Uprisings, 1946) erupted in response to the continuity of oppressive colonial-era policing and inequality.
  • US-backed repression deepened the crisis, and public polling found some Koreans preferred Japanese colonial rule to US occupation.
  • Plans to purge the police of collaborators were drafted but never signed; Yo Han Yong’s assassination in 1947 spelled the end for moderate politics.
  • Quote:

    “By the end of 1946... what you had... was a police state in the South.” (25:12) “There was a very embarrassing poll... where a slight majority said they preferred Japanese colonial rule over US military occupation.” (25:40)

9. Comparison: Occupation of Japan vs. Korea

• Role of Leadership
  • Gen. MacArthur pursued ambitious reforms in Japan (land reform, labor rights, new constitution) with personal zeal, while Hodge was inflexible and fixated on stability.
  • Reformers sent from Japan to Korea (e.g., Wolf Wodzinski) found themselves sidelined by the American command.
  • Quote:

    “MacArthur... empowers the reformers. ... Hodge is almost... the direct opposite... sees the world in black and white and has very little flexibility.” (29:23) “Wolf Wodzinski... helped design land reform in Japan, is sent to South Korea and his agenda is not enacted... due to opposition by the military high command.” (32:01)

10. Relations with the Soviet North

• Early Flexibility and Later Stalemate
  • In 1945-46, Soviets were more accommodating regarding reunification; Americans were more rigid and supported conservative elites.
  • Attempts at creating a unified government (through trusteeship and joint commissions) failed due to mutual suspicion, hardening positions, and local resistance.
  • The US eventually threw support behind a separate election, solidifying division as Soviets consolidated power in the North under Kim Il Sung.

11. Why Did Division Become Permanent?

• Strategic Calculations and Indefinite Separation
  • Once separate elections and governments were created in 1948, long-term division became entrenched, mostly for strategic reasons linked to the US security perimeter and Japanese reconstruction.
  • Quote:

    “Once they decide... to hold separate elections... at that point, almost every major figure understands how this is going to play out.” (39:15)

12. Lingering Legacy: Why Can’t Korea Reunify?

• Entrenched Hostility and Missed Opportunities
  • Despite other Cold War rifts healing (Vietnam, China), Korea’s division persists due to longstanding mutual demonization, failure to normalize relations, and a lack of incremental trust-building.
  • The armistice (1953) ended fighting but not the war, leaving the peninsula in a frozen conflict.
  • Chang argues for “baby steps” (dialogue, suspending military threats) before serious reunification can be contemplated.
  • Quote:

    “Talking about reunification is almost silly... first steps must be normalization, peace, increased interaction. ... Until those baby steps are taken, reunification is just so distant.” (44:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Partition:

  “Dean Rusk... admitted... there was no real logic [to the 38th parallel] other than... wanting Seoul... on the American side.” (09:10)

• On Collaborators:

  “The Korean police were acting no differently than the colonial police under Japanese colonial rule...” (24:33)

• On Historical Irony:

  “Wolf Wodzinski... helped design land reform in Japan, is sent to South Korea and his agenda is not enacted... due to opposition by the military high command.” (32:01)

• On Enduring Division:

  “The groundwork of increasing interactions, normalization... having some semblance of peace on the peninsula... hasn’t happened yet. Until those baby steps are taken, the idea of reunification is just so distant.” (44:00)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Personal Connection & Family History – 02:11–05:14
• Japanese Colonial Rule & Korean Exiles – 05:14–06:59
• Plans for Postwar Korea & Trusteeship – 06:59–09:24
• Drawing the 38th Parallel – 09:24–12:39
• Koreans’ Short-lived Independence (‘Asia’s Spring’) – 12:39–15:28
• US Arrival and Korean Expectations – 15:28–16:32
• Occupation Strategies & Divisions within US Command – 16:32–21:46
• Missed Opportunities & The Rise of Dictatorship – 21:46–27:35
• Japan vs. Korea: Contrasting Occupations – 27:35–33:25
• American and Soviet Zones: Initial Flexibility and Collapse of Cooperation – 33:25–39:08
• Why Division Persisted and Pathways Forward – 39:08–45:08

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Summary

This frank and searching episode reframes the story of Korea’s postwar division as neither inevitable nor simply a product of Cold War “superpower rivalry.” Through Chang’s personal and academic lens, listeners gain insight into the aspirations of Korean society, the bureaucratic inertia and anti-communist inflexibility of US commanders, the paradoxes of occupation, and the enduring tragedy of a peninsula still divided by the errors and missed chances of 1945-48. The conversation concludes with a plea for pragmatic steps toward peace, suggesting that even after seventy-five years, history’s mistakes might still be partially redeemed.

