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HOW IT WAS!

Eagle

SPIES, ESPIONAGE & INFILTRATION

(1959-Present)


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Infilitration, Spies and Espionage

PERSONAL SPECULATION: What is contained in this section is best placed under the category of speculation as we have no way of verifying the presence of spies. We are basing our conclusions on what was reported by the Agency for National Security Planning (ANSP) in 1997 and other data from the National Intelligence Service (NIS) after 1999 and other sources -- as well as our personal observations of reports on spies for the past decade. The conclusions reached are strictly our own.

(1). We believe ... The North will NOT invade the South. The threats and saber rattling is all about "regime preservation." The threats are to extort financial or military aid from ALL sides -- communist and western powers. It has done this for over fifty years and continues to do so until today. If we believed that the North would attack in some sort of short-lived crazed suicidal move -- which is what it will be -- we would have moved from Korea long ago. Many noted researchers have come to the same conclusion. However, to call the North's bluff on this matter is unthinkable as the stakes -- an incinerated Seoul -- are too high. Thus things remain in the status quo of the 1953 Armistice.

(2). We believe ... The North does NOT need to use infiltrators any longer as the internet has now provided a new means for passing of information without the risks involved in infiltrators revealing sleeper cells. The advent of the PC rooms in Korea make tracking log-ins to North Korean controlled sites virtually impossible. South Korea has some 22,000 Internet cafes, also known as PC rooms. Many PC rooms are open 24 hours, but no minors are allowed after 10 pm. The North is now setting up sophisticated sites in China that South Koreans can access easily. Infiltrators will be only used to bring the deep-cover spies back to North Korea for debriefing.

In May 2004, the Defense Security Command (DSC), the military counterpart of the NIS, stated that "top graduates from Kim Il-Sung Military Academy, a military intelligence college, are handpicked and given intensive training in computer-related skills before being assigned to the hackers' unit." The intent of the unit is computer hacking and strengthening its cyber-terror ability. The DSC stated that the "DPRK military hackers were breaking into the computer networks of ROK government agencies and research institutes to steal classified information." (56)

In 1996, college students used email to pass information to North Korean spies. Since that time the internet exploded. The difficulty in the ROK to protect itself from computer crime illustrates just how hard it is to protect itself from computer espionage.

In April 2003, the DPRK started up Uriminzokkiri, a website in China to publish DPRK news releases and propaganda. This is open to all on the internet -- and wouldn't it be a nice way to pass coded information? All the infiltrators would have to do is deliver at drops updated code books.
(3). We believe ... The North has embedded their deep-cover spies in all facets of academia, labor unions, politics and infrastructure. These deep-cover spies have been operating since 1959 and actively recruited their replacements who are in place now. The North's influence in all aspects of Korean life is seen today in the radical "386" generation and Hanchongnyeon student activists. We believe ... Many of the NGO activist groups are influenced by embedded North Korean operatives. We believe ... that the Hanchongnyeon, Federation of Student Councils, is at the top of the list.

(4). We believe ... These deep-cover sleeper cells exist in the KUNSAN AREA -- and have existed since the 1958 when the nuclear alerts started at Kunsan. We believe ... it is safe to assume that deep-cover sleepers exist in jobs on Kunsan AB to this date -- though we wouldn't have a clue as to who they are. The US estimates that there may be as many as 3,000 sleeper agents living in the South. (38i) (SITE NOTE: If we as amateurs could guess, they wouldn't be very good spies.)

We believe ... The interest in Kunsan started in 1958 when the 3rd BW took up the nuclear alert at Kunsan -- as well as the other nuclear F-100C missions from Okinawa. (SITE NOTE: Starting in 1957, President Eisenhower approved forward positioning of nuclear weapons and U.S. military strategies included the use of these weapons early on in any all-out confrontation -- including the North Koreans.)

We believe ... The interest increased in the violent 1968-1969 period -- and especially after the Pueblo Crisis when the 4th TFW deployed with its and other squadrons. The 4th TFW returned stateside, the 354th TFW with its ANG F-100 aircraft were monitored. The nuclear alerts were maintained by TDY Japan units throughout this period. The interest peaked even more when the 3rd TFW and later 8th TFW were stationed at the base -- picking up the nuclear alert commitment. We believe ... the interest in Kunsan remains to the present day.

We believe ... The Kunsan area was chosen as a center of infiltrations in the past was because prior to the 1970s, it was a transportation hub with train connections to Taegu or Seoul and bus connections to major cities. Today, Kunsan Airport is a regional air connection. (SITE NOTE: Up to the late 1970s, the roads between Seoul and the Cholla area were dirt roads that were dusty in summer and mudholes in winter. Trains or intracity buses were the preferred methods of transportation.)

(5). We believe ... that the violent anti-American campaign of 2002 was orchestrated by North Korean sympathizers in the media and NGO activist groups who stirred up the people from all walks of life -- while Kim Dae-jung sat back doing NOTHING to stop it. This benefitted Roh Moo-hyun who jumped on the bandwagon of anti-Americanism and was swept into office. We believe ... that the Roh administration in carrying on with Kim Dae-jung's "Sunshine Policy" (now called "Peace and Prosperity Policy") and "self-reliant" military to make South Korea independent of USFK protection, signals the start of an era of heightened tension between the U.S. and Korea.

(6). We believe ... the current Roh Moo-hyun administration is intent on nullifying the National Security Law (NSL) -- though the Koreas are still technically at war. We believe ... that his actions to appoint a "left-leaning" head of the NIS and "North Korean sympathizer" to the planning function, speaks loudly of his intended "reforms" for the NIS. On 2 Sep 2004, Donga Ilbo, "Supreme Court Speaks out against the Repeal of the National Security Law" (2004-09-02) Following the Constitutional Court’s ruling in favor of the constitutionality of Article VII of the National Security Law (NSL) on the praise and encouragement of anti-state organizations and the possession of enemy-benefiting publications, the Supreme Court issued a noteworthy ruling, stressing the need for the continuance of the law. The Supreme Court upheld the NSL and chastized Uri Party leadership for trying to strip Korea of defense against DPRK. The Constitutional Court’s ruling in favor of the constitutionality of Article VII of the National Security Law (NSL) on the praise and encouragement of anti-state organizations and the possession of enemy-benefiting publications, the Supreme Court issued a noteworthy ruling, stressing the need for the continuance of the law. Division 1 of the Supreme Court, led by Justice Lee Yong-woo, upheld the jail sentence of two years and six months of the lower court against Kim and another, the two delegates of Hanchongryeon, a banned student organization, who were convicted under the praise and encouragement article of the NSL. On 5 Sep 2004, President Roh Moo-hyun said the country's controversial anti-communist National Security Law should be scrapped. "I think it will be better to abolish the National Security Law, a legacy of the military dictatorships of the past, although there are ongoing talks over its legal justification," the president said during a talk show hosted by MBC.

SITE NOTE: We agree that some facets of the NSL are grossly out of date. For example, in 2004 a company published the sheet music for the North Korean national anthem in a book -- along with other national anthems -- and the NIS investigated whether the company violated the NSL. However, we also feel that changes to the NSL has to be through REVISION of the law -- not by bypassing the law as President Roh is attempting to do with his "reforms" of the NIS.




Overview

In 1990 some analysts mistakenly felt that North Korea was "unsuccessful at developing a covert political infrastructure in South Korea or forging links with dissidents resident in South Korea, and after the early 1960s P'yongyang's efforts were unproductive." According to these analysts in 1990, it appeared that "P'yongyang placed or recruited only a limited number of political agents and sympathizers in the southern part of the peninsula. P'yongyang's agents acted individually for the most part, did not maintain regular contact with one another, and received only intermittent support and guidance." (38a)

However, in Nov 1992, a 400-member North Korean spy ring in South Korea was uncovered by the ANSP (Agency for National Security Planning). It was revealed that the mission of the spy ring was to establish an underground command center for subversive operations in the South. (38) Then in 1996, the unveiling of deep-cover spies who had been operating for over 35 years in Korea proved that the analysts in 1990 were completely wrong. Some deep-cover spies had been working undercover since the 1960s and there were families of spies dating back to the late 1950s. In 2004, the Ministry of Defense readily admits that North Korea routinely sends spy boats and submarines to the South to collect intelligence or deliver secret agents. (55)

This topic is too broad to be covered in depth and detail. This article is a simple overview. It is broken down into the major components of this espionage issue:



  • F. Computers: The New Age of Espionage -- The computer age arrived in Korea late, but propelled Korea into being a leading nation for computer usage. Since 1991, the ROK military has been "digitalizing" its C4ISR (command, control, communications, and computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems) from the top-down. In the computers of the nation are the dark secrets that the North wants to know. A new brand of hackers has been assembled by the North Korean army to hack into the South's computer systems. The computer age may change the operations of infiltration and deep-cover spies.



  • G. Attitudes Towards Spies and Communism -- America (1959) versus Kunsan AB (1959). We chose 1959 as it was a pivotal period in the world just before the Communist schism in 1960 when Russia and China went their separate ways. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1961 and the first advisors were sent to Vietnam. The North still did not have the wherewithal to mount an effective infiltration program until it received military aid from Russia in the form of submarines and spy boats. However, the bottomline is that most airmen in 1959 could not fathom a spy issue in Kunsan because it was a backwater hell-hole where the morale was bottoming out. The Koreans in 1959 were not in positions of trust -- and would not have even in the room where classified material was discussed. In 2004, the airmen still cannot fathom a North Korean spy issue -- though they are keyed in on "foreign intelligence" threats because of potential terrorism. The Koreans in 2004 are in positions of trust and it is unimaginable to think of them as threats. The morale is high, but the airmen are focused on taking the fight North -- and not on any "sleeper cell" that may be in operation on Kunsan.



Though we constantly hear about is the North Korean infiltrators, we also have to keep in mind that the South was doing the same thing.

According to the document that the Defense Ministry submitted to Grand National Party lawmaker Lee Kyeong-jae, 7,726 South Korean operatives infiltrated into North Korea have been killed since 1950. However, the government has informed only 136 families of the deaths of their family members killed while carrying out a mission as a South Korean spy.

