Prior to 1945, Stalin had been vague in committing to a joint trusteeship for Korea, and now that the Soviets had successfully set up a relatively stable, friendly, and well-functioning government in their zone, he became less enthusiastic. The Soviets were barely responsive to American initiatives to unify the economy or to relax travel restrictions between the two zones. Hoping to exchange a trainload of supplies for coal, Hodge was shocked to learn that the Soviets not only refused to send the coal, but also kept the train.1 The Americans faced far greater economic and political turmoil than the Soviets. Hodge and his staff identified the uncertainty of Korea’s future as the greatest source of political discontent. Establishing an independent, united, and democratic Korea was clearly a priority. The turmoil provided an ideal condition for leftist and communist groups to flourish. Edwin Pauley, an advisor to President Truman who visited Korea in early 1946, warned Truman that “communism in Korea could get off to a better start than practically anywhere else in the world. The Japanese [had] owned the railroads, all the public utilities including power and light as well as all of the major industries and natural resources.” Now the communists could “acquire them without any struggle of any kind.” For this reason “the United States should not waive its title or claim to Japanese external assets located in Korea until a democratic (capitalist) form of government is assured.”2 But how was such a government to be established? Joint trusteeship leading to independence seemed to be the only viable option to avoid a divided Korea. Until an agreement was concluded with the Soviets, however, USAMGIK would be forced to tighten control, build closer relationships with more conciliatory groups like the KDP and prevent a takeover by the leftists. While Washington was considering trusteeship with the Soviets, Americans on the ground were strengthening their control over their zone and hence deepening the division between the two zones.
The contradiction frustrated the Americans in Korea. They were critical of the trusteeship idea. William Langdon, Hodge’s political advisor, pointed out the obvious: that Koreans of all political persuasions would protest fervently against it. “After one month’s service in liberated Korea and with background of earlier service in Korea,” Langdon wrote to the secretary of state in Washington, “I am unable to fit trusteeship to the actual conditions here or to be persuaded of its sustainability from moral and practical standpoints and, therefore, believe we should drop it.” As an alternative, Langdon proposed a trusteeship plan to begin in the American zone. He noted that during the transition period between USAMGIK and the formation of an independent Korean government, the Soviets should be invited to participate in the process. But if the Soviets were not forthcoming, the United States should carry out the plan in the southern zone. The deteriorating political situation in the south required immediate action for transition to independence with or without the Soviets. “It is imperative that the U.S. act,” warned Langdon, as “[only such actions] will convince the Korean leaders that our intentions of their independence are genuine and in this way we can win their support in fighting communism, unrest, and the hostility of the masses toward us.”3
Hodge and his staff, as well as MacArthur and his staff, agreed with Langdon. The issue boiled down to promising Koreans their independence by backing political leaders and groups conciliatory to American interests. But whom? The KDP’s leaders had always had the ears of the Americans, but the group’s political power base was weak due to its lack of contact with the masses and past associations with the Japanese. Someone without links to the colonial regime, but with nationalist standing among the Koreans, was needed. KDP leaders suggested Syngman Rhee (Yi Sŭng-man). In many ways, Rhee was the perfect candidate. He had spent much of his life overseas, mostly in the United States, where he earned a PhD from Princeton in 1910. After a two-year stint in Seoul as a Christian educator and missionary, he returned to the States in 1912. In 1919 he was elected the first president of the Korean Provisional Government (KPG), a government in exile in Shanghai. He went back to the United States in 1925 after being expelled by the KPG and remained there until the end of World War II. While in the States, he was politically active in the Korean independence movement. He was fluent in English as well as untainted by association with the colonial regime. Rhee was seventy years old in 1945, but vigorous. He was also difficult, stubborn, and fiercely patriotic. Francesca Rhee, his Austrian wife whom he met in Geneva in 1933, wistfully wrote in a letter to a friend, “When I married Dr. Rhee, I married Korea.”4
Rhee’s stint as president of the KPG was marked by strife. He tried hard to get American recognition of the KPG as the legitimate government of Korea during the colonial period. Some in the State Department found him and other KPG leaders “personally ambitious and somewhat irresponsible” and downplayed the clout of the KPG “even among exiles.”5 Nevertheless, Hodge and his advisors were eager to embrace him, believing that the legitimacy Rhee could bring to the KDP and the promise of Korean independence might be enough to stem the tide of political chaos in their zone. The State Department, however, still intent on pursuing trusteeship, dragged its feet. With backing from the War Department and MacArthur, however, Hodge prepared to create a governing body in the American zone. In any case, Hodge knew that the Soviets had already created a de facto government in the north, whether the State Department wanted to admit this or not. In the end, Washington settled on a two-track policy, building up “a reasonable and respected government” in the south that would deepen the division between the two zones, while pursuing trusteeship in the hope that the two could eventually be reunited.
