KOREA SECTION 59 BIOGRAPHIES OF KEY PERSONALITIES <SANITIZED>

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 00010262
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 34
• Document Creation Date: October 23, 2023
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2023
• Case Number: F-2021-01399
• Publication Date: April 1, 1952

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� E.132,13 COPY
ER V
r TITTPZED COPY
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SURVEY -
SECTION 59
BIOGRAPHIES�OF KEY PERSONALITIES
Exempt from genera decteserKation scheduh
of E.O. 11452. Exemption CaNtry 58(1), (2),
orra (3). Decks3iikit ow./ ei approval of tfie
Director of Ce-grel Weil:5mA
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Washington, D. C.
f cr Release
MITJ.50 goi2X
-fAp-pi:Ov-ed'for'Rele;se: '.023/01/23 66661 c'.)62`
NIS 41
RECORD Copy
STATZ APRIL 1952
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NIS 41 valkusigliferft"
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR SECTION 59
A. General
� Page
59- 1
1. Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) . . . . 59- 1
2. Republic of Korea (South Korea) . .. . 59. 2
B. Biographies - 3
� Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)
CH'OEY6ngg�n..........,... . 59-3
CHONG Ch'unt'aek* 59 - 3
CHUYongha* . . . . � . . ... . � � .... 59- 4
HO Chongsuk* � . . . � . � � � � � � ... . 59 - 4
HO Kal 59-4
HONG MyOrighul* . � . � � . � � . � . � . . 0 5ii
KANO Yanguk* ...... . � � 59- 6
KIM Ch'onhae� � . . 59- 6
KIM II 59 7
KIM Ilsong* 5�
KIM MuchOng 59-8
KIM Fa 59- 9
KIM TalhAn* - 59-10
KIM Tubong* � � � ... 591O
KIM WOnbong* � � � � � � � � . 59 - 11
KWON Ochik 59 - 11
NAM II' 59-11
PAK Chongae* 59-12
PAK Honyong* 59 - 12
PAK nu* 59 - 13
PAK Munkyu* . . � � � � . ...... 59 - 13
PANG Ilakse 59-14
YI Yong* 59-14
Republic of Korea (South Korea)
AN Chaehong*
AN Hosang* . . . . . . . . . �
59 -14
59-15
CHANG MyOn (John M. CHANG)* . ... . . . . . 59-15
CHANG SOkyun ("Montana" CHANG) . . . . . .. 59-16
CHANG T'aeksang* 59 - 17
CH'I Ch'ongch'on* � . . . . . . . . . . . .. 59 -17
CHO Pyongok* 59-18
CHO Soang 59 -18
KIM Kyuslk* 59- 19
KIM Songsus 59 - 19
KIM raeson* 59 - 20
PAE Unhul 59 - 20
SIN Ikhili* 59 - 21
YI Clalwon* 59 - 22
YI Hwal 59-22
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Page
YI Poinsok� 59- 23
YI Sungman (Syngman RIME) � � . � .... 59-24
YE Yunyong� 59 - 25
YIM Pyongelyik (Ben C. LIMB)* 59 - 26
YO linhOng 59 - 26
YUN Chliyong� . . �� � � .. . � � � � ..... � e 59 27
C. Comments on principal sourc . 59-29
� - Photograph, in alphabetkal order, at end of Section. Dates of photographs are Putt- -
voted where available.
This Section was prepared for the NIS by the
Intelligence Organization, Department of State.
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alatteisaa,, -
59. Biographies of Key Personalities
A. General
1. Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North
Korea)
When the Soviet occupation forces invaded the
Korean peninsula north of the 38th parallel during
the latter half of 1945 they laid the foundation for
a full-fledged Soviet satellite. By mid-1946, the So-
viets had organized a north Korean government�
the "Interim People's Committee"�and a Conunu-
nist Party organization under the name North
Korea Labor Party. The north Korean regime
emerged as a formal "Democratic People's Repub-
lic" and communist satellite state in the latter part
of 1918 under the name of the "Democratic People's
Republic of Korea" (D.P.R.O.K). Kim Ilsong,
chairman of the "Interim People's Committee,"
became leader of the cabinet of the new regime.
Many of the other leaders of the interim north Ko-
rean regime assumed posts in the government and
in its key political and cultural organizations.
In August 1949, the North Korea Labor Party
and its southern counterpart, the South Korea
Labor Party, amalgamated to form the Korean
Labor Party, which is the Communist Party organ-
ization and the dominant political party in the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea. North Ko-
rean officials, in order to present a democratic
facade for the regime, have permitted the existence
up to the present time of a few minor political
parties, although the regime's propaganda organs
have at all times stressed the superior position of
the Korea Labor Party.
This Section contains biographies of. some of the
more influential governmental and political lead-
ers of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Based upon their backgrounds, most of the top
leaders of the north Korean regime fall into one
of three major categories. The roost important
group is composed of the Soviet-Koreans, U.S.S.R.
citizens and members of local Communist Parties
in the Soviet Union (a few had even held govern-
mental or party posts in Moscow) who entered
north Korea with the Soviet occupation forces in
1945. These Soviet-Koreans, all experienced poli-
ticians, were selected from Korean communities
in the Soviet Union and placed in positions of power
In the north Korean regime in order to insure Ko-
rean leadership which would be completely loyal
to the U.S.S.R. and thoroughly trained in Soviet
political tactics. They were infiltrated into the
top levels of the North Korea Labor Party and gov-
ernment, and upon the establishment of the Demo-
cratic People's Republic of Korea in September 1948
most of the cabinet vice rninisterships were assigned
to them. Other major governmental offices and
agencies correspondingly had a Soviet-Korean vice
chairman who unobtrusively ekeraised authority
over the titular head of the organization. Certain
major posts of influence in the Korea Labor Party
are likewise held by Soviet-Koreans.
In many instances spurious biographies for So-
viet-Koreans, which were prepared by the official
propaganda agencies of the north Korean regime,
listed their birth places as obscure regions in north
Korea and otherwise falsified their life histories.
Long absences from Korea prior to the Japanese _
surrender in 1945 were vaguely accounted for by
such phrases as "imprisonment by the Japanese,"
"underground communist activities," or "studied
abroad" (in Manchuria or elsewhere). As a result
of this device, Soviet-Korean vice ministers and
other govettunental and political officials emerged
as "genuine, native-born Koreans." Ho Ka'i, Nam
Kiiri KirA 11, Pang Hakse, and Madame Pak
Chongae are representative members of this power-
ful group of north Korean leaders.
Closely allied with the Soviet-Koreans are the
so-called Kim IlsOng guerrillas, who serve as a
"front" for them. Kim Ilsong and his fellow-par-
tisans were trained by the Soviets and fought dur-
ing World War H in special brigades organized by
Soviet military officials. They, like the Soviet-Ko-
reans, entered north gorea with the Soviet occu-
pation forces in 1945, and are favored Soviet con-
tacts and trusted by the Russians only slightly less
than the Soviet-Koreans, with whom they work
quite closely. Some members of this group, notably
Kim llsOng and Choe Y6nggiln, occupy high titular
positions in the government.
A second category of leaders consists of the so-
called Yenan group of Korean communists, and
includes such prominent figures as Kim Tubong,
Kim Muchting, Pak Ilu, and Madame 11.6 Ch6ngsuk.
These Koreans either were trained by and/or
fought with the Chinese communists during the
1930's and the first half of the 1940's. They re-
turned to Korea during the latter part of 1945 from
the communist areas of north China and played
secondary roles in the establishment of the north
effelPitteressestt
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Korean interim regime during 1946 and 1947.
Some members of this group, like Kim Muchong,
have steadily lost prestige and influence. Others,
like Kim Tubong, Pak Ilu, and Madame 116
Cheingsuk, still retain high titular posts in the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea, but possess
little policy-forming authority.
A third category, known loosely as the "domestic"
group, is composed primarily of former leaders of
� the South Korea Labor Party. Many of these were
influential in the Korean revolutionary movement
against the Japanese during the 1930's and World
War IL They returned to south Korea after the
surrender in 1945 and played prominent roles in
the south Korean leftist movement prior to 1948.
Pak HOngyong is the outstanding representative of
the "domestic" group. Other prominent members
include Hong Myonghul, Kim Wonbong (Kim
Yaksan), Vi Yong, Kwein Ochik, and Pack Namien.
Although currently sonic held high titular posts in
the north Korean regime they, with the exception
of Pak !VeinyOng, possess little real authority and
represent, like the members of the so-called Yenan
group, the second-level of leadership in the Demo-
cratic People's Republic of Korea.
Anticommunist political leaders in north Korea,
such as Cho Mansik and Vi Yunyorig, both promi�
nent in the Chosein Democratic Party (most promi-
nent noncommunist political party in north Korea
following the surrender) prior to January 1946,
either were imprisoned by the communists or forced
to flee to south Korea. Those "noncommunist"
political leaders who head the few minor political
parties still permitted to exist have been completely
regimented by the communists and have degener-
ated into mere opportunists and fellow-travelers
who follow the "party line" unswervingly.
2. Republic of Korea (South Korea)
From the time of its organization in the summer
of 1948 until the present, the government of the
Republic of Korea has been largely dominated by
President Syngrnan Rhee, and since 1949, the po-
litical leadership in the state has been divided into
pro- and anti-Rhee conservative groups. The
former has been personally dominated by Rhee,
through his governmental prerogatives and his
forceful political leadership. It has an aura of
"court politics," and includes many of the presi-
dent's personal associates as well as governmental
officials and leaders of diverse conservative politi-
cal and social organizations. The anti-Rhee group,
which has centered in the Democratic Nationalist
Party, gained predominance in the National As-
sembly in 1951. During 1951 and early 1952 it
carried on a spirited struggle with Rhee preliminary
to the presidential election scheduled for the sum-
mer of 1952.
Effective left-wing or middle-of-the-road politi-
cal leadership in south Korea ceased to exist after
1948. Since that year, south Korean communists
and some south Korean centrist leaders have be-
come identified with the communist regime in the
north (see Subsection B, Biographies�Democratic
People's Republic or Korea, below). The other
middle-of-the-road leaders last influence after 1948,
and many remained in Seoul (Soul) and were taken
by the communists during their occupation of that
city in 1950.
For a time after 1945, the role played by the in-
dividual during the period of Japanese domination
(1910-1945) served as a basis for categorizing the
leadership into the following groups: collaborators
with the Japanese; expatriates active in National-
ist China; expatriates active in the United States;
and workers in the independence movement within
Korea. The first group appears to have lost much
of its force, as the stigma attached to all but the
principal collaborators has declined. The expatri-
ates who had resided in China and the United
States tended to align themselves, despite some
conflict in ideologies, against the indigenous lead-
ers. Currently, these divisions have been super-
seded generally by intermingling and the accentu-
ation of the pro-Rhee and anti-Rhee categories.
However, the exact role of the individual leader _
under Japanese rule or in the independence move-
ment remains of considerable importance. Partly
for this reason, as well as for Confucian traditions,
the leaders of the Republic of Korea are generally
of late middle-age or elderly.
The Cabinet of the Republic of Korea and other
executive personnel have been affected by the polar-
ization of the leadership into pro- and anti-Rhee
categories. In the beginning of his administra-
tion, President Rhee in many cases appointed his
political followers and personal cronies to cabinet
and key administrative posts in the Republic with
little regard for their qualifications and general
fitness, or the semibilities of the more scrupulous
members of the National Assembly and the gov-
ernment. At the same time, however, he often ap-
pointed members of the opposition to posts to
broaden his support. In time of crisis, however,
he has tended to dismiss the opposition and to ap-
point men loyal to him who often carry out his
policies ruthlessly.
There are some exceptions to the President's po-
litical influence over appointments. Some very
capable men have served in Rhee's cabinets and
performed their duties with distinction and with
only minor regard for politics.
The biographies of a representative sample of
Republic of Korea officials and political leaders are
included in this Section.
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B. Biographies
Democratic People's Republic
of Korea (North Korea)
CH'OE Wriggfin
Minister of National Defense Ch'oe Yonggan has
had close associations with both the Soviets and
Chinese Communists prior to the surrender of
Japan in 1945. As an influential member of the
Soviet-trained faction of Korean Communists and
a fellow partisan of Kim Being, he became a promi-
nent military and political figure in the North Ko-
rean regime and was placed at the head of the
political police of the North Korean Interim
"People's Government" When the North Korean
"People's Army" was formed in 1947, Ch'oe was ap-
pointed commander in chief, and when the
"People's Republic" was created the following year
he became Minister of National Defense. Despite
recent recurrent rumors that he had been purged
or even shot, Ch'oe delivered a speech in P'yong-
yang in February 1952, in his official capacity as
National Defense Minister, on the occasion of the
fourth anniversary of the creation of the North
Korean "People's Army." He apparently is still
an influential member of the Soviet-trained (or
Kim Mang) faction of North Korean military and --
political leaders, and his temporary eclipse in pub-
lic pronouncements was probably due to the exi-
gencies of the Korean hostilities.
Born about 1900 in north P'yongan Province,
Ch'oe attended elementary and middle school in
Korea, graduated from Yunnan Military Academy
in China, and taught for a time at Whampoa Mili-
tary Academy near Canton. Daring the 1930's he
made an outstanding reputation as an officer in the
Chinese Communist 8th Route Army and the Ko-
rean Volunteer Corps, organized by the Korean
Provisional Government in 1938 and later taken
over by the Communists at Yenan (Fu-shih).
After fighting against the Japanese with the Soviet-
organized and -directed Special Independent Bri-
gade in the early 1940's, Ch'oe returned to Korea
at the end of World War II. Soon after his return
he joined the Chosan Democratic Party, organized
in North Korea in November 1945 by the prominent
north Korean rightist leader Cho Mansik. When
Cho Mansik was removed from the party chairman-
ship early in 1946 for his refusal to give public ap-
proval to the Soviet-backed trusteeship plan for
Korea, Ch'oe took over the leadership of the party,
which was then reorganized, renamed, and con-
verted into a communist front organization. In
1947 he was appointed vice chairman of the presid-
ium of the North Korean Interim "People's As-
sembly," highest organ of state authority, and be-
came National Defense Minister the following year.
Upon the outbreak of the Korean conflict in June
1950, Ch'oe, relinquished command of the North
Korean "People's Army" to Kim Ils5ng who took
direct control Of the war effort, and Ch'oe appar-
ently for a time assumed the purely administrative
functions of his ministerial post. However, recent
reports indicate that he has been directing the
training of a reorganized army in Manchuria.
Ch'oe has been described as a man Of -rnealixre
ability and character whose high position in the �
regime is due primarily to his intrepidity as a
fighter and his close connections with the power-
ful Kim Mang faction. His wife is said to have
been a forrner guerrilla fighter in China. They -
have several children, and Ch'oe is reported to have
a grown son by a former wife.