A total of 13,835 operatives have been secretly dispatched to North Korea or trained to infiltrate into North Korea in the past 40 years: 4,536 operatives during the Korean War, between 1951 and July 1953; 3,604 operatives between 1953 and 1959; 2,806 operatives between 1960 and July 1972. (26)
We chose to start our look at 1959 because we feel that 1959 was a pivotal period -- both for Korea and America.

In Korea, 1959 was a pivotal year as it was the last year of the corrupt Syngman Rhee regime. President Rhee had twice amended the constitution so that he could remain in power. Economic policies focused on increased industrial production, but the country was on the verge of bankruptcy due to the inefficiencies of the Rhee administration and the embezzlement of aid and resources. In 1960, violence erupted over a fraudulent presidential election, and President Rhee resigned after the April 14th uprising. The transitional government created a bicameral legislature, and although the opposition Democratic Party (DP) was elected to power, it could not consolidate its gains. Rhee loyalists controlled the military and police, and the DP could not satisfy growing student demands for social and economic reforms. This in turn led to Maj. Gen. Park Chung Hee leading a coup and declaring martial law in 1961. Park assumed the presidency and cemented power in successive elections.

Prior to 1959, North Korea did not have the wherewithal to perform infiltrations by sea. However, from the 1960s through the1970s, "the DPRK imported (openly and clandestinely), reverse engineered, and indigenously designed and produced numerous series of SSm for use in intelligence and special operations missions." Among those submarines imported were the German Type-100 and Sea Horse II. The largest class of SSm is, however, based upon Yugoslavian designs and therefore is generally identified as yugo-class. The yugo class differ in overall dimensions, displacement, engines, and weapons fit. Construction of additional sub-classes of the Yugo SSm has continued till present. (51)

For America, 1959 was a significant pivotal year for America because it signaled the end of the Cold War -- in the sense that things started to "heat up" in 1960. Within a year, President Kennedy would dispatch the first "advisors" to Vietnam in 1959 and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 would push the world to the brink of WWIII. (9) In 1960, Communism would split along ideological lines with Mao Tse Tung splitting away from the Russian sphere. (9) The hysteria of all the school kids in America performing nuclear drills by hiding under their desks faded away and newer priorities were dawning. The era of "hippie" dissent with cries of "Love not War" was on the horizon.
However, though the world changed, the North-South stalemate in Korea continued unabated. Infiltration and spies were a way of life for both sides -- but in 1959 the North switched from infiltrators gathering information to inserting deep-cover spies into the Korean system.

TREND 1: North Korean deep-cover spies have pursued their "trade" for over 35 years. Though only a few have been uncovered, it is a fair assumption that many more still remain in operation. Spies such as Ko Young-bok, Professor Emeritus at SNU, operated undetected for over 40 years.

TREND 2: Deep-cover spies have infiltrated key infrastructure in Korea. In the late 1950s, North Korean middle school students were recruited and entered South Korean highschools. After graduation, they started out their spying in the 1960s entered into the low-level infrastructure of Korea. (1) Of course, once they gained seniority inside the "system," it is reasonable to assume that they could also "recommend" other spies sent to the South to obtain jobs in key infrastructure agencies using false documents. These "sleepers" are prepared to disrupt the key infrastructure functions in time of war with the aid of North Korean Special Forces dropped behind the lines in case of an all-out attack. If North Korea were to launch an invasion, say US analysts, it would attempt to isolate Seoul and quickly sweep across the rest of South Korea, overtaking the defenders before the US could move in reinforcements from outside the peninsula. This massive attack would be spearheaded by a large-scale special operations assault targeting US and South Korean military and leadership facilities. North Korea has more than 100,000 commandos, and the US estimates that there may be as many as 3,000 sleeper agents living in the South. (38i)

TREND 3: North Korea has planted "families of spies" to provide "safe houses" for infiltrators. Some North Korean spy networks discovered in the South were actually family groups which created "safe houses" for infiltrators. Once a family of spies were established in the community, selected North Korean middle-school students could be inserted into the South Korean school system, graduate from high schools and enter into preselected areas in key infrastructure agencies unsuspected. The case of Sim Chong-ung and his family of spies is an example of this. It is a fair assumption that other "families" are still in existence undetected.

TREND 4: North Korean spies in South Korea have actively sought out replacements in South Korean sympathizers as they grew elderly. Over the years, these individuals sought out others (South Koreans) who could be converted to work as North Korean spies. In the 1990s, the North exhorted their spies to recruit Southern-born sympathizers to their cause. Thus the method of first inputting North Koreans into the system has been supplanted by recruiting from South Korean stock already working in an area of interest to the North. The spies captured in 1996 indicated they were to observe and cultivate contacts with potential sympathizers. (22) The original deep-cover spies from the 1960s era have now reached the age of retirement and it is safe to assume that they have passed on the spy duties to South Korean operatives.

TREND 5: North Korean sympathizers and operatives have infiltrated key areas of the Korean society. The areas targeted for infiltration have been (1) academia and student unions; (2) instrastructure institutions; (3) political parties and labor unions; and (4) NGO activist groups. The Hanchongnyeon, Korean Federation of Student Councils, is an example of such a group. Compare these areas of infiltration with the violent anti-American activities in 2002-2004 originating from these sectors and one starts to wonder how much of the turmoil was North Korea directed. (See Protests: 2001; Protests: 2002; Protests: 2003; Protests: 2004 for more details.) Furthermore, we believe that special interest NGO activist groups have been formed with the specific aim of creating public disruptions and influencing the public towards blind acceptance of the ideal that if the Koreas were reunited all will be well with the world -- and the only thing stopping this is the American presence.

TREND 6: Infiltrators have entered South Korea with impunity since the 1960s. It is estimated that 95 percent of their missions are successful. The Korean coastline is too porous to protect against a clandestine operation using semi-submersibles and spy boats disguised as fishing boats. In 1990, the South Korean government simply threw their hands up and stated they could not defend against infiltration. Though there have been peaks and valleys in infiltration, it continues till today. The primary purpose would be to bury caches of "supplies" or cash for operatives in South Korea. In addition, the ROK has been embarrassed in their attempts to capture trained North Korean infiltrators.

TREND 7: North Korea has started to realize the potential of the internet for espionage, cyber-terrorism and communication with agents. Though North Korean does not have the infrastructure to support an internet explosion, it has created units for the training of hackers. Using China and Japan-based websites, they have started to publish their propaganda on the Web. As the South Korea defenses become more dependent on computerized systems, the more these systems expose its vulnerabilities. The South currently has a false sense of security that they operate as a "intranet" behind a firewall. However, even one computer on the "intranet" connected to the "internet" will expose their critical defense systems to hackers -- as the U.S. Defense agencies have sadly found out.

Communications from North Korea to operatives and pro-Pyongyang organizations in the South have remained steady in recent years at around 80,000 messages annually, but only two to four North Korean agents are nabbed in the country every year. Messages originating in the North and suspected of carrying North Korean directives involving espionage in South Korea increased in 2001, a year after the Inter-Korean summit meeting. Messages to spy vessels targeting the South jumped tenfold from 2000 to 2003. Messages coded by random numerical tables that could not be deciphered numbered over 300 last year. Instructions from North Korea to its South Korean-based spies shifted from forming underground cells by workers, farmers and students in the 1980s to gathering information on military installations in the 1990s and to collecting public opinion and winning collaborators since 2000. (38m)

North Korean agents arrested during the first eight months of 2004 totalled 14. The figure was three in 2000, four in 2001, two in 2002 and two in 2003, compared to 20 in 1998 and 15 in 1999. None of the North Korean operatives arrested in the South since 2000 had infiltrated the South directly from the North, but that all of them, except for two arrested in 2003, had come in through third countries. That the number of North Korean messages concerning espionage in the South has not changed means that there has been no significant change in the North's strategy toward the South. (38m)

It is worrisome that arrests of North Korean operatives have fallen under such circumstances. The two Koreas signed a secret pact during the inter-Korean summit talks in 2000, to stop subversive activities against each other, prompting then National Intelligence Service Director Im Dong-won to order the cessation of all North Korean operations. Under the secret accord, our operations against the North were suspended, but it cannot be verified whether the North has done the same here. (38m

TREND 8: The North Koreans spy networks have operated in Japan for 50 years -- and are now expanding into China targeting ROK/Japanese businessmen and government officials. Spies of Korean extraction have operated in Japan for over 50 years. In Nov 2000 Japanese authorities arrested Kang Song-hui, a former high ranking official of a pro-North Korean organization of Korean residents in Japan, initially on insurance fraud charges. Investigation revealed that Kang, after receiving espionage training in 1979 in the North, served as a North Korean spy for 20 years collecting information on South Korea while based in Japan in a bid to build an underground communist network in South Korea. (38) In December 2002, Japanese Police raided a suspected North Korean spy's Tokyo home to gather evidence, but did not arrest the 72-year-old man who allegedly received instructions from the North Korean ferry, Mangyongbong-92. The man, who had been in Japan since 1949, allegedly recruited spies to operate in South Korea, including members of the South Korean military. The man's name was not released. (38a)

The North Koreans are starting to set up spy operations in China as Korea starts to set up companies in China to take advantage of the cheap labor. On Feb 6, 2000 Yonhap News reported that between 600-700 female DPRK agents are conducting espionage activities in PRC big cities such as Beijing and Shenyang. Most are college graduates and pose as ethnic Koreans in the PRC and work at resaurants or karaoke bars to spy on RoK and Japanese businessmen and government officials. Allegedly the DPRK maintains an advanced spy training school in Shenang. (37d) North Korean websites and internet espionage will be centered out of China due to its international communications connectivity. Defectors report that many of the N.K. refugees in China are actually DPRK spies who are tracking down defectors.