After much pressure, the Soviets agreed to discuss trusteeship. In mid-December 1945, the U.S. secretary of state and foreign ministers from Great Britain and the Soviet Union met in Moscow to discuss a variety of post–World War II issues. Korea was high on the agenda. The Moscow Decision that came out of the conference included provisions for establishing a unified Korean government through Soviet-American cooperation to end zonal occupations. A joint commission formed from the Soviet and American occupation authorities was to formulate recommendations for establishing a single government. However, in preparing its recommendations, the agreement stated, “the Commission shall consult with the Korean democratic parties and social organizations.” Once a provisional government was established, the Soviet Union, China, Britain, and the United States would oversee it in a trusteeship for a period of up to five years.
Members of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Joint Commission. From left to right: Brig. Gen. John Weckerling; Col. Koruklenko; Mr. Tunkiv, Dr. Arthur Bunce; Lt. Gen. John Hodge, Col. Gen. Terentii Fomich Shtykov; Maj. Gen. Albert E. Brown; Maj. Gen. Nikolai Lebedev; Calvin M. Joyner; B. M. Balasonov; William R. Langdon; and Col. Lawrence L. Lincoln, June 1, 1947. (U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION)
Not surprisingly, the plan was greeted by wild protests in the south. Schools were closed down, as were factories, stores, and public transportation, while people demonstrated in the streets. Hodge, who had predicted the violent reaction, called on Song Chin-u, a leading member of the KDP, and asked him to endorse the trusteeship plan. A haggard Song tentatively agreed. The next morning, Hodge awoke to the dreadful news that Song was dead. He had been shot in the head in front of his house.6
Other southern Korean leaders protested and claimed independence from the Americans. Rhee, publicly distancing himself from Hodge, spoke out against the Moscow Decision. He declared that the “self respect of his nation would not permit the acceptance of this decision or of anything short of full independence.”7 Kim Ku, a staunch rightist and the last president of the KPG in Shanghai, called for a general strike and insisted on immediate recognition of the KPG. Left-wing groups were similarly outraged. The KCP denounced trusteeship. Opposition by the Right and the Left opened the possibility for a powerful coalition to challenge the trusteeship plan. On New Year’s Day 1946, southern communist party leader Pak Hŏn-yŏng signed a public anti-trusteeship statement with members of the Kim Ku group. That same day, Pak met with Hodge to tell him directly his opposition to trusteeship. A huge “Citizens Rally against Trusteeship and for the Acceleration of National Unification” was planned for January 3. For the first time since liberation, the Right and the Left joined in a common cause to oppose the American and Soviet plan.8
But the cooperation did not last. Pak was summoned to P’yŏngyang on January 2. He returned a changed man. He told party members that the North Korean leadership had decided to support the Moscow Decision and trusteeship. Although many members balked, Pak made support of trusteeship an issue of party loyalty. In an extraordinary about-face, the January 3 rally, planned as an anti-trusteeship demonstration by Pak and other Korean communists, became a rally in support of the Moscow Decision. Moderate leftists were stunned and appalled. It was evident that Soviet authority wielded far greater control over the northern zone and the Korean communist movement than had been previously thought. Compared to the Americans’ unsuccessful efforts to get the KDP and other conservative groups to support trusteeship, the Soviets were able, within a matter of a few days, to quickly put their house in order. This was the turning point the Americans needed to stabilize their zone.
