웨드마이어 특사 방문

SECRET 0900, 27 August 1947 GENERAL HODGE: Gentlemen, we can go ahead. I am a little at a loss to know just how to proceed. I will try to give you the general picture of our situation here. From preinformation available to me of the purpose of your visit I don't know just exactly what you're interested in, but I'll do the best I can to give a picture of our problem here. I consider, so far as the United States is concerned, Korea is the hottest spot of the Orient. I don't think there's any question about it. We came in here under certain conditions and have acquired certain other conditions that developed since we arrived which handicap us, and which are beyond our power to control. The first of these conditions is the dual occupation of U. S. and Russia with the 38th degree parallel boundary. My corps was in Okinawa when the decision was made to occupy Korea. The 38th parallel division of Korea, I understand, was made on a military level. I talked to one officer who said he was in on it, and it was made a few days before the surrender and that the line was simply picked from a map. It is very difficult almost impossible, to actually establish that line physically. It didn't follow any provincial boundaries; it cut across the ocean at one place and we have one area we can't get to except on suffrance of going through Soviet territory or by flying, or by boat. We use all these ways at present. The first thing we have then, is the 38 line. It is a division that has become, as other boundaries with the Russians, an iron curtain. The Second condition is that we came in without preparation for an occupation. I received the first word of the occupation mission about the 12th of August. I didn't understand it, it didn't make sense to me, particularly the 38 division line in Korea. And I went down to General MacArthur's Headquarters at Manila, and it didn't seem to make sense to them either; but we received orders to come in to South Korea. We had no military government personnel. I was able to pick up a few straglers at Okinawa who were assigned to that work there, or had been trained for M. G. work. I picked up an Army Aircraft Headquarters to use as an administrative unit, and they formed the administrative foundation for the military government detachment. That condition existed for several weeks. Eventually we received military government units which we distributed to the provinces by the end of December of 1945. Another of the conditions we came in under were orders that we would utilize the then existing government in Korea, the SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET same orders that General MacArthur operated under in Japan; to utilize the existing government until we could replace it. That had to be cancelled very soon. When we came in here we ran into a hornet's nest on that. The existing government here was Japanese and Koreans protested its continuance. I prepared a wire to General MacArthur requesting authority to cancel that provision and replace the Japs. While it was being typed we had a wire from him giving me that authority. We then started in replacing the Japanese Government. The reaction to this episode was a bad impression in the States of mishandling liberated people. The press picked it up, and they didn't understand that the score was and lost sight of the fact that, internationally, Korea was a part of Japan. With the quick change over and lack of personnel, the sudden change caused considerable confusion. It caused the loss of some records in the rapid transfer from Japanese to Koreans and in getting the Japs out. There was quite a little turmoil in the early days. When we first came in, the Koreans wanted immediately the independence promised at Cairo and subsequent meetings of the great powers. The terminology of the promise was "in due course." The Koreans do not translate "in due course" as we do. He says "in a few days" they would have independence. In their minds, they were ready for their independence the day we arrived and they have wanted it every day since that time. We have allowed to come in here some of the old, exiled patriots: Syngman Rhee from the States and Kim Koo, from China, with his gang of the "Chungking Provisional Government." They signed to me that they would not try to operate in governmental capacity if they were permitted to return but that they would work with us and act as individuals. They have not carried that out at times, and they have probably been our most embarrassing helpers in some ways. Yet, in other ways, they form a bulwark against communism. But they are too extreme and have too much of the Chinese warlord complex to be much help. In some ways they have helped communism by driving Koreans to communism through extremist activities and intolerance. After we arrived here we tried to reach what we felt were simple agreements with the Russians, but without results. I sent a liaison detachment north the day after we got in; I sent my Deputy Chief of Staff, with the best group I could get together for that purpose. They were warmly welcomed, but they got nothing. Nobody would talk business to them. The top politics came down from higher Headquarters but they returned with zero in agreements. We were trying to get allied prisoners of war out of the camp at Kanko. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET At first the Russians said they had been released; we found out later they had not. It took two weeks of bickering and arranging to get those PWs out. That was our first experience in effecting agreements with them. They were very friendly along the boundary, but they made it very clear that we were to stay out of their area; that there was no arrangement that we could make with them on trade or anything else pertaining to cooperation between the two zones. It is clear that the local Russians are allowed no initiative in any action. The Koreans were pouring across the boundary in thousands every day. How many came across, I don't know. There were several hundred thousand that had already come in before we arrived. The war ended 15 August; the Russians had attachked on the 8th or 9th, and a lot of the Koreans had poured out of the north to get away from them. Others had come out after the war had ended, and we found our area pretty well filled with refugees. Since that time there have been several hundred thousand come acorss. That complicated out situation quite a bit by having to handle refugee Koreans, in addition to the large number of Japanese we had to return to Japan. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Do you want us to interject questions as we go along? GENERAL HODGE: I do. Go right ahead and interject any question you desire. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Your first meeting with the Russians was friendly in a superficial way, but none of the things that you asked for were granted, as I understand you. Did you bring up the question of power (electrical) at that time? GENERAL HODGE: Not at that time. We didn't know enough about it; we had just arrived and didn't know where the power came from at that time. · We came in very hurriedly and I might say right here that we were given last priority in movement of the occupation groups, and we've been last priority in U. S. thinking since that time. · We came in very light---We had part of the 7th Division and a part of Corps headquarters on what APAs could pick up; we had virtually no transportation and no heavy armament. After they had told us we wouldn't move until the last of September, we were told to pick up and come as early as we could. In that scramble move, we didn't get all our troops in, as I said, until near the end of December, and the resultant gradual spreading out and taking over gave us a handicap on getting full control of the area. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET When we got in the Russians had, through their agents, organized the "People's Committee" type of government which was already beginning to operate in some areas. The underground against the Japanese in Korea had been taken over by the Soviet in 1925, and had taken the name of the Communist Par y. They used the patriotism of the Koreans to work against the Japanese, with the technique of the Communist Party, aided and abetted by high-powered, well-trained Russian Koreans-- not Russians, but Koreans trained in the Soviet system, indoctrinated with the love of the Comintern and obedience to the Soviet. As to the matter of treatment of Korea in the early days; although it was called liberated it was treated as an enemy country in economic dealings and officially that only ended a few months ago, soferas controls of trade were concerned. It irritated the Koreans very much to be called a former enemy country in press and in public statements in Washington. The United Nations' Charter was known to them early after it was established. They were aware of it's provisions, and they checked on its set up for handling of former enemy territories, which actually, internationally, they were. They checked on the handling of such territories and found they would probably be given a trusteeship under UN by the charter provision for trusteeship over former enemy territories. They didn't like what they saw. They wanted their independence right away. The term "Trusteeship", whether purposely or accidentally I don't know, was translated to the same term the Japanese used in 1905 when it took a "Protectorate" over Korea which five years later resulted in giving the Japanese complete control. I want to discuss this trusteeship angle. It arose early and was, and still is, the central spindle of this whirligig of politics. The furror over this subject makes it almost impossible to get any coalition, any middle-of-the road group that we can use. The term was established early in the minds of most Koreans as being deadly to their sovereignty. Later it became synonymous with the Russians having a hand in managing the country. Then it became so that trusteeship, Russian control, and communism are all synonymous. They don't mention that word without rolling all those connotations in one. Before the 1945 Moscow Conference, I sent in two messages requesting that any arrangement they made with the Russians in the future not include the word "Trusteeship," or if it were necessary to employ that term, to define or sugarcoat it in some manner to be acceptable. One of those went in urgent, just before our representatives went to Moscow. I had prayed we would not have that word to deal with, but we did and still do. SECRET SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET 5 In late December we got headlines stating "Five-year trusteeship for Korea." All Koreans went wild, that's the only way I can express it. Kim Koo used the antagonism of his cohorts to attempt to take over the government. We weren't too well established at that time so it looked serious. The police stayed with us, however, and we were able to control it and cut down. The people most vehement on the subject anti-trusteeship were the communists. I myself talked to the political leaders by the hour; droves of them came in to see me to discuss it. I did not have the wording of the Moscow Decision until several days later; nothing except the brief concept with headlines "Five-year Trusteeship for Korea." The Koreans I had the most trouble with on the subject were the communists. I convinced some of the rightists of the group, one in particular, of the Korean Democratic Party, Song Jin Wu, that the world had not ended for Korea. He went out and told his friends he was ready to act sensibly and the next morning he was dead, shot to death with six bullets in him. We got the man who killed him, but don't know yet who ordered it. We have suspected the extreme rightists of the murder. The people who were the hardest-headed and wouldn't listen, were the communists. The Koreans had demonstrations, one after another, both by the rightists and the leftists. The leftists, at that time, called themselves the Communist Party. They made no bones about all the blatancy of Comintern Communism. Russia was the fatherland; they carried the pictures of Stalin and Lenin and used the red and Russian flag--they did not use the Korean flag. The were wide open Comintern followers at that time. On the third of January, 1946, the communists had planned another great mass meeting against trusteeship. Demonstrations had sort of worn out by that time. I was getting tired of it. I called in this group on the first of January and told them that I didn't want this meeting that I wasn't going to prevent it by force but asked them to stop it; that there was no use of it. At the time, they were adamant on the subject. The next afternoon, however, they came in to me with a smile from ear to ear and said, "Trusteeship is all right; it's Okey. We're going to have our demonstration for trusteeship. You won't have to worry." The next day 30 or 40 thousand people turned out, and most of the banners had to be changed to favor trusteeship, after they turned out. It was apparent that on the second of January they got their orders from the Russians to the effect that henceforth they like trusteeship. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET 6 I give you that because it was the beginning of this block in the Joint Commission and from then on it gave the Russians a great advantage in trying to rule out all but communists. I'm of the opinion that the Russians recognized early the advantage that hostility of the right toward trusteeship would give them in the cooperation of the people here, if they ordered their followers to accept the Moscow Decision in toto. It was also the beginning of a deeper and unbridgable rift between the rightists and leftist elements here, which has brought things to where it is almost impossible to get any middle-of-the-road ground. So the trusteeship, or the Moscow Decision, makes another of the handicaps we face. While we may say it should not be a handicap, actually it is in dealing with these people. It has been one of our very difficult things to handle. We've worked incessantly to try to convince the Koreans that the Moscow Decision is for their benefit and for their good. The Communists have accepted it fully. Some others have accepted it with their tongue in their cheek, very much as Confucius advises acceptance of rape. They don't like it, but they will let matters take their course. The general concensus, however, throughout Korea, is that they do not want "Trusteeship." Even those groups other than the communists who have signed up and work with the Joint Commission, have signed up with the idea that they are going to help a provisional government that that will fight a trusteeship coming out of the Joint Commision that infringes on sovereignty. As I stated before, the Russians did not start yesterday to establish Communism in Korea. They took over the Korean underground activity against the Japs in 1925, giving it the name, ideals, concepts and technique of the Communist Party and put it under the Comintern for control. They fed in many Russian trained Koreans to strengthen and bolster it. Not long before the War ended, they put in additional Soviet trained organizers from Siberian Koreans. In addition to this, the Russians had 30,000 well indoctrinated Koreans in the Siberian army and their control groups all set up and planned for the Korean take-over, even to include the false imposter of the legendary patriot Kim Ji Sung. When we came in, we found throughout the area, Russian directed organizers, highly trained with good cell organization down through the entire area. They accept anyone into the organization; all they need do is maintain control by strong will or by a slight majority in the central committees. Another big factor that we've had here that makes things difficult is the strong and raw communist activity here directed completely by the Russians DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET The boundary we have to cover it about a hundred and sixty miles long. The communist messengers and agents come across and go around the boundary from North Korea in small boats. There is no stopping messages back and forth; there s no stopping heir agents who go back and forth almost at will. Their activities are exactly what they are in the Balkans and in Central Europe, as near as I can find out. Because of the tie-in of the Communist party with the Korean patriotic movement against the Japs, the leaders became known as patriots and had considerable popularity. The word "communist" though, became very unpopular after a period. "Russia is the Fatherland" slogans and denial of use by members of the party of Korean flags disappeared and after being discovered counterfeiting money in their party headquarters, the communist have changed their name and merged with a couple of their other controlled parties, and now call themselves the "South Korea Labor Party." The "Democratic People's Front" had been formed earlier to embrace the communist controlled activities of all allied parties, unions, societies, etc. Both the South Korea Labor Party and the People's Front are one and the same group--the same organization with the same leaders. By these maneuvers they added many thousands to their following. "Russia is the Fatherland" slogans and the pictures of Stalin and Lenin disappeared and the Korean flag reappeared. They now picked up the slogan of "America, the imperialistic nation; America, the friend of the pro-Japs, traitors and collaborators; America, that want to colonize Korea." To go back to our arrival here. After we came in we had no trouble with the Japanese at any time. They had about 180,000 in armed forces in the area, and we moves these..... and the civilians..to Japan very rapidly. Initially our problem was primarily a matter of keeping law and order among the Koreans. The Koreans hated the Japanese, were bitter against them, and wanted to take revenge. We had to get the Japs out even though we would like to have kept a large number of technicians, and we did keep some for a while. But we found the Koreans absolutely would not work with them or under them. QUESTION: How many do you have now? GENERAL HODGE: About fifty sick and humanitarian cases. As I say, the Koreans would not work with them. One Japanese technician in a factory, even thought it was necessary for efficient operation, would result in Korean refusal to work therein. So we had to get them out. In addition to some half million civilians in our zone, we evacuated over a half million Japs from North Korea and Manchuria. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 74[illegible]070 SECRET GENERAL WEDEMEYER: How did you lo that? Did the Russians collaborate with you? GENERAL HODGE: No. They simply pushed them across the boundary. We tried to collaborate with them on it and arranged for shipping to take these direct to Japan. But they insisted we take them at the boundary and feed them, clothe them, run all trains to carry them to our ports and ship them to Japan. It was last December before they made any agreement with SCAP about taking anybody out direct. In the meantime, they sent to our zone old men, women, and children, who were starving, freezing, dying and diseased; pushed them across the boundary, giving them guides and safe conduct to the 38 line. We had to care for them as they came in, operating refugee centers, feeding them, clothing and moving them. We offered an arrangement to haul them by train, if the Russians would furnish the coal, the cars and the food; they wouldn't accept anything along this line. They knew they had us over a barrel; could force them south anyway, and they didn't give a damn. They have no idea of any cooperation. We brought in, from outside, almost a million and a half Koreans; that is, by later aside from those coming across the boundary, most of whom came from Japan, with some from China, some from the South seas and some from various places. Sofares I know, we have most of them back now except the group in Japan and those stranded in Manchuria. There are a few hundred thousand left in Japan that our forces there would like to get back over here, but a lot of the Koreans object to coming. They are apparently big operators in the market in Japan, and doing pretty well at it, as well as in other illegal activities. We handled over a half million Koreans from North Korea, and about three hundred thousand from Manchuria, coming overland. This is the counted number that came through our collection centers. My guess is the uncounted arrivals will run at least a half more than that. Our population here shows an increase intotal of about two million and a half to three million since we came in. This great increase adds to our troubles here of feeding, housing, prevention of disease and economic rehabilitation. ADMIRAL TREXEL: If we had refused to accept the refugees from the North, what would have happened to them? If we would not have permitted their coming across the 38th parallel, what would have happened to them? GENERAL HODGE: Most of them would probably have died. We had no choice but to shoot them or accept them. We lacked the means to prevent their influx and once inthe zone it was impossible to return them. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Is it your responsibility to accept them? GENERAL HODGE: We are treating Korea as a liberated country. I feel that we have no choice but to care for these destitute Koreans driven to some haven or to death. We protested of course, but unavailingly. There is no way in the world to stop them. We tried pushing some back over the boundary, but they were driven back as violators of the boundary and it only added to their misfortune. ADMIRAL TREXEL: But conversely we could have sent them back, could we not? GENERAL HODGE: That's one of those things that sounds good in theory, but putting it into practice is something else. The Russians have no compunctions about things of that kind. We let some who came in from other areas try to go back home to North Korea, but it resulted only in their arrest and being driven back, except for those who were communists. ADMIRAL TREXEL: General, what is the present estimated population of Korea? GENERAL HODGE: Our part of the population is about twenty million, in South Korea, and we estimate about ten million in the Soviet zone. We don't know exactly but the magic figure of thirty million the Koreans use is somewhere near correct we think. After the Moscow Decision came in December, we met with the Russians in January and February according to the fourth paragraph of the Decision, which provided for an early meeting to solve the most pressing economic and administrative difficulties between the zones. We set up some sixteen agreement in that series of conferences, three or four of which the Russian Commander would not agree to. One not agreed to was the rearrangement of the boundary to follow the political divisions. Of the thirteen left, all innocuous, and with small overall effect had they been carried out; the only one they ever carried out was the exchange of mail between the North and the South every two weeks. During the cholera epidemic in summer of 1946 the Russians stopped that, but finally we got them to go back to the original agreement. The first meeting was not a meeting of the Joint Commission. The sessions of the Joint Commission started in March 1946. I won't go into that in detail because General Brown will cover the history of the Joint Commission this afternoon. I think it should be mentioned, however, that the pattern as announced by the chief Soviet Delegate at the opening meeting is the same as their stand today. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET The gist of it was that they would cooperate under the Moscow Decision to make Korea a nation friendly to Soviet Russia, from which no nation could get bases from which to attack Soviet Russia and in fulfilling the Moscow Decision they would talk only to those "democratic" parties and organizations that fully supported the Moscow Decision. All reactionries and facists would be ruled out of consultation and participation. It developed in the conferences that anyone who objected to the Moscow Decision in the slightest was reactionary, facist, pro-Jap or not "democratic." The reasoning was, the Moscow Decision was made by democratic countries, therefore it was democratic, and anyone who objected to "one sentence, one word, one comma, one period"--I quote the Soviet Commander--would not be consulted because that one is undemocratic. The Joint Commission broke up in May of last year on the issue of allowing broad consultation under principles of freedom of expression. I started again immediately to correspond with the Russian commander trying to reach some agreement, for reopening the Commission. I also started trying to get the question taken up on high levels, to get something done in Washington to give us a foothold to go on. I was turned down on that and told to continue efforts on a local level. In February of this year I was called to Washington for conference. I raised the issue again, and I found a strong objection there to taking the Korean problem up on a high level. I talked to many people and tried to convince them of the necessity, if we are going to stay here with the Koreans, that something be done on a level above us; that we had exhausted all local possibilities. In the last conference with General Marshall before he went to Moscow I got the promise that he would take it up during his stay at Moscow. He took it up, based on the last Russian answer in the prolonged exchange of correspondence we had had locally and it resulted in the reconvention of the Joint Commission. The agreement reached, if carried out with any degree of cooperation or any degree of mutual understanding, would have been a perfectly good agreement. However, we ran squarely into the same impasse again; the same old story. The Russian's statement at the latest meeting after instructions from Moscow on one of our proposals, puts us right back where we started in March 1946. We've made no gain that I can see. They've been here this three months in our midst, operating very freely, and my belief is they are building a strong fifth column, and planning for the South Korean revolution. They had about eight go-between message relay stations where messages passed from the consulate where they live to the communist headquarters, and to and from other places. Those are the principal places we looked over the other day which evoked such a blast from the Soviet Chief Delegate. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Why not hold the meetings up north, in their territory? GENERAL HODGE: We went up there one time for group consultation with Koreans. The original setup was that we'd have our pre-liminary meetings here, and then go up there for consultations with North Koreans and dealings in setting up the government. After political exiles came in in October and November 1945, I tried to get Syngman Rhee, the one man who might have made the coalition effort effective at the time...and robbed the communists of their thunder...to get Koreans to work together. I thought I had him working on this and thought it was going to work. Then he began to spit, snarl and quarrel with some of the middle-of-the-roaders who didn't agree with him, and accused them of being communists; actually driving a lot of them to the fold of the Communist Party. A lot, I think, that could have been saved by more tolerance on his part. A second effort aided and guided by me was knocked into a cocked hat by the announcement of the Moscow Decision in December, 1945, when all the Koreans went off on a revolt. The word Trusteeship brought in a new factor to complicate matters, even though the Moscow Decision provided a sound basis for uniting their country. I got a man out here from Washington, A Colonel Goodfellow, who used to be in OSS, who knew Syngman Rhee and could control him in some degree. He worked with these people day and night and we thought we were going to get a fair coalition of those who were not communists. We had some of the leftist fringe group working with rightists, formed into a group which we called the Representative Democratic Council. It blew up the night before its first official meeting. The meeting was all set for the formal acceptance by me of this official advisory group, when an insult was passed and one section of the group lost face, and the leftist group failed to show up and later withdrew from the council. The chief actor of those who withdrew was Lyuh, Woon Hyung, who was killed the 19th of July, this year. He later developed to be not such a lilly-white character, however. He had played with the Russians and communists all the way through and was still doing so at his death. After his death I found several papers written by him that rather clearly show that we were getting double-crossed by one of the people we had tied to in efforts to achieve political serenity. However, we accepted the remnants of the council as a representative group of Koreans and used it as an advisory group until the Legislature was formed in December, 1946. It was rightist by Korean standards, though by our standards the most rightist Korean party is nearer to socialism than anything else. The extremes here are clear cut, however, on the extreme left they are working to become a part of Russia. On the extreme right they are against Trusteeship and against all forms of foreign interference of any nature interferring with sovereignty. DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET GENERAL WEDEMEYER: You used the term "coalition." If a coalition government were formed, would it include communist elements in your present approach to the problem for all of Korea? GENERAL HODGE: It would under present directives, and would go to a communist government in my opinion. I mean by that, with the present approach, and the Russians in the picture, I feel a coalition with communists would eventually go communist. QUESTION: How about the directives, then and the policy enunciated by our country as envisioning the Korean communists in a Korean Government? GENERAL HODGE: In some says that has been one of my biggest head aches. That's one of the points I would like to bring out. Based on my directives, I've always done my best to treat the communists as a legitimate political party, to get them above ground and deal with them. (I mentioned that the communist party went under ground shortly before they came up with their satellites, and tried to treat the communist controlled allied parties as legitimate parties. However, they have worked in their normal manner as they always do; they have operated against us by fair measures and foul, but under my directives there is everything to indicate to me that there is to be a complete political freedom, including the communists. I feel that I can only act against individuals caught violating the law. They have all the freedom they want. They have freedom of press, though I tell them that they cannot openly incite and inflame the people to riots and disorders. We've let them criticize the United States openly and blatantly. I shut down three papers for investigation last fall for inflammatory and inciting statements, but all have reopened. We have arrested editors or reporters on some occasions after many warnings, and tried them as individuals, giving fairly light sentences. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Now I want to make sure I'm clear, and I think all the members of the mission want to know this, too. You present directives require you to include communist elements? GENERAL HODGE: It does. Not by name, but by inference it can be interpreted in no other way. It indicates that no persons will be barred from appointment in the government because of party affiliations or political beliefs. It also indicates that parties shall be given representation in governmental affairs in accordance with the strength of their followers. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET A few days ago, when we were forced to pick up some agitators to stop subversive activity, we were queried on the matter. I gave them the picture as I saw it and told them that I thought the time was coming to not be too polite to communists. I have previously recommended ceasing local dealings with the Russians and stamping out the communists here. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Do you think the time has come, though, John, realistically to try to preclude the communi t elements in a representative government? GENERAL HODGE: I don't think they should be included except by free elections. Knowing them as I do, after I've tried desperately for two years to get their cooperation I believe it is futile to include them voluntarily. They'll cooperate as long as they control, or as long as they can use us. Nobody that I know of yet has ever used the communists to gain anything worth while. They will use you. I'm talking about the real communists, who have the control of the leftist groups here in Korea. We had elections last fall and the communists refused to participate; thought in Cheju Island the People's Committee elected two representatives to the Legislature. We flew the two electees to Seoul, and they promptly disappeared. The communists would not let them sit. In this connection, I had decided to appoint half of the legislature in an effort to further a full coalition. The 45 elected members were all fully rightist, except the two from Cheju Island who were later replaced by elected rightists. The 45 appointed members were based on recommendations by the so-called Coalition Committee from "middle-ofthe-road" and "moderate leftist" groups. Of my original 45 selected appointees several contacted would not accept because of communist orders. The Legislature, as it now stands, rates 47 of the 90 as "rightists" and the rest as "middle-of-the-road" and "moderate leftists" by local liberal standards. Some are definitely ardent followers of the full Marxist line although carrying a nationalist flavor and do not fully obey the Comintern. However, it may be that even these are "planted" in the overall infiltration program of the communists. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: John, when you were home in February and March, had you reached the conclusion, the firm conviction that it was impossible to bring about this coalition government that your directives required? Had you reached that conclusion at that time last spring? SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET GENERAL HODGE: Yes, but not as vehemently as at the present time. I brought that subject up there and discussed it. I have brought it up to General MacArthur on two or three occasions and he generally agreed with me. It has always looked impossible to get a full coalition. But there was this: At the time I was home, it looked at though the legislature might possibly work out. They were beginning to function. It looked as though their lack of experience of handling themselves in groups could be overcome and they might mature. It looked as though they might be able to help us out and I still hoped to wean away from the communists a substantial portion of their nationalistic followers. It looked as though we might have some success in working with Lyuh, Woon Hung, and we thought he and his followers might be pulling away from the communists and might help us. We had a coalition committee group we had been fostering. I have never felt that we could get the Comintern communists into any coalition, from the very beginning. But if we could wean nationalistic leftists away from the Comintern communists (of whom I don't think there are too many in this country) we might be able to weaken them to the extent of killing their power. We were still faced with the Moscow Decision and had to try to make it work. Ruling out the communist groups, then, couldn't help on that because we had to deal with the Russians who would immediately balk on any such action. We had to make another effort to get the Moscow Decision to work, because it is an international decision with four nations involved, and we had to stay on some basis of reopening it and make another effort to get Korea united and get an election. If we could get a really free election throughout all Korea, let them elect a legislature which would, in turn, select their government setup, democracy might have a chance in Korea. If the Joint Commission fails and we have to deal with South Korea alone, I feel perhaps we should rule communism illegal. I don't know if that answers your question or not. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Yes, sir, it does. I don't see how you could rule them out, though, but just ignore them. If they elected to come in later, and cooperated, you would still be amenable, but not make any effort to get them into the government. GENERAL HODGE: I have talked to many people on the subject of the directive. I've talked to many people who worked in the making of that directive, and I've tried faithfully to follow it, because of the great American belief that all ideologies must be respected. But I'm convinced now, and I lay it on the line, and I have laid it on the line, that there is no chance for a middle-of-the-road in Korea so long as we keep playing with the communists and the political and international situation remains as it exists today. In this place, if we had the question of trusteeship out of the picture, we might possibly develop a true middle-of-the road. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET I'm sure we could wean away a lot of these people who now sail with the communists if the rightist groups were rid of the trusteeship phobia. There is no question about the Koreans as a whole as being nationalistic. But the window dressing and the constant effort the communists put out, working day and night, is dangerous. The communists in this zone are well paid for doing that, and they're well trained and well indoctrinated. They keep feeding in new outside agitators. They are running schools in North Korea for agitation, for methods of propaganda, and methods of sabotage and revolution. They also have some schools back in the Soviet area in Siberia. The Russians are not kidding on this thing. They want Korea. They want to protect Dairen. They want to out-flank Manchuria. They want the warmwater ports of Wonsan and Chinnampo. They will not be happy as long as there are American soldiers or influence in South Korea. To go back a little, we had a full Russian consulate in Seoul when we came in here. There was a consulate force of ten or twelve. The Japs had not touched it during the war. We came in, and they were our allies! It developed later that they were the ones who had directed the effort of and guided the "People's Republic" government that the Korean communists set up, which we could not accept under our directive, and which, if we had accepted, would have communized all Korea beginning at that time. They stayed here when the Russians came down for conference in January, 1946 and since they were coming back in March, it wasn't good politics to get the consulate out then. Also we didn't have enough on them at that time, although we monitored their telephone calls enough to find out that they frequently drank a toast to the "new colony" when they called the Soviet head quarters in North Korea. We later determined that the number two man of the consulate was the political director of South Korea, charged with communizing the area. Immediately upon the breaking up of the Joint Commission in May, I put the consul general on the spot and told him they had to regularize themselves, and that we had to have a similar representation in North Korea similar to theirs here--or else. That made them withdraw and I was accused of an unfriendly act. When they left they sent down a couple of caretakers for the consulate, one of them which, I understand, is pretty high-powered, quite active, and one of General Shtikov's closest associates at the conferences of their inner circle. Soviet political activity has no end in this zone. The details of it are not as clear-cut as I would like. I can't take a single unbroken chain of facts or events to prove it, by American style evidence, but I've had too much experience in evaluation of combat intelligence to leave me with any doubt as to the direction of subversive activities in our zone and where it is coming from. The communist propaganda line changes here from day to day exactly with the line throughout the entire world, I can tell the Moscow change within 48 hours by what goes on here. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET I will mention another one of the early handicaps. In the early days there was a lack of directives and lack of pattern we were expected to follow. I got my first political directive in December, 1945, dated in November. There have been changes but all of our subsequent directive have still visualized the ability to deal with the Russians. They visualize that ability and visualize dealing with them in terms by which we deal with normal people of the world. However, there has been activity in the [illegible] Committee recently to handle events as they develop. You gentlemen probably know of the latest Marshall-Molotov note. There should be another go to Molotov soon now and I hope some action will come that may help bring things to a head. Because of our efforts to deal with the Russians, and our hope that the Moscow decision might work out, (the Moscow Decision is a perfectly sound decision, if you're dealing with the people who are willing to deal with you and cooperate) I feel that here in South Korea we are politically about a year and a half behind and, economically, we are a year behind what we should be. We've been waiting too long to see what the Russians would do. If we had taken the bull by the horns without waiting on the Russians and gone ahead, we could have made much faster progress. That is not completely true in every sense, since we've had an educational job to do with the Koreans all the way through but, in general, it is a fair estimate. The educational part of the job, I think, we have carried on and have made a lot of progress in training Koreans for government positions. But in the development of the political autonomy of the people, giving them control in their own way and in developing feeling or responsibility and developing economic reforms, we are behind. Our latest directive visualizes the funds for occupied areas as set up in our budget request and the grant-in-aid program. I sent in several days ago a radiogram pointing out that it is impossible to carry out this directive with the funds as now set up. We were severely cut (about 45 million) on the 1948 budget for the GARIOA funds, that is, the funds for prevention of disease and unrest for the purpose of just keeping going. It is doubtful that we can get by with the cut this year and be able to keep Korea peaceful. The directive is based on expected expenditures which we cannot carry out unless more funds become available. If we intend to save this area from communism; if we intend to stay on here and hold up our heads, and tell the Korean people "We'll help you rehabilitate, we'll help you get started, we'll help you get on your feet," we need more money. When I was in Washington I sensed in Congress and many high places a desire to get out of Korea. I sensed it in the War Department. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 74[illegible]070 SECRET i sensed it in certain sections of the State Department. I talked to appropriations committees; I heard Congressmen, men of them, indicate that they saw no reason for staying in this area, and they would not vote for money for South Korea to be used in a communist doomed area to help the Russians build up a communist state. There is a desire among the many people of the United States to get the troops out of here. This is a backward area; a difficult place for troops to live and exist. It is an occupation, in fact, that calls for dispersion of troops. We live here under inherently rugged conditions; in some places approaching even outpost or almost combat conditions. In my opinion, if we are going to stay over here, we are going to have to tackle the job in a big way, we have to make up our minds now. If we are not going to stay here and go after building up Korea in a big way, we had better get out soon, as early as we can, on any reasonable basis of face-saving such as a mutual withdrawal agreement with the Russians. The situation existing now is a build-up for a civil war. There will certainly be a blood purge, at some future time, but if we stay much longer and do not do something positive, you can be sure that there will be a civil war between North and South Korea in the end. We must either build up this area as an oasis of real democracy and sound economy, so that even the North Koreans can't fail to sense it or get out fast. Our position here now is still on the minimum of prevention of disease and unrest standard. Korea is not yet anywhere near economically self-sufficient, and cannot be until we do some rehabilitation. To date, we've been on a maintenance basis and a low one at that. We have overpopulation, we have underhousing, we have unemployed, we have all the conditions that aid and abet the propaganda of communism. I'm not trying to be pessimistic. I'm trying to paint the picture how as I see it. If we are to save Korea from Soviet domination, it is going to take real backing and substantial appropriations from the United States. The Korean people claim their own civilization and independence through a2 hundred years. It is true that they have developed an almost separate oriental race. However, in the early days the tribes and provinces were loosely combined, and not a real nation. It is also true that in the last few hundred years they came under a corrupt Chinese suzerainry. The Korean is not Japanese or Chinese. He has developed characteristics all his own. I call them the Irish of the Orient, and I think that is about the shortest description I can give. They have the good qualities, and the bad qualities of the Irish. They are natively intelligent with high potentialities. They love to fight, drink, and have a good sense of humor. They love parties; they don't like to work unless they have to; SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET they are an attractive and a very happy people under good conditions. They are not as regimented as the Japanese. They are, in some ways, more volatile, but not quite as imaginative as the Japanese and they are not as changeless as the Chinese. They get great ideas and great ambitions, individually and collectively. The youngsters here up to 14 or 15 years old are the most attractive I ever saw until they begin to realize what their conditions are then become frustrated. Those kids are almost like American kids: they play the same type games and have in many ways the same manner of thought. They are a people that I don't believe are naturally suitable to the rigidity of communism. I don't think they are well enough disciplined for it, but we have to remember that under the Japs they were beaten down and they may accept it and not be able to overthrow it. When the other fellow has the weapons and the ration cards he has control of everything, so it may be that they would be subjected to communism and would accept it at least for a while. They might revolt against it later. Many of these people are Christians. Christianity has a strong influence in Korea. It has a strong enough influence that in many populated areas in Korea Sunday is almost like a Sunday in the States. Direct Christian influence affects well beyond a million people. The effect of the Christian influence on their thinking and mentality in its external aspects is tremendous. Missionaries have done a good job. The fact that Koreans maintained Christianity and their churches under the Japs, and are today in North Korea maintaining their religious beliefs and their churches under very adverse conditions, indicates that they are not merely rice Christians-that they really believe in it. Many of the people who follow Christianity, going to Mission schools, have been educated in the States, and some who were educated in Europe. Missionaries are here from many countries. That has had an influence here and gives a level of people with some education, though not too practical - I am sorry to say -most of them go in for literature and art. There are only a few engineers. But there is an educated group which can help out, most of that group does not follow the Communist line. There are a few that do, apparently as opportunists. They no doubt have had promises made to them or look forward to something they can get out of it if they will go in with the Russians. During the time of the czars, Korea was the target of Russian desire, particularly North Korea. The Japanese, Russians and Chinese have always had their eyes on Korea. The Russians wanted it for warm water ports that are available at Wonsan, Chinnampo and Fusan, which could tie into Siberia and Manchuria. The Chinese and Japanese fought a small war over Korea on Korean soil about 1895, and the Chinese were ousted. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 74[illegible]070 SECRET The Russians and the Japanese had quite a little discussion about the division of influence in Korea, in part leading to the Russo-Jap war in 1904. I understand from several sources that they almost signed a treaty giving Russia control north of the 39th parallel and the Japs south. However, the war stopped that, the Japanese won the war and took a protectorate over all Korea in 1905, with approval of the United States. We also made a treaty with Korea in 1882 in which for certain concessions, we would see that no third power interfered, the Koreans cite the Japanese protectorate as our first breach of faith. The Koreans in recent years have had so many broken promises from the Japanese, the Russians, and the Chinese (and they insist from the United States also) that they no longer trust anyone. In the Treaty of 1905 that the Japs made, the wording was perfectly okay. From the words, nobody needed have any fear but that eventually they would be benefitted by the Japanese influence. The same is true of the 1910 treaty when the Japs took over. I point out to these people that the wording in the Moscow Decision is perfectly to help them, but that doesn't appeal to them at all. They point back to the Jap treaty of 1910, which was made with the Emperor that promised them many things. They don't believe promises anymore. They do believe in actions as they take place. We have been handicapped here, I say in all frankness, by news that comes out of the States. We are going to do so and so for Korea. We are going to do this and we are not going to do that. Take the grant-in-aid program, discussed last spring in Washington. The Koreans picked up their ears. They felt encouraged. Then started the on-again-off again trends and eventually no developments. The same is true about the State Dept. taking over here; that has been batted back and forth until it reaches the point where the Koreans laugh at us. I bring these points out so that you may know that loose talk and published changes of official minds injure our chances of maintaining the confidence of the Koreans. They wonder why we change all the time, why this, why that. The Koreans are a people who, like most Oriental people, don't welcome too many changes. They still get a thrill out of promises that come from Washington but this is waning. Every fade-out on the impact of United Press or Associated Press or radio reports out Washington that some official said so and so on this subject. The impact is 100%. It gets throughout all the provinces, and then when it's reversed, or dropped they begin to wonder what in the hell is going on. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET Sometimes I do myself, although knowing the American nation, I know what's back of it. But I have to admit that sometimes even I reach a state of confusion. I'm not going too much into the history of Military Government. I will let General Lerch cover that tomorrow. We started in as I said, with a few people we picked up and we threw into the MG set-up every man and soldier we could find who had any background in civil technical lines that could help out. Gradually we built up an organization and got our people out through the provinces, in the Military Government Groups in the large towns and MG companies scattered to where we could really make our influence felt. From the very beginning, however, we have used the Koreans to the greatest possible extent in all of Governmental work. At first they had to be extremely closely supervised, telling them what to do. Later, we gradually went to advisory status. Our effort has been to build up in the Koreans the confidence and ability to handle their own affairs. We made appointments after a consultations with many people to find out who was acceptable and to get the most able man for the job. In spite of all our efforts, politics entered into some appointments. There is no question about that, and many appointments had to be changed to get more able men. There is a lack of integrity among the Korean people that we have to watch constantly. That has come up, and when we find a man without integrity who embezzles or who lies, or steals we have to get rid of him. We have built up a Police force of about 25,000, a constabulary of about 16,000. That has been slow because we've had to build carefully and weed out a lot. The Police have come in for criticism from various sources. We had in the police, and still have in the police, some Koreans who served under the Japanese. This is not desirable but is essential in building the force. So far as we can determine from observation and reports these are not now objectionable to law abiding Koreans. They helped the Koreans under Jap occupation, and are considered by most Koreans to have been beneficial rather than harmful. They have furnished the training cadre for police training and have helped to stiffen the force and helped them learn to handle police work. The Communists have made strong efforts to penetrate and get control of the police and of course do a lot of squaking against the police. This must be expected and has to be endured. I think we have all those out who are objectionable or crooked or who tried to use old Japanese torture methods. But in the training of any Oriental police, you gentlemen who know the Oriental know that it is difficult to get an Oriental policeman to act like Americans think the police should act in a democracy. We use American police inspectors in all provinces and we have cut down heavily the objectionable oriental practices. They have not completely disappeared but have been reduced to SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET 11 a point that is commendable in the Oriental. I think it is little worse now then practiced by many of the police in the U. S. The new rookies on the force, recruited from youngsters who hated the Japs worst, are our most frequent offenders in use of wrong methods. The police have steadfastly been loyal to our effort here, and have handled all civil disturbances for over a year and a half. They are not Communists, therefore, they are not liked by the Communists. I might say that the police system is not a place where we can use Communists in coalition. We will take a break now (Then as 1015 hours a ten minute recess was taken.) GENERAL HODGE: I was discussing the police when we took the break. We have, working with the police several American civilian policemen, reputable characters who come out from the States. They work with them in the provinces and the big cities. There are also Army personnel working with them to train them to our democratic methods of operation. I repeat, the worst of our offenders were not the old men who were under the Japanese but the new emancipated Koreans who are recently recruited, due to the working of the Oriental mind. Koreans do not like any exercise of authority over them, and like the Irish, have a hatred for those who exercise authority. I believe that we are now well over the hump on this problem. Last fall, in September and October, the Communists started their revolution in South Korea to liberate South Korea. I am not joking or exaggerating about this, that was what they started out to do. We have plenty of their documents to prove it. They still critique their actions and tell where they went wrong, tell where their weaknesses were and give their plans for the future to correct those weaknesses when they start it again. Last fall I did not use troops except in 3 or 4 cases. The police lost quite heavily. They had over 100 policemen killed. Their families were beaten and homes destroyed and it was rought going for the police in the southern provinces, and some of the outlying points. I say they do not like the Communists. You do not kid Koreans about who people are. We have our difficulties here and when we do have to take action on lawless action by a subversive group, the police frequently overstep what you tell them to do. We have to keep a tight rein on them to keep them from overdoing it. They do not have our fine understanding of political freedom that keeps us from arresting the subversive elements who try to break down all law and order. We have tried our best to keep arrests from being fully political, but everytime Communists are picked up, we get loud and vehement charges that political arrests are being made. We are trying to get away from Provost Courts and let Koreans handle their own trials. We did try the last fall's rioters by Military Commissions. Sedition, murder, arson and inciting riots resulted in sentences by our courts for about 25 SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET to be hanged. There was ample evidence of their activity. A lot more of them we did not catch; a lot of them got away. We did not carry out any death sentences. They were all commuted to life imprisonment, because of the political repercussions that would come, although by any occidental standards those criminals should be hanged. I reviewed them and sent the cases over then to General Macarthur and he and his J. A. all agreed that the guilt was there, but the political repercussions would have been too much. I don't know how we could be expected to operate with a police force part Communistic and part Rightist. As I say, we have been criticized on our policy, but that is the criticism that we have to take when the police are a bit rough on the seditionists. They will probably continue to be. On the other hand, we have the extreme Rightists Group, we have Syngman Rhee, Kim Koo and company. They tried on two occasions to establish their own unilateral government and the police have stood by us firmly. We get the accusation that the police stand by the extreme rightists--that is not true. The police by all standards as I know are as near nationalistic and as sound a body as we have in Korea today. Of course, we are going to have individuals here and there who are crude and who may be playing high politics, but all in all, they have handled their own affairs and civil disturbances and civil police affairs for almost a year and a half and they haven't done too bad a job except, as I have said, a little cruelty that we feel we have under control. I would like to discuss the economic situation in general terms. Before we arrived the Japs had let this place run down to an unbelievable degree. As near as I can determine, there had been no repairs, no maintenance work done in this area since the War began. They just let things go, just let them drift. When we arrived it took 3 hours in a jeep to get from Inchon to Seoul. You can drive it in 1 hour and 10 minutes now under rigid speed regulations. The railways were run down, the street cars were run down and everything was on its last legs. We have had a tremendous job repairing, and in maintaining, just to keep things from falling apart. We haven't been able to rehabilitate many valuable factories and all factories were run down. The Japs had robbed and cannibalized all the way through to keep a few pieces of equipment going. The stocks of raw materials were almost nil except for a few items here and there. A stock pile of coal for the railway was sufficient for only 10 days when we came in. We had to start getting coal right away from Japan. The land had run down. There was virtually no fertilizer and had been none for about six years on any of the farms. This whole country was on its uppers. In prewar years the Japanese had built a fairly high level of living here through their three way--Japanese- Korean- Manchuria economy. