A reader sent me a link to this piece by Bruce Cumings in the London Review of Books in which he savages Bush policy toward North Korea. Let me state for the record that, my disagreements with his politics aside, I hold tremendous respect for Cumings as a scholar (although I detest his decidedly nonacademic tendency to cite “unnamed sources and eyewitnesses” in Oliver Stone-fashion). Having said that, this screed in the LRB is nothing but a partisan attack (albeit, a well written one) on the Bush Administration written by a man who, not for nothing, does sport somewhat of a reputation (I’m not sure if it’s fully deserved, however) as being the West’s #1 North Korea apologist. Just to give you an example of its glaring partisanship:
Republican Presidents consistently supported the dictators who ruled South Korea for three decades. In 1972, Nixon looked the other way when Park Chung Hee declared martial law and made himself President for life. The first visiting head of state to be invited to the Oval Office by Reagan was Chun Doo Hwan, who had killed hundreds, if not thousands, of the population of Kwangju on the way to his 1980 coup. Many specialists remain convinced that a Republican team jiggered the vote-counting computers during the 1987 Presidential election that brought Chun’s protege, Roh Tae Woo, to power.
Cute, Bruce. And I guess it wasn’t Jimmy Carter (Democrat) that signed off on the Kwangju Massacre, right? And it wasn’t during the Truman Administration (Democrat) that Syngman Rhee’s notorious gang established its control of post-liberation South Korea, during the course of which they undertook the brutal suppressions of the Cheju Uprising in 1948 and the Yeosu-Sunch’eon Rebellion of the same year? Come on, Bruce, you wrote the definitive book on that chapter of Korean history - you should know better. And while it is true that Nixon looked the other way when Park Chung Hee initiated the Yushin “reforms,” it was during the Kennedy (Democrat) White House that Park overthrew Chang Myon’s democratically-elected government in 1961, and Kennedy did precious little about it. Moreover, I don’t seem to recall LBJ (Democrat) doing a whole lot to promote democratic reform in South Korea, although I do recall him pumping a whole lot of money into the country in exchange for South Korea’s participation in the Vietnam War. Keep in mind, I’m not trying to be partisan here - I’m just saying that it’s intellectually dishonest to condemn Republicans alone for “consistently supporting” South Korean dictators when Democrats have not only displayed the same tendency, but have sat back and watched when some of the ugliest incidents in South Korean history took place under their watch.
Anyway, read Cuming’s post on your own - I’ll post my own comments on it tomorrow when I have the time to give it the full attention it deserves.
PS: Many thanks go out to the reader who sent me this, who reads this blog despite disagreeing with most of my right-wing drivel.
9 Comments
I had always heard that inviting Chun to the White House was the price the U.S. paid to spare Kim Dae-jung’s life. (If so, nice payback from DJ!) A larger point is that as debased and dishonest as we find the South Korean left, the South Korean right are an unsavory bunch. Both sides (and North Korea) are united in their propensity to shift blame for their fuck-ups to Uncle Sam. Korea is one!
Oranckay, I’ll agree that Carter pissed off more friendly Third World dictators than any man in our history. The problem is, he didn’t exactly endear himself to their opposition, either. Carter - and I’ll be the first to admit he was not only a visionary, but probably the most decent human being ever to sit in the White House - failed to find the appropriate balance between principles and realpolitik - vacillating pleases no one, as his conduct in Iran and South Korea (and other places) proved all too well. And as I said in my post, even if Reagan did invite Chun to the White House, it was Carter who signed off on Kwangju, and while one can make an argument that given the realities of the situation, he didn’t have much choice (Reagan would have definately done the same), it’s still Carter’s cross to bear.
One of my heroes is Dr. Horace Underwood (of the Underwood family associated with Yonsei University and Severance Hospital).
I would like to share some of his comments on Mr. Bruce Cumings, as excerpted from “Korea in War, Revolution and Peace: The Recollections of Horace G. Underwood”, edited and annotated by Michael J. Devine (Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 2001):
Chapter V: Liberation and Division/Evaluating the Inter-War Years:
p 122: “Historian Bruce Cumings focuses on the suppression of liberal elements in South Korea, while others have focused on undemocratic aspects of the inter-war years. These criticisms are based on documentary evidence that I believe is often taken out of context and that ignores factors that should qualify the criticism.”
p 130: “Historian Bruce Cumings’ works … paint a highly unpleasant picture of South Korea under Rhee, while playing down or ignoring the atrocities and complete suppression of civil liberties in North Korea. Elegantly written and filled with information from a wide range of American, Korean, and Chinese sources, Cumings’ cleverly crafted chapters present Rhee Syngman as a mere dupe of the American occupation forces and Soviet agent Kim Il-sung as a true Korean patriot who, despite a tendency to act a little harshly once in a while towards landowners, merchants, Christians, and political oppononts of any stripe, enjoyed wide popular support throughout both North and South Korea.”
Chapter VI: The Korean War
p 154: “The brutal nature of the Korean conflict and its harsh consequences for Korea’s population is documented in Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings’ “Korea: The Unknown War” (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988). This book, aimed at a wide popular audience, must be read with caution, however, as it makes use of several questionable sources. It is highly critical of U.S. actions while ignoring or glossing over numerous North Korean atrocities.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
As for me, my personal opinion is that Mr. Cumings’ writings are heavily biased and exhibit a tendency towards intellectual dishonesty.