In North Korea, there are three organizations sending spies – the 'Strategic Unit,' 'Communication Unit' and 'United Front Unit.' They all belong to the North Korean Labor Party. A spy recently arrested by the Japanese Police Department in 2002 was found to have been sent by the United Front Unit. A spy the South Korean police captured was sent by the Communication Unit. The Man Gyong Bong ferry ship to Japan has been used mainly by the United Front Unit. (38h)

TREND 9: We believe the present administration of Roh Moo-hyun intends to render the National Security Law (NSL) useless and the National Intelligence Service (NIS) impotent. Roh's actions to appoint a "left-leaning" head to the NIS and a "North Korean sympathizer" to the planning function is evidence of his intended "reforms." Our main misgivings is that Roh is unilaterally attempting to "reform" the NIS without changing the NSL through legislation. In Sep 2004, Roh voiced his full support for the repeal of the NSL, but the government refused to issue an official position on the issue. The Uri Party was for full-repeal, while the GNP favored modification of m many of the offensive passages, but retaining the NSL. (NOTE: The terms of "left-leaning" and "North Korean sympathizer" were those used by the National Assemblymen who opposed their appointments. The US now terms the Roh government "moderate leftist" -- whatever that means.) Roh will continue his efforts to "pardon" the outlawed Hanchongnyeon.

We conclude from the information reviewed -- and what we have seen over the past decade -- that the North Korean spying started in the 1950s-1960s and has continued unabated to the present, along with infiltrations along the coast. Spying is alive and well in Korea -- and the South Korean populace continue to stick their heads in the sand.



A. History of the DSC and NIS

The ROK has had two agencies involved in the spy-catching business -- the Korea Counter-Intelligence Corps (KCIC) which later the Defense Security Command (DSC) and Korea Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) which later became the National Intelligence Service (NIS). These ROK "spy agencies" were actually the "enforcement arms" of the Syngman Rhee (Yi Syng-man) and Park Chung-hee administrations.

The KCIC was founded in 1948 and handled both the domestic and cross-border intelligence -- but the main bulk of the counter-intelligence was handled by the ROK'S American counterparts, the US CIC and CIA. Instead, the KCIC became the "political enforcement" arm of the Syngman Rhee regime that gained power when Rhee declared martial law in 1952.

After the military coup that brought Park Chung-hee to power, the KCIA was born in May 1961. It was to "supervise and coordinate both international and domestic intelligence activities and criminal investigation by all government intelligence agencies, including that of the military." (28) In July 1960, the KCIC was separated as a strictly national defense organization -- no longer responsible for domestic intelligence which was handed off to the newly created KCIA. At that time, the KCIC became the Army Special Investigation Service (ASIS) which continued to search out spies and underground spy networks. However, its focus sharpened on internal military surveillance -- especially of high ranking military officers. (59)

Under Park Chung-hee, the ASIS started to take on domestic surveillance duties associated with its "spy catching" duties as well as monitoring the activities of the military. Soon after the 1968 North Korean assassination attempt on Park, the ASIS became the Army Security Command responsible for the external threat of spies and infiltrators. In 1977, the ASIS and the other services intelligence branches were combined under the Defense Security Command (DCS).

Under the Chun Doo-hwan administration, both the KCIA and DCS continued their oppressive sweeps of individuals who were considered in the opposition -- though not so blatantly as before.

In 2002, Presidential Truth Commission on Suspicious Deaths was set up by a National Assembly act to investigate the abuses of the organization. However, much of its power was diluted by denying it the right to subpoena witnesses, conduct searches or even demand access to official documents. Despite this, the commission did concluded that eight men convicted of belonging to a communist party in 1975 and executed less than a day later had been framed by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA). In another case, the commission found that Pastor Im Gi Yun, called in for questioning by military intelligence in 1980 because he was involved in a pro-democracy group, died from beatings and torture, not high blood pressure, as the military maintained. Another tragedy involved Choi Jong Gil, a law professor at the prestigious Seoul University. According to the KCIA, Choi jumped out of a seventh floor window at the agency's headquarters in 1973 rather than disclose details of a spy ring in South Korea. (59a)

However, because of the agency's secrecy based on the National Security Law (NSL), it proved to be an ideal tool to hide corruption through bribery or simply to hide money in "slush funds." Throughout the history of these organizations, there have been purges due to bribery and corruption scandals. This continued through the Roh Tae-Woo and Kim Young-sam administrations. In the Kim Dae-jung administration, the NIS transferred $200 million to North Korea just prior to the historic 2000 Summit. When the details were released in 2003, it was dubbed the "pay-for-summit" scandal -- winning Kim Dae-jung the Nobel Peace Prize and the North as much as $1 billion in aid. When the "reformist" President Roh Moo-hyun took power in 2003, his first acts were to attempt to "reform" the NIS -- though some felt "castrate" was a better word. In the words of the National Assembly committee, he appointed a "left-leaning" head of the agency and a "North Korean sympathizer" as the NIS Director of Planning.

Beginnings of the KCIC under Syngman Rhee During 1945-48, the US Army CIC (Counter Intelligence Corps) recruited several thousand Koreans who had worked for the Japanese police prior to 1945 hunting down Korean nationalists. These former Japanese police and informants were organized into ROKA CIC ("KCIC") in 1948. (5) During the Occupation Years, the unit was responsible for search out spies and underground spy networks. This included the communist guerillas in the Cholla Provinces, the Communist Uprising in Cheju and the Yeosu Uprising in 1949. (See Historical Perspective of the Cholla Provinces for details.)

The Special Investigation Division, regarded as the precursor of the Defense Security Command, was created within the Chosun Guardian Force Intelligence Division in May 1948. Shortly thereafter it was transformed into the Office of Special Investigation in Nov 1948 and subsequently the Army Counter-Intelligence unit (KCIC) in Oct 1949. (59) (NOTE: The "Guardian Force" was the Korean Constabulary set up by the U.S. Occupation forces as the precursor to the ROK Army. Unfortunately, the only individuals available with any para-military experience were Koreans who had been employed by the Japanese in either the Army or Police. This has led to charges of the U.S. hiring "collaborators" during the Occupation Years. Beginning in May 1948, the U.S. Military Government set up a training academy at Yongsan Garrison in Seoul to train the leaders of the unit.)

The National Security Law (NSL), which has been in force since 1948, has been used throughout the years to imprison people for non-violent political activities. The law provides long sentences or the death penalty for "anti-state" and "espionage" activities but these terms are not clearly defined and have often been used arbitrarily against people whose only crime is to exercise their basic rights to freedom of expression and association. Most arrests today are carried out under Article 7 of the law, which provides sentences of up to seven years' imprisonment for "praising" and "benefiting" the enemy (generally meaning North Korea). (30)

In the Korean War, the expanded need for counter-intelligence was needed. As a result the Counter-Intelligence Corps under the Army was established on 31 Oct 1950. The Army Counter-Intelligence Corp handled the major sweeps for communists guerillas and spies. (59)

The KCIC continued as Rhee's private spy agency with CWO Donald Nichols commanding the US CIC (6004th AISS) -- while "training" the Korean CIC (ROKA 6006th AISS) from 1951-1957. He became a personal friend of Syngman Rhee and is accused of helping Rhee silence his political opponents who were accused of being "communists." (7) An assassination attempt was made on Syngman Rhee's life by Kim Jae-ho in 1956. (59)

When the Korean War broke out, Nichols' unit was based at Pupyon in Seoul and he was the last American to leave Seoul. On his flight south, he participated in one of the worst massacres of civilians in the War - some 1,800 civilian prisoners were systematically shot to death by Nichols' S Korean employees (former Japanese police) at Suwon. Nichols narrates (7):

"I stood by helplessly, witnessing the entire affair. Two big bull-dozers worked constantly. One made the ditch-type grave. Trucks loaded with the condemned ("Communists") arrived. Their hands were already tied behind them. They were hastily pushed into a line along the edge of the newly opened grave. They were quickly shot in the head and pushed into the grave...."

"I tried to stop this from happening, however, I gave up when I saw I was wasting my time. I was the only foreigner there...I think I'd rather have gone with the dead and gotten it over with quick and easy - then I wouldn't have these terrible nightmares.

The worst part about this whole affair was that I learned later that not all the people killed were communists.." (7)
During the early days of the Korean War, the CIA had two quasi-independent operations in Korea: Office of Special Operations (OSO) led by George Aurell (which handled espionage) and the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) led by Hans Tofte (which was engaged in covert operations). On July 2, 1951, these two operations were merged into JACK - Joint Advisory Commission - Korea. (27) (NOTE: It is alleged that Tofte swindled millions of dollars from the CIA and as a result, his operations were closed down. He remained in the CIA, but was fired in 1966 after it was found he had large amounts of CIA secret documents secreted in his home.) JACK took over the covert operations of the CIA for the remainder of the war.

While the CIA handled the covert operations, the Korean Counter-Intelligence Corps (KCIC) was in charge of domestic espionage. However, the KCIC had become nothing more than a tool of the Syngman Rhee regime to root out its opposition and ruthlessly deal with communists. While the U.S. CIA elements controlled the North Korean operations, the ROK assumed the functions of rooting out the communist "spies" and if found guilty during interogations, there was no trial -- only summary execution.

After the War, the KCIC continued under the ROK Army, but soon the Navy National Security Unit in 1953 and Air Force Office of Special Investigation in 1954 were organized. In essence, each service was operating their own intelligence units to meet their own perceived national security needs, but the KCIC had now become a political arm of Syngman Rhee as well.

The U.S. Army handled the CIA operations up to until 1955 when the responsibility was switched to the ROK Army as the last of the U.S. Korean War units left the ROK. The KCIC remained Syngman Rhee's personal "enforcement" arm. Though it was supposedly an "intelligence" agency, it was not the North Koreans that it was spying on. The main mission of the KCIC was suppression and elimination of political opponents of Rhee Syngman. The magnitude of its methods of torture and "elimination" are only now surfacing.