Fierce opposition to trusteeship in the south temporarily united the moderate Left and the Right. A full-blown anticommunist/anti-Soviet movement enabled the Right to mobilize popular support for its policies for the first time. The communists were now painted as servants of a foreign, anti-Korean, anti-independence pro-Soviet regime. While the trusteeship controversy temporarily bolstered the American zone by fracturing the Left, and provided greater legitimacy to the KDP and other right-wing groups, the controversy had even greater consequences in the Soviet zone, where it created a political crisis and the end of challenges to the regime.9
On January 1, 1946, the chief of the SCA, Maj. Gen. Andrei Romanenko, asked Cho Man-sik to publicly endorse trusteeship and promised that he would be made the first president of Korea if he did so. Cho refused and was arrested, never to be heard from again. It was rumored that he was executed in October 1950 along with other political prisoners soon after the Inch’ŏn landing.10 Cho’s arrest was followed by a roundup of other Korean nationalist leaders as the Soviets made an all-out effort to create a pro-Soviet proto-government in the north. In early February, the Soviets oversaw the creation of the Central People’s Committee as a provisional government. Kim Il Sung became its chairman, making him, in effect, the interim premier. “Parting with Cho Man-sik without regret, Shtykov made up his mind to support Kim Il Sung as the head leader of democratic Korea and suggested this to Stalin,” Lim Ŭn recalled.11 With Cho Man-sik out of the way and the arrest of other “reactionaries,” there was no longer a viable opposition leader or party in northern Korea.
The opening weeks of 1946 also saw dramatic changes to the situation in the American zone. Hodge realized the benefit of the KDP and other right-wing groups using the Moscow Decision as a catalyst for political unity. He allowed the belief to circulate in the south that it was the Soviets, not the Americans, who advocated trusteeship. Never in favor of the trusteeship idea, Hodge stepped out of bounds of his authority by openly siding with the Right in its opposition to the Moscow Decision. Shtykov was angry that Hodge had allowed newspapers in the American zone to falsely report that it had been the Soviets who forced trusteeship down Washington’s throat. On January 22, the Soviet newspaper Izvestia published a strongly worded article accusing the southern rightists of “fermenting enmity against the Soviet Union.”12 Four days later at a press conference, Shtykov provided a detailed history of the trusteeship idea, declaring that it was “the Americans who had called for ‘guardianship’ for Korea for at least five years and possibly ten years, but that the Soviets opposed this and succeeded in obtaining adoption of the Russian plan.”13 Embarrassed over the flap, the State Department asked Hodge to clear up the “misunderstanding” and announce that Shtykov’s account was essentially correct. Hodge sent back a blistering response: “It [the State Department request] is in itself complete evidence that the Department has paid little attention either to the information painstakingly sent in from those actually on the ground [in Korea] as to the psychology of the Korean people or to the repeated urgent recommendations of the commander and State Department political advisors … Just after the quelling of the revolt and riots brought about by the announcement of the trusteeship, our position here was the strongest since our arrival.”14
The first formal meeting of the American-Soviet commission in Seoul. General Hodge is seated on the left, with General Shtykov in the middle and a female interpreter on the right, January 16, 1946. (U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION)
Hodge was right. It was his opposition to the Moscow Decision that had temporarily elevated USAMGIK’s status among Koreans in the south. Going against the will of the people by endorsing trusteeship would have destroyed American credibility and led to further chaos. He saw no hope in any future cooperation with the Soviets through a joint trusteeship plan or on any other basis. Hodge’s remedy for Korea was to create a separate government in the south that would give the Koreans the independence they craved while shielding it from the “ruthless political machinery” in the north. Contrary to State Department officials, Hodge understood that the Moscow Decision was unworkable.
Hodge did not have to wait long for his view on the trusteeship to be vindicated. In the weeks leading up to the first meeting of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Joint Commission tasked to establish an interim government, set for March 20, tensions had been building. On March 5, Winston Churchill delivered his fiery speech in Fulton, Missouri, in which he warned that “an iron curtain has descended across the [European] Continent.” An angry Stalin fired back in an interview with Pravda that Churchill was nothing more than “a second Hitler.” He defended his actions in Eastern Europe, stating that “it was only natural that the Soviet Union would welcome friendly nations on its borders.” Picking up on Stalin’s words about “friendly” nations, Hodge warned the Soviets before the first meeting that “the purpose of the American delegation is to see that a government [in Korea] corresponds to the views of the majority, not the minorities, no matter how vocal and well organized they are, or how energetic they may be in their political activities.”15 Clearly, Hodge was worried that the Soviets would favor “friendly” groups amicable to Soviet interests and exclude right-wing organizations from participating in the interim government.