No doubt that Cuming’s work is highly biased, and many of his sources (when he bothers to mention who or what they are) are highly questionable. And needless to say, his treatment of the North Korean regime is way too generous. That being said, he does explode a number of widely held myths concerning South Korea AND asks questions that few scholars bother to ask. Moreover, I’ve come to believe that Cumings is used by a number of Korean leftists like the US is used by the rightists, i.e. they invoke his name (and his work) and lift quotes here and there to justify their ideological convictions, but few have read his work carefully (if they have bothered to read it at all).
About comment (quote): “act a little harshly once in a while towards landowners, merchants, Christians, and political oppononts of any stripe,”
I have great respect for the senior H.G. Underwood, but Syngman Rhee had his political opponent executed, and while not talked about much, this fact is pretty much uncontested. A certain Mr. Jo Bong’am (Cho Bongam) lost to Rhee in the 2nd presidential election in 1952 and the 3rd presidential election in 1956. Given the course of events through which Rhee came to be no longer in power, it would be hard to find someone who would tell you those elections were fair. It is extremely likely that Jo should’ve been president, and at the very least, Rhee probably thought so. Jo had been part of the ROK’s constitutional convention, served a few Nat’l Assembly terms, and was elected deputy speaker. After a lifetime in legitimate politics, he was suddenly arrested for violations of the National Assembly Law in 1958 and executed the same year. Rhee was forward thinking, wise, and did the country enormous good, but there’s no way around the fact that he wasn’t a “little harsh,” he was ruthless and brutal when he wanted to be, even if this behavior wasn’t displayed frequently. And of course there’ll always be the part about how he probably shouldn’t have been president after that first term. Nice wife, though.
I haven’t read much Cummings, but from what little I have it seems he started out based in some painful truths and then over the years just gradually started enjoy the pain more than the truth.
Q to Marmot: What does “signed off on” mean? Do you mean Carter approved?
I thought Cummings’ latest was a wholesale piece of unmitigated crap. I often wondered how such scholastic brilliance as Cummings has shown can sit alongside the crass mendaciousness of his politics. Can he really MEAN the things he says, knowing all that he sems to know?
Must relate a personal experience. One of my former Korean History Profs related the follow. He knows Bruce quite well and after documents and other items came to light showing the USSRs involvement and China’s involvement in the Korean war and especially in starting the Korean, he asked Bruce about it. Especially with what Bruce has written about that period. Instead of saying he was looking at it, or going to add a section to his “Origins of the Korean War”, he just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Oh well.”
The below was extracted from: “Cumings and Weathersby: An Exchange on Korean War Origins”:
The entire article is worth reading, but the closing statement by Ms. Kathryn Weathersby is illuminating:
“Of course it’s true, as Cumings notes, that we must examine the archives from all the major actors in the war before we can fully understand this unusually complex conflict. The Cold War International History Project is facilitating just such a multiarchival investigation, beginning with a close comparison of the Chinese and Russian sources. Nonetheless, certain important questions about the war have been resolved by the Russian archival sources; to pretend otherwise is simply dishonest.”
Source: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/C.....b6-7a8.htm
Orackay - no, I don’t mean to say Carter “approved” of the Kwangju Massacre, but then again, in situations such as this, leaders often have to decide between two ugly choices, and as Zbigniew Brzezinski (a man I respect tremendously, despite having worked under Carter) put it - “In the short term, support??р쓎n the longer term, pressure for political evolution.” And the US raised no objection to Chun’s decision to take the ROK 20th Infantry Division - a unit attached to Combined Forces Command - and use it to restore order in Kwangju. Now, granted, Chun didn’t need American permission to use the 20th Division in Kwangju, and certainly, arguments could be made (correctly, in my opinion) that the 20th Division handled themselves with much more professionalism and were a far better option than the Special Forces (who were completely under Chun’s command). Just because I knew you’d be interested, I should point out that evil Republican Eisenhower refused a similar request from Syngman Rhee to detach troops from Joint Command for use in putting down domestic unrest. But hey, it was 1980, Carter didn’t want to have another situation like Iran to take place, “law and order” was going to be restored one way or the other, and Carter decided that looking the other way was the most prudent thing to do. Personally, this was probably the best decision he could have made given the circumstances, and I don’t mean to beat Peanuts over the head with this. All I was trying to say is that if Cumings wants to take Republicans to task for supporting dictators in the South, he should be reminded that there’s more than enough dirt out there to cover everyone in a comprehensively bipartisan fashion.
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TITLE: Wrong Again? No
BLOG NAME: Barry Talks!
Bruce Cumings is a scholar and historian whom I greatly respect
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TITLE: who’s wrong again, again?
BLOG NAME: jessicaharbour.com
(Note: The Marmot got to this before I did, and was briefer in his remarks.)Ah, Bruce Cumings. Thought the name rang a bell. I know we read him for my Greater China seminar my senior year; I wish I could…
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TITLE: Eyes on Korea: 12-09-2003
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JAN 9/03 TOPICS INCL: Masterful analysis of reunification, Future of U.S. Forces Korea; South Koreans killed in Iraq; China & Korea fight over ancient history; Josh Marshall on Korean diplomacy; Riots; Bruce Cumings attacks; Hunger strikes; North Korea…