It was Syngman Rhee, not the military, who initiated the political involvement of the military in intelligence activities. The turning point came in 1952 when Rhee proclaimed martial law-- and the presence of military police in the chamber of the National Assembly guaranteed passage of the constitutional amendment he sought over the objections of a recalcitrant legislative branch and still-independent judicial branch. Throughout Rhee's administration, two military units--the Joint Military Provost Marshal and the army Counterintelligence Corps (KCIC)--engaged in extralegal and violent political tactics, apparently not excluding the outright murder of politically undesirable people. Although the details never were disclosed fully, more than a few minor political figures' disappearances were connected to the two units. (60)
In July 1960, the Army Counter-Intelligence Corps (KCIC) was separated as a strictly national defense organization -- no longer responsible for domestic intelligence which was handed off to the newly created Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA). At that time, the KCIC became the Army Special Investigation Service which continued to search out spies and underground spy networks. However, its focus sharpened on internal military surveillance -- especially of high ranking military officers. (59)

Beginnings of the KCIA and DCS under Park Chung-hee After the toppling of the Syngman Rhee Regime, the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) was born in 1961 as part of the government. The KCIA was officially established as a primary national intelligence agency by the Central Intelligence Agency Law on 10 June 1961, immediately after the military coup of General Park Chung-hee, to function as the central source of security information. Based on the CIA Law, its missions were to "supervise and coordinate both international and domestic intelligence activities and criminal investigation by all government intelligence agencies, including that of the military." (28) At first Park Chung-hee's emergence as the power in Korea disturbed everyone as he was anti-American, a former Japanese officer, and a communist whose life was spared by during the purges of 1949. "To Washington's relief, Park turned out to be more anti-Communist than Rhee Syngman. However, Park was also more autocratic and corrupt than Rhee. He created the notorious "KCIA" and turned South Korea into a harsh police state. To his credit, Park started South Korea's economy going and pushed for détente and reunification with North Korea. Park's plan (the 'July 4th' Declaration) for reconciliation with Kim Il Sung was vetoed by the US and its chief architect (KCIA director) Lee Hu Rak was sacked." (37)

In Jan 1968 a 31-member commando team, disguised as South Korean soldiers and civilians, infiltrated within striking distance of President Park Chung Hee's office/residence complex (The Blue House) before they were intercepted by South Korean police. 29 commandos were killed and one committed suicide. One who was captured revealed that their mission was to kill President Park and other senior government officials. Two South Korean policemen and five civilians were killed by North Korean infiltrators.(38) The Army Special Investigation Service played a key role in the capture of the infiltrators. Soon afterward in Sep 1968, the became the Army Security Command responsible for the external threat of spies and infiltrators. However, the Navy and Air Force still maintained their own smaller intelligence units patterned on their American counterparts. It would retain this name until Oct 1977 when the units were combined under the Ministry of Defense as the Defense Security Command. (59) It also was responsible for the training and dispatch of spies INTO North Korea up till 1972. (26)

Under Park, the provost marshal's political role declined, while the CIC and its successor, the Army Security Command (ASC), concentrated on internal military security. The CIC/ASC, which was under Park's direct control, maintained strict surveillance over all high-ranking officers. It acted as a deterrent to would be coup leaders. It tried, less successfully, to prevent the rise of disruptive factions within the military. (60)

However, some clique's remained such as the "Hanahoe," (One Mind Society), had its origins in an alumni group, the Taegu Seven Stars, of seven young officers, including Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo, from the first graduating class of the Academy (Class 11). (60)

The first head of the KCIA in 1961 was Kim Jong-pil, a figure who would remain in politics until 2004. Kim, utilizing the existing KCIC, built a 3,000-member organization--the most powerful intelligence and investigatory agency in Korea. Throughout its history, the organization would arrest people on charges and many would suddenly commit "suicide" under suspicious circumstances or simply disappear. (5) The most famous incident of how the KCIA operated was in 1973 when the KCIA kidnapped Kim Dae-jung (who later became President) from a Japanese hotel. He was beaten senseless, drugged and taken to a KCIA spyship. The US-CIA and Japanese Intelligence got wind of the kidnapping and the US sent fighters to intercept the spy ship and sent a helicopter down to broadcast the message that Kim was to be kept alive in no uncertain terms. Sources believe that the KCIA might have quietly executed him, if the US Ambassador in Seoul Phil Habib hadn't forcefully intervened. On August 13, 1973, Kim Dae Jung was thrown out of a car onto a street near Seoul. He was placed under house arrest by the authorities. A decade later, President Chun Doo-hwan had Kim Dae-jung sentenced to death for sedition but foreign pressure again saved his life. After having been sentenced to death, was permitted in 1982 to leave for asylum in the United States after the intercession of President Reagan. He returned to Korea with guarantees for his safety in 1985. A common complaint about Kim Dae-jung by South Korea's authoritarians was that he was either a closet communist or else too sympathetic towards the communist side in Korea's enduring civil war.

Under Park, the lack of advancement in civil liberties continued to be justified by referring to the threat from North Korea. The political influence of the Ministry of Home Affairs and the police declined in the face of the KCIA's power. The relationship between the police and general public, however, was not significantly altered. As Se-Jin Kim wrote in 1971: "The former still act with arbitrary arrogance; the latter respond with fear but not respect." (34)

The KCIA has been openly accused of the murder of many individuals. In 1973 scholar Tsche Chong Kil was found dead at KCIA headquarters. Agents say he jumped from a seventh-floor window after confessing to spying for North Korea. (22) The KCIA claimed he committed suicide over "regret" for his behavior. (4) However, in recent years, the tales of torture and murder have surfaced as families demand information on their missing sons/daughters that disappeared after being arrested by the KCIA.

As the KCIC was infamous during the cold war for its ruthless pursuit of enemies—real and perceived—of Syngman Rhee, so was the KCIA (1961) for the country's right-wing, authoritarian leaders, Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan. Ironically, the KCIA chief Kim Chae Gyu, assassinated Park Chung Hee in 1979.

In October 1977, the military was reorganized and the Army Security Command became the Defense Security Command bringing the Navy and Air Force intelligence services under one umbrella group. The responsibility remained to be responsible for the external threat to South Korea from spies and infiltrators entering the country. The KCIA continued to handle the domestic threats posed by spies operating within the country.

The Defense Security Command was formally activated in October 1977. This merger of the Army Security Command, the Navy Security Unit, and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations produced a single, integrated unit under the direct command and operational control of the minister of national defense. Although technically subordinate to the minister, the DSC commander operated semiautonomously and typically had personal, direct access to the president. Given the disparity in service size, the old ASC predominated within the DSC. The strength of the DSC varied over time within a probable range of 5,000 to 7,000 people during the 1980s.

The DSC (and its predecessors) was created to deal with the real question of loyalty within a military on a divided peninsula. It was inspired by the Guomindang model, in which political officers monitored the military services for subversion or disloyalty. The DSC was responsible for monitoring the military for loyalty; safeguarding military information; monitoring domestic political, economic, and social activities that might jeopardize military capabilities and national unity; maintaining defense industrial security--both physically and in terms of counterespionage; countering North Korean infiltration; detecting espionage and anticommunist law violations; and conducting special investigations at the direction of the president.

The DSC assigned small elements to all major military units to monitor security and loyalty. These elements operated outside the unit's chain of command and performed a highly effective independent audit function. The DSC representatives never rivaled unit commanders as political officers occasionally had in communist military units. Their input into officer evaluations, however, often played a decisive role in career progression, giving DSC members influence far beyond their rank and producing friction between them and the "regular" military. Corruption within the DSC was difficult to verify, but political manipulations, misappropriation of operating funds, and undue influencing of promotions certainly occurred and were particularly rampant in the mid- to late 1970s. (60)
After the 1979 assassination of President Park Chung Hee by the KCIA director, the KCIA was purged and temporarily lost much of its power. Chun Doo Hwan used his tenure as acting director of the KCIA (as Commander of the DSC) from April to July 1980 to expand his power base beyond the military and became the next strongman. The slow pace of reform led to growing popular unrest. In early May 1980, student demonstrators protested a variety of political and social issues, including the government's failure to lift emergency martial law imposed following Park's assassination. The student protests spilled into the streets, reaching their peak during May 13 to 16, at which time the student leaders obtained a promise that the government would attempt to speed up reform.

DCS and KCIA under Chun Doo-hwan The military's response, however, was political intervention led by Lieutenant General Chun Doo Hwan, then KCIA chief and Army Chief of Staff. Chun, who had forced the resignation of President Ch'oe's cabinet, banned political activities, assemblies, and rallies, and arrested many ruling and opposition politicians. In Kwangju on May 19, demonstrations to protest the extension of martial law and the arrest of Kim Dae Jung turned into rebellion as demonstrators reacted to the brutal tactics of the Special Forces sent to the city. The government did not regain control of the city for nine days, after some 200 deaths. (34) (35)

(SITE NOTE: The official death toll was tallied at 600+ under the Roh Tae-woo administration, but Kwangju activists claim to this date the death toll was much higher at about 2000. To this date, the May 18th Uprising is memorialized in Korea as part of the Democracy Movement with politicians throughout the ROK visiting Kwangju to lay wreaths at the graves of those who died in the uprising as the politically correct thing to do. To this date, The U.S. is blamed for its action (or rather inaction) when Chun Doo-hwan unilaterally pulled soldiers from the Seoul Defense Command under the ROK-US Combined Forces Command to end the uprising. Koreans accuse General John A. Wickham, Jr., of releasing the troops from the CFC and President Reagan of "strongly endorsing" Chun's actions. Known as the "Kwangju Massacre", it was to become an important landmark in the struggle for South Korean democracy. It heightened provincial hostility and marked the beginning of the rise of anti-American sentiment in South Korea. (35))

KCIA Redesignated as ANSP In March 1981, the Agency for National Security Planning (ANSP) was redesignated as the principal agency for collecting and processing all intelligence. The requirement for all other agencies with intelligence-gathering and analysis functions in their charters to coordinate their activities with the ANSP was reaffirmed. During and following Chun's rise to power, the Defense Security Command (DSC) greatly expanded its charter into domestic politics and during the early 1980s was, perhaps, the dominant domestic intelligence service. The DSC was "credited" with masterminding the media reorganization of 1980 and with being the midwife for the first political parties of the Fifth Republic. Many former DSC members played prominent roles in Chun's administration and in the ruling Democratic Justice Party. (60)

The National Security Act increasingly was used after 1985 to suppress domestic dissent. Intended to restrict "antistate activities endangering the safety of the state and the lives and freedom of the citizenry," the act also was used to control and punish nonviolent domestic dissent. Its broad definition of offenses allowed enforcement over the widest range, wider than that of any other politically relevant law in South Korea. Along with other politically relevant laws such as the Social Safety Act and the Act Concerning Crimes Against the State, it weakened or removed procedural protection available to defendants in nonpolitical cases. (34)
The ANSP " not only detained those accused of violating laws governing political dissent, but also put under various lesser forms of detention--including house arrest--those people, including opposition politicians, who they thought intended to violate the laws." (34) Kim Dae-jung (President, 1998-2003) fell under this category as did Kim Young-sam (President, 1993-1998). "Many political, religious, and other dissidents were subjected to surveillance by government agents. Opposition assembly members later charged in the National Assembly that telephone tapping and the interception of correspondence were prevalent. Ruling party assembly members, government officials, and senior military officials probably also were subjected to this interferencal though they did not openly complain." (34)

Listening to North Korean radio stations remained illegal in 1990 if it were judged to be for the purpose of "benefiting the antistate organization" (North Korea). Similarly, books or other literature considered subversive, procommunist, or pro-North Korean were illegal; authors, publishers, printers, and distributors of such material were subject to arrest." (34) These provisions under Article 5 of the NSL still causes heartburn today.