Shtykov’s opening speech proved Hodge correct. The Soviet officer attacked what he called “reactionary and anti-democratic groups” in the south that were offering “furious resistance” to the creation of “a democratic system in Korea.” He called for a “decisive battle” against them. The criterion to determine whether a group was reactionary or anti-democratic was to be based on its support for the Moscow agreement. In other words, groups that opposed the Moscow Decision, which meant all right-wing and moderates in the south, were to be excluded from participating in the provisional government.16 The Americans were stunned. After six weeks of fruitless discussion, the Joint Commission adjourned. Trusteeship seemed dead, and the path to permanent division appeared more certain than ever. Chistiakov later defended the Soviet position by stating that the reestablishment of Korea as an independent state required “the liquidation of the ruinous after-effects of long Japanese domination in Korea.” Since the Soviet delegation was “guided by the aims and spirit of the Moscow Decision,” whose purpose was to oversee the liquidation of Japanese influences, “it would therefore not be right to consult on the question of methods of fulfilling the Moscow Decision with those parties which had voiced opposition to this plan for Korea.”17 By insisting that all “pro-Japanese/anti-democratic” forces be excluded from the political process, the Soviets would be assured that Korea would rest in “friendly” hands. “If they [pro-Japanese forces] seize power in the [Korean] government,” Shtykov told Hodge, “the government would not be loyal to Russia, and its officials would be instrumental in organizing hostile actions on the part of the Korean people against the Soviet Union.”18 These concerns underscored the extent to which the Russians feared the resurrection of Japanese power.
Suspension of the Joint Commission ushered in a period of armed struggle in the American zone. Pak Hŏn-yŏng returned to Seoul in July 1946 with instructions from Shtykov to merge the main leftist parties in the south to form the South Korean Workers Party (SKWP). In late September, a rail strike in Pusan spread throughout the American zone. More strikes followed, by postal employees, electrical workers, printers, and laborers in other industries. Students joined in, and USAMGIK faced its first real major crisis. By the end of September, the strikes became violent. On the evening of October 1, the Autumn Rebellion (also known as the Taegu Uprising) began. The police fired on striking workers at the Taegu railway station, killing one. An angry crowd assembled in front of the city police headquarters. Major John Plezia, an American advisor who was inside the headquarters, called for help from nearby American units. By the time American troops arrived, mob attacks had spread to other police stations. The next day, violence continued with vehemence. “It was open season on the police and all other natives who held jobs with the U.S. Military Government,” stated one eyewitness account. “Mobs killed them on the streets, stormed police boxes and public offices and rooted them out of their homes and hiding places for slaughter.” Rioters ransacked the homes of Korean officials, looting and killing. Hodge declared martial law and a crackdown. Thousands of alleged leftists were arrested. As order was restored over the following weeks, policemen and their rightist allies exacted revenge.19
The Americans believed that the communists and, in particular, Pak Hŏn-yŏng had instigated the strikes. Shtykov’s diary clarified the Soviet involvement. The Soviets did not instigate the strikes, but their occurrence “provoked the intervention of Soviet leaders in the north.” Shtykov provided advice and funneled large sums of money to support the general strike and the Autumn Rebellion. As unsettling as the uprising was for the Americans, it proved to be counterproductive for the communists. The riots resulted in loss of popular support for the Left and the emergence and rise of more extreme and less accommodating organizations from the Right. “There are no moderate groups in Korea anymore,” Francesca Rhee lamented to a friend. “There are only Rightists and communists.”20 The forced merger of the Left into the SKWP had also alienated many moderate leftists, and the base of communist support shrunk to extremist groups. The successful repression of the uprising also revealed that the communists did not have the organizational strength necessary to bring about a revolution in the south. This, in turn, consolidated the forces of the Right, which became more powerful than ever before.