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 미국자료 | 521 SECRET They got the bituminous coal from Manchuria; they got their [illegible] from North Korea and from Manchuria; they got Manchurian grain from the grandfields of Manchuria at that are comparable to our western states on Eastern detail, raising coarser grain, and they were able by an [illegible] [illegible] [illegible] in [illegible] to [illegible] to Korea. The free movement of supplies in the area gave them a fair economy. We are confronted with the economy of a small part of Korea, an agricultural part of Korea, which is isolated from all the areas from whoih they balanced their economy. This area now has increased over two and a half million in population and the way the land has run down during the war years through lack of fertilizer, it is certainly not selfsufficient in food as well as being short of consumer goods of types brought in from other part of the Japanese Empire. As I pointed out a while ago, we are behind in economic recovery. We have operated on the basis of reaching an agreement with the Russians and getting Korea united economically. Our directives and appropriated funds have been based on this assumption that we could make, and that the American nation could make. But I point out the facts and the situation to help you understand why certain things have not been done in this area; why the lack of appreciable progress in some things. For example, take the Land Distribution Program. We have delayed land distribution. We feel that the taking away of Korean land from Koreans, who by American standards are entitled to own their own property, and handing it out to the peasants; the manner in which that is done should be a matter for the Korean people to decide. We have been after the legislature since its earliest formation to take that up. They are afraid to tackle it and I'm not so sure they should tackle it until they are all re elected members. However, when they open again on the first of September, we are going to brow-beat them until they take it up! We have had Land Distribution plans here since March '46 which we felt were sound but which we felt were not safe to institute until we get it clear from the Koreans what they want. That, in a way gives the communists an edge on one thing as to what has been done in North Korea. However, with the rental system in use here, we believe the South Korean farmer is better off than the farmers in North Korea. They talk about the free land but it isn't free land and the farmer doesn't own it. He lives on it, but it is property of the State. He pays a high rental to the State even though the land used to be his, and he can be thrown off it if he does not follow the Communistic plans and ideologies faithfully! That has happened and many of the people who have migrated here in the recent migration are those who have been thrown out because they expressed dissatisfaction or said they didn't like the collection of grain. I am not too concerned about the farmer of South Korea. He suffers less than any one I know. The differences in certain typses of progress between this zone and the Russian zone are worth pointing out. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET The Russians came into North Korea with a definite plan. They have no compunctions about what the people want. The whole scheme is set up before they came in. They know exactly what they want to accomplish and how. They use the early days of riding roughshoed, raping, looting, etc., to intimidate the inhabitants and to get rid of most of the people they do not want and of the people who did not want them. Property and wealth are confiscated and educated people are run out or liquidated. Most of those from North Korea are now either in this zone or in Siberia. The Soviets follow this period by a show of great friendliness to the inhabitants and a show of shooting Russian soldiers who rape, kill and loot, building up good will. In the meantime, they put in the Communist economic system fixing up the Soviet Union and its trusted firends. If there is any doubt in anyone's mind, I have an expert who has the background pretty well outlined and he can tell you just what has been done in North Korea. It is economically well tied in with the Soviet Union by agreements, cartels of firms built up with Soviet control of 51% of the stock. The Russians run the job the first five years and the Koreans are supposed to carry out the next five year plan. Everyone joins unions and Communist line societies to let off steam. Slogans appealing to the ignorant are kept constantly renewed. Soon everything is well in hand and under control. They build up a strong police force and native Army. In this way they have made more progress politically than we have because they have a plan and they force it down the Koreans' throat rigidly. How long the Koreans will stand for it I don't know, but also I don't know how they are going to avoid it under its present condition, with the Armed Forces well indoctrinated, they are being fed and clothed, allowed to loot and follow their own private craft and they enjoy it and they have no hesitation in taking it out on their fellowman if he doesn't obey the edicts of the dictators. This control system also has the weapon of the rations card which is very freely used. Rations are hard to get in North Korea, if you don't belong to some approved activity and do homage. Now I am going to leave political questions here unless there are some questions anyone want to ask. QUESTION: What is the name of the economic expert in North Korea? GENERAL HODGE: Mr. Murphy, in G-2. QUESTION: A while ago, you said Korea wasn't economically self-sufficient. Did you mean all Korea or just South Korea. GENERAL HODGE: It applies to the whole of Korea but South Korea is particularly weak; North Korea and South Korea together should come nearer to it because of the wider range of products, but I don't think that Korea as whole by our standards can be self-sufficient for some years. They may have to go back to the SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET cart exonomy and live as they did 100 years ago unless they reduce their population. I don't know whether we do people a favor or not by coming and showing them how to live the way they can't afford. I sometimes feel conscience-striken in the efforts we make to introduce standards they can't maintain. There is one th ng I would like to make clear before I leave the subject of politics entirely...that is concerning the activities of extreme rightists groups. Those people have embarrassed our efforts here more than anybody else. It is a case of those who might benefit most by American success, refusing to help us in our fight to bring democracy. When we tried to get the cooperating of the Koreans with the Russians and break down the weapon that the Russians use of refusing to talk to Koreans that don't like trusteeship, we get nowhere. I feel at times that the people in Washington don't realize the difficulties that we have run into on the subject of trusteeship in politics. When they found out that the Joint Commission was to reopen here in May of this year the Syngman Rhee-Kim Koo rightist groups were terribly disappointed. They did their best to prevent Koreans from cooperating with the Joint Commission and because the Americans here were doing everything they could to get it to suceed, they began a strong attack on me. They spread by every known means that the Truman doctrine and the Marshall plan did not include reopening the Joint Commission and trying to deal with the Russians and the Communists. They said that I was not carrying out United States police in Korea and gaining strength, as the charge was not refuted by Washington and was encouraged by the antics of their Washington lobby who claimed to be in close touch with high officials, they put great pressure on Koreans to boycott completely the Joint Commission. I needed backing in a public statement from Washingont to stop such talk and to bring Koreans into the fold to make possible consultation of rightists with the Joint Commission. Beginning way back in June, Mr. Jacobs and I both requested the State Department to make a statement to the effect that we out here were carrying out U. S. policy faithfully. I felt and still feel that we out here were carrying out U. S. policy faithfully. I felt and still feel that if we had gotten it in time, we would have been in a stronger position today, both in handling extreme Korean rightists and in the matter of consultation of political parties with the Joint Commission. The point of this discussion is this. If the United States Government is going to keep people out here they have to be supported from Washington. Let me make that clear. If not, they should be taken our promptly. This is one place where the individual who represents the people of the U.S. must have at least the apparent backing of the high officials of his nation. In the Orient of all places, the individual is the one they lay blame onto if they can get away with it. After many rel[illegible]ks of delay and repeated requests a statement such as [illegible] promised was made and it ermed the situation a lot. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET However, it was too late to accomplish one and I had hoped to accomplish, that is, to get the rightist groups solidly into the Joint Commission eligibilty list for consultation. As I pointed out earlier the impact here of any statement made in Washington is tremendous. If you can put that one thing over to the people back in Washington it can be a big help here. While I am here, I am not going to bleat for help unless I need it and need it had to accomplish my mission. When Washington doesn't support a commander they had better get him out and get somebody in they will support. I think that the case covered was due possibly to a lack of knowledge of psychology in this area, but whatever it was, such things can be serious, running even into a strong wave of Anti-Americanism against local troops. The Kim Koo-Syngman Rhee Group are sitting on the side lines these days waiting for the breakup of the Joint Commission before they try to set up a unilateral (by their own efforts) extreme Rightists Government. I have had considerable difficulty in controlling these two. Kim Koo has his "National Congress" which is the legacy of the old Chungking Provincial Government that has made two attempts already toward a Coup d' etat. Syngman Rhee has his "National Assembly" which is making its own election laws for a Korean Government. This latter group is meeting right now and is waiting for General Wedemeyer to come out and talk to them. They have put out the dope that General Wedemeyer's mission here is a mission from the U. S. to ascertain facts about Korea which I have been hiding and that Syngman Rhee is to be the principal conferee. Syngman Rhee called a special meeting of the National Assembly to be here when this mission arrived and be ready to entertain it. I just bring these things up to show some of the political moves that fool the poor Koreans. Syngman Rhee went to the U. S. last December and after a long frustrated stay came back here in April as the "Great Diplomatic Success". He told the people he had a promise of a separate government for South Korea, that he had a promise for a $600,000,000 aid to Korea, that the State Department was going to send a man here to run the occupation, and listed other promises. Rhee has tried hard to discredit Brown, myself and others with particular effort to get me removed from Korea. He has a group of fast operators in Washington who work as a lobby feeding out lies and propaganda. On the whole I consider this outfit one of the most dangerous and subversive groups we have in the U. S. in interfering with our business out here. They are dangerous because they reach many people through the press, radio and other means, and because they spread false propaganda and make derogatory statements about people out here whom they dislike. Gossipy charges that have appeared in Drew Pearson's SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745020 SECRET column can be traced to them. I have to date done everything I can to avoid an open breach with Syngman Rhee and company because they control a large segment of the Korean people and we will have to consider them in any future here. If we can keep them in line with help and guidance from higher authority when requested, we may gain a lot. I doubt that they really dislike me personally so much as they want to show themselves up as being bigger here than the Americans are and to show their power to force our hands. They want a separate government and all that and brag "we are going to force General Hodge to do so and so". By these means they build up their following, and consequently create a hostile attitude toward the Americans. However, it is true they are the bulwark against Communism, and because they form the center of anti-communism, they may be in the saddle after any election held in South Korea. They are widely known to the Koreans, whoe have so few leaders that are known throughout the nation. To date, their only stock in trade has been anti-trusteeship. If their recent disciplining has been effective, we may be able to use them as rallying points for future good. However, I can say flatly that they have no administrative capacity for use now or ever. QUESTION: Is part of the opposition to the trusteeship arrangement based on the belief that if it fails that the U.S. will have to go along with them? GENERAL HODGE: Partially, I'm sure. They know full well that if the Joint Commission fails, and we stay here, we are going to have to get along with them and give Korea supplies and armed protection. It is a bad situation to begin with but we are here in it and we have to face it. Rhee lost a lot of followers by some of his adamant acts, he has recently broken away a little bit from Kim Koo which may be favorable. I think we have him now where we may be able to get him in the fold and get him straightened out but it will take handling. Kim Koo alone is a dead duck. Kim Koo has only one strong-armed group and a few hard-headed old Chinese "war lords" who lived in China with him and helped mistreat the Koreans there. Unless there is some further question, I will turn to the military side of the discussion. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: As I understand it now, the two things that the Koreans mention to you frequently is a breach of faith and one if the Treaty of 1905 following the Russian-Japanese war, and the other is the interpretation of the "in due course" these people have adopted. GENERAL HODGE: Those are two things that they go back to, yes, but the principle thing is the Trusteeship tied to the "in due SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET course" and the fact that in two years there is no progress toward independence. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Are there any other political treaties of international actions that they refer to? GENERAL HODGE: The Moscow Decision is, or course, the big issue. The fact that this had not yet been effective, they consider as a breach of promise. The fact that they are still under occupation by two great nations who are here splitting their country in half and that these nations cannot agree builds up day by day and becomes worse. You can get a riot started almost any time you want to by going down the street with a banner saying "why haven't we got our independence within two years?" What we need here is something concrete to show that we are approaching nearer to that independence or that there is real economic progress. I agree with the Koreans that the Moscow Decision is dead. I don't think there is a chance in the world under it, and I am ready to recommend that we quit fooling with the Russians completely on it unless there is a 180 reversal by the Russians, or the world can, in some way, put some magical-now unknownpressure on them. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Before we leave the political subject would you care to give us your recommendations with reference to our political actions up here? You have given us a fine resume of the development, these AMG developments, and we would like to get the benefit of the opinion of a man on the spot who has lived through these periods. We would like to get your ideas if you feel you could give them, on what the political action should be in Korea on the part of the United States, the political policy and military. GENERAL HODGE: My recommendation is this: That we go right ahead with the elections and get an elected legislative. The current law passed by the legislature is not one we would set up. It has some bugs in it, but it will work. It should give them their own elective legislature fully elected, and we could let that legislature select their cabinet. Let them set up the government, select the president, and operate under our veto power where we have to use the veto to control finances, public safety, and the distribution of our aid and let them get going, let them think they have their government. It doesn't have to be complete Korean sovereignty to satisfy them. We can give them enough outside contact and pomp to keep them happy. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 74[illegible]020 SECRET QUESTION: First, do you have the machinery to conduct the election? GENERAL HODGE: Yes, the Korean law provides the machinery. We can put our troops into supervising it, and the election law as drawn up provides what the Koreans feel are sufficient checks for multi-party free elections. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Do you feel, John, that these elections could be conducted with the minimum of intimidations by these various power groups? GENERAL HODGE: There will no doubt be intimidations, but we have got to start somewhere. Waiting is not going to help us. The danger of intimidation will only grow greater if you wait. The elections would not be perfect but we could put all our soldiers and officers watching the elections and cut out a lot of intimidation. QUESTION: Are they literate enough to really express their wishes? GENERAL HODGE: They are literate enough to know whom they want to elect in their localities. In other words, the area is divided into zones of 100,000 population, each to elect their own representative, and they know whom they want to elect. QUESTION: What about the qualification for voting? Are there any literacytests? GENERAL HODGE: The current law provides that a man be able to write the name of his candidate, but you can teach any sane adult to write the name of his candidate in two days in the Korean Inman script. The electioneers will do that. We objected to this feature as too restrictive for a largely illiterate people but the legislature was unanimous on that, including the rightists and leftists. Women are allowed to vote of course. Another feature we questioned was 23 years for the voting age. That age was also unanimous on the part of the legislature. The Communists wanted 21 while the rightists wanted 25. The 23 was a compromise. QUESTION: Is that because they have been more successful in approaching the younger men and inculcating into the minds of the younger people the Communistic ideology? GENERAL HODGE: I believe so but we have at least as many rightists as Communists who will be banned by it. Knowing Koreans, I have no personal objection to it, it does not sound good on the outside. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 74[illegible]070 However, that's what they want, and if we conduct an election in this zone I think we might as well let them have their own election law. It will suit them a lot better than anything we could do. As for getting an honest election, I can't guarantee it, but I think the sooner do it, the more honesty there will be. The longer we give the Communists to sabotage it the worse it will be. QUESTION: Does this provide for an overall national government and does it also provide a municipal government? GENERAL HODGE: The first election provides only for electing a legislature. I don't think we can provide for lower echelon elections until we get the national legislature and let them set up what they want. They have never had provincial or municipal elections. They have never had anything of that nature and Koreans all advise against hurring it; advise against going down too far with elections now. They would rather put the governor of the provinces as an appointive man from the central government. Here is what they say: "We elect a man down in the provinces and he immediately become a slave of the people who elected him and he will do whatever they want him to locally without national interest. That's a deficiency in their idea of democracy but they say it will perpetuate a man in office and he will keep his job forever under a spoils system. GENERAL LERCH: General, may I add there is a framework set up by ordinance for our provincial elections and appointments. It requires however, a constitutional law by the legislature to put it into effect. GENERAL HODGE: Yes, we have tried to push the idea on them, we have set it up to use but they are not too enthusiastic about it. They have a long way to go. These people are infantile politically. They have little political knowledge or anything except Japanese oppression and a strong individual idea of each as to what he wants. The ones that are living today of working age have no first hand knowledge about anything other than Japanese influence. Except for a few who were in the States their knowledge of occidental standards began in September 1945. They still have no conception of political parties in Korea, we are not talking about American political parties, we are talking about an Oriental group in the pay and under the influence of one man. They have no idea of majority rule. That's the reason it is so difficult to get any political unity or action. I do not include the DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 Communists in this. They operate here as everywhere. You have another factor here, the caste system. The caste group goes all through Korea, as does the respect of the elder, no matter how big a dodo the elder may be. I've had intelligent men complain to me about some old bird and when I say go and talk to him about it they say "I can't talk to him, he is my elder." They are absolutely infantile in political maneuvers. We have the job of training them and must do the best we can with what we have to do with. We cannot expect perfection and we may have to do with much less. I will now turn to the military. All I've said doesn't mean we don't try to get perfection in our military. Our biggest headache here as everywhere is personnel. This applies not only to the military but to civilian employees as well. Our next biggest headache is living conditions. Korea is a backward area, as backward as anywhere in the civilized world today. This includes all conveniences of living by any standards of the United States, all the way from heat, plumbing and electricity to means of recreation and entertainment. The only decent hotel by any standards in Korea is the one you gentlemen are living in, and you know what is is. The Banto hotel across the way is not too bad-I'm just giving you these as examples of our best. All else fades by comparison and there is nothing else anywhere near that standard in Korea. We don't have resort hotels-we don't have leave areas-everything in Korea is utilized by somebody living in it or somebody farming it. There are no golf courses and we can't get places to build them; there are no swimming pools except what we have built; there is no entertainment for our people here except what we provide ourselves. We have one everlasting problem for the modern sophisticated American boy and that's the problem of girl friends. The girls here are raised under the Confucian code, by which they are separated from the boys at the age of about seven and they stay separated until marriage and don't go out with the boys, Korean or American. No Korean girl fit to be seen with would dare be seen with any man as a twosome unless married to him. They stay in seclusion until they are married, or go out in family groups or with friends of their own sex. This poses a real problem. There is no law against fraternization here, as has been charged by some people, but there is the cultural law of the Koreans that they themselves enforce. It a girl goes out with a soldier she would get beaten or ostracized by her own people. We cannot utilize Korean restaurants, we don't have enough hospital beds to care for the casualties. We can't get restaurants up to our standards of sanitation because they don't have the facilities, the refrigeration or the knowledge of sanitation. Green vegetables here of course are all fertilized with night soil. The water everywhere has to be treated; we use none but water we treat ourselves. We don't dare. Our health rate has been excellent because we have been rigid in our sanitation control. When we first came in we had some smallpox, that phase was ended in about three months after arrival by establishment of a very rigid vaccination system and we haven't had a case since. All known Oriental and some tropical diseases are rampant here in season. We had a bad cholera epidemic DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 74[illegible]70 SECRET last summer and got away without a single American getting it, although we worked with the diseased people in helping to stamp it out. Some nine or then thousand Koreans died, probably 10 or 20 thousand had cholera, many of them right in our own troop areas. On the subject of personnel. After the war, the Army disintegrated. I can't call it anything else. I sat here and watched my forces go completely to pieces by any stan ards and watched all the team work and "knowhow" vanish. I woul say the military efficiency of the command since that time has never risen above atout 20% of reasonable and acceptable standards. Since the disintegration began, we can't keep officers and men long enough to rebuilt ef ectiveness. The average tenure of a company commander is probably two or three months. The command is on the fourth complete turnover of military personnel. That's on the overall turnover in numbers. I myself and two other officers are the only ones I know who came in here with the initial force, and the other two are going home next month. T he standard of enlisted men has dropped seriously. During last winter we received about 50,000 replacements between September and March; most of them in the middle of extremely cold winter. The so diers were 17 to 19 years old-10 years old was an old man; a man who had a shaving beard was very unusual. They came in here with five or six weeks training before they left the States, totally unfit for occupational service by age, indoctrination, adjustment, and home training. They were good American kids. I'm not saying against the youngsters as individuals, but they had no background to prepare them for what they were coming into; nobody ever told them the bitter facts of life, and many of them thought Korea was a South Sea Island. They knew nothing about the world situation, about the situation in the Orient or about Russia, the rampant. I talke to every one of them when they came in; giving them a personal orientation of from an hour to an hour and a half. I have talked to hundreds of them individually. To the question "Why did you enlist?", I got two answers "G.I. Bill of Rights" and "Free Education." The average one thinks he is going to get free education on the job or under the "G. I. Bill of Rights." I find about one out of two or three hundre who says "I wanted to see something different from the Unite States. The exceptional boy is usually a youngster that will push his way up pretty fast under any circumstances. But coming into this backward area here has been a severe shock to unindoctrinated and untrained people. The short enlistments and frequent changes of discharge criteria keep the turnover so high that we are going to have another one next winter if we get any troops. If we don't get troops we won't torn over, of course, just evaporate. They have promised me they will give soldiers 13 weeks training before they come out in the future. I hope so, because to date the training the youngsters get before they came was worse than nothing. They learned bad habits, no good ones, lost what little real training they might have received on the long trip out, and upon arriving here they are just in the process of developing a juvenile diseases such as mumps, measles, chicken pox, strep throats, SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET etc., that boys develop after about three months in groups. We took 600 of them off one ship last winter and put them in a hospital with strep throats which developed on the ship during the trip over. It is bitter cold out here in the winter