In 1987, it was found that ANSP agents tortured and killed student activist Park Chong Chol, a student at Seoul National University being questioned as to the whereabouts of a classmate. An autopsy revealed his windpipe was smashed on the edge of a bathtub. (22) This event played a decisive role in galvanizing public opposition to the government's repressive tactics. The government continued, however, to block many "illegal" gatherings organized by dissidents that were judged to incite "social unrest." The smell of tear gas filled the streets in violent confrontations until its use was limited in 1989. In 1988 government statistics noted 6,552 rallies involving 1.7 million people. There were 2.2 million people who had particiated in 6,791 demonstrations in 1989.

There was a public outcry for the DSC and the ANSP to cut back on its domestic political activities. Both the DSC and the ANSP withdrew from the National Assembly at the same time in 1988. In October 1988, the DSC would concentrate on counterespionage activities, preventing the spread of communism, conducting "relevant research," major restructuring, and would discontinue the investigation of civilians. Subsequently, the DSC eliminated the Office of Information that had been charged with collecting information on civilians, whose members had been active in local government offices. As a result of this move, 116 small detachments were disbanded, and the DSC announced plans to cut 860 personnel, or 14 percent of its 1990 strength. (60)

Despite the democratic trends of the late 1980s, intelligence and security agencies still were populated by individuals who were both institutionally and personally loyal to the president and ready to use any means at their disposal to support him. (60)

As of 1990, however, the ANSP remained deeply involved in domestic politics and was not prepared to relinquish the power to prevent radical South Korean ideas--much less North Korean ideas- -from circulating in South Korean society. Despite an agreement in September 1989 by the chief policymakers of the ruling and opposition parties to strip the ANSP of its power to investigate pro-North Korean activity (a crime under the National Security Act), the ANSP continued enforcing this aspect of the law rather than limiting itself to countering internal and external attempts to overthrow the government. The ANSP continued to pick up radical student and dissident leaders for questioning without explanation. (34)
Chun Doo-hwan agreed to step down and allow democratic elections. When the first democratic presidential election was held in 1987 after ex-general Chun Doo-hwan's retirement, Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung ran against each other, splitting the opposition vote and enabling ex-general Roh Tae-woo--Chun Doo-hwan's hand-picked successor--to win the election by a close margin. (SITE NOTE: Later Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo would be tried for "sedition" and corruption as a direct result of the need for vengeance over the Kwangju Uprising under the Kim Young-sam administration in 1996.) The ANSP involvement in domestic politics continued as it provided "domestic intelligence" to the ruling party to assist in the elections.

ANSP and DSC in a Democracy On 06 Apr 96 More than 100 North Korean troops entered the northern sector of the Joint Security Area (JSA) at Panmunjom the day after North Korea announced it had "dismissed" the armistice with the South. Both ROK and US forces were put on a higher state of alert—Watchcon 2—although there was no change in defense readiness, which was maintained at Defcon 4. (The CFC reverted to Watchcon 3 several weeks after the April armistice violation.) (49) Many years later, there were allegations that the Kim Young-sam administration used the NIS to set up this North Korean incursion to influence the elections. No proof has been given, however, it was investigated by the Ministry of Justice.

During the tenure of President Kim Young-sam (1993-1998), the North Korean infiltrations were repeatedly exposed. Kim Dong-shik (captured) and Park Kwang-nam (shot to death) were captured in Puyo on 24 Oct 1995. The captured agent disclosed that he had infiltrated two months earlier, with a mission to contact anti-government dissidents, politicians, and an organization of underground cells. This created a stir. On 27 Oct 1997 Ch'oe Chong-Nam and Kang Yon-Chong were arrested in the coffee shop of the Ulsan Korean Hotel. Their mission was basically the same. On 22 Jun 1998 a North Korean midget submarine was seized after it was spotted entangled in South Korean fishing nets off the South Korean town of Sokcho, south of the DMZ with the crew dead inside. North Korea "promised" to stop intrusions. However, on 12 Jul 1998, a body of a North Korean frogman was found on a beach south of the DMZ, along with paraphernalia suggesting an apparent infiltration/espionage mission and Kim Young-sam was supposedly livid over the North Korean "betrayal." Then on 20 Nov 1998 North Korean high-speed spy boat (apparently a five-ton semi-submersible) eludes pursuers in South Korean waters near the west coast island of Kanghwa, aborting an apparent operation to infiltrate agents into or ferry agents back from the South. Causing great embarrassment to the military and the Kim Young-sam government. During Kim Young-sam's tenure, the ANSP was succeeding in uncovering "sleeper cells" -- but the military proved to be incompetent in stopping infiltration. In the coming years, it would be repeatedly embarassed over infiltrations.

Because the ANSP's monies were a "black hole" for unaccountable funds, it was a tempting target for misuse by those in power. Between 1995-1996, Spy-agency director Kwon Young Hae was suspected of siphoning about $155 million from the agency's budget to fund the New Korea Party's presidential-election campaign against challenger Kim Dae-jung. (22) But this had been a problem with this organization since its inception. Even when Kim Dae-jung came to power, he too misused the slush funds.

In 1998 with the "IMF Crisis" was in full-swing, there had been disaster after disaster beyond his control -- not including the disgrace of the Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo "sedition" trials. His party was about to lose the elections. Kim Young-sam allegedly ordered the ANSP to undermine the campaign of Kim Dae-jung by spreading rumors of his communist ties and the publicizing internationally the defection to North Korea of Oh Ik-Je, a high-ranking advisor to Kim Dae Jung. (36) (38l) While the press played up the Oh defection, they never attempted to explain how Oh came to be an advisor in the first place -- and the Kim Dae-jung camp downplayed his importance saying he was an "acquaintance." On the other hand, the liberal newspaper Hankyoreh attempted to deflect attention from the Kim Dae-jung camp by claiming the it was an underhanded move of the Kim Young-sam faction. Kim Dae-jung was elected despite the adverse publicity.

However, though he had the regional vote of the Cholla provinces, he needed the Kyongsang area to win. Remembering his loss in the race against Roh Tae-woo, he cut an under-the-table deal to resign after two years and hand over power to Kim Jong-pil as his Premier -- an unbelievably unconstitutional maneuver. After Kim was elected, he reneged on the deal and Kim Jong-pil resigned as his Premier with much bitterness.

Once in office, Kim Dae-jung started on his "Sunshine Policy" dealing with an openess towards North Korea. In 2000, the historic summit between Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il took place. Hopes soured for peace in Korea. However, it would soon turn sour. In 2003, a scandal erupted over the NIS director Lim Dong-won illegally transferred $200 million dollars to North Korea PRIOR to the famed June 2000 North-South summit. The payment facilitated the summit which in turn led to Kim Dae-jung recieving the Nobel Peace Prize -- but eventually was revealed as the "Pay for Summit" scandal tarnishing Kim's image permanently. (21) (SITE NOTE: On 25 May 2004 (Buddha's Birthday), President Roh Moo-hyun pardoned 352 people, which include former NIS head Lim Dong-won and five other people involved in illegal cash transfers to North Korea ahead of the historic inter-Korean summit.)

In 1999, President Kim attempted to revise the law, but failed in the face of strong resistance from the nation's conservatives. (64a) Because of the bad press associated with the name of the ANSP, Kim Dae-jung on 22 January 1999 had the ANSP renamed the National Intelligence Service (NIS). However, despite the name change, corruption was rampant in the NIS and has remained so till the present time. Its abuses of power have continued. There were pledges to cleanup the agency, but it never took root. Between 2001 and 2002, several former senior NIS officials received jail terms for taking bribes from businessmen.

Kim Dae-Jung had a hard time with his "Sunshine Policy" and the chilly relationship with George Bush when he was elected did not help. The relations with the North was troubled by President Bush's stance that the North was part of the "Axis of Evil." The opening of the North and starting the dialogue was to be Kim Dae-Jung's legacy as he left office in December 2003. However, the scandals over his sons corruption cases and other doldrums, it looked like there would be an ignominous end to his Presidency. Then in June 2003, a naval engagement between the North and South left a South Korean ship was sunk. There appeared to be little chance that any negotiations would take place. At the 11th hour, the North again agreed to set down to talks again. Thus the on-and-off again negotiations over the DPRK's nuclear weapons continued -- with the South Korea being used as a wedge to breakup the US-Korea-Japan alliance.

In the 2000s, things started to change drastically in Korea with the "386 generation" coming to power. These people view the political realities in Korea very differently from the people in 1959 -- and to conservative elements, fool-hardily and naively accept the North Koreans as their "brothers" despite the troops massed along its borders. Reared on student activism, they openly support some very radical ideas that are forcing the U.S. to seriously reconsider its military strategy in the defense of Korea. (SITE NOTE: The "386" stands for those in their 30-40s who were educated in the 80s and were born in the 60s.) (See Military Affairs (2004).)