CHONG Ch'unt'aek
Ch'Ong Ch'unt'aek, chairman of the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea (D.P.R.O.K) State
Planning Committee, member of the Central Corn-
mittee of the Korean Labor Party and the power-
ful "Military Committee" of the state, is a leader of
the so-called "Domestic" faction of Korean commu-
nists (i.e., Koreans with no close past connections
with Soviets or Chinese Communists). He is con-
sidered one of the industrial experts of the "People's
Republic," and is nominally responsible for eco-
nomic planning and industrial development.-- Al-
though it is reported that ClcOng was not active in
communist operations prior to World War If, he
was said to be a favored and confidential adviser
to Kim Bsong and, after 1945, to have assumed an
important place in North Korean communist
circles.
Communist sources report that Chs5ng was born
January 21, 1911, in Kyonggi-do, and graduated
from Kyonggi Provincial Technical College and
from the Mining Department of Seoul Higher
Technological School. He is also reported to have
studied for a time at the preparatory school of
Jikeikal Medical College, Tokyo. According to ad-
ditional reports from communist sources, he was
employed as a mining engineer in Korea and Man-
churia from 1936 until 1945.
Following the surrender of Japan in 1945, he was
appointed head of the Bureau of Industry of the
north Korean People's Committee, and in February
1917 became chairman, Bureau of Planning, In-
terim People's Committee. Upon the creation of
the D.P.R.O.K. in 1948, he continued in office as
chief of the State Planning Committee. Ch6rig
was a member of the Standing and Central Com-
mittees of We North Korean Labor Party at the
time of its reorganization in 1949 as the Korean
Labor Party, and is currently a member of the
Central Committee of the latter organization.
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CHU Yongha
Chu Yongha, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs,
formerly held high official positions in the North
Korean Labor Party and served from 1949 to 1951
as D.P.R.O.K. ambassador to the U.S.S.R. �Al-
though available information does not conclusively
� disclose that he is Soviet-Korean, reports indicate
that at some period prior to the surrender of Japan
in 1945, Chu came under Soviet influence. A mein-
� ber of the top leadership of the North Korean Labor
Party between 1946 and 1948, and Minister of
Transportation prior to his assignment to Moscow
in January 1949, Chu's prominence in state and
party affairs has apparently declined since the lat-
ter year.
Born about 1911, Chu is reported to have worked
as a factory laborer and engaged in communist
underground activities in northern Korea during
the 1930's. As a result of these activities, he is said
to have spent several years in prison following his
arrest by the Japanese police. At some time prior
to or during World War II, Chu apparently was
In the Soviet Union. After the end of the war, it is
reported that he returned to Korea, and became a
prominent Korean Communist Party official in
Harngyong-narndo, northern Korea, and chairman
of the provincial People's Committee. In 1946 Chu
was appointed chief of the Administrative Depart-
ment of the North Korean Interim People's Com-
mittee, and the following year became second vice
chairman of the Central Committee of the North
Korean Labor Party and a member of the party's
Standing and Political Committees. When the
North Korean Labor Party was reorganized in 1949,
Chu is reported to have been assigned member-
ship on both the Central and Political Committees
of the Korean Labor Party, but was removed from
the party's vice chairmanship.
After the D.P.R.O.K. was established in Septem-
ber 1948 he served for several months as Minister
of Transportation prior to his assignment as Am-
bassador to the U.S.S.R. in January 1949. Chu re-
mained at Moscow until about June 1951, at which
time official pronouncements were still referring to
him as the envoy to the U.S.S.R. On February 1,
1952, a TASS dispatch announced the arrival in
Moscow of Yirn Hae as D.P.RO.K. ambassador; no
mention was made of Chu hi the Soviet press at the
time.
HO ChOngsuk
Minister of Culture and Propaganda and inem-
ber of the Korean Labor Party Central Committee,
Madame HO Chongsuk is the official spokesman of
the administration. Next to Madame Pak Chon-
gae, she is probably the most influential woman
leader in north Korea. The daughter of the late
116 Hon, prominent leftist revolutionary and for-
mer chairman of the South Korean Labor. Party,
and the Supreme People's Assembly, Madame Ho
is the former wife of Ch'oe Ch'anglk, Finance Min-
ister and Korean Labor Party official. She is
prominent in the Yenan faction of Korean Com-
munist leaders. She has been an active Commu-
nist and anti-Japanese resistance leader since her
teens, and has been Imprisoned by the Japanese
for involvement in underground activities and
other subversive movements against Japanese rule.
From the middle 1930's until the Japanese sur-
render in 1945, she was in China where she served
as a staff member of the Communist Military-Po-
litical School at Yenan. In northern Korea since
1945, Madame HO has served as vice chief of the
Propaganda Department of the Korean Communist
Party (merged into the North Korean Labor Party
(NKLP) in 1946) and Chief of the Propaganda
Bureau of the Interim People's Committee, chief
executive and administrative organ prior to the
establishment of the D.P.R.O.K in 1948. = Since
1948, she has been Minister of Culture and Propa-
ganda, member of the North Korean Labor Party
Central Committee, and a top official of the Korean
Democratic Women's League. Like Madame Pak
ChOngae, she has travelled extensively in recent
years as leader of various North Korean delegations
to corn/mist conventions.
Born in southern Korea in 1908, Madame 116 was
graduated from Ewha Girls' Middle School in Seoul
and from the Department of Literature of Kwansei
Gakuin University in Japan, both Protestant mis-
sion institutions. She is reported by communist
sources to have studied in the United States during
1926. Prior to her reported visit to the United
States, she is said to have joined the Korean Com-
munist Party and been appointed head of the
party's women's department; during this period
she worked as a correspondent on the Tang -A iltko,
prominent Seoul newspaper. From approximately.
1927 until her arrival in China in the middle 1930's,
she is said to have been active in Korea as a com-
munist underground worker, and is reported to
have spent three years in the West Gate Prison,
Seoul, as a result of communist activities.
Madame Ho, who is described as `"beautiful," is
said to have had six husbands, the last one being
a Russian officer. She is reported to have travelled
extensively prior to World War II, and to be well-
informed on international matters.
HO Ka'i
Formerly Secretary General of the Korean Labor
Party, Ho Ka'i was reputed to be the dominant
figure in the party directorate in 1919. On No-
vember 3, 1951, the P'yongyang radio announced
that Ho had been appointed Vice Premier of the
North Korean cabinet. A citizen of the U.S.S.R.,
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he is one of the most powerful men in the regime
and is reported to be the key liaison figure between
the Soviet authorities in Korea and North Korean
party and state officials. A leader of the com-
paratively small but influential corps of Soviet-
Koreans brought into north Korea by the Russians
after the Japanese surrender, his behind-the-scenes
influence is said to be enormous.
Born about 1904 in a Korean colony in Asiatic
Russia, Ho was educated after the revolution in
Soviet technical and political schools. Reported
to be a former member of the Central Committee of
a U.S.S.R. Central Asian Republic and an official
of the local Communist Party, he came into north
Korea with the Soviet Army at the close of World
War IL Ho was a key figure in the organization
of the North Korean Labor Party, and by 1943 held
the important posts of chief of the party's Organi-
zation Bureau and vice chairman of the party's
Central Committee. When the North and South
Korean Labor Parties were combined in 1949 to
form the Korean Labor Part, Ho, as party secre-
tary general and member of the Central, Political,
and Organization Committees, was reputed to be
the most influential party official in the state.
Dormant tuberculosis in both lungs occasionally
becomes active and forces Ho to take periods of
rest. His second wife, whom he is said to have
married in 1949, was apparently a kindergarten
teacher in a school for children of U.S.S.R. citizens
in north Koree and is also tubercular. She, like
Ho, is reported to have been born in Russia, is a
citizen of the U.S.S.R., a member of the local Com-
munist Party in her native area. Both Ho and his
wife speak good Korean, although Russian is said
to be the customary language of the Ho household.
. HONG Myonghui
Hong Myonghui, one of three vice-premiers of
the D.P.R.O.K., is regarded in Korea as a scholar
well-versed in the Chinese classics, Korean history
and literature, and Marxist political and economic
theories. Connected with the Korean independ-
ence movement during the 1920's and 1930's and
active in literary and scholarly circles in southern
Korea at the time of the surrender of Japan, he
was regarded by his associates as a careful, dis-
cerning thinker and a man of prudence and integ-
rity. Hong did not play a major role in Korean
politics prior to 1946, but between that year and
April 1948 was prominent as a party leader in
south Korea. Although regarded as a moderate
leftist in his views, he maintained regular contacts
with leaders of both the right and left during this
period. His subsequent defection to North Korea
following the break-up of the second North-South
Joint Conference of Political Leaders in June 1948
lends some credence to the theory that he was in
fact a secret communist during the occupation pea
nod in south Korea, and that he played along with
the moderate groups in order to swing them into
the communist camp when the time came. His
appointment as a D.P.R.O.K. vice premier is said
to have been made primarily to attract south
Korean support, for he is reported to serve in a
purely formal capacity, with little actual authority
or responsibility. Hong's elder daughter, Hong
Yongsbk, married D.P.R.O.K. Premier Kim Iisong
in January 1950.
Born May 23, 1883, in Koesan-gun, Ch'ung-
chUg-pukto, Hong was the eldest son of a family
belonging to the petty nobility. His father, while
headman of Koesan-gun, committed suicide in
1905 in protest against signing of the Japanese-
Korean treaty. Largely self-taught with no formal
college education, Hong is reported to have re-
ceived his secondary education at Taisei Middle
School, Tokyo, beginning in 1907. For short pe-
riods during the 1920's he served respectively as
managing editor of Tong-A-11bo (Oriental Daily
News) in Seoul, principal of a boys' school In
Pyongan-pukto, Instructor in Philosophy at ChosOri �
Christian College, Seoul, and editor of Sidae Daily
News, Seoul. During the 1920's he is reported to
have joined Pak Hdnyting's faction of the Korean
Communist Party for a short period. After serv-
ing several years in prison at the beginning of the
1930's for leading an anti-Japanese movement in
Chtilla-namdo, Hong gained prominence as the
author of the Story of Int Kochong, an historical
novel centering on the exploits of a mythical
Korean bandit during the Korya dynasty (918-
1392 AD.). The work appeared serially in the
newspaper, Choson Ilbo, throughout the 1930's and
early 1940's, and was later published in a ten-
volume edition. During World War II Hong is
reported to have lived in a village near Seoul.
In December 1946 Hong organized the Demo-
cratic Unification Party, which represented an at-
tempt to merge all south Korean middle-of-the-
road organizations, and which in 1947 was reor-
ganized to form the Democratic Independence
Party. During this period he was active also in
cultural organizations, serving as chairman of the
Korean Literary League, Korean Cultural Associa-
tion, and Soviet-Korean Cultural Society. He de-
clined appointment to the Korean Interim Legisla-
tive Assembly (KII.A) on ground that he would
have nothing to do with the south Korean admin-
istration until unification of north and south could
be achieved. After participating prominently dur-
ing 1947 and early 1948 in Kim Kyusik's National
Independence Federation. a coalition of moderate
and moderate leftist groups, as a member of the
Political Committee, he was able to persuade his
colleagues, over the protestations of Kim, to at-
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STATE - APRIL 1952
tend the first North-South Joint Conference In
April 1948 even before the North Koreans had re- .
vealed what was to be on the agenda of the meet-
ing. It is reported that Hong took a predominant
role in formulating Federation policies, and that
his influence at times exceeded even that of Kim
� Kyusik. Hong remained in P'yongyang following
� the termination of the Conferences, and when the
D.P.R.O.K. was established a few months later was
� appointed to his current post as a vice premier in
the "People's Republic".
ICANG Yanguk
Secretary General of the Presidium of the Su-
preme People's Assembly and chairman of the
North Korean Democratic Christian League, Kang
Yanguk became politically prominent in north Ko-
rea following the rise of Kim Ilsong after October
1945. Brother-in-law of Kim's father and reported
to have taught Kim as a youth, Kang is a procom-
munist Christian minister whose leadership of the
Democratic Christian League enabled the commu-
nists to gain organizational control over the Chris-
tian community in north Korea after 1946, After _
the surrender of Japan, he joined the Chosein Dem-
ocratic Party in December 1945. When Cho Mansik
was removed as leader of the party early the follow-
ing year, Choe Yongein and Kang were appointed
chairman and vice chairman respectively of the re-
organized and renamed party. As a high official
of the state and the North Korean Democratic Par-
ty (the former Chosein Democratic Party), leader
of the Democratic Christian League, and a member
of Kim Ilsong's household, Kang is influential in
top D.P.R.O.K. political and cultural circles. -
Born about 1894 in P'yiingan-namdo, Kang is a
graduate of Chuo University, Tokyo, and the Pres-
byterian Theological Seminary in P'yongyang.
Communist sources claim that he was imprisoned
by the Japanese while a student at Chuo University
for leading an anti-Japanese revolt among the Ko-
rean students enrolled at the school. Prior to and -
during World War II, Kang taught school and was
pastor of a Christian church in north Korea. He
was an unknown and politically obscure figure prior
to the Japanese surrender and the arrival of Kim
Ilsong upon the North Korean political scene.
Perhaps Kang's most significant accomplishment
was his organization of the Democratic Christian
League in November 1946 and his subsequent lead-
ership of the league. Under the domination of
Kang, the league became a powerful member or-
ganization of the Democratic People's Front, top
cultural cagan of the North Korean government,
And a potent propaganda agency of the regime.
Currently the league, purporting to represent the
sentiments of the Christian community in north
Korea, has given vigorous support to the propa-
ganda warfare campaign now being carried on by
the communists, and has loudly denounced the
alleged employment of bacteriological weapons by
the American "imperialist aggressors" in Korea and
China,
KIM Ch'onhae
A Korean member of the Central Committee and
the Political Bureau of the Japan Communist Party.
(Kyosanto), Kim Ch'onhae (Japanese name: Kin
Ten Kai) has been prominently engaged in leftist
activities in Japan for nearly three decades. After
having participated in the Korean independence -
movement as a youth, he went to Japan about 1920
to work and study. During the following 30 years,
Kim was active in organizing and directing the
communist movement in Japan, and spent more
than 15 years in various Japanese prisons as a re-
sult of his activities, During his last imprisonment,
which lasted approximately from 1936 until Gen-
eral MacArthur's political amnesty of October 1945,
he is reported to have actively directed the commu-
nist underground movement from his prison cell.