and most of these kids never saw weather as cold as this. It stays cold from November to March. They are not disciplined enough to get them to do what they are told about cold weather, and we couldn't get many of them to wear adequate clothing for cold weather. We have parkas and all the woolen clothing and everything that we can use, but we can't get them to wear it properly and many of them started to weep and wail and some of them wrote letters home complaining long and loudly of how unhappy they were. The Saga of the Bobby Soxers last winter will be remembered by all of us. It beat anything I've ever seen. Brown went through this en of it, he was left behind holding the bag and I was in the States in late February and March. I think there were about 18 letters written to Detroit mothers, plus a few agitators who wrote to Scripps-Howard Newspapers. A couple of letters got into the Detroit News and the Moms' Clubs of America, Inc. around Detroit took them up and went to town. Later some of the papers in other districts thought they had not been doing their part so they started. I got many telegrams and letters while in the U. S. from the Moms' Clubs, answers to many of which were returned stating no such person at the address given. Potential Communist from organizations. Anyway to counter it, I got the War Department to wire General MacArthur requesting he ave his staff check on it, or if he felt it necessary let the War Department send inspectors. General MacArthur sent a team over and it stopped allegations. The Detroit News began to realize that they had been sucked in on the thing and in April they sent out here a top-line correspondent, Philip Adler. When he arrived here I turned him over to General Brown and he gave Adler all the files on the investigations that we had made. We invited him to go and visit all the soldiers anywhere and everywhere he wished. We didn't let anybody go with him. I have given General Wedemeyer his report in the form of seven articles he wrote. The Detroit News had learned its lesson and was profuse with apologies but this stuff had given Korea a bad name. It got wide spread and any homesick soldier who thought he might get home sympathy or be able to stir up a way to get out of the Army could write a letter to some newspaper telling his troubles. There were probably 100 letters all told. Most of them were from unadjusted youngsters who had joined the Army to escape the draft or get a free education, and were surprised when the promised room and bath turned out to be a semi-temporary barracks. Some had older brothers who had done pretty well in the last war while they themselves had not been old enough to go and they wanted to be great heroes too, so they wrote of imaginary or exaggerated hardships to gain sympathy. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 74[illegible]070 SECRET One kid wrote home that he was going down the road in a jeep with his captain one afternoon when his captain saw some Koreans and told him to stop and shoot the Koreans. He told a gruesome tale of killing six of them. The boy's father saw me in Washinton and told me the tale giving me the date it occured. He was a Doctor. I told him, "Doctor, that is not true. It isn't true because I get over my desk telephone call within hours after anybody is killed or seriously hurt in Korea. On that date no such report came in." He was highly insulted and believed the boy. I had the boy queried and he reported it was a fake and he just wanted to tell the folks a good story. We have had a lot of that sort of thing that we don't get a chance to scotch. Word gets out that this is a rugged place, and it is. I am the first man to say so, however, to add insult to injury our recruiting campaigners put out some beautiful posters on Korea. I would like to stay in Korea forever myself, based on those posters. There are swimming pools, resort hotels, riding, fishing, night clubs, beautiful girls and all life could desire. This stuff has disappointe a lot of soldiers and has made a lot of Moms and Pops angry and sore because when Johnny went out after being promise all these, Johnny didn't have them after he here. We have had all that to contend with and one result is we can not get soldiers and good civilian employees to volunteer for duty here. Recruiting agencies have made promises to civilians not based on facts and told them they could get their dependents out here on the next boat, etc. If dependents arrive within one year after the principle they are going to be lucky. We are building piece by piece for dependents here with what we get from Japan and from what we got from the United States to the Pacific before the war ended. Here is a sample of what we run into on construction. Although policy is not to supply funds and materials from the U.S. for dependent housing, we put in requisitions several months ago for some critical items because of a loophole CINCFE found. Here is a follow up telegram that went in from CINCFE - "Completion of dependent housing in Japan and Korea is of major importance, a critical factor is pipe fittings. Request War Department take action on procurement and shipment, etc." About 20 days later we get an answer showing the great effort made to supply the items requeste - in part it says a study had been started and "approximately ten days required to complete the study" "considerable difficulty being experienced during bids on many type pipe fittings" "will advise when study complete". That is the sort of thing gentlemen, to us out here that makes us feel that we are sort of the forgotten soldiers. I bring it up because I was told by some pretty high people in the War Department when I was back in the States that Korea is the last priority in their thinking. We get added evidence of it right along. I don't tell my troops these thing at all, don't get that idea, but I and my staff can't help but feel it and the command out here senses that we are sort of forgotten step-children. The lack of know edge I found in Washington on the Korean situation when I went back was unbelievable to me. It could only come from lack of interest. General Lerch just got back here two or three weeks ago and the story he told me bear[s] SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET this out. We out here have to struggle constantly against the sensing that we are fighting the battle of Korea without people in Washington understanding or caring too much. I request that as a fact finding mission, one fact that you find is that the Korean problem needs a little more though on the Washington levels As to our future on military personnel, we are about 8,000 below strength at present. We have no immediate promise of replacements coming in, none on schedule that we know about. We have indefinite promises of some to start being shipped in September or October. With our present known rate of attrition due to end of tour of service and enlistments, by about the end of February we will be down to 13,000 total. This area is not a good area to go below strength in. We went down to about half strength last fall, and that's when the communists trie their revolution. They watched us go down and kept track of it and then they began to brag about it, that we wer down so low in strength that we wouldn't be able to handle a revolution. They keep good track of what we do. If we are to stay here, I think we must maintain strength so ewhere near, I would say, not less than 90% of our Table of Organization. We are engaged in a project here that requires a lot of housekeeping. We are bringing in an awful lot of stuff that has to be handled and guarded. We have Military Government to operate, we have about 1500 dependent families to care for and guard, we have a lot of civilians that have to be looked after, and all those require troops to do it. Everything that we use here we bring in, including all building materials. Building materials mostly come from Japan, but we have to handle them through the ports. Our problem of housekeeping becomes almost appalling at times, and I sometimes feel we are using too much of our strength in housekeeping; just looking after each other. We recently had to reduce the tactical strength to build up service units, including the engineers and ordnance. This was much against my will and desires and operates against troop efficiency but we had to do it or we couldn't carry on what has to be done, and care for extra curicular activities. QUESTION: With reference to the tactical strength, what do you estimate that you should have as a potential force, just tactical strength? GENERAL HODGE: Until I know more than I know now, our troop ceiling at present is the lowest we should go. It is not around 50,000 all told. The exact figures are in the folder. QUESTION: Is it not contemplate that we have divisions over here in Japan that could move in here in the event of emergency? GENERAL HODGE: They could be made available if needed. We don't look for any invasion by the Russians. Our great immediate concern is to keep enough strength to maintain this occupation intact an maintain law and order in the face of subversive uprisings in [stamp] SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET in our zone, care for and safeguard our non-combatants and property and handle the many things we can't trust Koreans to do. Of course, there could be an invasion by the Korean Communist Army from North Korea. They have 150 -200 t ousand well trained troops and they talk of "liberating" South Korea. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: What are your instructions if that comes to pass? GENERAL HODGE: If that happened, we would resist them. But if the Russians came in with any force we would withdraw. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: I am talking about the Russian trained and equipped forces. GENERAL HODGE: We would have to resist/ GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Would you take the initiative in any resistance, of if they came in here in occupied areas, would it be passive-if they came into your area, you would employ weapons, employ force? GENERAL HODGE: Oh, Yes. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Do your directives authorize t at? GENERAL HODGE: YES, that is the way I understand it. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: You are clear on it though-I am particularly anxious to get your view on that as I was confronted with a similar prob em. GENERAL HODGE: In my own mind I'm clear on it. If they don't want that done, they had better tell me in a hurry. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: I just mentioned it, John, because in China I had cases arise similar to your envisioned prob em. I was admonished, warned time and again. GENERAL HODGE: But China had their own government. This is an entirely different problem. As set up here we are the government and we won't let the Koreans build up a defensive face. Therefore we have to defend South Korea. The only Korean ar e forces are the Police and the Constabulary that is organized and armed as light infantry. QUESTION: What is your on-board strength now? GENERAL HODGE: Enlisted 38,383, Officers 2,957. We lose with SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 74[illegible]070 SECRET each ship that goes out from now on. Even at full strength it's impossible for us to build up top efficiency so long as they use the s ort term enlistments and pick up these 17-18 year old kids. W hen the recruiting improves and we get older men and those who will stay longer, we can go to a much higher efficiency at any strength l vel. Our officer personnel is another point that I didn't mention. We had a high return of officers back to the States immediately after we got here. F ollowing the war, they sent out here from all over the United States of icers that had not been overseas. Most of them probably had been kicked out of the units ready to go overseas or had not been considered fit for overseas duty. W e have had hundreds and hun reds of these come in; people that had no combat experience, people that had never had to exercise any great initiative or ingenuity in command, who had been si ting in very comfortable posts with no incentive to improve and scramble. They sent them out here and those are the officers we had to depend on in this area which requires a tremendous amount of initiative, ingenuity, push and im provisation to keep troops happy and going. Many did not want to leave the States and have rendered low grade service while waitingonly to get back home. Such officers have frequently been a handicap rather than a help. That is now i proving and we are getting of icers who had combat duty and they are of a much better calbre. In the State- sitter group were a lot who signed cagegory one hoping they would stay in the States and after they got our here they changed category at every opportunity to return as rapidly as possible. We never know who we are going to keep or for how long, and that has been a lot of trouble. QUESTION: How about the control of military property, General? Is there looting as in the Phillipines and sale of property? GENERAL HODGE: There is a small amount of looting and sale of property, but nothing like the Phillipines. We have been taking pretty stern measures of contro to keep it down. We lose an average of one of two vehicles a week. They steal stuff out of freight cars and occasionally from warehouses. They are great thieves, but we manage to get along. They don't rob us to the extent that they really cut into our necessities. Our guards are authorize to shoot to kill when necessary. Most of our warehouses are behind wire or fences so t at we can protect them reasonably well. The worst t ing we have is negro troops in service units engaged in supply, and negro troops will help thieves and connive with them. But on the w ole it is not too bad. Our supply situation at present is not too bad. After we came in here, along with the Army, t e whole supply system almost disintegrate . There were c anges in the supply methods, and in the ports back in the States. Several supply agencies SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET almost stopped functioning. At first, we were base on the Phillipines for supply and sent our requisitions there. Then we switched over to requisitioning from t e 8th Army beginning in January 1946. Through some misunderstanding in orders and some ost requisitions in the switch-over we got in our lowest slump on all types of supplies about one year ago. This included all types. This caused so e comment from a member of the Congressional Committee who was here for a few hours. This shortage has now been made up and we are fairly well squared away on Class I and post exchange supplies which causes the most com laints. What you are eating while you're her is the straight ration for Korea. It was established for offical messes, and they draw just their share. We have completed arrangements recently to requisition directly from San Francisco Port of Embarkation for all our supplies except the fresh comonents of the ration which have to come through 8th Army. T e reason for this is that they send big reefers out that we can't handle, so they use smaller shuttle reefers from Yokohama. W e get one of those every eleven days. The stock is in pretty fair shape now. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: I'm going to go back once more to your directives, in case this situation is created, John, for your own protection, if the R ussian troops withdraw from North Korea and if these Russian trained and equipped Korean units invaded South Korea......although you state that the situation is different from that in China, the psychology of the American people wil be involved in the struggle? GENERAL HODGE: That is correct. There is. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: But if there is any doubt in your mind or the minds of your staff, I would certainly get that clarified for your own protection. GENERAL HODGE: I will go into it again, but I got a radio about three months ago which was very specific in answer to that very question. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: IF you are entirely satisfied with it, that is as much as is necessary. GENERAL HODGE: If it should happen while the Russians are in that zone, it will constitute an acto of war, because the Russians are responsible for the zone. If they let the North Korean Army come own here in formed units, that is a declaration of war and we had better get our bombs out. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Would it be so interpreted back home? GENERAL HODGE: I don't know. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Has it been broached? GENERAL HODGE: I talked to General MacArthur about it. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Even though the Korean troops know, no Russian troops accompanying them, but Soviet Russia is still the responsible power in North Korea, then you say that is tantamount to war? GENERAL HODGE: To me it is. General MacArthur and I discussed it and I believe he thinks the same thing. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Does anybody want to ask any questions? Thank you very much. GENERAL HODGE: Your question brings up one thing I would like to get clear. At the present time there is no government for South Korea that can internationally be called a Korean Government. It is a military government. People come over from Japan and talk to us about the way they run the occupation there. Over there they push a button and they say "You do this" "You do that" and the Japs do it. Her , we push the button, put on our other hats, and go around on the other side of the desk and answer the buzzer ourselves. That we must keep clear in our min s. If we establish a representative government here which we can hold responsible than we may be able to develop it to a point where we can say that there is a government and let it accept responsibility. But, at the present time we can not say that. This is an entirely different problem from the Japanese occupation. I repeat that point because in your thinking I am afraid that you are thinking in terms that this might be thought of as the Chinese government is thought of running the country. QUESTION: What responsibilities does General MacArhur have in case one of these situations is created, in case the Soviet troops are still in power and the Korean troops move south of the 38th? Have you a plan that contemplates his moving troops over here? GENERAL HODGE: Yes, we have a plan. As to General MacArhur's responsibility, he is my Military Commander, my Commander in Chief in this area. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: They are Corps and Triphibuous operations. GENERAL HODGE: And we have plans to get our women our rapidly and all that sort of thing. I think we have ample plans to cover all contingencies and last fall we had the boys alerted in Japan when the revolution started. We didn't know what might happen then. They were alerted and I think they had some units actually assembled to move. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Any further questions? Well, thank you very much General Hodge. GENERAL HODGE: Gentlemen, while you are here I want to be sure that you get everything that you want. As I say, I don't know just what you do want, but if there is any holding back, any occasion that you are not getting what you need or any new source that you wish to tap, I want to know about it. I am at your service every day all the time you are here and my staff is completely at your service to help you in anything for your comfort or questions or anything else. I want you to understand thoroughly that that's our mission while you are here, to do everything we possibly can to help you accomplish your mission. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: I will make it very clear as to what we are here for and will show you a copy of my directive later on in the day. We are here to ascertain facts pertaining to the political-economic-psychological conditions in this area with a view to recommending assistance, or with a view to recommending what out continued policy should be in the area. The effort is being made to integrate all policy, not only in this area, but all over the world so that it will be uniform, different in application but uniform application to the policy our government hopes to perform in the world. GENERAL HODGE: May I pass that to my key people? GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Please do. GENERAL HODGE: It will help them. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Incidentally ,our coming is not critical of any government agency whatever. GENERAL HODGE: I know that, but all I got was a little top secret telegram saying you would be here. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: Well, your thought maybe was, or might be, "All these facts the Wedemeyer mission would obtain are available in the United States." That is a natural reaction on your part, but we have them required to study the situation in China and they added your area, Korea with a view to integration and recommendations for continued policy which you wouldn't have occasion for doing yourself, being right here in your own area. A MEMBER OF GENERAL HODGE'S STAFF: Our presentation is economic. We thought that was the mission. . .I thought that would be it, full economics of the thing. GENERAL WEDEMEYER: It is essentially political SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET GENERAL HODGE: Well, politics comes into all the presentations. A MEMBER OF GENERAL HODGE'S STAFF: Our presentation based on the next two days is economics. We are going to have to change our program to present other than economic problems. GENERAL HODGE: WE are going to present certain political matters this afternoon, and I think these people are very intelligent and they can correlate the political and the economic. QUESTION: How about the cultural features? A MEMBER OF GENERAL HODGE'S STAFF: That is in our program. QUESTION: Is education being presented? A MEMBER OF GENERAL HODGE'S STAFF: We can present them education. That comes in with the need of graduate technicians. GENERAL WEDEMEYER TO HIS STAFF: Now there is one other thing, the General has said that someone wants to hear expression of views from me. Now it would be of assistance to all of us, when talking to Koreans, that they will give no expressions of views to Koreans. We are here on a fact finding mission with no prejudgments. Certain people will turn every faucet to try to get information from us, and to find out what we are thinking. We have avoided that. I won't make any talks to these people. We will ask them questions to elicit discussion, but not without informing them as to what we may recommend. GENERAL HODGE: I brought that up just to show you the manner in which they work, what they are trying to do, how they operate. They put out information all over Korea that General Wedemeyer has come out here to find out the facts that General Hodge is hiding from Washington. They try to make face by saying you will meet this or that group for a special purpose. They are my worst headache. I am going to turn you over to General Brown this afternoon. The Commission then adjourned to meet again at 3:30, the hour stated by General Wedemeyer THE END SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 DECLASSIFIED E.O. 12356, Sec. 3.3 NND 74587 0 By [illegible] NARS, Date [illegible] SECRET TRUE COPY MEMORANDUM FOR LIEUTENANT GENERAL WEDEMEYER: SUBJECT: Joint Korean-American Conference 1. Herewith is report of the Joint-Korean-American Conference held last winter for investigation of conditions pertaining to disorders in October starting in the Taegu area. 2. This Joint Committee was authorized by me last fall in an effort to get the Korean view concerning conditions that had given rise to disorders and might give rise to future disorders in South Korea. The Korean members of the Committee were selected from the so-called Coalition Committee with whom we had been working in an effort to get a union of the right and left. Those who appeared before the Committee were generally speaking persons with leftists tendencies. Some members of the Coalition Committee who sat on this Conference have since been determined to have decided communistic views. 3. Subsequent intelligence has shown rather conclusively that the riots of September and October 1946 were definitely communistic inspired and were to be the communistic revolution to "Liberate" South Korea. This information has been obtained from review of considerable communistic literature discussing the failure of the people's revolution in the fall of 1946. 4. I attach hereto also a letter written by Lyuh, Won Hyung to Kim, Il Sung and Kim, Do Song last November, giving a report on South Korea conditions. For your information Kim, Il Sung and Kim, Do Yong are No. 1 and 2 men in the North Korean Communistic Government. It appears from Lyuh, Won Hyung letter that he was working closely with the North and South Korea communistics in an effort to get communistic control in South Korea. Also that it was their wish to destroy the South Korea police in order that they no longer would interfere with the communistic revolution in South Korea. 5. Based upon this report, I and my principal advisors gave considerable thought and discussion to the matter of removal of the two police heads involved. Nowhere in the hearings of the Joint Conference was the charge ever raised that either Chang, Taik Sang or Chough, Pyung Ook were anything but top men insofar as Japanese alliances were concerned. In fact, evidence was all the opposite. Careful study of intelligence reports and factual evidence indicated strongly that the desire to remove these two men from the police was two fold. First--personal enmity and second--attempt by the leftists, through the Coalition Committee, to get control of the police force. SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET TRUE COPY Memo for Lt. Gen. Wedemeyer (cont'd) 6. On 12 December 1946 the Korean Interim Legislature held its first session. In the Legislature were most of the members of the Coalition Committee plus a large number of their followers. Kimm, Kiusic was elected chairman of the Legislature and has functioned as such since that time. An Jai Heng was appointed Civil Administrator soon after the Legislature opened. There is ample machinery in the Korean government functioning for removal of any or all Korean officials in the police force. I personally talked to the group of Koreans who insisted upon removal of the two police heads and told them if they would take the initiative and cause the removal I would approve this action. This they did not do, not even making a halfhearted attempt. It became apparent to all concerned that they were thoroughly aware that except for the old Korean custom of holding an official completely responsible for any incident occuring under his regime regardless of fault, they had no good reason for his removal. 7. The police of South Korea have been a constant concern of all of us. Because of the Japanese police state maintained for 35 years Koreans had grown to hate anyone in police uniform, whether they be Japanese, Korean, or Military Police. In the early days here they even complained bitterly because American Military Police were seen on the streets with arms. Any police force regardless of nationality or action, readily becomes a target of criticism from police concious Koreans. Because of utter lack of training in police methods and police organization among Koreans in general, we were forced when we came in to utilize many Korean police who had served as police under the Japanese. Every effort was made to eliminate all those who had ever been objectionable to Koreans, other than the mere fact of their former service. That effort still continues. 8. The Interim Legislature passed recently the so-called Pro-Japanese Law which defines those Koreans considered objectionable because of former servitude, and association with the Japanese. Under the provisions of this bill we have found a total of approximately 200 individuals in the entire police force who could be called in to explain the positions they held with the Japanese police. These are being further investigated with a view to removal or exoneration. 9. Reference the recommendations contained in the Joint Conference--Paragraph 1 under Section V has been pursued vigorouslywith the exception of d which was left up to the Korean officials, many of whom signed the recommendation but which they elected not to carry out. In this connection, An Jai Hong recently told me that the effort to remove police heads recommended by him last fall was in effect an effort by the communistics to SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745070 SECRET TRUE COPY Memo for Lt. Gen. Wedemeyer (cont'd) get control of the police. As to Paragraph 2 of recommendations, search was made of the records of employees in Military Government and so far as could be determined there are no employees who come within the category mentioned. Paragraphs 3 and 4 are, and have already been, the subject of rigid enforcement, although it is admitted results have not been all that an idealist would wish. Paragraph 5a--all prosecutions have long since been completed and all innocent released. 5b--like many other recommendations is somewhat redundant since we have been making efforts since the very beginning to carry out such recommendations. 10. If you or any of your group are interested in detailed discussion of the police situation of South Korea, I will be delighted to give any amount of time you desire to such a discussion. JOHN R. HODGE LIEUTENANT GENERAL, U. S. ARMY Commanding 5 Incls: 1. Memo for Brig. Gen. Helmick 2. Report of Joint Conference 3. Memo for Lieut. Gen. Hodge 4. Memo for Lieut. Gen. Hodge. 5. Memo to Gen Lerch from Col. Maglin SECRET DECLASSIFIED Authority NND 745020