A History of Korea (71 page)

From early 1944 U.S. officials, discussing a multilateral trusteeship for Korea, planned for a partial or full military occupation of Korea. In March 1944 they envisioned a U.S. presence in any military occupation of the country. The United States also raised the possibility of a military government for Korea, believing that the Soviet Far East harbored 35,000 Koreans, “thoroughly indoctrinated with Soviet ideology and methods of government.” The United States expected Soviet forces to occupy a considerable area of the Korean peninsula, and therefore U.S. forces were to cooperate with Soviet forces in governing Korea prior to the trusteeship. Military occupation was a surer course than trusteeship, in the Americans’ view, if the Soviet Union proved uncooperative or if they used their “thoroughly indoctrinated” Koreans.
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The Americans further believed that total Soviet occupation of Korea might threaten future security in the Pacific, and thus U.S. participation was essential in any occupation of Korea.
²⁷

In preparing for the pending Yalta Conference, U.S. officials set forth American political objectives in Asia that envisioned a multinational military occupation and trusteeship for Korea. To establish Korean independence, they saw the need for joint action by the Allied powers. Considering that both China and the Soviet Union were contiguous to the Korean peninsula and had historical interests in Korea, military occupation by a single power might cause serious political consequences. Similarly trusteeship should be multilateral, with four powers as trustees, namely, the United States, the Soviet Union, China, and Great Britain.
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U.S. officials suggested three steps to achieve Korean independence: first, joint military occupation by the Allied powers; second, establishment of a military government under a single, unified administration; and, third, transfer of the military government’s authority to a provisional Korean government under the supervision of the trustees.
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On a rising tide of Allied victories, U.S., Soviet, and British leaders met at Yalta from 4 February to 11 February 1945 to discuss a number of pressing issues. First priority was given to European political and military problems, particularly the Polish question, in which the United States and the Soviet Union conflicted sharply over how the postwar Polish government should be formed, and the newly established United Nations Organizations. Another major issue was the Pacific war and the problems that might arise if the Soviets entered the still raging war against Japan. Korea was briefly discussed by Roosevelt and Stalin, and on 8 February, quoting the U.S. experience in the Philippines, Roosevelt proposed that Korea be made a trusteeship for 20 to 30 years. Stalin replied that the shorter the period, the better. He then inquired about stationing foreign troops in Korea during the trusteeship period, and Roosevelt answered in the negative.
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The conversation between the two leaders produced only a vague understanding, and thus the United States and the Soviet Union failed to reach a firm agreement at Yalta on a postwar trusteeship for Korea. Later official evidence dispelled the misunderstanding that at Yalta the United States and the Soviet Union secretly agreed on the division of the Korean peninsula at the 38th parallel.

After Yalta, U.S. officials were uneasy about the lack of a detailed, written agreement on the postwar status of Korea, as the Yalta agreements allowed the Soviet Union to play a dominant role in neighboring Manchuria. Thus the issue of the Korean trusteeship urgently needed clarification. When Roosevelt died on 12 April 1945, Harry S. Truman assumed the presidency and dispatched Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt’s close aide, to the Soviet Union to resolve differences between the United States and the Soviet Union, and to reaffirm the Yalta agreements. The Truman administration still wanted Russia’s agreement on a detailed trusteeship arrangement in postwar Korea through the Hopkins mission. Most of the talks between Stalin and Hopkins, which lasted between 26 May and 6 June 1945, focused on European affairs, but on 28 May Hopkins asked Stalin about his views regarding the Korean trusteeship. Stalin expressed full agreement
with the U.S. proposal for a four-power trusteeship for Korea.
³¹
But, once again, Stalin’s apparent support was merely an informal, verbal understanding.

With the Potsdam Conference drawing near, scheduled for 17 July to 2 August 1945, U.S. officials strongly felt that the agenda should include a detailed discussion of a postwar trusteeship for Korea and that the Allied powers should reach an agreement. As before, attempts were made at the conference to organize a multilateral trusteeship to prevent the Soviet Union from dominating the Korean peninsula. On 22 July, however, when Soviet Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov asked for deliberation on the Korean trusteeship, the issue was deflected by a discussion of the Soviets’ desire to participate in a trusteeship in the Italian colonies in Africa. Thus the well-laid plans to discuss postwar Korea were foiled, and further discussion about Korea was postponed until a later Council of Foreign Ministers meeting, which did not occur until December 1945.

In the summer of 1945, with the Pacific war still a preoccupation, the United States could not participate strongly in Korean affairs. Thus, having to direct its power utterly against the Japanese home islands, the United States entrusted military operations in Korea, considered more difficult than an invasion of Japan and one that would accrue higher losses, to the Soviet Union. For this, the United States would pay a high price.

At the same time the United States was preparing for the sudden collapse of Japan in the event of a U.S. atomic attack. On 16 July, the day before the Potsdam Conference convened, President Truman had learned of the successful testing of the atomic bomb. At that point, he began to consider “atomic diplomacy,” using the atomic bomb to bring an early Japanese surrender as well as derive the great diplomatic and strategic benefits of having a nuclear weapon. Clearly the possible Soviet engagement in postwar Japan would be eliminated. This also meant that the United States could prevent any Soviet military action on the Korean peninsula and establish its own unilateral occupation.

Truman entertained the hope that such a strategy in Korea would be possible, when he heard Stalin’s statements at Potsdam. On 18 July Stalin declared that the Soviet Union would not enter the Pacific war before 15 August 1945. He convinced his American counterpart that if the United States could force Japan to surrender during the first two weeks of August, the Soviets would miss the opportunity to participate in the Pacific war and would therefore not acquire the attendant spoils of war. Truman thus concluded that victory over Japan through the use of the atomic bomb would forestall Soviet entry into the Pacific war as well as unilateral Soviet action in Korea.