Following his release, Kim rose rapidly' in the
Kyosanto leadership hierarchy. At the Fourth
National Congress of the party in December 1945,
he was appointed to the Central Committee and
assigned the chairmanship of the party's Korean
department, and at the Fifth National Congress
14 months later Kim was elevated to the Political
Bureau. Meanwhile, he was an influential behind- - --
the-scenes leader of the League of Korean Residents
I n Japan (Choren), the most prominent leftist or-
ganization of Koreans in that country until its dis-
solution in September 1949, and was said to have
been the one most responsible for bringing it into
_ the communist fold. When the top leadership of
Kyosanto was purged and driven underground by the American occupation officials and the Japanese
Government in 1949, Kim Ch'onhae is reported to
have ultimately made his way to north Korea after
be allegedly escaped from a Yokohama hospital
while under police surveillance in June 1950. The
P'yongyang radio announced on November 10, 1951
that Kim had been appointed "Director of the So-
cial Affairs Department" of the Korean Labor Par-
ty's (KLP) Central Committee. In the light of
these developments, it is quite possible that Kim
has resumed party activities as a top-level KLP offi-
cial in north Korea.
Born about 1896 in Kyongsang-namdo, Kim left
Korea for Japan when approximately 24 years old.
During the 1920's he studied for several years at
Nippon University, Tokyo, and was active in the
leftist movements of that period. He participated
in the formation of the Korean Labor League of
Japan, a leftist organization of Korean workers in
ran,.
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Japan, and took the lead in organizing a Japan
branch of the Korean Labor Party. After 1929, he
was frequently in prison, where it is said he con-
tinued to direct actively the leftist underground
movement. It is reported that Kim met Tokuda
Kyuichi, Secretary General of Kyosanto, while both
were imprisoned, and the two communists became
close friends and fellow leaders in underground
activities. This friendship is said to have persisted
upon the release of the two in 1945, and Kim is
reported to be an ardent adherent of the Tokuda
faction at Kyosanto headquarters. _
Kim's overt activities ended when the Japanese
Government purged the Kyosanto Central Commit-
tee and dissolved Chore-n in 1949, but he is reported
since that year to have been very active he under-
ground work for the party. He is rumored to have
arrived in Korea shortly before the outbreak of the
Korean conflict in June 1950, and to have made a
propaganda broadcast from P'yongyang in Febru-
ary 1951. It is reported that he returned to Japan
early in 1951, where he engaged in communist
underground work in the Nagasaki-ken area.
Kim Ch'onhae is not only the most prominent
Korean in the ranks of Kyosanto, but also has ap-
parently made recent top-level, official connections
with the Korean Labor Party. He is an experienced
propagandist, was editor and publisher of a commu-
nist Korean language paper in Japan, and a con-
tributor to Zen-ei, a Kyosanto medium published
monthly.
Kim is described as a very imposing figure; over
six feet tall, well-dressed and distinguished in ap-
pearance. He is said to possess a fine personality,
and to be an eloquent speaker. He is in poor health,
a victim of tuberculosis, possibly as a result of the
many years he spent in prison. His mistress is
reputed to be Kiln Onchtes (Japanese name: Kim
On Jun), a leading Korean woman leftist living in
southern Japan, who, since the middle of 1947, has
been head of the Korean Democratic Women's
League in Japan (Josei Dome�.
KIM II
Kim 11, influential Soviet-Korean military figure
in the North Korean regime, is vice minister of Na-
tional Defense in charge of Cultural Affairs, and
deputy director of the Political Bureau of the north
Korean "People's Army." Born in Asiatic Russia
about 1904 and a graduate of a Soviet military col-
lege, he came to north Korea after the surrender
of Japan in 1945 as a ranking officer in the Soviet
Army. As a member of the Central Committee of
the North Korean Labor Party and deputy com-
mander in chief of the "People's Army," Kim di-
rected the political and cultural indoctrination of
the officers' stall of the armed forces from 1945 until
the creation of the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea in 1948. After the "PeoPle's Republic"
was established, he assumed the post he now holds
as head of the Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Na-
tional Defense Ministry with the status of vice min-
ister, promoted to the rank of Major General, and
put in virtual control of all cultural and political
matters involving the armed forces.
As a Soviet-Korean vice minister and a dominant
figure in both the Army and National Defense Min-
istry, Kim is a top authority in military matters in
the regime.
KIM Ilsong �
"Kim Ilsong", whose real name is KIM S43ngch'u,
is the ranking Communist leader in Korea by vir-
tue of his official positions RS Premier, Supreme
Commander of the D.P.R.O.K. Armed Forces, chair-
man of the State Military Committee, and chair-
man of the Korean Labor Party._ A relatively un-
known Korean who had once Operated as a bandit
leader in Manchuria, Kim Stingch'u has been built
up by Soviet propaganda since October 1945 as
the outstanding Korean patriot and national hero
and hailed by the Soviets as the "peerless leader"
of the Korean people. By assigning him the alias
of "Kim Ilsong,the Soviet occupation authorities
In north Korea utilized the name and reputation
of a much older Korean whose guerrilla activities
against the Japanese in Manchuria and northern
Korea during the years from 1930 to 1940 had made
him almost a legend throughout Korea. The origia�
nal Kim Ilsong, a graduate of the Japanese Mili-
tary Academy in Tokyo who could speak several
languages fluently, including Russian, is believed
to have been killed by the Japanese Army some-
time after 1940. The present Kim listing is de-
scribed by noncommunist sources as a man of
rough habits and little formal education, yet one
who possesses shrewdness, native intelligence, an
engaging manner, and who is more of a genuine
force than generally credited by noncommunist
observers. He is reported to be a good orator, but
to have little facility in speaking languages other
than Korean. Communist sources claim he ren-
dered distinguished services to the Soviet cause
during World War If as an officer in the Red Army,
for which he has been decorated by Stalin and
profusely eulogized in the communist press.
Born April 15, 1912 in P'yOngan-namdo at
Man'gyeingdae, a small town a few miles southwest
of P'yongyang, Kim was named Kim Sangeh'u by
his father, Kirn Hyongchik, a school teacher and
minor revolutionary who spent most of his life
fleeing from the Japanese in northern Korea and
Manchuria. It is reported that after the death of
his father, Kim Siengclfu migrated to Manchuria
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and became a minor partisan and bandit leader
and finally disappeared into the U.S.S.R. in the
early 1940s. Between 1042 and 1945, he is said
to have received formal communist indoctrination
at a Soviet party school in the Far East.
Kim returned to Korea in 1945 under the spon-
sorship of the Soviets and as a junior officer in the
Soviet Army. In the autumn of 1945, at a libera-
tion celebration in P'yongyang, Cho Mansik, an
able Korean nationalist leader and the most re-
spected noncommunist politician in north Korea,
was persuaded to introduce Kim to the Korean
public under the alias of Kim Ilsong, renowned
national hero of Korean resistance against the
Japanese. Cho, disturbed by communist activity
following arrival of the Soviets in north Korea in
August 1945) had been privately reassured by Kim
that he was not in sympathy with communist aims,
but was in reality a fervent nationalist. Thus
convinced, Cho introduced Kim Scangchlu as "Kim
Ilsang," ardent patriot and nationalist, and Kim
made his first public speech to the North Korean
people. The audience trusted Cho and gave Kim
an enthusiastic reception. Cho Maxisik, having
salted his purpose and being a potential political
rival of the communists, was soon shunted aside
by them and became virtually a prisoner in
P'yongyang.
The consequences of Kim's sudden public promi-
nence were immediate and widespread. At an im-
portant conference of the Korean Communist
Party in October 1945) Kim, as a reselt of Soviet
support, obtained leadership of the party from both
the local north Korean communists and from the
head of the Korean Communist Party, Pak Iron-
yang who subsequently returned to south Korea to
head the South Korean Labor Party, the Commu-
nist Party's organization south of the 38th parallel.
Upon the establishment of the "Republic" in
September 1943, Kim was placed at the head of
the newly formed cabinet as premier. Although
in theory the cabinet is subordinate to the Su-
preme People's Assembly, nominally the highest
agency of state authority, actually the Assembly
does little more than ratify decrees drafted by the
cabinet and the state Military Committee, which
was created in June 1950 to rule the nation with
"absolute power" for the duration of the current
Korean hostilities. Kim's titular supremacy in a
state at war is assured by his dual positions as Su-
preme Commander of D.P.R.O.K. Armed Forces
and chairman of the Military Committee.
Over and above the state executive and admin-
istrative hierarchy is the Korean Labor Party, cre-
ated in August 1919 by the amalgamation of the
North and South Korean Labor Parties which had
been established in Korea during 1946. Kan as-
sumed the chairmanship of the KLP at the time
of its formation, although ex-First Secretary Ho
Kal, Ft former official of the Soviet Communist
Party and a leading Sovlet-Korean government fig-
ure, was reputed to be the most powerful member
of the KLP.
Although Kim is the titular head of both party
and state, ultimate power in the D.P.R.O.K. is ex-
ercised by the Soviets acting through their trusted
henchmen, the inner core of party stalwarts. In
the case of the D.P.R.O.K., this group consists not
only of Kim and his Soviet-trained fellow partisans,
but especially the small but extremely Influential
coterie of Soviet-Koreans who occupy the nomi-
nally second-level party and governmental posi-
tions. Ho Kai, in his current cabinet post as
Deputy Premier, may possibly surpass Kim in real
authority in the state.
Kim is the father of two children by a former
wife whom he married in Manchuria and who is
reported to have died in 1949. In January 1950
he married the daughter of Hong Myonghui, one
of the three D.P.R.O.K. deputy premiers.
KIM Mucha:1g
General Kim Muchang (also known as Mu
Chang, Wu T'ing, Choe Muchong, and Kim Ilom),
is a prominent communist military leader and
former commander of the Korean Volunteer Corps
in China. He represents, together with Kim Tu-
bong, former chairman of the Korean Independence
Alliance at Yenan, the leadership of the so-called
"Yenan Faction" of Korean communists (i.e., Ko-
reans who fought with Chinese Communists at
Yenan [Fu-shih], China). Closely associated with
the Chinese Communists for many years and the
possessor of an outstanding military record as a
fighter against the Japanese, Kim and his followers
returned to north Korea in November 1945 amid
popular acclaim. As a brilliant military com-
mander backed by a considerable army, he rivalled
the popularity of Kim llsong. The latter, however,
had Soviet support, and he and his Soviet sponsors
quickly neutralized any influence Kim Muchong's
military strength might possess by immediately
disarming and scattering his army. When the
"People's Army" was organized in 1946 the rem-
nants of the Kim Muchang forces were absorbed
into the larger, centrally controlled forces. As a
result of his popularity and prestige in communist
military circles, Kira at first was assigned to fairly
prominent posts in the north Korean administra-
tion and North Korean Labor Party, and appointed
to head the Artillery Headquarters of the "People's
Army.' However, by the end of 1948 he had been
replaced in the party hierarchical posts and de-
moted to lower military positions, and in 1949 was
even censured at a Labor Party meeting. Early
in the present Korean conflict Kim was reported
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to be commander of the north Korean Second
Army Corps, and recent reports indicate that Kim's
influence in north Korean army circles has in-
creased since the entry of the Chinese Communists
into the hostilities.
Born in 1902 in Harrigyong-pukto, Kim has
received most of his military training and his
political indoctrination with the Chinese Commu-
nists. After receiving a higher school education
in Seoul, he graduated from the Artillery Depart-
rnent of the Northern Army Academy, China, in
1926, and the Military Staff College of the Eighth
Route Army Headquarters at Yenan after 1936. A
member of the Chinese Communist Patty since
1925, Kim apparently joined the Chinese Commu-
nist army following the 1927 split between the Na-
tionalists and the Communists. Subsequently he
served as regimental commander during the "Long
March," and was one of the outstanding leaders of
the famous Chinese Eighth Route Army during the
Sino-Japanese War. During the early 1940's Kim
was one of the organizers of the Chinese commu-
nist-sponsored Korean Independence Alliance, and
from 1942-4945 was commander in chief of the
Korean Volunteer Army under the Chinese Com-
munist forces.
After returning to north Korea following the
surrender of Japan in 1945, Kim served as chair-
man of the Military Affairs Committee of the north
Korean Interim People's Committee and chief of
the Organization Bureau of the Korean Comma -
fist Party. After 1946 he was appointed GHQ ar-
tillery commander in the "People's Army," Deputy
Minister of National Defense (in charge of artil-
lery) in Kim Ilsong's cabinet, and a member of
the Central Committee of the North Korean Labor
Party, but was not allowed to exercise any real
authority in these posts. Ch'oe Yonggfin, Soviet
trained crony of Kim llsong, as Minister of National
Defense and commander of the 'People's Army,"
wa-s Kim Muchong's superior and he effectively
diminished Kim's influence in military circles after
1946.
Kim, 11s5ng and Kiln Muchong, in their early
duel for supremacy in the regime, are reported to
have had serious disagreements concetning how
communism should be administered in North Ko-
rea. It was said that while the former was per-
fectly willing to allow the Soviets to determine
basic policies in the regime, the latter favored
closer ties with the Chinese Communists and a
more nationalistic brand of communism. How-
ever, it is probable that the real differences be-
tween the two were not based on ideology but rep-
resented primarily a naked struggle for power by
the leaders of two politico-military factions of di-
verse background and training. The struggle was
early resolved decisively in favor of the Kim Ilsong
faction mainly as the result of three basic factors:
1) the Soviets backed Kim Mang unequivocally; 2)
Kim Muchiang was never prominent or skillful, po-
litically, and is distinguished for his military leader-
ship rather than his political accomplishments;
and 3) Kim Muchong failed to receive the support
of his co-leader in the "Yenan Faction," Kim
Tubong, who quickly conceded political suprem-
acy to Kim IlsOng and was content to play a less
active role, albeit one carrying high titular rank.
KIM P'a _
Kim P'a, chief of counterintelligence operations
in North Korea, is a Soviet-Korean who is reported
to have been an agent of the Soviet MVD in Kazakh
S.S.R. during the early 1940's and during most of
World War II. It is said that the Soviets consid-
ered him technically the most skilled and compe-
tent Korean in the intelligence field, and he had
the reputation of being the most feared man in
north Korea because of his great influence in
political intelligence activities. As chief of the
counterespionage section of the former Political
Security Bureau, a powerful and nearly autono-
mous agency in the Internal Affairs Ministry, Kim
was reputed to be the most powerful figure in the
organization and more feared than Pang Hakse,
Soviet-Korean chief of the bureau. Prior to the
removal of the Political Security Bureau from the
Internal Affairs Ministry and its reorganization as
the Ministry of Public Security (political police)
about April 1951, Kim is said to have been placed
in control of military intelligence operations and
removed to Army General Headquarters, In 1950,
he was reported to have been active in security
operations in Seoul following the first communist
occupation of that city.
Kim P'a was born about 1917 in Asiatic Russia
and reportedly graduated from a Soviet normal
school. He came to P'yongyang after the end of
World War II as ark officer in the Soviet Army and
was active in intelligence operations under the So-
viet military government. When the Political De-
fense Bureau was established in the Internal Af-
fairs Ministryaboart November 1948, Kim was ap-
pointed deputy chief of the bureau and head of the
First Office, in charge of counterintelligence oper-
ations. In October 1949, he is reported to have as-
sumed charge of the Third Office, responsible for
the political security and indoctrination of the
D.P.R.O.K. "People's Army".