Transcript

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[Rob Attar]

Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine.

[Podcast Host]

For three quarters of a century, the Korean Peninsula has been divided between two very different regimes that are bitterly opposed to each other. But did it have to be this way? In his book A Fractured Liberation, which has been shortlisted for the Cundl History Prize, Professor Cornell chang revisits the US occupation of the south of Korea between 1945 and 1948 to explore whether opportunities were missed for a better future. He shared his findings with Rob Attar.

[Interviewer]

The story you tell in this book has a personal connection to you. Would you be able to tell us how these events shaped your own family?

[Rob Attar]

Yeah, so I grew up as an immigrant kid in New York city in the 1980s and 1990s and you know, I have this very specific recollections of waking up in the middle of the night with my parents, speaking to my grandmother and they were speaking in Korean, of course, which was their native tongue at the time. And they would be speaking at a quiet whisper about events that took place years ago, talking about the war and talking about American troops, good and bad ones. And what I remember is that I would wake up the next morning and ask my father, you know, what was all of these conversations about that you were talking to Grandmother about? And he would say, nothing important is what he would say to me. And later I would learn that nothing important were things like my maternal grandparents who fled Pyongyang in the spring of 1946 and fled for the south in the spring of 1946 and would never return and never see their family members again. But it wasn't until years later that I would really understand the impact of this history and war and division and how it shaped my family's life. The moment I remember was in the summer of 1994, and I was a graduating senior at the time, about 18 years old. You might recall this was. This was the summer where there was the nuclear standoff between North Korea and South Korea and the United States, and there was a threat of a second Korean War. @ least this is what the evening news would say, the evening news broadcasters would say, say. And the stakes were quite high. There were already, you know, estimates of, you know, if there was a war, 50,000American casualties, a million Koreans dying. But luckily, and very fortunately, that scenario was staved off. But I remember that summer, in the aftermath of those negotiations, at our family dinner gatherings, where my family members would argue and debate about American response. And I remember my oldest uncle, who was the patriarch of the family, who would consistently say, if it wasn't for the Americans, we would all be living under the Communists now. And that statement, which I heard repeatedly at each family gathering, stayed with me. And as I grew, I went to graduate school, became a scholar. I worked on other things. I worked on histories of immigration and border enforcement and other kinds of things. But those family stories remained with me. And at some point, I was. I wanted to undertake a project to interrogate my uncle's statement that it was either or. It was either authoritarian communism or American military bases and four decades of dictatorships in South Korea before eventual democratization. And I wanted to understand the historical context around the major issues that had shaped my family's life.

[Interviewer]

So your book begins in 1945, but I think it would be helpful to. For our listeners to talk a bit about what came before as well. So what could you tell us about Korea under Japanese occupation?

[Rob Attar]

Yeah, so there was about four decades of Japanese colonial rule. They were, I think, annexed in 1905 and under formal colonial rule in 1910. And that rule was resisted by Koreans. And probably the most significant and organized movement was the March 1st Movement in 1919. And that movement then sparks overseas and internal political organizing. But as a result of Japanese repression, many of the organizers, some stayed. A minority of people stayed and went underground, but many of them went abroad. So the most prominent Korean figures like Syngman, Rhee, Kim Gu, Kim Kyu, Sikh, Kim Il Sung, these people who had become sort of major players and major political figures in post1945 Korean history, were exiled and went abroad to do their organizing. And obviously, each of these people, while they had a common goal of expelling and ultimately overturning Japanese colonial rule, had very different visions and ideas for what an independent Korea should look like. And so as a result of their exile and their organizing abroad, when they came back, you had very different political leaders with very different political visions for Korean independence and new Korean nation state. And there would be a clash and struggle over that vision.

[Interviewer]

Now, Korea wasn't defeated power in the Second World War. In fact, it had been liberated. So why then was it felt necessary for the country to be divided and occupied by great powers?