The most significant development was that the extreme violence perpetrated by both sides laid bare the pretense that reconciliation between the northern and southern zones was even possible. Although the United States and the Soviet Union were still officially bound to follow the Moscow Decision and the trusteeship plan, Syngman Rhee and other right-wing politicians began to actively petition to form a separate government in Seoul. “If anyone says Dr. Rhee should unite with the Reds or anyone else,” wrote Rhee in a letter to his friend and advisor Robert Oliver, “tell him that Dr. Rhee will never cooperate with smallpox.”21 In January 1947, Rhee publicly repudiated the Moscow Decision. In a long and bitter diatribe against the Joint Commission, Rhee warned the Americans, “We will not accept the plan for a four power trusteeship for our country … It is ridiculous to believe that a nation with a 4,000 year old history of independence needs to be shepherded through a period of ‘political tutelage.’ “22
Hodge was in a difficult position. The political complications were accompanied by deteriorating living conditions in the American zone. Meanwhile, the Russians were simply biding their time. “They [the Russians] are playing now a game of waiting, a game of out-waiting us with the idea that we will tire and get out,” Hodge told the U.S. House Appropriations Committee in May.23 The Russian position had produced a deadlock. Southern rightist groups would never allow themselves to be excluded from the Joint Commission process, yet the Soviet position on excluding them was immutable. General Chistiakov expected his intransigence to pay off in terms of growing instability in the American zone. The longer the Joint Commission dragged on, the stronger the rightists’ pressure in the south. The stalemate was bound to result in the splintering of the moderate center and confrontation between the Americans and the extreme Right. “If this trend continues,” stated a 1947 interagency report, “it is apparent that our position in Korea will soon weaken to a point where it may become untenable. The Korean people are daily growing more antagonistic in their attitude toward the Military Government, toward U.S. objectives in Korea, and even toward the U.S. itself.” The only alternative to continuing beyond the impasse was to form a separate government in the south, in effect creating an independent South Korea, but such a course was fraught with difficulties. Recognizing Korean independence in the southern zone would not solve its basic economic problems. “Only unification and a program of outside aid in rehabilitation can do that,” wrote one political advisor, and the United States was “the only reliable source for such aid.” In addition, the United States would have to establish safeguards to ensure that an independent southern Korea would not fall under Soviet domination, which meant a continued presence of American troops.24 Two years after the liberation of Korea, the Americans still lacked a clear policy on their interest there. Unanswered was a basic question: Was the survival of a noncommunist Korea of sufficient importance to U.S. interests to undertake the risks, economic burden, and responsibility of supporting a separate South Korean regime? The unspoken consensus seemed to be “no,” but many thought abandoning Korea would hurt American credibility and prestige in the emerging cold war environment.
In late September 1947, at the final Joint Commission meeting, Shtykov made a surprising proposal. He said the Koreans should be given the opportunity and responsibility for forming their own government. The Soviets were prepared to withdraw their troops from the northern zone if the Americans agreed to withdraw all their troops from the south.25 The joint withdrawal could take place as early as 1948. The proposal seemed to provide a way for the Americans to extricate themselves from the Korean quagmire. A mutual withdrawal of troops would still preserve American prestige since it could be explained that the Koreans were getting what they had always wanted: independence. But it would also mean abandoning Korea to a likely bloody civil war and the all-but-certain takeover of the peninsula by the communists.
The Soviet proposal was studied in Washington for nearly three weeks. The Pentagon, tired of footing the bill for the occupation, had long called for a graceful exit. Korea was of little strategic value, defined as defending Japan, and the occupation was costly.26 The State Department, however, believed that the loss of Korea would undermine America’s prestige and threaten Japanese and Pacific security. It had been a year since Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech at Fulton and George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” warning of the Soviet aim to dominate the world. Communist parties were growing in France and Italy. In a weak and divided China, the Soviet Union was in position to exert greater influence than any other country. The Truman Doctrine, established in March 1947, committed U.S. support for democracies and fighting communism worldwide. How, then, could the Americans abandon Korea to the communists? On October 17, the Russians received their answer:
In view of the continued inability of the Soviet and the United States Delegations in the Joint Commission to agree on how to proceed with their work and the refusal of the Soviet Government to participate in discussion on this problem with the other Governments adhering to the Moscow Agreement on Korea, the United States Government considers it obligated to seek the assistance of the United Nations in order that, as the Secretary of State said on September 17, “the inability of two powers to reach an agreement” should not further delay the early establishment of an independent, united Korea.27
The Americans thus passed the issue to the United Nations. Under UN auspices, elections for a national assembly were scheduled for May 1948, and the assembly would in turn select the president. The Soviets were invited to participate in the northern zone, but they refused, claiming that the UN could not guarantee fair elections. The specter of a permanently divided Korea was becoming a reality.