Kim is said to be a highly trusted adviser to the
Soviet officials in north Korea and consulted by
them on important matters even prior to their con-
sultations with Kim Ilsong. His influence in the
Political Security Bureau was said to have been
so great that he was responsible for briefing Kim
11s5ng on external matters and internal political
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STATE - APRIL 1952
trends and personalities, and was accountable to
nobody, including Pang Hakse, for the contents of
these briefings. As a result of his power, political
leaders and army officers regardless of position or
rank are said to hold Kim in the greatest of awe.
His influence was further enhanced when he was
placed in control of army security and intelligence
operations. An unverified report states that he
was recently sent to Japan.
KIM Talliyon
Vice Chairman of the Supreme People's Assem-
bly and chairman of the semireligious Chiandokyo
(Young Friends Party), one of the few minor po-
litical parties allowed to exist in the D.P.R.O.K.,
Kim TalliyOn's positions are more titular than ac-
tive since his real influence in policy-forming cir-
cles is believed to be slight. As he is not officially
a Communist and has no record of participation in
the communist underground movement, his posi-
tions amount to _"democratic" window dressing on
the part of the real rulers of the state.
Kim was born July 1884 in Hamju-gun, Hamg-
yong-narndo, and is a graduate of Suwon Agricul-
tural School and Aoyama Gakuin, a private college -
in Tokyo. Prior to World War H, he taught for
many years at Huimu.n Middle School, Seoul, and
at other educational institutions. Kim also en-
gaged in fanning in Hamgy5ng-namdo for a time,
and was active in fanners' organizations, especially
the Korean Fanners Association. It is reported
that he was imprisoned by the Japanese for par-
ticipating in the 1919 Korean independence up-
risings.
Under the Soviet occupation of north Korea fol-
lowing the Japanese surrender, Kim was appointed
chairman of the Ch'ondokyo in 1946, and vice chair-
man of the North Korean Interim People's Assem-
bly the following year. He has been vice chairman
of the Supreme People's Assembly since the estab-
lishment of the D.P.R.O.K. in 1948.
KIM Tubong
A noted Marxist scholar and a recognized au-
thority on the Korean language, Kim Tubong has
been connected with the Korean revolutionary
movement since before 1919, when he fled to Shang-
hai to escape imprisonment by the Japanese. He
was an old revolutionary associate of Yet Unhyong
and Kim Kyusik, former south Korean political
leaders, and was a leader of the so-called Yenan
faction of Korean communists. In his current po-
sition as chairman of the Presidium of the Su-
preme People's Assembly, Kim is the nominal head
of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea with
the official title of President. In spite of his high
position in the North Korean government, his
actual influence in top political circles of the re-
gime in believed to be eight at the present time.
A factor in his loss of power may be that he, to-
gether with Kim Muchong, represents the leader-
ship of the group of Korean Communists of Yenan
background which, prior to the Korean War, had
gradually been reduced in authority and prestige
in favor of Soviet-Koreans, or Soviet-trained Ko-
reans like Kim Ilsong and his followers. �
Born March 17, 1888 or 1889 in Kyongsang-
namdo, in southeast Korea, Kim Tubong attended
secondary school in Seoul. There is no available
record of any other formal education, although it
is reported that he has intensively studied the -
Korean classics and the works of Marx, Engels, and
other Marxist writers. Kim taught school in Seoul
until he fled to China in 1919. During the 1920's,
he was principal of ,a Korean school in Shanghai
which specialized in the Korean language and clas-
sics. It is reported that while he was in Shanghai
he persistently declined to accept high posts in the
Korean Provisional Government, then in exile in
China, but showed a preference for left-wing
Korean �gr�roups in. China such as the Taehan
Independence Party, of which he was the leader
during the 1920's, and the Korean People's Revolu-
tionary Party (a communist-controlled party which
he led in the 1930's). He went to YenarT(Fu-shih)
around 1940, and was chairman of the Korean In-
dependence Alliance from 1942 until he returned to
Korea in November 1945.
In north Korea Kim Tubong and his followers
engaged in a losing struggle for political supremacy _
with Kim Ils'ong and his followers, who had the full
backing of the Soviet occupation authorities. The
Soviets realized, however, that some major con-
cessions would have to be made in the case of Kim
Tubong, who had tremendous prestige and in-
fluence with the Yenan group of Korean commu-
nists and other groups. Accordingly, in 1946 Kim
was appointed vice chairman of the North Korean
Provisional People's Committee, the highest execu-
tive and administrative organ in north Korea prior
to the establishment of the "Republic" in 1948.
Meanwhile, Kim had reorganized the Korean In-
dependence Alliance as the New Democratic Party,
which merged with the Korean Communist Party
(northern branch) in 1946 to form the North Ko-
rean Labor Party. Kim served as chairman of the
North Korea Labor Party until its reorganization
in 1949, at which time he was significantly removed
from key party posts in favor of Soviet-trained
Koreans like Kim Ils5ng and Pak Hariy5ng.
Kim has served as chairman of the Presidium of
the Supreme People's Assembly and ex-officio "pres-
ident" since the creation of the "People's Republic"
in 1948. According to authoritative sources, Kim
has been married three times, and has had chit-
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dren by each wife. It is reported that, as a scholar
of some repute, he has aided in the preparation of
� text books on grammar and literature used in some
Korean elementary schools.
KIM Wonbong
Kim Wonbong, also known as Kim Yaksan, Min-
ister of State Inspection was a veteran anti-Japa-
nese resistance leader in China for many years prior
to the surrender. He was a prominent commander
^ of the Korean Volunteer Corps and an official Of
the left-of-center Korean National Revolutionary
Party. Although he maintained some connections
- with the communist-led Korean Independence Al-
liance at Yenan (Fu-shih), Kim participated in the
predominently rightist Korean Provisional Govern-
ment as its Minister of War. He returned to south-
ern Korea at the end of World War II and became
chairman of the Korean National Revolutionary
Party (renamed People's Republican Party in June
1947) upon the resignation of Kim Kyusik, co-
founder of the party. Kim Wonbong was the sec-
ond-ranking leader of the communist-led South
Korean Democratic People's Front prior to his
defection to the D.P.R.O.K. in September 1948.
Currently Kim, a noncommunist, possesses little
actual power, and is used primarily to provide a
democratic facade for the D.P.R.O.K. - -
Born 1894 in KyOngsang-namclo, Kim is a grad-
uate of Whampoa Military Academy at Clanton.
During the 1930's he was active as an official of
the Korean Provisional Government in China, co-
founder with Kim Kyusik of the Korean National _
Revolutionary Party, and founder and commander
in chief of the Korean Volunteer Corps. In 1942,
he was appointed Minister of War in the Korean
Provisional Government. During this period, Kim
Wifinbong was one of the most noted of the non--
communist Korean resistance military leaders.
Following the close of World War If, Kim was
active in politics below the 38th parallel. He took
the Korean National Revolutionary Party into the
ranks of the coromunist-infiltrated Democratic
People's Front in 1946 and became a top leader of
the latter organization. As chairman of the
People's Republican Party and a co-chairman of
the Democratic Front, he attended the communist-
sponsored North-South Joint Political Conference
at PVingyang in 1948, following which he did not
return to south Korea. When the D.P.R.O.K. was
established in September of that year, he was ap-
pointed Minister of State Inspection and member
of the Supreme People's Assembly.-
Kim remains chairman of the People's Republi-
can Party, one of the few political groups other -
than the Korean Labor Party still permitted to
exist in the regime.
KWON Ochik
Kwon Ochik; who is the North Korean regime's
Ambassador to Communist China, is a former vice
minister of Foreign Affairs and minister to the
Hungarian People's Republic. Following the .sur-
render of Japan in August 1945, Kwon, a veteran
revolutionist, was active in south Korea for ap-
proximately ten months as an organizer and leader
of the Korean Communist Party and the South
Korean Labor Party,
Born in 1905 in Kyongsang-pukto, Kwon joined
the communist youth movement in the early 1920's.
After participating in the organization of the Ko-
rean Communist Party in the mid-1920's, be fled to
the U.S.S.R., where he is reported to have attended
and graduated from the Far Eastern University in
Moscow. From the time of his return to Korea in
1928 until the Japanese surrender in 1945, he spent
much of his time in prison as a result of his under-
ground activities in behalf of the communists.
Following World War II Kwon was released from
prison and resumed his communist activities as
publisher and chief editor of the Haebang libo, a
Seoul communist newspaper. He helped reorgan-
ize the Korean Communist Party and was also ac-
tive in a communist counterfeit ring which al-
legedly printed millions of spurious south Korean
won _to_finance_communist operations below the
38th parallel. When a warrant for his arrest as
a counterfeiter was issued by the U.S. occupation
authorities in May 1946, he fled to north Korea,
where he remained influential in South Korean
Labor Party activities as secretary of the party's
standing committee and head of its cultural affairs
department.
Following the establishment of the Democratic
_ People's Republic of Korea in 1948, KWori was ap-
pointed Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and mem-
ber of the state's Supreme People's Assembly. As
an official of the Foreign Ministry, he participated
in the negotiations just north of the 38th parallel
in December 1949 which led to the release of two
officials of the former U.S. Economic Cooperation
Administration mission in Korea who had been
seized and detained by the communists. Kwon
served as Minister to the Hungarian People's Re-
public from June 1950 until January 1952. In
March 1952 he was appointed ambassador to Com-
munist China, succeeding Yi Chuyon.
NAM II
Chief of the general staff and Field Commander
of the North Korean Armed Forces, and currently
head of the communist delegation at the Korean
cease-fire negotiations, General Nam II is an in-
fluential Soviet-Korean military leader and former
Vice Minister of Education. A powerful figure in
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the interim regime's Bureau of Education and,
after 1948, in the Ministry of Education, he was
- commissioned as a general officer in the rear areas
department of the National Defense Ministry
(Army) shortly before the communist invasion of
June 25, 1950. Nam was appointed chief of staff
of the "People's Army" several months after the
death of the former chief of staff, Lieutenant Gen-
eral Kang Kun, who was reported killed in action
on September 8, 1950. As a particularly able and
trusted henchman of the Soviets Nam was selected,
in his official capacity as army field commander,- -
to head the communist delegation at _ the peace
talks in Korea which began at Kaesang on July 10,
1951.
Born in Asiatic Russia about 1912. Nam attended
military schools in the U.S.S.R. and is reported to
have fought the Germans during World War II as
a captain in the Red Army. He came to north
Korea with the Soviets following the surrender of
Japan in 1945 and was assigned to key positions in
the field of education in north Korea. After 1948,
as the Soviet-Korean Vice Minister of Education,
Nam was influential in shaping the educational
policies of the regime in line with Soviet policies
and converting the Ministry of Education into a key
propaganda agency of the government.
FAX Chongae
Prominent as a government propagandist and
Korean Labor Party leader, Madame Pak Cliongae
is the most powerful and influential woman in the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea. A mem-
ber of the Soviet-Korean clique, she has collabo-
rated closely with the Soviet authorities in North
Korea, and has served them faithfully as trusted
confidant, informer, and interpreter. Widow of
Kim Yongb6m, Chairman of the Inspection De-
partment of the North Korean Labor Party who
died in 1947, she has had a long career of associa-
tion with corrununist organizations ha the U.S.S.R.,
and is reported to have played a prominent role in
the communist underground movement in Korea and Manchuria prior to and during World War II.
After the surrender of Japan in 1945, she held high
positions in the several Communist Party organiza-
tions in North Korea, and in November 1951 was
appointed to the influential party posts of secre-
tary (one of three) of the Korean Labor Party and
member of the party's Political Committee. She
has been a member of the party's Central Commit-
tee and chief of the Women's Department since
1945.
Since 1947, Madame Pak, in her official capacity
as chairman of the Korean Democratic Women's
League, an important governmental position, has
been busy visiting communist countries as an offi-
cial D.P.R.O,K. spokesman and propagandist on the
issues of the day, and perennial delegate to inter-.
national communist conventions. In April 1951
the Soviet authorities announced that she had been
awarded an Intel national Stalin Peace Prize for her
"outstanding and tireless services in behalf of world
peace," She journeyed to Moscow the following
June and accepted the prize amid much pomp and
ceremony. . .
Born 1907 in Asiatic Russia, Madame Pak grad-
uated from a Soviet teachers' college and taught
school in the Soviet Union for several years. Her
political activities began in the early 1920s when
she joined the Young Communist League (Kom-
somol). During the 1930's, she is reported to have
joined the Communist Party and worked in a fac-
tory in Moscow. After holding a position in the
Moscow Municipal Administration from 1929 to
1932, she is said to have left the Soviet Union -
around 1932 to engage in underground activities
against the Japanese in Korea and Manchuria.
She is reputed to have settled in P'yongyang
around 1930, where she worked in a rubber factory
and continued her underground operations. Both
she and her husband are said to have been Ina-
primed for two years by the Japanese prior to
World War H because of communist activities.
Since the Japanese surrender, Madame Pak has
held high posts in the north Korean party and state
organizations, and she has been a key leader in
the "women's movement" in north Korea. Some of
the influential positions she has held during this
period include those of chairman, Korean Demo-
cratic Women's League (1945 to present), executive
official, North Korean Interim People's Committee
(1945 to 1948); member of Central Committee and
chief of Women's Department, Korean Communist
Party, North Korean Labor Party, and Korean La-
bor Party (1945 to present); and member of the
Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly (1948
to present).
Currently, Madame Pak is engaged in constant
travel within the communist orbit in Europe and
Asia. She makes frequent speeches extolling the
"virtues" of Stalin and the Soviet Union and de-
nouncing the "crimes" of the "American imperial-
ist aggressor" in Korea, Japan, and elsewhere.
PAK Muting
A veteran Soviet-trained communist revolution-
ary, Pak Itanyong, Foreign Minister and Deputy
Premier, is an influential member of the top politi-
cal command in the Nor th Korean government as
a result of his Soviet connections and his long
experience in the communist movement.
Between 1945 and 1947, he was leader of the
Communist revolutionaries in south Korea who
CONFIDENTIAL
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POLITICAb
CORM -
directed the extreme left-wing movement in that
part of the country following the establishment
. -- of the United States Army Military Government.
Pak was head of the Korean communist move-
ment until October 1945, but after that date his
prestige and power in the movement were super-
seded by the ascendancy of Kim 11s6ng and his
followers in north Korea, who took over the party
leadership for both sections of the country. In
1946, Pak organized and assumed the leadership
of the South Korean Labor Party (SKLP), which
was the Communist Party's counterpart below the
38th parallel. In 1947 Pak fled to north Korea,
where he continued to head the SKLP until its con-
solidation with the North Korean Labor Party in
1949 to form the Korean Labor Party (KLP)Fol-
lowing the amalgamation, he was designated as
vice chairman of the KU', but remained theo-
retically the spokesman for the south Korea com-
munists, and their standard bearer in the North
Korean regime.