[Rob Attar]

Yes, so that's a really great question. So obviously, Korea was a Japanese colony. So the understanding was that once Japan was defeated, that their colonies would be emancipated and given their freedom. And in fact, this was enunciated and articulated in some several wartime declarations, including the Atlantic Charter. And more specifically, in the case of Korea, there was an articulation, a document called the Cairo Declaration, that said that essentially that Korea was enslaved and that they would be freed after the defeat of the Japanese. What was interesting about the Declaration, however, was that it did not give a specific timeline. It gave a very ambiguous timeline in its appropriate time was essentially the way they phrased it. And so there was kind of ambiguity about exactly when Koreans would receive their independence. Now, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was the president of the United States at the time, had a vision of guiding Koreans to independence through a mechanism called trusteeship. And trusteeship was this kind of multilateral tutelage system where the great powers, including the United States, the Soviet Union, China and Britain were, would all together help guide colonized people into independence. And what underpinned trusteeship, the idea of trusteeship, was FDR didn't quite trust colonized people to be able to transition into independence. But ironically enough, quite Often FDR would compare trusteeship and decolonizing Korea to the way in which the Philippines, which was a US Colony, was decolonized. But that was a decolonization process that took 40 years. And Koreans were not going to wait 40 more years after they had just been colonized for 40 years. And that was the one thing he didn't quite understand. And it was the one thing that Joseph Stalin, the premier of the Soviet Union, understood and in many conversations was supportive of the idea of trusteeship, but wanted it to be a much shorter period.

[Interviewer]

And then actually on that point, how did the division of Korea between Soviet dominated north and American dominated south come about?

[Rob Attar]

Well, it really comes about in the immediate aftermath of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. And the second bombing essentially leads to the collapse of the Japanese war effort, essentially is what happens. And the United States at that point is now is concerned about post war planning. And their concern is that their military forces are not very close to the Korean peninsula. While on the other hand, Soviet forces are in China and therefore would be able to get to the Korean peninsula and occupy the peninsula much more quickly than American forces could. The American intelligence, military intelligence suggested American forces were at least a month away from the Korean peninsula. And as a result they were concerned that the Soviets would dominate the entire peninsula. And so what American military planners did was they had two middle level army officials go into a room very late at night in Washington D.C. and these army officials didn't even know where the Korean peninsula was located. They in fact had to find a National Geographic map to identify where it was. And they were given the task of finding a dividing line where they could partition the country into two zones. Now granted, it was supposed to be a temporary arrangement, these military occupations, but essentially the idea for the Americans was if we don't come to some sort of plan, the Soviets would probably occupy all of Korean peninsula and then be able to exert political influence and dominance over the entire peninsula. And so American officials therefore came up with this dividing line at the 30th parallel. It had no rhyme or reason. Dean Rusk, who was the officer who chose the line, admitted in his own memoirs that there was no real logic other than the fact that they wanted Seoul, the Korean capital, on the American side of the line. Otherwise the line had no logic and made no sense. And American officials were very skeptical that the Soviets would accept this arrangement because the Soviets had the upper hand here. They would be the first to the peninsula. And as a result of the unwritten rules of the end of the Second World War, which was the idea that the first there would exert primary political influence. You know, the Soviet Union, they thought, would not take this deal, that essentially they had the leverage at this point and would occupy all of the Korean peninsula. But to their surprise, Stalin quickly agrees to this particular relationship. And, you know, one of the primary theories of why he does this is because Stalin is happy, satisfied with having half of Korea, so that it isn't used as a way in which, let's say, a rebuilt Japan could invade or attack the Soviet Union. So this is how we end up with the partition and the division in.

[Interviewer]

August 1945, and before the American troops arrive in South Korea, there's this brief period that you describe as Korea's Asian Spring. What happened there?

[Rob Attar]

So there's a period about four to five weeks, as I just said, that the American troops were not that close and were not able to get to the peninsula as fast as they'd like.

[Casual Friend]

And.