In April 1948, Kim Il Sung hosted a conference in P’yŏngyang with southern political leaders to discuss Korea’s future. It was his response to the UN’s approval of separate elections in the South. He declared that Koreans must not allow other Great Powers to decide their fate. Sensing a ruse to postpone the elections, Rhee refused to attend. His rivals, the right-wing Kim Ku and moderate Kim Kyu-sik, however, agreed to go. Rhee was proved correct; the conference was a Soviet ploy. The conference “agreement” was announced with great fanfare, but it offered nothing that the Soviets had not put forth before, reiterating the same proposals laid out to the Americans in September 1947. The agreement did add one major new item that was bound to raise the ire of southern leaders: “separate elections in South Korea, if held, cannot express in any way the will of our nation, and will be regarded as a fraud.”28 Kim Ku, the staunch anticommunist and nationalist, had risked his political career by going to P’yŏngyang. He returned to Seoul disgusted. Charges of being soft on communism dogged him. A year later, a South Korean military officer, Lt. An Tu-hŭi, assassinated him.29
By the fall of 1946, after the Autumn Rebellion, the need for a larger indigenous security force in the American zone was apparent. Hodge envisioned an upgraded and larger security force consisting of an army of forty-five thousand, a navy and coast guard of five thousand, and a national police of twenty-five thousand.30 While the War Department and the State Department generally backed the idea, Secretary of State George Marshall was concerned about the Soviet reaction. In 1946, the Americans were still committed to negotiating some kind of modus vivendi with the Russians, and he thought the establishment of a separate army would be interpreted as an attempt to create a separate regime. Hence, instead of “army,” the ground force would be called the Korean Constabulary.
One of the men chosen to work in organizing the Constabulary was Capt. James H. Hausman, an infantry officer who had become battle-hardened in Europe during World War II. He was thirty-two years old and, at over six feet tall, an imposing figure. He was not a career officer, but a prewar sergeant. Trying to find a place for himself in the post–World War II army, Hausman had volunteered for occupation duty in Japan. He went instead to Korea as an advisor in the Military Advisory Group (commonly known in 1949 as KMAG, for Korean Military Advisory Group) that assumed responsibility for helping to organize the newly created Korean Constabulary. As an alternative force with no direct links to the hated Japanese colonial regime—a lasting legacy that the Korean police were hard-pressed to deal with—the Constabulary would help bring order to the American occupied zone without having all the obvious residual colonial associations attached to it. Volunteers accepted into the Constabulary would be chosen based on ability and merit. However, under pressure to recruit rapidly, background checks were often perfunctory. This situation would later have serious repercussions for the Constabulary and the nation. As Hausman later admitted, “We actually created a safe haven for many communists [and] we suffered the ill-effects of this many times in the months and years ahead.”31
The Constabulary’s first test came in early April 1948. While Kim Ku and Kim Kyu-sik were fuming in P’yŏngyang, a storm had gathered in the southern island of Cheju-do. On April 3, 1948, communists and leftists attacked the local government, police, and rightist youth organizations. The SKWP had ordered them to take actions to disrupt the planned general elections on May 10. Pak Hŏn-yŏng, the head of the SKWP, emphasized that actions be limited to disruptive activities to avoid bloodshed. Despite this, the rebellion became violent and spread throughout the island. It also received substantial outside help. Colonel Rothwell Brown, an American advisor, reported that the SKWP had infiltrated “over six thousand agitators and organizers” from the mainland and, with the islanders, established cells in most towns and villages. In addition, he estimated that “sixty to seventy thousand islanders had joined the party,” and they were, for the most part, “ignorant, uneducated farmers and fishermen whose livelihood had been profoundly disturbed by the post-war difficulties.”32
Thousands of police and Constabulary troops were sent to the island under orders from USAMGIK, but they could not end the unrest by election day. By May 10, the violence had become so rampant that few people dared to go to the polls. “During election week,” wrote one Korean observer, “there were fifty assorted demonstrations, disorders, arson cases, and attacks, in addition to attacks on three government buildings.”33 The voting on Cheju-do was declared invalid, as the voting rate was only 20 percent, compared to the nearly 90 percent turnout on the mainland.