Pak was born in 1899 in Yesan, Ch'ungch'Ong-.
namdo, and graduated from a Seoul secondary
school in 1919. He studied in the U.S.S.R. between
1927 and 1930, graduating from Lomonosov Uni-
versity, Moscow, the latter year. Pak has been
active in the Korean communist movement since
the early 1920's and was one of the founders of the
Korean Communist Party, established in 1925.
After several imprisonments by the Japanese police
between 1925 and 1936 he is reported to have
worked as a laborer in Ch011a-namdo and engaged
in underground activities from 1936 until the lib-
eration in August 1945. Some reports indicate
that Pak was in Moscow between 1943 and 1945.
From August 1945 until September 6, 1946, when
a warrant for his arrest was issued for actions
inimical to the U.S. occupation forces, Pak oper-
ated openly as the chief communist spokesman in _
the American occupation zone. After September
1946, Pak went underground, but continued to
dominate the south Korea communist movement
as chairman of the SKLP. When the North Ko-
rean communist regime was formally established
by the Soviets during August and September 1948,
Pak was named Foreign Minister and one of the
three deputy prime ministers in Kim IlsOng's cab-
inet. He still retains both posts.
Pak has been married twice and is reported to
have had a daughter by each wife.
PAK flu
Although Pak flu, Minister of Internal Affairs of
the North Korean regime, worked and fought with
the Chinese Communists for many years, he is
reported to be closely associated with Kim Ilsong
and the Soviet-trained group of Korean commu-
nist leaders. A veteran Communist revolutionist,
CONFIDENTIAL
he is a member of the Central and Political Com-
mittees of the Korean Labor Party and is one of
the most influential leaders of the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea. Pak is believed to have
close relations with the U.S.S.R. Currently, he is
a member of the highly influential Military Com-
mittee" of the state, is a general officer in the
D.P.R.O.K. armed forces and deputy chief of staff
of the combined Chinese Communist and Korean
"People's Army" General Headquarters. Pak is
described is clever and intelligent, and an expert
on Chinese affairs.
Pak was born in 1911 in Haragyang-pukto, but
spent most of his early years in southern Man-
churia, where he received an elementary and nor-
rnal school education. While a student, he joined
the Korean Communist Party and became active in
the anti-Japanese resistance movement. In his
youth he is reported to have travelled widely in
both Manchuria and Soviet Russia, and in the
early 1930's was imprisoned by the Japanese for
several years. Around 1935, Pak joined the Chi-
nese Communist forces, and during World War II
was a member of the Korean Independence Alli-
ance and deputy commander of the� Korean mili-
tary-political school at Yenan. Along with Kim
Muchong, Pak helped to reorganize the Korean
Volunteer Corps into a communist military unit,
with which he returned to northern Korea early
in 1946 as deputy commander.
Prior to the establishment of the "People's Re-
public" in 1948, Pak was chief of the bureau of �
internal affairs of the North�Korea People's Com-
mittee and a prominent organizer and leader of
the North Korea Labor Party. When the.
D.P.R.O.K. was established in August of that year,
he was made Minister of Internal Affairs and given
- a prominent post in the armed forces of the state.
- PAK Munkyu
Minister of Agriculture and Forestry and a key
agricultural expert of the North Korean regime,
Pak Munkyu was active in leftist political circles
In south Korea following the surrender. He was
reported to have been a prominent member of the
Pak Honyong faction of the Korean Communist
Party in 1945. lie was also astive as a member
of the party's Central Executive Committee, a pest
he retained upon the party's reorganization in 1946
as the South Korean Labor Party. After serving
approximately one year in jail in south Korea for
leftist activities during 1947 and 1948, Pak escaped
to the north in time to participate in the formation
of the North Korean regime during August and
September 1048, and was appointed Minister of
Agriculture in Kim Ils;5ng's cabinet.
Born in Kysingsang-pukto about 1905, Pak gradu-
ated from Keijo (Seoul) Imperial University
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around 1930 and was appointed to an assistant pro-
fessorship at the university in the field of agricul-
tural economics. He apparently was not too active
- in politics during the 1930's, but by the time of the
surrender Pak was prominent enough to serve as
an official of the short-lived Korean People's Repub-
lic, established in south Korea in August 1945.
Following the Japanese surrender, he was an active
leader of the communist groups in south Korea.
During 1946 and 1947 he represented them on the
Democratic People's Front, a coalition of leftist
groups, and is reported to have been serving as chief
of its General Affairs (Business and Administra-
tion) Section at the time of his arrest at the end of
March 1947 on a charge of inciting the March
21st - 22nd general strikes. According to news-
paper reports, he was sentenced to three years im-
prisOnment, and apparently was in jail from March
1917 until approximately April 1948. An uncon-
firmed report states that Pak was a member of the
Central Committee of the Korean Labor Party in
1950.
PANG Hakse
Pang Hakse, Minister of Public Security (politi-
cal police), is an influential Soviet-Korean who has
been in charge of the state's top intelligence and
investigative agencies. As chief of the former Po-
litical Security Bureau of the Internal Affairs Min-
istry prior to April 1951, he was in charge of coun-
terintelligence operations and the North Korean
political police, an elite corps responsible only to
the bureau itself. Although Vice Minister of In-
ternal Affairs and nominally the head of the Politi-
cal Security Bureau, it was reported that Pang was
actually subordinate in authority and prestige to
Kim Pa, chief of the bureau's First Office and
reputed to be the most feared man in North Korea:
When the Political Security Bureau was removed
from the Internal Affairs Ministry in April 1951
and reorganized as the Ministry of Public Security,
Pang was made chief of the new ministry. He is
an official of the Central Committee of the Korean
Labor Party, is reported to have very close con-
nections with the Soviets and to be one of their
most trusted agents.
Born about 1910, Pang is reported to be a grad-
uate of a U.S.S.R. law college and a former Soviet
judicial officer. He served in the Soviet Army
prior to and during World War 1I, and during part
of this period he is said to have served as an agent
of the MV)). He entered north Korea following
the surrender in 1945 as an officer of the Soviet
Army, in which he acted as interpreter and intelli-
gence agent. When the "People's Republic" was
established in 1948, Pang was made Vice Minister
of Internal Affairs ana placed in charge of the
Political Security Bureau of that ministry, with
the rank of lieutenant general.
Y1 Yong
Minister of Justice Yi Yong was one of the early
leaders in the Korean communist movement. His
repeated participation from 1945 until 1948 In mod-
erate south Korean coalition groups, such as the
National Independence Federation and the Society
for the Acceleration of Korean Unification, and in-
variable return to the communist fold, appear to
justify the conclusion that he has long functioned
as a communist "fifth columnist" infiltrating op-
position groups.
Born in 1888 in Pukch'ong, Hamgyong-namdo, Yi
is a graduate of a private secondary school in Seoul
and an industrial training college in Nanking,
China. As early as 1920, he was reported to have
been engaged in organizing leftist organizations
in Korea, and from 1928 until 1933 was imprisoned
by the Japanese for communist activities as secre- -
'Way of the Korean Communist Party.� After the -
Japanese surrender in 1945, Yi was active in com-
munist circles in Seoul and was regarded as a
rival of Pak Hainyong in the battle among extreme
leftists in south Korea for control of the Korean
Communist Party. He organized a Seoul commu-
nist factian which was later absorbed by a Soviet-
approved organization under Pak's leadership.
From 1946 until 1948 he was a member of and ac-
tive In noncommunist organizations such as -Y6
Untryang's Socialist Labor Party, the South Korean
Democratic People's Front, the Laboring People's
Party (of which he is currently chairman), and
the National Independence Federation, one of the
last -coalition- efforts among moderate left-wing
elements in south Korea.
After participating in the Soviet-sponsored
North-South Joint Political Conferences at P'yOng-
yang during April and June 1948aYi remained in
the north and became a top official of the "People's
Republic" upon Its organization the following Au-
gust and September. He served as Minister of
Municipal Administration until his appointment
as Minister of Justice in December 1951. He has
been Vice Chairman of the Supreme People's As-
sembly since September 1948. When the south
Korean branch of the Laboring People's Party dis-
banded in 1949 Yi assumed the chairmanship of
the party.
Republic of Korea (South Korea)
AN Chaehong
An Chaehong, former Korean Civil Administra-
tor under U.S. Army Military Government in Korea
during 1947 and 1948, was prominent in south Ko-
rean politics until captured by the communists in
July 1950 and taken north upon their first retreat
from Seoul. After 1945, he was active for a time
in rightist organizations, but soon became one of
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The major moderate political leaders, although
more conservative than some of his colleagues. He
Is greatly respected by Koreans for his wartime
leadership against the Japanese within Korea.
One of the few Korean independence leaders who
remained in Korea throughout the period of Jap-
anese control, An was imprisoned nine times by _
the Japanese. He is a forceful man and a capable
administrator, and is also well-versed in the pub-
tithing and newspaper business. His present
whereabouts and activities are unknown, but it is
presumed he is still under communist _ control._
He is alleged to have made a broadcast from Seoul
In July 1950 congratulating the communists on
their victory, and the communist radio at Fyong-
yang on May 1, 1951 reported that An had signed
the world-wide "peace appeal" promoted by the
communist "World Peace Council."
Born November 1891 in P'yongraeng-ni, Kyong-
gi-do, An is a graduate of a YMCA middle school
In Seoul and the Political Science Department of
Waseda University, Tokyo. During the 1920's and
1930's he was active in the newspaper field as
editor of Sidae Ilbo and Chostat ilbo from 1925 to
1932 and participated in the independence move- _
ment, for which he was frequently_ imprisoned.
� Following the surrender of Japan in 1945, An was�
influential in conservative political circles in south- CHANG My6n
ern Korea during the American occupation. He Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea until
organized the rightist Nationalist Party in 1945, April 1952 and former Korean Ambassador to the '
served as publisher and editor of the Haneong United States, Dr. Chang Myon (also known as Dr.
llbo during 1946 and was an executive member of John M. Chang) has been influential in consems-
the Korean Independence Party,-1946-1947.� He tive political circles in south Korea since the Japa-
seued as an appointed member of the Korean nese surrender in 1945, although he is not a mem-
Interim Legislative Assembly (MLA) in 1947 ten- her of any political party.
til appointed Civil Administrator of the South Ko- The leading Catholic layman in Korea, he has
mean Interim Government (SKIG) in February of -long been active in the religious, cultural, and civic
that year. After the inauguration of the Republic life of the country. Chang entered politics in 1946, �
of Korea in 1948, An was in virtual political retire- and after serving several years as a member of south
meat Until his election to the National Assembly Korean legislative organs and 11.0X. representa-
in May 1950. tive at the United Nations, was appointed Ambas-
sador at Washington in January 1949. He left this e
11 post to become Prime Minister In January 1951,
and after a stormy 15 months in office was re-
moved by President Rhee, ostensibly because of ill
health, but probaly because Rhee feared that
Chang, as Prime. Minister, was in too strong a . -
strategic position as a potential presidential candi-
date. Although he professes to be disinterested
In the presidency, there are indications that he is
extremely ambitious politically and must be ser-
iously considered as a potential presidential can- .
didate. -� �
Dorn of a distinguished family in Seoul, August
28, 1899, Dr. Chang is a graduate of Suwon Agri-.
cultural College, KyOnggi-do (1917), Yenard Pre-
paratory School, Scranton, Pennsylvania (1921)
and Manhattan College, New York City (A13.,1925).
11) R fl
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He was the recipient of an honorary doctorate from -
Manhattan College in 1948 on the occasion of his
appointment as Ambassador to the United States. -
An ardent Catholic, Chang served as a special
representative to Vatican City when he went to
Paris in September 1948 as head of the R.O.K. dele-
gation to the United Nations General Kesembly.
While Prime Minister, he was knighted in May
1951 by Pope Pius XIL Chang Is believed to be the
first Korean to receive Catholic knighthood. - -
As Korean Ambassador to Washington during
1949 and 1950, he was regarded by State DWirt-
merit officials as "vigorous and effective" in rep-
resenting Korea's interests, and as a diplomat who
apparently exerted every effort to establish and
� maintain good working relations with his diplOii colleagues in Washington and elsewhere.
Chang was not too successful, however, as Prime
Minister. He did not get along well with Rhee,
and despite the fact that he proved to be hard--_
working and conscientious, was rather weak and
_ vacillating, lacked fortitude, and displayed little -
skill in administrative and parliamentary procee
= dures.- In addition, his moderation and attempted
objectivity were ineffective amid the rampant emo-
tionalism and extremism which have existed in
south Korean polities since the Japanese sur-
render.
Chang is regarded by American officials as hon-
� est and temperate and an `Intelligent conserva-
tive" in his political and social views. Hel has �
Worked well with Americans both in thei United -
States and Korea and is believed to be genuinely pro-American as well as sympathetic to the Amer-
ican viewpoint in the UN attempt to settle the -
Korean hostilities.
He is married and has seven children, several of -
whom are attending school in the United States.
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CH aNG T'aeksmig
Chang T'aeksang, long a controversial figure in
scuth Korean politics, was appointed Prime Min-
ister April 24, 1952. Official American sources de-
scribe him as an intelligent, ambitious, political
opportunist who is basically friendly toward the
United States.
Chang made many enemies and earned the
hatred of important political groups while serving
as police chief of Seoul and deputy director of the
national police under U.S. Military Government in
south Korea from 1946 to 1348. Erratic and vola-
tile, he was considered _ by some Americans as
"cruel" and "ruthless" in these posts. Other of-
ficial American sources felt that he was a capable
and efficient administrator, and, although far from
the ideal police chief, the best man available at the
time. He was a key figure In the suppression of
communists during his tenure as police head, and
his strong and consistent anticonununist record
was hi his favor after June 1950. He served as For-
eign Minister for a short period following the estab-
lishment of the Republic of Korea in August 1948;
and in May 1950 was elected to the National As-
sembly. By amassing support of members from
the two Kyongsang provinces, Chang was elected
vice speaker of the Assembly the following month,
a position he retained until Ms confirmation as
Prime Minister.
Although Chang Taeksang has not openly asso-
ciated himself with any political party, he was
considered an opponent of the Rhee administra-
tion until fairly recently. At one time inclined to-
ward the rightist Korean (Wan'gulc) Democratic
Party, which was reorganized as the Democratic
Nationalist Party in 1949, he severed connections
with this party sometime prior to that year. Upon
his dismissal as Foreign Minister in January 1949
In favor of Yim Pyongchlic (Peen C. Limb), Chang
went into retirement and was considered anti-Rhee.
He was inactive from January 1949 until May 1950,
at which time be was elected to the National As-
sembly. Since Chang, as Vice Speaker of the As-
sembly after June 1950, was in a position to cause
trouble for Rhee in that body, the latter appointed
Chang to the unofficial R.O.K. delegation to the
United Nations General Assembly in- September
1950, presumably to get him out of the country.