In recent years starting with Kim Dae-jung, if communist spies or infiltrators repented, they would be allowed freedom from prison -- though constantly monitored after released. The most famous of these "repentant spies" was Kim Hyun Hee, who along with a male agent (Kim Sung Il), planted a bomb on KAL 858 on Nov. 28, 1988 killing 115 passengers. She was captured, tried and sentenced to death. While waiting for her execution, she became a Christian and renounced Kim Il Sung. She was pardoned and became an instant celebrity. Her book The Tears of My Soul became a best seller earning her a million dollars in royalties. (6) (46) Those spies or insurgents who are unrepentant have remained in prison until they reached their late 70s when they would receive Presidential pardons. In 2000, unrepentant North Korean spies were offered release to North Korea -- which some accepted and received a hero's welcome upon their return to North Korea. Other spies who had "converted" -- meaning they accepted a release from prison after signing a pledge -- were not allowed to go to the North.

The most touchy issue deals with those who have visited the North whether as idealistic students or religious leaders without government permission. To many this is considered an outdated provision. Kim Nak Joong visited North Korea 40 years ago and was tortured by the NIS. In the end he spent a total of 18 years in prison until his release in 1998. Though he denied spying, others stated openly that he was a spy. (21) When President Roh Moo-hyun took over in 2003, the pardons became commonplace for such people convicted under the National Security Law.

NIS and DSC under Roh Moo-hyun According to a June 2003 Time Asia article, "As South Korea has evolved into a progressive democracy, however, the agency's vicious methods and anticommunist agenda have increasingly become an outdated national embarrassment. Now, the reform-minded administration of South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun has set about rehabilitating the agency—or, as some believe, castrating it." (21)

Abolition of the law was one of the public pledges of the administration of President Roh Moo-hyun. As a reflection of this new mood, President Roh Moo-hyun upon taking office in 2003 immediately assigned a North Korean sympathizer to the position of the Director of the National Security Planning Agency. President Roh alienated the National Assembly when he appointed a "left-leaning" individual, Ko Young-koo, to head the National Intelligence Service to "reform" it. The National Assembly voiced strong opposition as his nominee was considered as having no experience for the top intelligence job. As Roh did not need the National Assembly approval, he angrily appointed him despite the opposition. (See NIS and National Security Law.) To add salt to the wounds, the National Assembly National Security Committee objected to the nomination of Suh Dong-man to the head of the NIS Planning and Coordination department because they openly claimed he was a "North Korean sympathizer." "We seem to have forgotten that North Korea is communist and is still eager to reunify the two Koreas under communism," says lawmaker Hahm Seung Heui, a member of the bipartisan National Assembly's Intelligence Committee. (21) Roh brushed this aside and he was appointed anyway.

Critics see Roh's appointment of liberal lawyers and activists to run the NIS as a political gambit to further his policy of engagement with the North. With Ko at the helm, "the agency will be pro-North Korean," fumes Chung Hyung Keun, a conservative lawmaker and former spy catcher. (21) After his impeachment was overturned, President Roh Moo-hyun returned the resignation submitted by the head of the nation's chief spy agency, paving the way for him to control his agency for a considerable time. Ko Young-koo, director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), presented his resignation just after Roh was reinstated by the Constitutional Court on May 14.

A new reform blueprint curtailed the agency's domestic-spying operations and abolished its anticommunist bureau. Hundreds of operatives whose jobs were to infiltrate "subversive" groups, including labor unions, now lawfully gather intelligence on foreign-business competitors overseas.

From President Roh's perspective, Ko was credited with making the NIS "less domestically oriented." Since taking office, Ko has been emphasizing the spy agency's role in collecting information overseas and preventing the outflow of advanced technologies from domestic companies. It has been notorious in the past for political maneuvering to benefit the candidates of ruling parties in the lead up to various elections. Ko has been urging NIS officials not to meddle in domestic politics or general elections under any circumstances.

The NIS will be responsible for ferreting out North Korean spies. But the job of catching domestic sympathizers will be passed to the country's Korean National Police (KNP) -- a task which it is ill-prepared, ill-equipped, ill-trained and has no will to pursue. The shift in responsibilities, as well as efforts to make the NIS more accountable, have made the agency a toothless tiger in less than a year. It is believed that this action would give freer rein to the thousands of North Korean agents believed to be operating in the South. (21)

The extent that the Roh administration has shifted the view of "communists" was seen in Jun 2004 when the Presidential Truth Commission on Suspicious Deaths said that "those who struggle against unjust government forces to defend one’s ideology and conscience, despite refusing to accept liberal democracy, can be seen as in association with the democratization movement." Seo Jae-il from the truth commission revealed that, “Choi and Park were North Korean spies in the 1950s and Sohn was a pro-North guerrilla.” Regarding the suspicious deaths of these three people, the first commission in 2002 stated they had no relation to the democratization movement and dismissed the matter. However, the second truth commission in 2004 said, “During the conversion procedures, their basic human rights were violated. Since the illegalness of the converting system and the law-abiding oath was revealed while they were struggling to follow procedures, it can be seen as a contributing to democracy,” and approved their deaths as suspicious deaths. The truth commission added, “The conversion system itself was basically illegal and the freedom in ideology and conscience that is stated on the constitution is an internal freedom that cannot be forced.” Thus under Roh, communist spies who die in confinement contributed to democracy. (21a) Because of the public outcry, a panel under the Prime Minister's Office expressed disagreement with the recognition of two North Korean spies as people who fought for democracy. On 7 July 2004, the hastily assembled panel stated, "Because they denied our country's constitutional order and threatened our national security, we cannot recognize them as pro-democracy fighters even if they insisted on the abolition of antidemocratic laws while in prison," the panel said. (21b) On 16 July 2004, it was revealed that three "investigators" convicted of spying for communist North Korea were found to be working on the Presidential Truth Commission. Although the three men have had their civil rights reinstated under government amnesties by Kim Dae-jung, their service on a sensitive presidential investigative panel stirred angry protests by critics of reformist President Roh Moo-hyun. (21c) One handed over military secrets to the North in return for operational funds. He was arrested in 1993 and served in prison for four years. Another person was an official of the anti-state South Korean Socialist Workers’ League who was arrested in 1990 and served eight years’ imprisonment.

As soon as the responsibility for catching "domestic sympathizers" was passed to the KNP, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, a state-run human rights watchdog established by Kim Dae-jung, in June 2004 accused law enforcement agencies of giving points for convictions in cases involving suspected violation of National Security Law (NSL). This resulted in a massive violation of the human rights of suspects. The number of people arrested for suspected violation of the NSL stood at 7,778 from 1961-2002. (64) After the Uri Party consolidated their hold on the National Assembly, in August 2004, the party proposed legislation that would revise the inter-Korean exchange law; legislate the inter-Korean relation development law; and abolish/revise the NSL simultaneously. The Uri Party felt that the NSL should be nullified in order to remove "basic problems running counter to democracy and the mprovement of inter-Korean relations." Concerning the follow-up measures after the law is abolished, the Uri Party is divided into two factions: one supports the legislation of an alternative law, considering public sentiment, while the other claims that an alternative law is not necessary because the criminal law can cope with related cases. Plans are underway to submit a revision of the NSL instead of the abolition. Clauses that define what organizations are anti-state and a clause designating "groups claiming to be a government" so that North Korea is no longer considered anti-state organization. In this way, pro-North groups prosecution would be dramatically reduced. (21d)

"The law has been so widely applied that its subjects not only include novels and movies but also citizens' jokes during a drinking party," the report read. "It served not as a law, but as a chief tool to instill into citizens' consciousness that thoughts that deviate from government-prescribed political thinking should be punished." It is the first time in memory that a governmental body has criticized the law. Since its adoption in 1948 to counter internal threats generated by North Korea, the National Security Law has provoked controversy in civil society.

"The purpose of this law is to restrict anti-state activities which endanger national security, so that the nation's security and the life and liberty of the citizens can be secured," the law's first article says. Many civic groups and human rights activists say that the law has been twisted and used for witch hunts and political persecution. It has been used to imprison people who were thought to be inclined to communist ideology. (64a)
In May 2003, President Roh ordered the NIS to stop its surveillance of media organizations and government ministries. It was strange that it was at the same time that Roh launched his attack on the "gangster press" -- and attempted to weaken their power by limiting their market share.

By the same token, the Defense Security Command (DSC) has been relegated to an intelligence gathering function. Unfortunately, the reliance on U.S. spy satellites for information and U.S. sources for intelligence data outside of Korea has proven to be a great weakness in the organization. The bulk of the intelligence that the South receives is from the U.S. and there are concerns over real-time intelligence and the future effectiveness of the NIS. The exchange of intelligence between the two countries is immensely important and if the process breaks down it could trigger a crisis.

There has been friction developing ever since Robert Kim, a Korean-American analyst with Naval Intelligence, provided documents to the ROK Military Attache dealing with the 1996 submarine incursion during the Kim Young-sam administration. Robert Kim was sentenced to 9 years and 3 years probation for espionage, but was released after 7 years in prison for good behavior in 2004. (25) In July 2004, Robert Kim demanded the South Korean government to acknowledge his contribution and restore his honor. "The South Korean government has never said whether they have received my help or not," he told a news conference. "My reputation will be restored only if they say they received my assistance. There was no comment from the ROK government, though the media continued to paint him as a native son and hero. (25b)

However, according to US Federal Bureau of Investigation wiretaps, Robert Kim and his brother Kim Yung-gon devised a plan to "acquire", reverse engineer and sell a secret US military computer system to the South Korean government, a plan that if successful would likely have ensured the two brothers a huge windfall for their efforts. Robert Kim acquired export permits and licenses that would have allowed the Kim brothers to export stolen, sensitive technology to South Korea under the guise of normal technology trade. These licenses were ultimately revoked by the US Department of Commerce in June 2000.