[Rob Attar]

And as a result, there was this interlude period where essentially Koreans were left to their own devices to pursue independence. And there is a wide range of initiatives and actions that different Koreans take in the four or five week interlude. There are people who seize Japanese owned land, there are Korean workers who seize Japanese owned factories and various other activities that my book goes into details about. But essentially at this moment, Koreans had aspirations, they had visions and goals for what their freedom would look like and what it would mean. And broadly speaking, it meant a redistribution to some degree of resources and power, that there would be greater equality, there would be greater justice, and so forth. And in particular, one of the things that they wanted was justice for those Koreans who had benefited and some would argue, collaborated with the Japanese regime. So there were three areas where I think there was an agreement among a great majority of Koreans of what they wanted for independence. I think they wanted some form of land reform. Korea's rural society was highly unequal. And this started before Japanese colonial rule, but then was exacerbated by Japanese colonial rule. So you had many destitute Korean farmers and peasants who were seeking some form of land reform and land regulation that would make their lives easier. Workers wanted more rights, they wanted labor rights, they wanted minimum wage, they wanted minimum work hours. Some of them wanted the right to collectively bargain. And then you had, as I said, a large majority of Koreans who wanted justice. They wanted a reckoning with their collaborationist past. And those were the kind of three major items that I think a great majority of ordinary Koreans agree to aspire to. Now, I should say that didn't mean that every Korean had, you know, the same thought of what form it should take and how it should be pursued and so forth. There were certainly differences in how they thought these reforms and regulations should be pursued and what form they would take were up for grabs and contested. The liberation also revealed differences which at times resulted in clashes and struggles between and among Koreans.

[Interviewer]

And then considering the Koreans had had this short period of freedom, how did they then respond to the presence of American troops?

[Rob Attar]

Well, I think initially their thought was a sort of wait and see approach. But for the most part, I think most Koreans welcomed Americans as liberators. They were going to accept Japanese surrender and ultimately free Korea and allow Korea to become an independent nation. And I think the same was true in the north, where I think Koreans in the north also welcomed Soviet troops as liberators who were accepting Japan's surrender. And so after that period, their understanding was that they were going to get their independence quite quickly after the occupation. So they, I think for many Koreans the expectation, at least ordinary Koreans was that the occupying armies would come, they would accept Japan's surrender and shortly thereafter leave and leave Korea for Koreans to figure out their own independence and pursue self determination on their own.

[Interviewer]

But what did the Americans themselves have planned for their occupation of the south of Korea?

[Rob Attar]

Yeah, so the vision was for trusteeship, a multinational trusteeship that would of course include the United States. But that plan gets scrambled for two reasons. One is FDR dies in the spring of 1945. He is replaced by his vice president Harry Truman, who is not privy to a number of these sort of post war planning. So the primary architect of the mechanism through which Korea and another colony like Vietnam would get their independence, now he's no longer here. Right. The main supporter. And there were other people within the state and War Department who did not share FDR's vision for trusteeship for colonized people. So that's one. So the main architect is no longer there. Secondly, you have the mad scramble after the dropping of the atomic bombs on the two Japanese city and you have Soviet and American troops really kind of scrambling to occupy territory except accept Japan's surrender and so forth. So there's a lot of chaos in this particular moment. So there isn't a real understanding, at least initially. General John Hodge, who is the military commander in the south when he arrives, isn't quite sure what the plans is and he's waiting to hear back from Washington. And it isn't really till three or four months later that trusteeship is revived and agreed upon by the Soviets and the United States as still being a policy to get Koreans to independence.

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[Interviewer]

A little bit earlier you mentioned the main goals the Korean people had at this time. How far were the American occupiers prepared to allow those to happen?

[Rob Attar]

So there's a division between the military high command, which is led by lieutenant general John R. Hodge, who is the leader of the occupation. And then there is reformers within the military government, primarily sent from the U.S. state Department. And these reformers, they quickly understand the aspirations of the Korean people. They understand that land reform is immensely important. They understand workers rights will be immensely important to Koreans and that purging the police and the bureaucracy of former Japanese collaborators that these three things are immensely important to the Korean people and that fulfilling the aspirations of ordinary Koreans would be the best way to stabilize the south, come to some agreement with the Soviet Union and and ultimately keep communism at bay, is what they think. This is not what General Haj, who is a hardline anti communist, someone who as a military figure prizes stability and order. And so when he arrives in southern Korea and sees the whirlwind of activities that are going on, he sees it as chaos and instability. And sure, that was certainly true to some degree, and thinks that the best way to operate and to secure American national interest and keep communism at bay is through preserving the pre liberation status quo, which means, among other things, keeping the colonial police, the colonial bureaucracy, former Japanese, collaborative, those people in power. In fact, initially Hajj wants to keep the Japanese themselves, the Japanese rulers themselves in power. There's massive resistance and backlash from the Korean people against that idea. And he is forced to drop that idea and the Japanese officials and leaders are quickly sent back to Japan. But Hodge then goes to the next best thing in his mind, which is working with the people who had sort of cooperated with the Japanese. And many of these people tended to be English speaking, tended to be Christian and tended to be well off. They tended to be the landed elite and the business elite.