In recent months there have been indications
that Chang and Rhee have reconciled their differ-
ences. On March 20, 1952, Chang delivered a con-
gratulatory address at the National Convention of
Rhee's Liberal Party. Notwithstanding this possi-
bility, his nomination as Prime Minister was defi-
nitely a conciliatory step by Rhee to ease the exist-
ing tension between the latter and the National
Assembly, since Chang has the support of impor-
tant anti-Rhee factions within the Assembly.
American Embassy officials at Pusan consider
Chang one of the few persons Rhee could nominate
at this time for the premiership who would be ac-
ceptable to the Assembly.
Born November 22, 1891, in Ky6ngsang-pukto
and a graduate of the University of Edinburgh,
Chang Theksang is the son of a former high of-
ficial under the Japanese regime in Korea who was
assassinated by a Korean nationalist, and the
brother of a member of the Korean Privy Council
under the Japanese. Some prejudice exists against
him among many Korean nationalists because of
his family connections. Wealthy, ambitious, and
suave in his dealings with foreigners, Chang speaks
English well and enjoys social activities. .
CH'! Ch'Origch'On
A former Commander-in-Chief of the Korean Res-
toration Army (Kwangbok) under the Korean Pro-
visional Government in China, Ch'i Ch'ongelfon
(alias Ch'i raehyong and Yi Ch'ongch'on) is cur-
rently a national assemblyman and member of the
Supreme Committee of the Democratic Nationalist
Party. He is regarded as a clever man with con-
siderable administrative ability, but a dangerous
and ambitious schemer. Ch'i is a bitter rival of Yi
P6rnsok, formerly R.O.K. Prime Minister and Min-
ister of National Defense, and an alleged assassina-
tion attempt against Yi's life was reported to have
been traced to him. CM returned to Korea from
China in 1947 With Syngman Rhee and subse-
quently formed the Taedong Youth Corps, in an
attempt to unify all nationalist youth groups. He
secured at least nominal adherence of two million
youths, among whom he still commanded a strong
following even after absorption of the Toedong
into the Korean Youth Corps in late 1948. In ad-
dition to being a key leader of the conservative
Democratic Nationalist Party, Ch'i is reported to
have formed a secret organization composed of ex-
treme nationalists. He changed his original name,
Ch'i T'aehyong, to Yi Chr6rigclf6n during the fight
in China against the Japanese, but resumed his
original name in the National Assembly; recently,
he changed his given name back to the given name
of his wartime alias, Ch'Ongeh'on.
Born in 1889 in Seoul, Ch'i was graduated from
the Military Academy Preparatory School, Tokyo,
in 1910, and the Japanese Military Academy, Tokyo,
in 1914. While a second lieutenant in the Japa-
nese Army, he joined the Korean independence
movement in 1919. From 1919 until the liberation
in 1945, Ch'i served with the Chinese Army and
the Korean Restoration Army in China and Man-
churia, becoming commander in chief of the lat-
ter in 1924.
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After his return to Korea in 1947, Ch'i served for
a period as vice chairman of Rhee's National Society
for the Acceleration of Korean Independence, and
later as RO.K. Minister without Portfolio. In late
1948, he and Sin Ikhni, National Assembly Speaker,
organized the Korean Nationalist Party. The fol-
lowing year, he and Sin, contrary to the wishes of
President Rhce, led a portion of the Korean Nation-
alist Party, in merger with the Korean (1Ian'guk)
Democratic Party, into the Democratic Nationalist
Party camp. Ch'i has been a member of the Na-
tional Assembly since May 1948.
CTIO Pyongok
General Secretary and one of the top leaders of
the opposition Democratic Nationalist Party, Dr.
Cho Pyongok is regarded by American observers as
one of the more able politicians of the Republic of
Korea: A former Seoul police chief and head of the
Korean national police under the U.S. Military
Government from 1945 to -1948, Cho's political
career received a serious set-back when he was de-
feated by Yun Ch'iyang, a Rhee intimate, in the
National Assembly by-elections of February 5, 1952
(he had previously been defeated decisively by Cho
Soang in the May 1950 National Assembly general
elections). A capable and forceful administrator,
he possesses distinct qualities of leadership. He is
regarded as pro-American and violently anticom-
munist. Although he was bitterly criticized and _
widely disliked by many Americans and Korean
officials for harsh police methods directed ruth-
lessly against Korean leftists while he was police
chief, and later accused of embezzlement while
Home Minister in 1950 and 1951, Cho is generally
regarded as an intelligent and energetic person.
Cho Pyongok was born August 15, 1894 in
Ch'ungetang-narnclo. He has an A.B., A.M., and
a Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia University,
and has had a varied career as college professor,
newspaper editor, manager of a mining company,
police official, and diplomat at the United Nations.
Cho taught at Choson Christian College at Seoul
from 1925 to 1933, and was admired by the stu-
dents for his outspoken criticism of school and gov-
ernment authorities. During this period, he was
imprisoned several times for anti-Japanese activi-
ties. He served as a director of the Seoul news-
paper Choson libo (Korean Daily News) from 1933
to 1937, and for the next nine years was manager
of a gold mine. Following the surrender of Japan
in 1945, Cho was prominent in the organization
and leadership of the Ilan'guk Democratic Party
and its successor, the Democratic Nationalist Party.
Under U.S. Military Government, his forcefulness
and political acumen as exercised in his post as
chief of the Korean national police made him one
of the strongest and most influential men in south-
em Korea. It was during this period that the
Han'gzik Democratic Party built up its membership
within the ranks of the police and local tasvern-
'amts. In 1948 and 1949 Cho served as R.O.K.
representative to the United Nations, and as Presi-
dent Rhce's Special Representative to the United
States. He is chairman of the Korean United Na-
tions Association. Minister of Home Aflairs from
August 1950 until May 1951, Cho was removed dur-
ing the latter month in the purge of the anti-Rhee
elements in the cabinet.
Cho is reported to drink heavily and to have some
negative personality traits which make dealing with
him difficult. He still retains some of the unpopu-
larity he achieved as police chief. American offi-
cials at the United Nations stated that Cho seemed
awkward and confused, and failed to present a
strong case for his country before that body.
CHO Soang
A former Korean nationalist leader and principal
henchman of the late rightist leader Kim Ku, Cho _ s
Soang organized the middle-of-the-road Socialist
Party in 1948, and was the leader of that party
until the communist invasion of Seoul in July 1950.
He was elected to the R.O.K. National Assembly on
the Socialist Party ticket in the May 1950 elections
in a campaign in which the R.O.K. Government
accused him of having communist support. Im-
mediately after the elections, however, Cho called
--on President Rhee and publicly pledged his loyalty
to the Republic, but he remained in Seoul follow-
ing the first invasion of the city and was subse-
quently taken north when the Reds retreated. Al-
though communist broadcasts since the outbreak
of the Korean hostilities claim that Cho has backed
the communist regime in some of its propaganda
campaigns, it is possible that his alleged support of
the communiets was given under duress. A former
leader of the small group of middle-of-the-road
politicians in the Republic of Korea, Cho has been
described by an American official in Korea as a
"fluent speaker intensely assured of his own Mes-
sianic call to leadership."
Born April 8, 1887 in Kytinggi-do, Cho is a grad-
uate of Meiji University Law School in Tokyo. He
was associated with the Korean Provisional Govern-
ment from its establishment in Shanghai in 1919,
and served as its Foreign Minister until the sur-
render of Japan. Prior to 1945, he taught at Seoul
National University Law School. After the sur-
render, Cho was the vice chairman and chief lieu-
tenant of Kim Ku in the Korean Independence
Party. In spite of his close association with Kim
Ku and the Independence pal ty, Cho maintained a
somewhat independent attitude politically in south
Korea under the American occupation and after
the establishment of the Republic. On the grounds
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that he had retired from politics, he refused an in-
vitation to attend the Soviet-inspired North-South
Joint Political Conference, held at P'srOng-yang in
April 1948 to oppose the impending United Nations-
inspired elections in the south. Late in 1948, Cho
Soang seceded from the Korean independence
Party, formed his own Socialist Party, and was
elected to the National Assembly RS leader of the
socialists in the May 1950 elections, defeating Cho
Pyongok decisively.
KIM Kyusik
Regarded as Korea's outstanding moderate
statesman, Kim Kyusik commanded a popular re- -
spect in Korea second only to Syngrnan Rhee. A
noted nationalist leader, he was one of the original
founders of the Korean Provisional Government,
organized in Shanghai in 1910, and held important
administrative positions in the organization for
many years. He remained in China almost con-
tinuously until 1945, as a college professor and
chairman of the left-of-center Korean National
Revolutionary Party. After - the surrender of
Japan in 1945, Kira returned to Korea and assumed
leadership of the middle-of-the-road political fac-
tions that tried unsuccessfully to bring about a
coalition of all political groups. After participat-
ing in the first communist-sponsored North-South
Joint Political Conference at P'yorigyang in the
spring of 1948, Kim returned to Seoul disheartened
and disillusioned and entered into virtual retire-
ment. He remained in Seoul and was captured by
the communists when they invaded tile city in July
1950. Communist newsmen declared in October
1951 that Kim had died of natural causes, but re-
ports of his death have never_ been subsequently
verified. Although he was highly intellectual, and
was known and respected throughout Korea, Kim
was not a clever politician. He had been in poor
health for many years.
Born January 11381 in Kangwon-do, Dr. Kim was
graduated with honors from Roanoke College, %Ise,
in 1903, and was awarded his KM. degree from
Princeton University the following year. In 1923,
Roanoke College conferred an honorary doctorate
upon him.
Kim served as chairman of the Representative
Democratic Council, established by U.S. Army Mili-
tary Government in Korea in 1946, and later was
appointed to the Korean Interim Legislative As-
sembly. He subsequently became Speaker of the
Assembly. Kim resigned from this chairmanship
In 1947 and took a leading role in the formation
of the National Independence Federation, a weak
coalition of middle-of-the-road and left-of-center
groups, which boycotted the National Assembly
elections of May 1948 and participated in the first
North-South political conference at P'arCongyang.
CONFIDENTIAL
CONFIDENTIAL
Although Kim was a man of integrity who had
great prestige among the Korean people, his politi-
cal capabilities were limited and he was not able
to develop any strong party support. He proved
incapable of successfully dealing with the devious
political intrigues of persons and groups secretly
aligned with the communists in the north, or in
winning support within the well-organised and
powei ful rightist, political circles.
KIM Songsu
Vice President of the Republic of Korea, Kim
Songsu was the most promising presidential candi-
date of the opposition Democratic Nationalist
Party until he lost his health last year. He is a
member of a wealthy landowning family, and is
widely recognized as an educator, philanthropist,
newspaperman, and a leading spokesman for the
conservative, professional, and propertied elements
in south Korea. One of the three top leaders of
the Democratic Nationalists (Sin Ikhili and Cho
Pyongok are the other two most prominent DNP
officials), Kim was recently reelected to the DNP
supreme committee and chairman of the party's
standing central executive committee. Owner of
the widely influential and bitterly antiadrninIstra-
tion Tang-A Ilba, the oldest and best known news-
paper in Korea, he is probably the most powerful �
opponent of Syngman Rhee in the Republic. Kiln
has more prestige with the Korean people than
any of the other DNP leaders, although his op-
ponents charge him with collaboration with the
Japanese prior to 1945. His long record of serviee
to his people as educator, philanthropist, and
statesman has achieved for him a position of promi-
nence surpassed only by that of Rhee. His election
to the office of Vice President by the National As-
sembly in May 1951 further increased his prestige,
and at that time he was regarded as the strongest
candidate to unseat Rhee in the 1952 presidential
election. However, he suffered a stroke in July
1951 which left him bedridden and semiparalytie.
Kim was born September 1891 in Ch611a-pukto,
and is a graduate of Waseda University in Tokyo.
He founded the Tang-A Ilbo, prominent Seoul daily
now printed in Pusan, in 1923, and has published
the paper almost continuously since that year. Al-
ways highly conservative, the paper's editorial
policy is aligned with the very conservative anti-
'thee policies of the Democratic Nationalist Party.
Extremely wealthy, Kim in 1932 founded Posong
College (now the University of Korea), an. out-
standing, privately-endowed school near Seoul, and
was president of that institution until 1946.
Following the end of World War II, Kim was
appointed chairman of the Korean Advisory Coun-
cil to U.S. Army Military Government in Korea, in
October 1915. Although immediately after the
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Japanese surrender he was associated with Rhee's
National Society for the Acceleration of Korean In-
dependence, Kim seceded from this group by the
end of 1945 and joined the lian'guk Democratic
Party. Ile served as chairman of that party from
January 1946 until it merged with the Sin Abut
� faction of the Korean Nationalist Party in January '
� 1949 to form the Democratic Nationalist Party, -
most influential anti-Rhee party in the Republic.
� Kim's Ilan'guk Democrats formed a larger and
more Influential group than Sin's Nationalists at
the time of the merger and Kim became the titular
head of the DNP as chairman of its Supreme Com-
mittee, a position he retained until the party's
convention in December 1951.
A man of means and ability, although very con-
servative in his outlook on economic and political
problems, Kim's subsequent role in R.O.K. polities
depends primarily upon the future state of his
health. -
PAE trnhul
A Prsbyterian pastor for many years in earth-
ern-Korea, Pae Onhul has been a close confident
and loyal supporter of Syngman Rhee in both the � - �
National Society and the Taehan Nationalist Party,
which he co-founded with Sin Ikhl in October
1948. As a leading official of Rhee's National So-
ciety, and chief of the R.O.K. Civil Service from
August 1948 until the beginning of 1952, he was in
a strong posilon to shape R O.K. political and ad-
ministrative policies to conform with the desires of
President Rhee. Supported by Rhee's Liberal
Party and designated the official candidate of the
President on the Taehan Nationalist Party ticket,
Pae was elected to the R.O.K. National Assembly in
the February 1952 by-elections.
Born about 1887 in Chonju, Cholia-pukto, Pae is -
a graduate of the Piyongyang Presbyterian Semi-'
nary. A prominent Presbyterian minister in the
Cholla area for many years, he was an active leader �
in Christian educational and orphanage work until
the late 1930's, when he ceased these activities.in
protest against Japanese interference. After the
Japanese surrender in 1945, lie became a prominent
leader of Rhee's National Society for the Accelera-
tion of Korean Independence (NSAKI), later be-
coming one of the five vice chairmen of NSAKI and
head of the Cholla-pukto provincial branch of the
society. Co-founder of the Taehan Nationalist : � �
Party, created in 1948 in order to provide a strong
political vehicle In support of the President, Parr
was an influential leader of the party until Sin
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National Assembly speaker, led the party
into a merger with the Korean Democratic Party
against Rhee's wishes. .