The end of the voting did not stop the mayhem. Instead, it became more vicious and widespread, eventually developing into a full-blown insurgency. Reports of atrocities began to surface with increasing frequency. “Stories were told of raided villages where there were found the bodies of hanged women or women and children run through with spears. Tales of villages utterly wiped out kept coming in,” wrote an American observer. “A number of rightist and police were also kidnapped, then hanged or beheaded.”34 A violent pacification campaign ensued. Government forces established fortified strategic hamlets manned by local militia, and conducted sweeps to locate the insurgents. Innocent civilians were invariably caught up in the sweeps.
Korean students in Seoul pass out election handbills to passersby on May 4 in preparations for the elections on May 10, 1948. (U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION)
Voters marking their ballots during the UN-supervised elections on May 10, 1948. (U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION)
The establishment of the Republic of Korea (ROK) on August 15, 1948, did little to curb the violence on Cheju-do. At the founding ceremony, President Rhee, selected by the newly elected National Assembly, urged the audience not to forget the division of the nation and that it would be his mission to reunify the peninsula. Meanwhile, vigilance against the forces of “alien philosophies of disruption” must be forcibly put down.35 By August 15, the operation to put down the insurgents had reached a feverish pitch. In the hunt for the agitators, whole villages became targets, innocent suspects were beaten and hanged, and women and children massacred. A reign of terror largely perpetuated by government forces, the police, and the Republic of Korea Army (ROKA, as the Constabulary was renamed after the founding of the republic) gripped the island. “There was the occasion when ROKA personnel on Cheju-do speared to death about twenty civilians (allegedly communists) without benefit of a trial,” remembered Hausman.
Unfortunately, a picture was taken later and was given to Ambassador Muccio [first U.S. ambassador to the ROK]. I might add, a Korean Military Advisor Group sergeant had witnessed this act and he was plainly recognizable in that picture. I was ordered to report to the Ambassador. When confronted with the facts of the picture, I told the Ambassador that this was a good sign because in the past, similar groups of two hundred or more had been summarily executed and now the number was down to twenty. This was progress! I won’t repeat the Ambassador’s reply to me. I wouldn’t want to give you the impression that he was short-tempered and uncouth.36
Meanwhile, in the Soviet zone, the DPRK was founded on September 9, 1948, an uneventful affair that provided a study in contrasts: a cohesive, peaceful, and highly disciplined North against the increasingly chaotic, violent, and unstable South.