To end the Pacific war as early as possible, on 26 July the United States and Great Britain issued the Potsdam Declaration, demanding Japan’s unconditional surrender. When Japan delayed in answering, the United States forced its early surrender by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August, respectively. On 8 August, still hoping to secure the spoils of war, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and subscribed to the Potsdam Declaration, which reaffirmed the Allied powers’ pledge to strive for the eventual independence of Korea.
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On 9 August Russian troops went into action in Manchuria and northern Korea, and within five days, by 14 August, they had marched far inside the Soviet-Korean border. Bowing to heavy pressure, particularly from the United States, Japan finally surrendered unconditionally on 14 August 1945, ending the Pacific war.

The decision to divide Korea into two occupation zones at the 38th parallel was entirely the choice of the United States. Soviet entry into the Pacific war had deprived the United States of the opportunity to establish Korea’s postwar independence on its own terms. Now U.S. concern was to secure a foothold on the Korean peninsula for political and strategic reasons. The only real decision now was the location of the demarcation line between the occupying forces. Civilians, led by Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, wanted the United States to occupy as much of the region as possible in order to block Soviet expansion. But military leaders realistically pointed out the limited military resources that would be available to deny Soviet expansion into an area that the Soviet Union had the capacity to seize. Here the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee (SWNCC) took responsibility for dividing Korea. The SWNCC, created by Roosevelt in November 1944, was comprised of assistant secretaries from each department to improve civil-military consultation on major policy questions. At around midnight, on 10 August, John J. McCloy, representing the State Department, allowed 30 minutes for Colonels Charles H. Bonesteel III and Dean Rusk to find a geographical line in Korea that would harmonize the political desire to have U.S. forces receive the surrender as far north as possible, with the obvious limitation of the ability of the United States to reach the area.
³³
They were also directed to include in the American zone Korea’s capital, Seoul, and two of the three important ports of Pusan, Inch’
ŏ
n, and W
ŏ
nsan. Bonesteel and Rusk studied a National Geographic Society map on the Far East and seized on the 38th parallel as a suitable boundary. The SWNCC promptly incorporated
this provision into a preliminary draft titled “General Order Number One.” Its final version was dispatched on 15 August to General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, in Manila, and at the same time communicated to the Soviet Union and Great Britain.

No experts on Korea were involved in the decision to divide the country at the 38th parallel. Dean Rusk later confessed that neither he nor any of the others involved were aware that, at the turn of the twentieth century, the Russians and the Japanese had discussed dividing Korea into spheres of influence at the 38th or 39th parallels. He said, many years later, that “had we known that, we almost surely would have chosen another line of demarcation.”
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The alternative was to divide the occupation zones based on administrative districts, that is, to divide the country between provinces, in order to minimally violate political divisions.

Many U.S. officials doubted whether the Soviets would accept the U.S. proposal, as the 38th parallel clearly did not reflect Russia’s superior military position in the region. After the American proposal was communicated to the Soviet Union, a “short period of suspense” ensued in anticipation of the Soviet reply, accompanied by suggestions that U.S. forces move into Pusan if the Soviet Union refused to accept the proposal.
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To the Americans’ surprise, however, the Soviet Union accepted the 38th parallel, permitting joint occupation in an area where the Soviet Union had the power to take full control. When Stalin made no objections, Dean Rusk was “somewhat surprised.”
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While accepting this division of Korea into two spheres, the Soviets were demanding permission to occupy the northern part of Hokkaido in Japan, which the United States refused.

Stalin’s decision to accept the U.S. proposal to divide the Korean peninsula at the 38th parallel was, of course, not out of altruism. Most likely, Stalin was content with the 38th parallel, because the United States recognized Russia’s “legitimate” rights in Korea north of that line. He may have viewed the 38th parallel as a suitable boundary to divide Korea into two spheres of influence, but he also decided to accept this partition to stave off further Allied discord that had developed mainly over the Polish problem. An attempt to seize all of Korea would alarm the United States and eliminate the possibility of Soviet participation in Japan’s reconstruction.
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After Japan’s collapse, therefore, the United States could send its forces into a country that was all but conceded to the Soviet Union at the Potsdam Conference. Later on, in fact, American forces were able to occupy the portion of Korea that included its capital and two-thirds of its population.

The division of the Korean peninsula at the 38th parallel had tremendous consequences for the Korean people who had lived in a unified nation for a millennium. The 38th parallel symbolized a traditional Korean sentiment,
han,
a smoldering bitterness about past wrongs. In fact, the division of Korea along the parallel proved disastrous for Koreans on both sides of the line, as two entirely different political ideologies and societies ultimately emerged on the Korean peninsula and grew increasingly hostile to each other.

No words can easily be found to express the emotional injury that Koreans suffered following the tragic division of their country. Already in the late 1940s they tried to find solace in popular songs such as “P’anmunj
ŏ
m
ŭ
i talpam” (A Moonlit Night at P’anmunj
ŏ
m) (1946), “Kag
ŏ
ra samp’als
ŏ
n” (The 38th Parallel Should Be Removed) (1947), and “Hae do hana, tal do hana” (The Sun Is the Same and So Is the Moon in Both Koreas) (1949).

The period of Japanese colonial rule represented the darkest age in the long history of Korea. Japanese colonialism was an exceptionally bitter experience for Koreans who barely managed to keep their national identity. Although the Korean people were freed from Japanese imperialism in August 1945, they had not achieved liberation by their own efforts, and thus they had to endure another hard experience of national division. Liberation on 15 August 1945 was no more than a new beginning of difficulties and suffering caused by the north-south division.