Pae is not known to have had any training or
experience in personnel administration prior to his
appointment as chairman of the Civil Service Com-
mission in August 1948. Although believed to be
a man of integrity, his administration of the R.O.K.
civil service has at times reflected his close per-
sonal and political association with the President.
SIN Ikhili
Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic
of Korea and One of the leaders of the anti-Rhee
Democratic Nationalist Party, Sin Ikli (Chinese
name Wang Hai-kung) is regarded as second only
to President Syngrrian Rhee in political acumen.
He is extremely ambitious and intensely national-
istic, possesses a strong personality and marked _
qualities Of leadership, and is generally considered
one of the strongest of the several possible suc-
cessors to Rhee as R.O.K. President. Sin is re-
garded as an able and efficient leader of the Na-
tional Assembly, and has effectively balanced tact
and forcefulness in managing the operations of
that body. It is reported that Rhee himself rec-
ognizes Sin's ability, and probably would have nom-
inated him for Prime Minister at one time had he
been sure of his own ability to control Sin. Ameri-
can officials in Korea regard him as able, intelli-
gent, and possessing an extremely pleasing manner,
but basically opportunistic and unprincipled; in the
past he apparently has changed his party aflilia-
lions whenever his personal interests dictated.
On international issues, Sits, along with other
members of the original Chungking group of Ko-
rean nationalists, is uncompromisingly anticom-
munist.. Like Yi Poinsals, he has close connections
with the Chiang Kai-shek regime and is subject
to its influence. Sin is not unfriendly in his at-
titude toward the United States.
Ambitious to become president and unscrupulous
in his methods, the politically astute Sin, in his dual
roles as Speaker of the Assembly and a leader of
the most influential anti-Rhee party in south Ko-
rea, represents the greatest potential challenge to
Rhee's position as the most dominant political per-
sonality in the R.O.K.
Sin lkh�i was born June 19, 1891 in Kyonggi-do
and graduated from the Hansong Foreign Lan-
guage School in Seoul (1909) and the College of
Politics and Economics of Waseda University,
Tokyo (1915). He speaks, reads, and writes Eng-
lish and Chinese, and is familiar with Japanese.
In 1917 he was appointed to a professorship at
Posung College, Seoul, and taught English, finance,
and international law. He travelled to China,
Manchuria, and Siberia in connection with the Ko-
rean independence movement, and returned to
Korea in 1919 in time to take part in the March
independence demonstrations. He joined the Ko-
rean Provisional Government established in Shang-
hai in that year, and held numerous cabinet posts
in the Ka* while in exile in Nationalist China prior
to the Japanese surrender in 1945. During this
period Sin was an official of the conservative Ko-
rean Independence Party then under the leader-
ship of the late Kim Ku.
For alniost two years after his return to south-
ern Korea in November 1945, Sin remained an ac-
tive member of Kim Ku's political camp while at
the same time playing a prominent role in the
National Society for the Acceleration of Korean
Independence and other political agencies of
Syngman Rhee, Kim's rival at the time for right-
ist leadership. As an elected member of the Ko-
rean Interim Legislative Assembly, established in
December 1946, on the Independence Party ticket,
he was prominent on a number of important com-
mittees, and became Chairman of the Interim Asa _
sernbly upon the resignation of Kim Kyusik prior
to the National Assembly general elections in May
1948. Sin resigned from the Independence Party in
July 1947 and took an active part in Rhea's cam-
paign for a general election. In the May 1948 elec-
tions he won a seat in the new National Assembly,
and was elected to one of its vice chairmanships.
Upon the election of Rhee as President of the Re-
public in June 1949, Sin was elevated to the chair-
manship (speaker) of the National Assembly, a post
he has retained to the present.
Although elected to the National Assembly as a
member of Rhee's National Society for the Accelera-
tion of Korean Independence, Sin (along with Pae
thshui and Chi ClAingeh'On) organized the Ko-
rean Nationalist Party in October 1948, and in Jan-
uary 1949 led part of it into a merger with the
Han'guk Democratic Party to form the Democratic
Nationalist Party (DNP), the most powerful anti-
administration party at the present time. At the
party's convention of December 1951, he was se-
lected to replace Kim SOngsu, R.O.K. Vice Presi-
dent, as titular head of the DNP in the top party
post, Chairman of the Supreme Committee. How-
ever, Kim Songsu, although he has suffered a stroke
and is incapacitated, retains dominance in the
party.
Sin was re-elected to the National Assembly in
May 1950 and to its chairmanship in June 1950.
However, the party itself suffered a setback in the
National Assembly by-elections of February 1952
when candidates supported by Rhee won seven out
of eight seatS. and Cho Pyangok, DNP secretary
general, was de.'eated by Yun Chly6lig, a pro-Rhee
candidate.
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� -
' In the past Sin's political tack at any given time cindery education in Seoul. He later received the
- has been reflected to some extent in the Chayu degrees. of A R., AM., and PhD. from Columbia
Sinnura (Free Daily News) which, between 1946 University in New York.
and the communist invasion of June 1950, had been \Mile a student at Columbia 'University, 'YI
published in Seoul. He is publisher and nominal served for nine years as secretary at the Inter-
owner of this paper (in which he is reported to have national YMCA in New York City during the 1920's
invested 21/2 million won). In 1949, perhaps as a and 1930's. He lived in Japan for a short period a
reflection of his affiliation with the Democratk Na- few years prior to World War H. From 1938 to
tionalist Party, the newspaper was reported to be 1943 he WM district manager of the American Na-
m "extreme rightist" publication.-- � Ilona' Cash Register Co. in ryOngyalig. - During - -
Sin is said to be respected for his personal ability this period Yi is reported to have been arrested and
and his achievements In the National Assembly, _ Jailed by the Japanese for participation in the Ko.
but his honesty and integrity are doubted in certain rean independence movement. From 1944 until
- -circles. It is reported that the Han"guk elements the Japanese surrender he worked in China with - -
- � of the Democratic Nationalist Party do not trust the Korean Provisional Government. lie served as
him, even though they have united with his Party.' - director of-the Department Of Public Information
Prime Minister Chang Myon (John M. Chang) -under the American occupation of south Korea, and - -
once remarked to an American official that Sin is a after the establishment of the Republic in 1948
man with "neither a conscience nor moral forti- served for a time ELS general secretary of the R.O.K. _
tude." Sin as RO.K. President, in the opinion of National Assembly. Appointed chief of the Office
American observers, "would be a good deal more of Public Information in June 1949, Yi was re-
nationalistic and less reasonable than Chang Myon moved from the post shortly after the outbreak of
or Ho Chong (former Minister of Social Affairs and the Korean hostilities the following year when he
� Acting Prime Minister) but probably better than proved Incapable of handling the office effectively
Yi Poms6k." � under the early exigencies of the conflict. _ HOW--
..
ever, when Helen Kim, his successor in office, re
� YI Ch'olw8n signed the post in November 1950, YI was called
back to head the OPI for lack of any other expe-
rienced person accepteble to Rhea
- Director of the-Office of Public Information, Yi
Ch'olwan (Clarence C. Ryee) Is a man of training
and experience in the field of public relations but
of limited capabilities. his extensive education has
earned for him the respect of his associates, but
he lacks the professional competency of a first-rate
- administrator. His administration of the Office of
Public Information has for the most part been weak
and vacillating, and lacking in forceful leadership.
� Although physically weak and unimpressive, Yl is �
said to affect a forceful, almost belligerent manner.
Essentially conservative, he lives on a relatively
thrifty scale and appears generally to come closer
to living within his legal income than many other
R.O.K. officials It is reported that Yi his been
a staunch follower of President Rhee primarily be-
cause, in Yi's estimation, the President represents
the strong leadership needed in the administration
of the government. Although It has professed to
be the champion of the principle of freedom of
the press, he is not generally regarded as having
any real understanding of or belief in democratic
principles. He has been described as consistently
friendly toward the United States and Americans
In general, and strongly anticommunist.
Born August 7, 1900 in Ch'ungeh'Orig-namdo, Yi
attended and graduated from Mt. Hermon Prepar-
atory School, Mount Hermon, Massachusetts .
(1922-4925), after receiving his primary and sec-
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�
Yl POinsok
YI Pornsak (also known as Lee Burn Suk), who
served as the first Prime Minister and concurrently
Minister of National Defense of the Republic of
Korea, is a man of little imagination and medi-
ocre intelligence, but possesses a forceful person-
ality, great political ambitions, and an intensely
nationalistic viewpoint. He has at times been a
favored follower of President Syngman Rhee, and
some sources indicate that they believe that Rhee
secretly promised in late 1951 that he would sup-
port him as a successor. Yi has had some 25
years of diversified ?aid active military experience
fighting against the Japanese in Manchuria and
North China, as well as a thorough military edu-
cation in Chinese military academies, where he
both studied and taught. He has an excellent
command of the Chinese language, is an ardent
admirer of Chiang Kai-shek, and is steeped in
Chinese methods of doing things. It is reported
that Yi Peensok is not anti-American, but is baffled
by democratic methods and institutions. Ile
thinks and acts like a traditional Chinese war lord.
His ambitions are subjected to the limitations im-
posed by the fact that he no longer holds a key
government post or a broad youth following, is
politically inept, and does not speak English. =Like
Syngman Rhee, he is uncompromisingly anticom-
munist and has regarded with ill-favored suspi-
cion current United Nations attempts to work out
a compromise settlement with the communists.
Yi Mins& was born in 1899 in Seoul. His father
had been a provincial governor prior to the annex-
ation of Korea by Japan in 1910. Yi graduated
from Yunnan Military Academy in China in 1919,
and in that year became associated with the Ko-
rean Provisional Government, which had been or-
ganized in Shanghai. Ile soon embarked on an
active military career in Manchuria, where he was
appointed an instructor of Korean troops in mili-
tary training schools and worked in close cooper-
ation with General Kim Hwachin, who died in
1929, and General Ch'i Ch'ongeh'i5n, who, after
1945, became Yi's chief rival in the organization of
youth groups in southern Korea, During World
Wa-e II Yi served as a general officer in the Korean
Independence Army, military arm of the Korean
Provisional Government, and commanded one of
its two field detachments against the Japanese.
Returning to Korea in June 1946 Yi was ap-
pointed an adviser to the Korean Constabulary,
under the Department of Internal Security of the
South Korean Interim Government. He resigned
five months later after accusing the constabulary
of being "pinkish"�a charge which had some basis
in fact at that time. A more plausible motive for
his resignation may have been to devote more time
to the promotion of the Korean National Youth
movement, which was then being set up with the
approval of the U.S. Army Military Government
In Korea.
Yi served as chief of the Korean National Youth
from 1946 to 1948. Although the corps was in-
tended to be a civic youth organization, its de-
velopment was often marked with episodes that
revealed strong political undertones. Both Yi and
Clangcle'on had entertained ambitions of or-
ganizing an all-encompassing youth group. While
Yi was reported to have recruited members among
moderate and left-wing youth, Ch'i filled the ranks
of his Taedong Youth Corps with recruits from
the extreme right wing, and intergroup terrorism
was common until late 1947. The two rival leaders
apparently came to some understanding in Decem-
ber 1947, in which month they issued a joint state-
ment instructing their respective organizations to
refrain from terroristic activities, although it was -
the consensus of official opinion that Ch'i's group
was the more blameworthy of the two and that
for the most part the National Youth was a well-
disciplined organization. In early 1948, both Yi
and Ch'i accepted high offices in Syngman Rhee's
National Society for the Acceleration of Korean In-
dependence.
In August 1948, Yi was appointed Prime Min-
ister and concurrently Minister of National De-
fense of the newly created Republic of Korea after
President Rhee had failed to secure approval of
Yi YuTnyCtng, a leader of the South Korea branch
of the Chos5n Democratic Party, for the premier-
ship. Under pressure from President Rhee, who
possibly feared that Yi might use his youth groups
to build a powerful opposition political movement,
the Premier was forced to merge his National
Youth into the unified Korean Youth Corps in De-
cember 1948.� He was relieved as defense minister _
in March- 1949, and replaced by Sin Sungmo as
Prime Minister in April 1950. Yi served as R.O.K.
ambassador to Nationalist China at Val-pel from
December 1950 until September 1951.
Since his return from Formosa in 1951, Yi has
been active in politics and has been one of the
key organizers and vice chairman of Rhee's new
Liberal Party. The report that Rhee has given
Yi his "blessing" as Rhee's successor to the presi-
dency is based upon the assumption that Rhee
has decided not to succeed himself, an assumption
that currently does not appear to be justified. It �
is quite passible, however, that, although Rhee
made the promise ostensibly as a reward for Yi's
loyal services in his behalf, it was actually for the
purpose of playing Yi off against Sin Ikhi,11, politi-
cally potent chairman of the National Assembly
and a leader of the opposition Democratic Na-
tionalist Party.
JAL
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American sources are of the opinion that Yi is
basically an opportunist who is deeply under the
influence of Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Na-
tionalists. He is a :nark of enormous physical
vitality and -energy,- qualities which served him
well as a military leader and which are now being
displayed in the R.O.K. political arena. In the
early 1920's he married a Korean whom he met
in Siberia, where she was working as an inter- _
preter and secretary. It is reported that Yi, in ac-
cordance with a temporary agreement with the
Bolshevik forces, fought with the Red Russians
against the White Russians for a period during
the 1920's. There is no available information as
to the present whereabouts of his wife, but ap-
parently she did not accompany him upon his
return to Korea in 1946.
YI Sti ngiu an
President of the Republic of Korea (R.O.K.) since
its official creation in August 1948, '17-year-old
Yi Siinginan, better known as Syngrnan Rhee, is
the dominant political figure of noncommunist
Korea. His life has been spent in leading nation-
alist revolutionary movements aimed at the estab-
lishment of an independent Korean nation, and his
present pre-eminence in southern Korean politics
apparently is based upon his unequalled prestige
gained as a nationalist leader, rather than upon
his status as a major rightist political leader or
as R.O.K. chief executive. Apart from his lead-
ership in revolutionary activities, Rhee had had
no experience in government until he was elected
R.O.K. President by the National Assembly. As
President of the Republic of Korea, he has kept
powers of office to himself and has not delegated
them to his ministers, although he is strongly In-
fluenced by his wife and by personal advisers. In
terms of prestige and of leadership in the still-
continuing struggle for Korean independence, Rhee
has no equal. In recent years, however, he has
become senile and prone to make irresponsible
statements; he has been under a great strain since
the communist invasion of the R.O.K. and the
subsequent civil war, and has aged noticeably in
recent months. Indomitably strong-willed and
obstinate, Rhee has dominated the political scene
to the extent that currently there de ss not exist
in the Republic of Korea a figure of equal force.