[Interviewer]

Your book talks about missed opportunities that took place in these years and you've talked about a couple already. But are there any other really important ones we should discuss?

[Rob Attar]

Yeah, I think the biggest one is that even Hodge himself, who is a hardline anti communist and prizes stability by, I would say the spring of 1946, we're talking about six months into the occupation, he sees that some of the rightist Korean politicians, including Syngman Rhee, who eventually becomes the president, and the Korean Democratic Party, which is the main conservative political party in the southern zone, he sees REAP in particular as a fascist threat. He sees that he has fascist authoritarian impulses and does not think that he should be the leader of Korea and looks for an alternative. And one of the alternative which is suggested by his political advisors is a middle of the road centrist coalition led by two figures, Kim Kyu Sik, who is considered a center right figure, and Johan Young, who is considered a center left figure. And they created a centrist coalition that had encoded Korean aspirations in their platform, including land redistribution, workers rights, punishing former collaborators. And so they presented this centrist coalition as an alternative to both the far right and the far left. The far left being the communist leaders in Seoul. And they put together this group. It had the public blessing of General Hodge, who made an announcement with his public support to the Korean people. And they came up with a platform and an agenda. And at least initially things were moving in the right direction. And in fact, the liberal New Deal reformers, who had been very pessimistic and critical of Hodges initial policies and responses, became quite optimistic with their formation and the progress they were making. And then in August 1946, about a year after liberation, there's an uprising, a peasant and worker uprising. They're known as the Autumn Uprisings where ordinary peasants rose up to oppose and violently resist the Korean police and the Korean bureaucrats who they thought were abusing them. There was countless incidents of police brutality, of police skimming rice or stealing rice from peasants and farmers which were in shortage. The idea, in short, was that the Korean police were acting no differently than the colonial police under Japanese colonial rule. And there was a sense among a great majority of ordinary Koreans, whether they were peasants or workers, that not much has changed. In fact, things were almost exactly the same as it was under Japanese colonial rule. And in fact, there was a very embarrassing poll that the US military government took in the spring of 1946, where a slight majority of Koreans who were asked the question whether they preferred Japanese colonial rule or US Military occupation, and a slight majority said the former that they preferred Japanese colonial rule. Right, which gave you a sense of hopelessness, a sense that things have not changed very much. And those bottled up grievances exploded in autumn 1946 in the countryside, that then the American military government responded with violent repression, empowering the Korean police even further, reviving old colonial ordinances that banned and prohibited things like mass organizing, mass participation, protests, and so forth, and empowering them with, you know, new weapons and the backing of American military forces. And so what ended up happening, as one liberal reformer within the US Military government said, was essentially the Korean police became supercharged at this point. And what you had by the end of 1946, early 1947, was a police state in the South. And that made it almost impossible for the centrist coalition to enact their agenda and pursue the course of action that they were taking, which was an attempt to find a middle ground between authoritarian left and authoritarian right, is what ended up happening. There was a couple of last ditch efforts. The main political advisor to General Hodge, a man named Leonard Birch, almost convinced Hodge to purge the Korean police of collaborators. And there is a written, drafted statement in the Leonard Birch Papers, which is held at Harvard University Library, saying exactly that, where Hodge declares that the heads of police are going to be removed. And he is asking and requesting that the police move very quickly to purge all of the Korean police of its collaborationist elements. And in only doing so would Korea be able to pursue liberation and independence in its fullest and most genuine way. That memo, that draft never gets signed. Hodges signature is not on it. And eventually yo and Yong, who is one of the key leaders of the Centrist coalition, is assassinated in the summer of 1947. And really, with his death, ends the Centrist Coalition project and leads to ultimately an election that leads to the election of Syngman Rhee, the rightest South Korean leader, and the creation of a separate South Korea in August 1948.