As the turmoil on Cheju-do grew worse, a battalion in the 14th Regiment of the ROK Army stationed at the southern port city of Yŏsu received orders in mid-October to deploy to the island. For some time Hausman had been wary of the 14th Regiment because of doubts about its political reliability. There were a number of red flags that should have made him even more cautious. Rumors of leftists and SKWP members infiltrating its ranks abounded. The regimental commander, Maj. O Tong-gi, a fervent anticommunist, had also just been sacked, providing an opportunity for leftists and communists to organize a mutiny. On October 19, on receipt of the deployment order, the regiment mutinied. By the following morning, mutinous soldiers had murdered their officers, gathered thousands of supporters, seized control of Yŏsu, and then occupied the nearby city of Sunch’ŏn. “People’s Courts” meted out summary justice. The Cheju-do Rebellion had now spread to the mainland, presenting the first major challenge to the newly established ROK. Brigadier General William Roberts, chief of KMAG, having great confidence in Hausman, selected him over more senior officers to go to Kwangju city, in the southwest, to take operational control of the suppression campaign. At Kwangju, Hausman was told that the 4th Regiment had also apparently mutinied. The 4th Regiment had been ordered to help suppress the rebellion in Sunch’ŏn, but it had disappeared en route. Meanwhile, underground members of the SKWP and local People’s Committees began taking over parts of Kwangju. “In essence,” wrote Hausman, “all hell had broken loose and we had nothing to stop the onslaught.”37
On October 21, Hausman received the first good news: the “lost” 4th Regiment had not mutinied after all and was “found” in the hills west of Sunch’ŏn. Hausman organized a patchwork of ROK Army units to reclaim the city and put down the rebellion. Sunch’ŏn was retaken on October 23. ROK soldiers discovered that the mutineers had massacred as many as five hundred police and civilians, including women and children. Elmer Boyer, an American missionary living in Sunch’ŏn at the time, recalled what happened before the ROK Army units arrived:
Most of the police were killed and hundreds of civilians. In one pile of bodies, where they had been shot, bound and tied in bunches of about ten, I counted ninety-eight persons … In the police yard, there were about eighty bodies … Just below our house, twenty-four were shot. I buried these and another Christian young man together in a long grave near here.38
By October 28, most of the towns and villages held by the rebels were recaptured. The Korean police exacted revenge. Keyes Beech, reporting for the Chicago Daily News, was in Sunch’ŏn days after the city fell and recalled the scene: “Before each square stood police, some attired in old Japanese uniforms and wearing swords. One by one, the citizens were called forward, to kneel before the police. Every question was punctuated by a blow to the head or back, sometimes with a rifle butt, sometimes from the edge of a sword. There was no outcry, no sound at all except for the barked questions and the thud of blows. That was what made the scene so terrifying, the utter, unprotesting quietness.”39 Many identified as rebels were summarily executed.40
By the spring of 1949, the last of the original leaders of the Cheju-do Rebellion were eliminated. The police killed Yi Tŏk-ku in early June and hung his mutilated body on a cross. Later that month, Kim Chihoe, “the greatest guerilla leader” and a native of Cheju-do, was killed. “When his capture appeared imminent,” remembered Hausman, “we issued strict instructions to bring his body to Seoul (It was customary to mutilate bodies and display them for people to see) … One morning, I found a square five-gallon gas tank in my office. On inspection, I found it contained one highly bloated head, Kim Chi-hoe’s.” By the end in June 1949, an estimated thirty thousand had been killed in Cheju-do, many of them innocent civilians massacred by government forces.41 The last of the American troops, except for KMAG, left South Korea in July 1949. It was nearly a year since the ROK had been established. KMAG, authorized with five hundred officers and soldiers as advisors and trainers, including Hausman, continued the task of building, organizing, and training the young ROK security and military forces. But the Soviets had been ahead of the Americans, by withdrawing from North Korea the previous fall and leaving behind a Soviet military advisory group to help build the North Korean armed forces.
Not surprisingly, Rhee was anxious about the departure of the Americans and especially how the United States would regard an invasion by the North. “In case of an attack by outside powers,” he asked, “would the Republic of South Korea be able to count upon all-out military aid?”42 President Truman made no promises, but he tried to calm the old man’s fears by requesting from Congress a $150 million aid package. The suppression of the uprisings, especially Yŏsu-Sunch’ŏn, was seen as a success for the fledgling nation, although low-level guerilla war continued until early 1950. More importantly, the uprising had revealed and allowed the purging of leftists and communists in the ROK Army who could have caused far greater difficulties in the future. In Cheju-do, the SKWP had been prematurely forced into an armed struggle that it was unable to win.
ROK Army Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Ch’ae Pyŏng-dŏk (“Fat Chae”) addresses officers of the newly created ROK Army. Captain James Hausman is in the dark uniform, on the right, September 26, 1949. (U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION)
Kim Il Sung’s dream of reuniting the peninsula under his rule by provoking a general uprising in the South had been thwarted. Having twice failed to foment an internal revolution in the South, with the Autumn Rebellion in 1946 and the Cheju-do Rebellion in 1948–49, Kim now considered another way to communize the South. In March 1949, Kim Il Sung went to see Stalin.
