Witness to Korea 1945–47: The Unfolding of an Authoritarian Regime (Asia Research Series)

Richard D. Robinson’s Betrayal of a Nation and Mark Gayn’s “Korea” section in his Japan Diary are the most substantial, intense, and critically engaging descriptions of immediate post-liberation southern Korea written in English between 1945 and the beginning of the Korean War in 1950. Robinson’s academic essay and Gayn’s journalistic diary each combine razor-sharp political analysis with personal eyewitness observations, despite the differences in literary genre. Both examine the early Cold War politics of the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) and American support of right-wing Korean politicians. Both authors were attacked by McCarthy and his ilk. In today’s terms, Robinson would be considered a whistleblower. In order to avoid court-martial in Korea by the U.S. Army, he fled to Turkey where he bided his time for almost a decade, whereas Mark Gayn ultimately left the United States for Canada.Three supplementary essays by the editors examine the lives of Robinson and Gayn during McCarthyism, the emergence of right-wing politicians and fascist youth groups, and America’s culpability in the establishment of South Korea’s first authoritarian regime. Read together, the essays offer a fresh reading that resituates these events in a longer and strikingly current history of colonialism and its neocolonial afterlives, casting South Korea’s authoritarian founding not as a postwar aberration born of confusion, but as a more deliberate—and more familiar—political outcome.C o n t e n t sAcknowledgments, viiiAt Long Last — John Merrill, 1Richard D. Robinson and Mark Gayn: A Whistleblower and a Journalist — Frank Hoffmann, 5Source TextsBetrayal of a Nation — Richard D. Robinson, 53Japan Diary: Korea — Mark Gayn, 327Democracy, Authoritarianism, and Culpability in Southern Korea: Gayn and Robinson on the U.S. Military Government — Mark E. Caprio, 430Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Fascism in Korea — Frank Hoffmann, 462References, 514Image Credits, 527Glossary and Index, 529Contributors, 541 Read more