[Interviewer]

There's a really interesting contrast here, isn't there, between what happened in Japan after the Second World War? Well, I think it's generally felt that the US occupation was very successful, even though this was a defeated power. Actually, Japan's post war progress was really impressive. What do you think was different between Korea and Japan in this case?

[Rob Attar]

Yeah, I mean, you know, as historians, it's always multifactorial, it's always more complex and nuanced. But in this case, I think it's mostly who the military leader was and their personality and their vision for the territories in which they were the leaders of the occupation. So in Southern Korea, as I said, it was General John R. Hodge. In Japan, it was General Douglas MacArthur, who was in fact Hodges commanding officer, if you're thinking about military hierarchy. So Douglas MacArthur was this charismatic, a lot of people would say, narcissistic figure. And he had grand visions for Japan and grand visions for his own role in transforming Japanese society. Essentially what MacArthur thought was he was the only person that could lead Japan away from its militarization and its authoritarian impulses, that he was the one that was going to be able to democratize Japan. And he pursued that vision at all costs, in many ways, at least for the first year of the occupation. Now, the one thing he did was he was going to pursue democratization, which included land redistribution, workers rights, the rights of labor unions to collectively bargain, purged the Home Ministry and the police of its fascist elements and so forth. He was interested in doing all that and empowered the reformers within the military government to enact that agenda, including completely writing a new constitution that would essentially demilitarize Japan. And that constitution remains in effect till this day. Right. But the one thing he said was an absolute non negotiable was maintaining the throne the emperor. And what that meant was essentially exonerating the Emperor of his wartime involvement and ultimately of his wartime crimes, sanitizing the Emperor. But nevertheless, the point here is for the first year and a half, he empowered the reformers to pursue democratization and reform in Japan. Now, in the case of Korea, Hodge is almost personality wise, the direct opposite of MacArthur. He doesn't like the spotlight. He would rather read privately on his own. He was a farm boy from Golconda, Illinois. He had a very humble upbringing and had to actually work his way up military training school where people like MacArthur or General Patton, these more famous military, World War II military figures, these people all went to the famous West Point, a famous military academy in the United States. Whereas Hodge is someone who had to sort of work his way up the ladder, right? The point, again being personality was shaped by these particular experiences. And he was humble. He was a person, I think I could say, of high integrity. But the flip side of that is he saw the world in black and white. There was very little flexibility to his thinking in the way that there was in the case of MacArthur. MacArthur was in fact an anti New Deal Republican, was his own political sentiment. But in Japan, he sort of empowers the reformers to essentially enact New Deal reforms in Japan, at least again, for the first year and a half before the Cold War really sets in. And so MacArthur shows a kind of flexibility, but that flexibility really does emerge from a kind of narcissism that he's the only one that can transform and change Japan. So there's a real irony here, right? Whereas Hodge is like, he's a soldier. Soldier, follow orders, prizes stability. But again, the flip side is sees the world in black and white and has very little flexibility, is a very rigid personality. And, you know, this is where his rigid anti Communism emerges from. And so his approach in Korea is really staving off reform and trying to preserve the status quo. And what's interesting is many of the people who were reformers in Japan, meaning American reformers who were working for the military government to enact reforms in Japan, many of them were sent to South Korea. In the spring of 1946, a man like Wolf Wodzinski, who helped design land reform in Japan, is sent to South Korea and his agenda is not enacted. And in fact, he's actively opposed by the military high command. And Wolf Lazinski talks about just the lack of a kind of reformist spirit, which Wolfziski, who is very much anti communist, but he thinks the antidote to anti Communism is reform. It's fulfilling the aspirations of a large majority of Koreans. That is the cure or the antidote to communism. Whereas Hodge sees it just as we just need to hold the line. And I think Hodge just always has this notion that he's suspicious of people like Syngman Rhee and their authoritarian impulses. But I think he also thinks maybe a strongman is the only kind of political leader that can keep the southern zone from going toward communism.