Espionage in intelligence agencies is not new. Money, blackmail - the motivators are many, but the gall of Kim claiming his treasonous behavior was motivated only by love of his birth country is frustrating, not supported by fact, and wholeheartedly accepted by the South Korean press and relayed as truth to the Korean people, many of whom consider Kim a hero and a patriot - nationality notwithstanding. That Robert Kim is guilty of sedition is incontrovertible. He was not tried and found guilty, but rather pleaded guilty to "conspiring to gather national defense information" when confronted with the mountain of evidence investigators had compiled. He pleaded guilty and cut a deal on sentencing; a deal that in 1997 reflected the strong desire of the US government to maintain the perception of a strong US-South Korea alliance, vital to maintaining the deterrence component of the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea. (25b)

In fact, the Korean-American community has become suspect as John Joungwoong Yai, 59, a naturalized citizen who had lived in the U.S. for over 20 years, was accused of operating within the United States at the direction and control of North Korean officials. Authorities say he gathered information and forwarded it to the North Korean government over several years. (25a)

In May 1998, eight Korean-Americans, who had been intermediaries between South Korean businesses and North Korea under Kim Young-sam's Government, were blacklisted by the ROK saying they were "pro-communists and unreliable, and should not be contacted." Those listed were:

  • Kim Young-hun, 58, (head of the Korean Security Institute of the U.S. Security Council), (38j)
  • Kim Yang-il, 58, (advisor to the Korea U.S. Food Federation), (38j) -- Alleged that "Kim Yangil, the Korean American who had arranged Jung Jaemung contact went to Seoul on November 28. A high-ranking ANSP agent in Tokyo accompanied him on a first-class seat. He was met by four top ANSP brass at the airport and receive a VIP treatment". (38k) He is listed as a Korean-American 'businessman' (honorary chairman of the Los Angelese Korean Food Service Association), was present at a meeting of Chun Chaemung (a Kim Dae Jung supporter) and Ahn Byong Soo, a North Korean official, in Beijing on November 20, 1997. The ANSP claims that Kim delivered $3.6 million dollars to Ahn as a bonus for North Korea's cooperation in the North Wind project, but Kim denies this allegation. Kim was instrumental in arranging a meeting of Kim Young Sam (prior to his election as President) and Huh Dam (a North Korean official). Kim got to know Ahn Byong Soo and Chun Chaemung from this meeting. Kim has been to North Korea several times. Kim wants to help improve North Korean argriculture and is working to procure fertilizers for North Korea. (38l)
  • David Chang, 55, (senior vice-president of Nikko Trade), (38j)
  • Tony Namkung, 53, (consultant for the Atlantic Council), (38j)
  • Kim Young-jin, 70, (professor of George Washington University), (38j)
  • Park Kyong-yoon, (chairman of the Kumkangsan International Group), (38j)
  • Scott Oh, 33, (consultant for AZ&C), (38j)
  • Oh Jong-hwan, 47, (president of United Projects). (Kim In-ku, ginko@chosun.com) (38j)
The U.S. sources in turn have accused the DCS of not providing access to North Korean defectors information. While the US has high-tech abilities through satellites to monitor North Korea, South Korea has strength in human intelligence gleaned from defectors. The problem is the Koreans are reluctant to share the information extracted or don't provide everything. Ready access to defectors gives South Korean analysts a better sense of the validity of what they are told and the ROK is reluctant to share its intelligence. (61)

In Mar 2004, the U.S. military intelligence community was reported to be "frustrated in its attempts to obtain information on North Korea - including access to defectors - from the South's National Intelligence Service." Kim Dae-jung's Sunshine Policy caused the present difficulties by gagging defectors from making embarrassing comments on the North. Supposedly, "defectors have had to keep a low-profile in South Korea, partly due to the protectiveness of South Korean officials concerned with offending the North and giving ammunition to US hawks." (61)

Fast, complete access to defectors is vital to the U.S. intelligence community in light of how little the CIA knows about the extent of Pyongyang's nuclear programs, but the access is being denied. The ROK relies almost exclusively on US intelligence information from satellite monitoring, but its intelligence in not reciprocal. The case of Mr. Hwang Jang-yop, who was a North Korean party secretary before defecting seven years ago is at the heart of the current problems. Hwang and a top aide who defected with him arrived in Seoul from Beijing, where they had sought refuge in the South Korean Embassy, several months before Kim Dae-jung's election in December 1997. Although the government was conservative until Kim's inauguration in February 1998, CIA officials had to wait several months before getting to see Hwang, and they never had the steady access they would have liked. Then, when a North Korean officer in charge of a missile unit and a former senior official at North Korea's Nuclear Research Institute came to South Korea in 2003, the ROK hid them in a rural area. (61) Hwang first claimed to have a list of "10,000" spies, but later dropped that to those he knew. However, he has not been able to meet privately with the U.S. intelligence sources. Even when he visited the U.S. in 2003, he was not allowed to be alone in any room with U.S. officials -- even though the American government guaranteed his safety.
President Roh then sought to seek actions to pardon former student leaders of Hangcheonyong, Federation of College Student Council leaders, who were implicated when they were found to have direct links to North Korea -- and operated as a North Korean front. These outlawed leaders have been in hiding for a decade -- with some residing on university campuses in Seoul and some fleeing to North Korea. It is interesting that one of these outlawed student leaders appeared on one of Roh's transition teams after he was elected as President in 2003. The Roh camp simply treated it as an administrative error stating the individual didn't know he had a warrant outstanding on him -- a somewhat unbelievable explanation. (See Roh Moo-hyun: Reformist or Anti-American?.)

The "openess" of the Roh administration attracted home Song Du Yul, 59, a sociology professor at Munster University in Germany, after 36 years in exile. Though invited home by a private group, his pending arrival was tacitly approved by the Roh administration as it took no moves to block his entry. A German citizen, he left South Korea in 1967. He had been outspoken in his criticism of the regime of the South Korean military dictator Park Chung Hee during some of the darkest moments of the cold war. At first proclaimed in the press as a returning hero of democracy, everything went swimmingly. Then Hwang Jang Yop, the high-level North Korean official before his defection to South Korea in 1997, said that Song was known in North Korea under the alias Kim Chul Soo, and was the 23rd-ranking member of the Politburo. From there everything went downhill. Though a German citizen, in March 2004, Song was sentenced to seven years in prison under the National Security Act, under which sympathizing with communism or with Communists, or aiding antigovernment organizations, is interpreted as a crime. (24) President Roh Moo-hyun suggested Song should be treated with leniency although under South Korean law collaboration with a "primary enemy" is prosecutable as a capital crime. In July 2004, his sentence was reduced and on appeal with the Supreme Court, but the key element was that the prosecution did NOT impose a travel ban on him. True to form, in Aug 2004, Song departed for Germany without fanfare -- and as there is no extradition treaty, even if the Supreme Court did uphold his conviction, he will not return. The matter for Roh was swept under the carpet.

In March 2004, due to political scandals and claims of incompetence, President Roh was impeached in a political move. There was a nationwide protest -- not so much to support Roh, but to condemn the trivial nature for the impeachment. However, in May 2004 Roh's impeachment was overturned the Constitutional Court. (The vote for reversal was NOT unanimous, but the results of dissenting votes or comments were suppressed.) As such, his actions to continue with the Kim Dae-jung's "sunshine policy" (now called the "peace and prosperity" policy) dealing with openess with the North Koreans are expected to continue. (See Protests (Jan-Mar 2004) and Protests (Apr-May 2004) .)

On May 18, 2004 Chosun Ilbo reported that a former official of the NIS who retired in October 2000 said that he, along with his family members, applied for political asylum in the United States last December, and is currently waiting for a final ruling. (33) What makes this interesting is that this request implies that the NIS is STILL using its power under the NSL to intimidate people which it considers "unfriendly." With all the illegal high jinx in the NIS in the past, it makes one curious about what's going on in the NIS. This request for political asylum reinforces the idea that the abuses of the NIS continues under Roh Moo-hyun and political opponents are still targeted -- despite the "reforms" to get out of domestic politics that Roh claims. To request political asylum from the U.S. makes this a "hot potato" for the U.S. -- a staunch ally of the ROK.

Kim Ki-sam, 39, said he submitted the application to a refugee office in New Jersey of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Early last year, Kim was accused of violating the NIS Law (charges of leaking secrets obtained while performing his duties) and defamation and is now under the suspension of indictment. Since last January, he has reported about the corruption of former President Kim Dae-jung's government on various Internet media. Some of the irregularities he claimed include the political maneuverings which brought Kim the Nobel Peace Prize, illegal remittance of $1.5 billion to North Korea and illegal wiretapping by the NIS, as well as articles about weapon procurement corruption in both the Kim Dae-jung and Kim Young-sam governments. Going to America on a tourist visa in March 2002, he is now living with his wife and two children in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. (33)
In July 2004, a couple that came to South Korea as defectors from North Korea has applied for exile in the United States -- though having been granted South Korean citizenship. A diplomatic source in Washington said 58-year-old Lee Bok-gu and his wife Lee Sun-hui (not their real names), who fled North Korea in 1997 and came to the South in 1999, have applied with U.S. authorities for exile. Lee is known to have been a North Korean missile engineer, and appeared before U.S. Congressional hearing twice -- wearing a mask -- to give testimony on North Korean missile development. The couple entered the U.S. through Canada in June; it is known that the husband had a regular U.S. entry visa. The wife, however, tried to smuggle herself across the border without a visa and was arrested. She was detained near Syracuse, New York. As soon as the wife was arrested, the couple applied to U.S. authorities for asylum. On Friday, the wife was released from detention. Concerning Lee Bok-gu’s reasons for seeking exile, the U.S. edition of the Hanguk Ilbo said, “After participating in U.S. Senate hearings last year, [the relationship between Lee] and the South Korean authorities grew strained... Since this is a complicated issue between South Korea and the United States, [Lee] could not say what his reasons were exactly.” The paper felt that in the U.S. Senate hearings, Lee offered testimony on actual conditions in North Korea that was quite critical of South Korea’s “Sunshine Policy,” and afterward came under pressure from South Korean authorities. Another Korea expert in Washington said, “It’s true that Lee was critical of the South Korean government, but I don’t know how he was able to enter the United States with a proper entry visa.” (33a)

In the midst of the controversy, the people like the spokesman for the National Democratic Front of South Korea is still running around South Korea. The claim is that the North Korean sympathizers are responsible for the advances in democracy in Korea. They continue their "anti-US and anti-fascist" struggle. The statement issued on April 19, 2003 marking the 43rd anniversary of the historic April 19 Popular Uprising read: (37i)

Today we greet the 43rd anniversary of the historic April 19 Popular Uprising, which recorded the first victory in the history of anti-US and anti-fascist movement of the south Korean people. The April pro-democracy resistance, in which the empty-handed uprisers destroyed the stronghold of colonial fascism and overthrew Syngman Rhee’s pro-US dictatorship, was eruption of the south Korean people’s pent-up resentment against the US colonial rule and their aspiration and will for independent and democratic politics and a new life.

