In the Mail: Korea Betrayed — Kim Dae Jung and Sunshine, by Donald Kirk

Kirk is a good enough friend that I’m pleased and a bit relieved that, so far, Korea Betrayed (available here) is good enough to present no challenge to my objectivity. Because the time I have for reading is so limited, I’ll review this is small increments as I have the opportunity to read a few pages (the last time I was sent a review copy, it took me months to publish my review).

The first chapter covers DJ’s origins on a small island off the South Cheolla coast. It was filled with information I never knew; indeed, I was struck by the depth of Kirk’s research, of the lengths to which he went to learn everything about his subject, but then again, Kirk has been covering Korea for decades. Most famously, he broke the Summit Scandal story that has been one of the greatest stains on DJ’s legacy.

At DJ’s ancestral home on the island of Haui-do, Kirk found that surviving relatives and associates relayed suspiciously convenient and mostly apocryphal accounts of DJ as a determined opponent of the Japanese. Those accounts lack the specificity of Kirk’s methodical documentation of DJ’s multiple associations with leftist and pro-Pyongyang political groups during the chaotic years after the Japanese surrender. Some of this is understandable. Inter-war Korea was a violent and dangerous place — deeply riven by unsettled scores, conflicting ambitions, and ideological schisms. DJ eventually found himself hated by just about everyone. At a convenient opportunity, DJ maneuvered his way to control of a labor syndicate at the Japanese-owned company where he’d worked. He capitalized on that position to assume control of the company, and in a few years, he was the prosperous young owner of a shipping company. His associations with left-wing syndicates and organizations earned him a spot on the government’s watch list. It is a matter of speculation to this day that DJ was in Seoul when the North Koreans invaded, yet managed to avoid conscription or execution. Instead, he and two companions left Seoul and walked all the way back to Mokpo, where the North Koreans later arrested and imprisoned him. Were it not for the Incheon landings, which caused DJ’s North Korean captors to flee, DJ would probably have faced a firing squad. What I didn’t know is that shortly after the ROK Army return to Mokpo, it nearly loaded DJ onto a ship for a one-way cruise to the Yellow Sea.

I can’t quite decide whether DJ was exceptionally brave or exceptionally pliable, exceptionally lucky or just the opposite. In almost every way, my views of DJ are deeply ambivalent, and judging by the cover blurbs on Korea Betrayed, it looks like Kirk arrived at some similar conclusions.