[Interviewer]

So considering Hodges virulent anti communism, what kind of relations did the American zone in Korea have with the Soviet dominated zone in the North Most of the.

[Rob Attar]

Negotiations are happening between officials in Washington D.C. cabinet figures and so forth in D.C. and then, you know, with Stalin and officials in the Soviet Union is what's happening. And the plan, as I said before, is in December they come to an agreement that they should continue with the idea of trusteeship. In December 1945, there is what is called the Moscow decision. And in that decision, the idea is that Korea would go through a five year trusteeship, which is vastly reduced from what FDR imagined, who thought somewhere in the 40, 50 year range is what he thought. And again, this is at the behest of Stalin, who just does not think the Korean people will tolerate anything more than that. And in fact, when this decision is announced, Koreans don't even want five years. They think of trusteeship as a betrayal, an undermining of their aspirations for independence. Nevertheless, there is a joint commission in the summer of 1946, where the Soviets and the Americans meet in Seoul, to come up with a plan to figure out how to reunify the peninsula and create a unified provisional government. And so that is the plan. But because of all of the opposition from Koreans, particularly in the south, the Soviets essentially just stamp out the resistance to trusteeship in the North. Soviet occupying officials essentially tell North Korean leaders to get in line. And one such figure, Cho Man Sik, who is a center right figure, who was initially selected as a potential leader of the Northern zone, he's arrested because he opposes trusteeship. So there's violent resistance to it. The Soviets are particularly angered because they think that the Americans intentionally tried to blame the Soviets for the trusteeship plan, where the Soviets are essentially like, this was your plan. We just sort of followed and came along with it. And so it creates a real atmosphere of mistrust. And as a result, the first joint commission ends with no particular agreement. There is a second attempt in the summer of 1947, a second joint commission to revive the efforts of trusteeship. And that that too fails. And that fails largely, I think, because the Soviets at this point is the group that is more intrinsic about the kinds of demands that they're making now. So let me just put this in kind of a broader perspective. I think early on, and I think this is backed up by a lot of the scholarship on the Soviet side and North Korea is that the Soviets are quite flexible and accommodating in the early part of the occupation, let's say the first six to nine months, the first year, right. They didn't have to agree to the partition of the country, really. They could have seized the entire peninsula. And in fact, what's really interesting is on August 10, Stalin agrees to the partition and a joint occupation. A week later, Stalin makes a similar request to Truman about landing troops in Hokkaido, which is the northernmost islands of Japan, as an attempt to have a kind of similar joint occupation of Japan. Truman denies this particular request. So it's an interesting kind of difference where you see the Soviets are willing to accommodate. Now, this is not because Stalin is some peace loving figure or anything like this. He is a realist. He does think he needs to work with the Americans. The Cold War isn't inevitable at this point. They're fighting for the same side during the Second World War. There's of course a bit of suspicion about each other's intent, but there is a real sense with Stalin is that he's going to need the Americans. And then secondly, the Americans have the atomic weapon, the Soviets do not. So it's clear that the Americans have the military advantage. And so Stalin is willing to accommodate and work with American officials. So he agrees to partition, he agrees to trusteeship, which again is an American idea, right? And they back a center right figure, a Christian nationalist by the name of Cho Man, Sikh, in the north in the first six months. And so there's a lot of evidence to suggest, at least initially, there is an opening created by the Soviet officials, but on the American side with Hodge leading it, Hodge is taking a much more hard line, throws his support behind the conservative figures, behind the Korean landed elite, the businessmen and so forth for the first six or nine months. And so you have a real kind of mismatch there, where you have an opening on the northern side, but you have a sort of closing on the southern side if you want to kind of match toward reunification. And then I argue that sort of the reverse happens in the second half of the occupation, where the Americans, including Hodge, is willing to throw their support behind a centrist coalition. And in the north, it's pretty clear that now Kim Il Sung is growing in power, he is amassing authority. And the Soviets, we don't quite know, but it's clear that they're not stopping it at least anyway, right? And Cho Man Sik at this point is now under house arrest. And so it is a story again of missed opportunities where you had openings on one side, but it wasn't being matched on the other side, which ultimately leads to this tragedy which continues to endure till this day of division.

[Interviewer]

So in that case, do you think that by the time the US occupation ends, division is therefore Inevitable.