The uprising, which demonstrated the powerful spirit of resistance and strong aspiration of the people for independence, democracy and reunification, dealt a heavy blow to the US colonial rule and reaffirmed the truth that a dictator who reigns over the people is doomed to meet a miserable end.

The anti-US and anti-fascist struggle in south Korea, which entered a new stage occasioned by the resistance, met a new turn on the occasion of the Gwangju Popular Uprising in the 1980s and has since then developed ceaselessly through the popular resistance in June 1987 that toppled down the fifth Republic military dictatorship.

The nationwide anti-US struggle for independence sparked off with the killing of two schoolgirls by a US armored vehicle in last June, in particular, was a patriotic struggle that followed the spirit of the April resistance 43 years ago, which shook the US colonial rule to its very foundation.

However, we have not yet realized the desire of martyrs. The United States, occupying this land for more than a half century, still violates independence and existence of our people, hampers the nation’s march to achieve reunification with its concerted efforts and threatens the destiny and existence of our nation with dangerous nuclear war moves against north Korea.

Owing to the anti-north maneuvers of the United States and pro-US traitors, the Korean Peninsula is faced with the danger of war and the June 15 inter-Korean joint declaration faces difficulties in its implementation. Today’s reality shows that south Koreans can neither free themselves from the fate of colonial slavery nor evade the danger of nuclear holocaust as long as the US troops remain here.

They should turn out all together in the struggle as the April 19 uprisers did, in order to terminate the US colonial domination, nuclear war moves and US military presence. No force in the world can check the advance of popular resistance. This is a precious experience the April 19 uprising left. All patriotic people should intensify the anti-US struggle by renewing the spirit of resistance and experience of the April 19 uprising.

Seoul
April 19, Juche 92 (2003)

B. Historical Perspective of Communism & Spies in the Cholla Area

During the Korean War, there were many reported instances of spies at Kunsan AB (K-8). Many Americans related tales of "spies" or "suspected spies" on base. Most of those suspected was because of their fluency in English. Dick Proudman, then-Captain with the MACS-1, spoke of a bartender in the Officer's club (Marine) who was suspected because he spoke 7 languages. Some simply disappeared one day and were never seen again -- and were thought to have been picked up by the police. One day some photographic equipment to develop recon photos was broken in the Base Photo Lab and the next day the Korean worker suspected of being a spy disappeared. However, the problem was determining whether those were "spies" or simply scavengers who got into the wrong place. Those Koreans caught in restricted areas of Kunsan AB were summarily executed on the spot by the ROK Army per standing orders -- as attested by Al Gould's eye-witness account in 1952. (19)

Communist Uprising in U.S. Occupation Period However, the Cholla provinces -- of which Kunsan is a part -- was a hotbed of communist sympathizers dating back to the days of the Occupation forces. After the "democratic" elections of 1948 bringing Syngman Rhee to power, the North dispatched guerilla bands to the south who concentrated their efforts around the Chiri mountains in the Cholla area. In 1949, there was a concerted effort to "eliminate" this communist sympathizer element which led to massacres in Cheju-do and pitched battles in the Cholla region. (20)

The Korean Constabulary (forerunner to the ROK Army) was hastily thrown together by the U.S. Military Government in preparation for the U.S. withdrawal from Korea -- come-hell-or-highwater.(NOTE: The Constabulary was designated the ROK Army in December 1948.) The Communists, not happy with the 1948 national elections, staged a rebellion that quickly spread. The Cheju Rebellion from April 1948 to the spring of 1949, resulted in the deaths of at least 30,000 people. (20)

On 19 October 1948, Communists within the ROK Army's 14th Regiment mutineed after receiving orders to embark for Cheju Island to support counterinsurgency operations. The mutineers killed 30 officers and between 600 to 800 soldiers joined the rebellion. (20) (NOTE: The ROK Army banned the use of the number "4" in any unit due to the mutinous actions of the 14th Regiment.)

The Communist-led mutiny which began in Yeosu, South Cholla Province (Chollanam-do) quickly spread into other areas, including Sunchon, North Cholla Province (Chollabuk-do) leading to the deaths of 1,200 civilians and South Korean troops, 1,500 rebels and their supporters and much property damage. The rebels and supporters were advancing on Kwangju and Chonju, North Cholla Province (Chollabuk-do) before being stopped by government troops. An amphibious assault on Yosu failed and it took three days of intense fighting from inland to recapture the town on 26 October 1948. The ROK Army investigated the incident and released its report after the U.S. had pulled out. It blamed the rebellion on the "incautious recruiting by the former Military Government." However, the report overlooked political factionalism, organizational weaknesses and material deficiencies as causes to the unrest. Widespread purges and arrests occurred that reduced the ROK Army strength from 54,000 to 45,000 in the space of two months. (20)

Encouraged by labor and rural unrest that simmered throughout 1947, the South Korean Labor Party made one last attempt to prevent the formation of the Republic of Korea by staging a general strike and sporadic attacks on the police and economic targets in February-March, 1948. The continuing competition for power in South Korea and Russian intransigience convinced the U.S. State Department and General Hodge to surrender the idea of a Joint US-USSR commission on Korea and to turn to the United Nations for a new figleaf for withdrawal. (63)

The United Nations produced the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea (UNTOK), which could provide independent testimony on just who was doing what to whom. The UNTOK representatives found nothing very appealing about the Rhee regime, but they received absolutely no cooperation from North Korea in the matter of national elections or schemes for regimes of reconciliation and broad representation. United Nations involvement did not thrill Rhee since he had no more liking for European liberals than American liberals, but it gave his government a degree of respectability in the international arena it sorely lacked in 1948. For the Truman administration, passing some (if not all) of the responsibility for Korea to the United Nations gave the appearance of principled abandonment, yet left broad flexibility on handling Korean problems.

The failure of the general strike gave Pak Honyong and his immediate organizers pause, but they continued to plan for a general uprising sometime in the summer of 1948, depending upon how quickly they could gather arms, subvert the Korean National Police and the Constabulary, and organize partisan units throughout South Korea. On Cheju-do, always a hotbed of revolt, the island rebels ignored the broad schedule and started a guerrilla war in April, 1948, hoping to capitalize on popular resentment toward a repressive and corrupt governor and the incompetence and indiscipline of the island KNP and KC units.(63)

After six months of vicious and inept rural warfare, neither side could claim much advantage. The Cheju-do revolt, however, became a national problem when the 14th Constabulary Regiment mutinied during the process of moving to Cheju-do and set off a sympathetic civilian uprising in Yosu and Sunch'on as well as some neighboring villages. The southern coast of Korea (eastern Chollanam-do and western Kyongsangnam-do) blazed with battles throughout October, 1948, but the urban rising died under a determined Constabulary counteroffensive. (63)

The surviving rebels, however, established guerrilla bases in the Chiri, Odae and Taebaek mountains, aided by two smaller mutinies in the Taegubased 6th Regiment in November and December, 1948. Further assistance came in the form of refugee southern Koreans who infiltrated back to the south as partisans. By mid-1949 Rhee faced a significant rural partisan force in five of his eight provinces. Although both the Communists and the government forces widely misreported losses, incidents with casualties ran around an average of 1,000 a month between October, 1948 and October 1949, then jumped during the Winter Suppression Campaign, 1949-1950. The partisan war took on additional dimension when in May, 1949 regular units of the North Korean border constabulary clashed with infantry regiments of the South Korean army, as the Constabulary had been redesignated in December, 1948. For a year units up to regimental size staged operations on both sides of the border, focused principally on the Ongjin peninsula, the hills north of Kaesong, and the mountains that surrounded Chunch'on, the provincial capital of Kangwon-do, the gateway to the guerrilla bases in the Taebaek mountains.(63)

As long as it survived, the Rhee regime could and did exploit the guerrilla war to its political advantage. In November, 1948, the National Assembly passed a draconian National Security Law that outlawed the Communist party and gave the security forces detention and judicial powers that made Western lawyers quake, but would have surprised no Asian. Although the National Security Law gave a veneer of legalism to the anti-left vendetta - for such it was, reciprocity for the horrors visited upon the Korean National Police and its families - the Rhee government did not ignore the rightist challengers. Earlier in the year (August, 1948), the Assembly had passed the National Traitor Law, which gave the government power to arrest, to deny public office, and to confiscate property from any Korean who had served the Japanese colonial government in a leadership position (broadly defined) and whose loyalty now seemed suspect. (63)

The Korean National Police, for example, tried to use this law to purge the Korean army of its senior officers, the majority of whom had been junior officers in the Japanese and Manchukuo armies. Both laws and the general internal regulations of the KNP and Korean army allowed both organizations to purge their own ranks of suspected rebels. The Korean army rid itself of more than 4,000 officers and men, jailing about a thousand and executing around 200. The U.S. Korean Military Advisory Group (KMAG), about 500 officers and men, formed a strong bond with the army's surviving senior officers to protect the army from Rhee and the police while it recruited itself up to 100,000 and worked on its training and equipment problems. (63)
In 1949 the U.S. pulled all of its combat troops out of Korea, leaving only a Military Advisory Group in an area called "ASCOM City," an acronym for Army Service Command City. In April 1949, the remnants of the rebels fled into the Chiri mountains and were joined by North Korean guerillas. They established three bases (in the Chiri mountains, Odae mountains, and Andong area. In October 1949, some 3,000 guerillas and several hundred local supporters launched a winter offensive against such large towns as Andong, Chinju, and Pohang. Though they failed to occupy the towns, the stage was set for the Korean War. (20) On March 27, 1950, Kim Sam Yong and Yi Chu Ha, the two key guerrilla commanders in S Korea, were captured. The main body of the guerrillas including more than 600 cadres trained at the Kangdong Political Institute (N Korea) was virtually wiped out by this time. (23). However, Kim Il Sung convinced Stalin that 200,000 guerillas were awaiting the signal for operations i