[Rob Attar]

Yeah. I think once they decide that they're going to hold separate elections that is going to create a separate government, which then is matched by the Soviets in the North. I think at that point, almost every major figure understands how this is going to play out. Now, do they know it was going to be 75 years of division? I don't think anybody is predicting that. I mean, you had the fall of the Berlin Wall, you had the reunification of Vietnam and so forth. And so I don't know if they know that, but they did understand in the short and medium term, they understood what supporting a separate election would mean. They understood at that point, and ironically enough, it's the State Department and the reformers at that point that are now throwing their support behind a separate election because they think they need to hold onto at least half the peninsula at that point. They think that if they leave and withdraw American forces without creating a separate South Korean government, that it would be overrun by the Communists. And in this regard, they are probably correct. But it is the State Department at this point and the reformers who are now reluctantly throwing their support behind a separate election that they know will lead to an indefinite division of the peninsula. And ironically enough, it's Haj and the War Department who think they should just cut bait at this time and leave Korea withdrawal, understanding that it might be dominated by the Communists. But it's okay, because Korea is not, according to the War Department. It's just not strategically important enough. Where the State Department officials disagree, particularly the Secretary of State at that time, is that it's not that holding onto half of the peninsula is important for its own sake. It's important for its ally, its very new ally, Japan and its reconstruction. They think they need to sort of reattach the kind of colonial relationship between Japan and South Korea, whether it's for economic reasons and for military reasons, that the half of the peninsula would be pivotal in reconstructing Japan, which was the centerpiece of America's post war geostrategic designs for Northeast Asia as the Cold War really heats up, and as you said.

[Interviewer]

This legacy of these years continues right up to the present day, doesn't it? Why do you think that the division of Korea has remained so stubborn, whereas as you mentioned, some of the other Cold War divisions did subsequently come to an end?

[Rob Attar]

Yeah, I mean, it's a harder question for me to answer because in part I just started work on the book to try to answer that particular question. So it's sort of like the book I wrote. It's about Missed opportunities later on. Because that's precisely the question. I mean, the US normalizes relations with China in the 1990s, despite the tensions and hostilities. Now they normalize relations with Vietnam and of course, the rest of the communist world. And North Korea is this sort of outlier. Maybe you can also throw in sort of Cuba at this point. And my own sense is there were other moments in which I think some sort of settlement normalization, which I think would have been the first step that would have opened North Korea to engage and interact with the world, which then could have set the stage for greater interaction not only with the world, but with South Korea and created some lasting peace on the peninsula, which I think is a prerequisite for reunification. We never get there. And I think the reasons for that are again, different kinds of missed opportunities. And I would also say one of the things is just the ways in which both sides, both American South Koreans and North Koreans, have portrayed each of these regimes as being either completely hostile and not open to reason, irrational and threatening. And therefore there's never been any kind of hope for peace. And this goes in both directions. But I do think the cartoonish characterization of North Korea has created some of these problems that those people there are completely irrational, completely not open to negotiation, et cetera, which isn't to say they're a good regime, they are not. But there are a lot of bad regimes all over the world that the US does engage with, understanding the reality of international politics and so forth. And so that kind of groundwork hasn't happened. The groundwork of increasing interactions, normalization of some relations, and having some semblance of a settlement of peace on the peninsula. As we know, the Korean War ended with an armistice, which is essentially a ceasefire. It wasn't an official end to the Korean War. Technically, the Korean War is still ongoing. Like those kinds of baby steps haven't happened yet. And until those baby steps are taken, the idea of reunification is just so distant and seems so impossible at this point, particular point. And so in some ways I would argue, like talking about reunification is almost silly. It's a fruit just that is so high up on the tree that you need to grab some low hanging fruits before we get to that point, which is again, increasing interactions, some semblance of peace on the peninsula. Right. Suspension of certain kinds of military activities, threatening military activities, whether they're military exercises on, on the southern side or whether it's the nuclear missile testing on the northern side. You know, some of those kinds of suspensions would be the beginning of the groundwork for greater peace on the peninsula.

[Podcast Host]

That was Cornell Chang speaking to Rob Attar. Cornell's book A Fractured Career Under US Occupation has been shortlisted for this year's Cundle History Prize. To find out more about the Prize, head to KundalPrize.com.

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