Mice was born on April 26, 1875 in Hwanghae-
do, north Korea, the only son of a well-to-do, upper
class family. His political career had its begin-
nings around 1894, when he joined the Independ-
ence Club, which advocated democratic reforms
under the Korean monarchy. When the leader of
the Independence Club was forced to leave the
country in 1895, Rhee became one of the leaders
of the reform movement in Korea. Several years
later he began publication of the Independence,
Korea's first daily newspaper and the first paper
wholly published by Koreans. In 1897 his activi-
ties resulted in his arrest and imprisonment by
the Korean Government, and Rhee is reported to
have spent several years in prison as a political
suspect.
In 1904, following a general amnesty of political
prisoners, Rhee was sent to the United States by
his father to complete his education. During the
six years between 1904-1910 spent in the United
States, he received an A.B. degree from George
Washington University, an A M. degree from Har-
vard University, and a PhD. from Princeton Uni-
versity. While at Princeton he Came to the at-
tention of Woodrow Wilson, then president of the
university, who took an interest in the young
Korean and his country. Rhee returned to Korea
shortly after the annexation of the country by
Japan in 1910 and organized the Korean Christian
Student Movement while serving as a missionary
teacher for the Methodist Miesion Board. During
his travels in Korea, ostensibly on church business,
he continued his political activities by _organizing
resistance to the Japanese. When the Japanese -
intensified their efforts to wipe out underground op-
position to their rule, Rhee fled to Hawaii, where
he founded the Comrades Society (Tangy Hoe), a
nationalistic group pledged to overthrow Japanese
rule in Korea and to establish an independent gov-
ernment.
In March 1919, following the arrest by the Jap-
anese of many Korean nationalists, a group of 33
rebels met secretly In Seoul and signed a "Decla-
ration of Korean Independence." On April 23,
1919 certain members of this gioup proclaimed the
existence of a "Korean Republic" headed by a "Ko-
rean Provisional Government" (KP0), and ap-
pointed a "cabinet" as the chief executive organ
of the KPG. Rhee was appointed President of the
"Republic" and leader of the KPG cabinet. Late
in 1919 or in early 1920 Rhee joined the representa-
tives of the KPG in Shanghai The KPG fought
unsuccessfully for years to obtain recognition for
Itself, particularly from the United States. It was
also beset by bitter factional rivalries, and as a re-
sult gradually declined in power and influence
after 1924. In order to facilitate this striving for
recognition, "thee established the Korean Com-
mission in Washington "to serve as a diplomatic
agency of the exiled Korean Republic." He was
regularly reelected President of the Korean Pro-
visional Government, which had undergone a series
of reorganizations between 1924 and 1940, until
1941, when he was replaced by Kim Ku, another
prominent Korean independence leader whose
headquarters were in China. Rhea, as chairman of
the Korean Commission, continued to represent
=-7
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the KPG in Washington until his return to Korea
in October 1945 under the sponsorship of the U.S.
Army Military Government in Korea.
Immediately upon his return Rhee became the
outstanding personality in rightist political circles
in southern Korea. By early 1946 he had or-
ganized the National Society for Acceleration of
Korean Independence (NSAKI), and by means of
it gained predominance over other conservative
political groups, and expanded it by 1947 to the
largest organization in southern Korea. When the
Republic of Korea was established in 1948, the
National Assembly by a vote of 180 to 16 -elected
him the nation's first president for a four-year
term.
Although in his early career Rhee was active for
a time in a movement to reform the Yi dynasty, the
main direction of his political leadership---to which
he has devoted over forty years----has been the
establishment of an independent Korean nation.
His activities, prior to 1948, were directed against
the powers standing in the way of this endeavor.
Until 1945, he was a principal leader in the Ko-
rean nationalist inevernent against Japanese
co-
lonial rule. For a time after that, he led the anti-
trusteeship movement in southern Korea and op-
posed both the United States and Soviet Russia
on this issue. He bitterly fought any prolongation
of American military government in southern
Korea. Overlapping these efforts was his cru-
sade against communism. Beginning with his
fight against the Japanese, this anticommunist
factlater beaarae a major consideration in his
activities between the liberation of Korea from
Japan and the establishment of the Republic of
Korea. As chief executive of the Republic, Rhee
has continued this crusade by vigorously combat-
ting the combined forces of internal subversive ac-
tivity and, since June 1950, direct aggression by the
northern communist regime.
Possessor of a magnetic personality and great
powers of persuasion, he has enormous influence
over his cabinet members, whom he appoints and
removes at will. They always defer to him in his
presence and fear to make decisions on their own
in his absence. Although opposition members of
the National Assembly may bitterly criticize him
behind his back and oppose his policies, they too
generally submit to him in his presence. Con-
temptuous for the most part of the prerogatives
of both his cabinet and the National Assembly, he
at times executes his official duties in an arbitrary
and high-handed manner, and has resorted to anti-
democratic methods to effectuate his program and
eliminate opposition to his policies. American
sources report that Rhee shows almost a total lack
of political bargaining instincts, that he has no
skill in employing parliamentary tactics to get his
CONFIDENTLAL
policies accepted by the National Assembly, and
that he prefers to push and bluster his program
through the legislature and risk outright rejection
of his plans, which often happens, rather than
make concessions to the opposition groups, which
he despises. Rhee has not hesitated to use such
totalitarian tactics as stringent censorship of radio
and press, police terrorism, and the use of extra.
governmental agencies such as youth corps and
armed "patriotic" societies to terrorize and destroy
noncommunist opposition groups and parties in
the Republic. Such tactics have recently been em-
ployed by his followers to reduce the power and in-
fluence of the opposition Democratic Nationalist
Party. Rhee evidently has no understanding of,
or patience with, the basic political tenet of West-
ern society that nonsubversive opposition is an
essential and inevitable component of all demo-
cratic governments:
In the field of foreign relations he maintains an
essentially anti-Japanese viewpoint, based upon
his continuing fear and suspicion of Japan, al-
though in domestic matters he has tolerated col-
laborators with Japan in his cabinets and in key
positions in his political organizations. His fear
and hatred of Soviet Russia and her satellites are
absolute and uncompromising; he regards the de-
cision of the United Nations to hold "cease-fire"
talks with the Chinese and north Korean commu-
nists as a "monstrous mistake" by the United
States and a "stupid betrayal" of the democratic
forces fighting against communism which will
ultimately lead to the destruction of the Republic
of Korea and the conquest of the entire Korean
peninsula by the communists.
In 1934 lee married an Austrian, Francesca
Donner, whom he met in Geneva while working on
behalf of Korean independence at the League of
Nations. it is reported that most Koreans fer-
vently dislike and distrust Mme. Rhee, who exer-
cises considerable influence on her husband. _His
only son, by an earlier marriage, died in 1915.
YI Yunyong
An outstanding Methodist churchman for many
years in northern Korea, Yi Yunyang has been a
close associate of President Rhee since he fled to
south Korea in January 1946. He is relatively a
newcomer in politics, and is significant primarily
as the standard-bearer for Cho Mansik and his
Chosan Democratic Party (CD?). At present Yi,
as CDP vice president, is leader of the south Korea
branch of the party and nominal head of the CD?
while Cho remains a prisoner of the communists
in northern Korea. Former Minister of Social Af-
fairs of the Republic of Korea, Yi was twice nomi-
nated by the President for the premiership (in
July 1948 and April 1950) and in both cases was
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rejected by the National Assembly. Currently, he
is serving as Acting Prime Minister pending the
� National Assembly's confirmation of Chang rack-
sang who was appointed Prime Minister on April
24, 1952. This appointment as interim prime min-
ister has once again aroused the hostility of the
- National Assembly against Vi. He is looked upon
In Korean church circles as an able churchman and
a man of integrity and sound judgment. He is not
highly regarded, however, as a public administra-
tor, and has filled several cabinet posts in an un-
distinguished manner. Although Vi appeared to
- be generally capable, he proved to be weak in terms
of specialized training and experience.
Born in 1889 in YtingbyOn, P'yongan-pukto, and
a graduate of Songsil Academy in P'yongyang and
Seoul Methodist Theological Seminary, Vi served
as chairman of the P'yOng,yang Christian Associa-
tion until January 1946. While teaching and
Preaching in northern Korea for many years prior
to the surrender, he is reported to have been im-
prisoned for two years during this period for par-
ticipation in the Korean independence movement.
At the end of World War H, he assisted Cho in
organizing the Choson Democratic Party, dominant
conservative political party in the north imme-
diately following the surrender. When the com-
munists "reorganized" the party in January 1946,
Vi and many other party leaders fled below the 38th
parallel, although Cho was seized and held in "pro-
tective custody." In March 1948, VI was elected
one of five vice chairmen of Rhee's National So-
ciety, and the following May was elected to the
R.O.K. National Assembly. He was R O.K. Minister
of Social Affairs from December 1948 until Novem-
ber 1950. From the latter date until his recent
appointment as acting Prime Minister he served as
Minister-without-Portfolio.
VIM Pytingchik
Former Foreign Minister of the Republic of
Korea and currently permanent observer and spe-
cial representative of the Republic of Korea to the
United Nations, Vim Pyongchik (also known as
Ben C. Limb), is often referred to as President
Rhee's alter ego. Politically, he is completely iden-
tified with Rhee, and has no political following in
his own right. He is very personable and suave,
with an urbane manner, and is generally liked by
most Americans. As Foreign Minister from Janu-
ary 1949 until April 1951, however, Yim displayed
little of the tact, finesse, and judgment essential
to that position, and his ungoverned emotional out-
breaks strained his government's relations with the
United States and the United Nations Commission
on Korea and at times caused embarrassment to
Rhee. Occasionally, he has expressed resentment
toward Americans as a result of racial discrimina-
tions suffered during his long residence in the
United States. Since Vim's capabilities are some-
what limited, and he is emotionally unstable, his
appointment as Foreign Minister was regarded pri-
marily as a reward for long and faithful service to
the cause of Rhea Yim is regarded by some fac-
tions in Korea as an outsider and a foreigner be-.
- cause of his long residence in the United States,
_ which enabled him to escape the hardships endUred
by many other Koreans who stayed in the country
or lived in China during the critical years prior
to and during World War II.
He was born October 26, 1893 in Seoul, and is the
son of a wealthy landowner and former provincial
governor under the Vi dynasty (prior to the annexa-
tion of Korea by Japan in 1910). After completing
his elementary education in Seoul, Vim was sent � "
to the United States, where he was graduated from
Mt. Hermon Preparatory School, Mt. Hermon, Mas-
sachusetts, and Ohio State University (A.B., 1919).
He accompanied Rhee to Shanghai in 1919, and
served as his personal secretary. In 1921, Vim re-
turned to the United States, where he lived until
early 1949, when he returned to Korea to become
Foreign Minister. - During his long residence in the
United States he was engaged in private business,
and after 1942 served with Rhee's Korean Commis-
sion in Washington as "military attache," with the
assumed rank of colonel. After Rhee's Vdeparte
for Korea in 1945, Vim served as acting chairman
of the Korean Commission until 1947. During this
period, he was also Rhee's unofficial representative
to the United Nations. Since Apirl 1951, 'Yim has
been associated with the United Nations as R.O.K.
observer and special representative of President
Rhee.
Vim has anglicized his name, and is generally
known as Ben C. Limb. He speaks English with a
slight accent.
YO Unhong
Y6 UnhOng, also known as Lyuh Woon Hong, is
the younger brother of YO Unhyong (Lyuh Woon
Hyorig), noted Korean leftist leader who was assas-
sinated in July 1947. He resigned from his broth-
er's People's Party in 1946 because of its alleged
communist domination and in opposition to its sup-
port of trusteeship, and organized the now defunct
Social Democratic Party, which was regarded as
"moderately leftist" but had little influence. Yo
is considered genuinely pro-American, and has co-
operated with the American authorities in Korea.
He was closely associated with the late Kim Kyusik,
liberal Korean statesman, and in 1947 and 1948
headed the organization bureau and general af-
fairs department of Kim's National Independence
Federation. He was elected to the National As-
sembly of the Republic of Korea in May 1950, and
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� has been the sponsor in that body of resolutions
friendly toward the United States. He has little
political influence at the present time.
Born in 1889. YO was educated in Korea and the
United States, where he attended the University of
Southern California. Prior to World War II he
taught English at Posong College, Seoul, and for
several years was manager of the Seoul branch of
the Singer Sewing Machine Company. He entered
politics following the Japanese surrender in 1945
as an official of his brother's People's Party, but
left that party in 1946 to organize and lead the
rather impotent Social Democratic Party. He was
appointed to the Korean Interim Legislative As-
sembly in December 1946, and the following year
entered the journalistic field as president and chief
editor of Min Po (People's News), organ of the So-
cial Democratic Party. Ifis party became affiliated
with Kim Kyusik's National Independence Federa-
tion in 1947, and Yo was its representative at the
North-South Joint Political Conference, held in
P'yOngyang in April 1948. Ile returned from the
conference with mixed feelings toward the north-
ern communist regime. At this period he proposed
to the American occupation authorities that they
appoint Kim Kyusik president of south Korea,
stating that it was better to appoint a "strong man"
to rule than to hold an election. In November
1918, following his arrest on suspicion of plotting
against the Rhee administration, Yo -resigned from
the chairmanship of the Social Democratic Party.
Recent reports, however, indicate that he has _
changed his allegiance and is now a supporter of
Rhee.
YUN Chlyong
Yun Ch'iyong, an intimate associate and former
personal secretary to Syngman Rhee, was active be-
tween the surrender of Japan in 1945 and the crea-
tion of the Republic of Korea in 1948 chiefly as a
fund-raiser for Rhee and his supporter& Since
1918, following a short period as R.O.K. Minister of
Home Affairs during the latter half of that year,
he has been an influential member of the Na-
tional Assembly and the leader of the Korean
(Taehan) Nationalist Party. American sources de-
scribe Yuri as keen-minded and intelligent, but
.. lacking in courage and fortitude and involved dur-
ing World War II in questionable commercial en-
terprises. His political future and influence were
greatly enhanced by his reelection to the National
Assembly in the February 5, 1952 by-elections.
Yun was born in 1897 in Seoul, and is a relative
� of the late Baron Yun wealthy and promi-
nent Korean Christian who was a member of the
Japanese House of Peers. He graduated from
Waseda University, Tokyo, and did postgraduate
work at Columbia University and the University of
Hawaii. While in Hawaii he was chief editor of
the magazine Pacific and also treasurer of the Ko-
rean Residents Association. During his stay in the
United States .he became closely associated with
Rhee while serving as correspondent for the Tong-A
Ilbo (Oriental Daily News), a prominent Seoul
newspaper now printed in Pusan. Upon his re-
turn to Korea in 1936 he became editor of the pub-
lication.
During World War II Yun is reported to have par-
ticipated actively in Japanese sponsored commer-
cial and war support enterprises. After the Japa-
nese surrender he served for a period as private sec-
retary to Rhee, and was an influential leader of the
Korean (Haniguk) Democratic Party between 1946--
1948. After being elected to the National Assem-
bly in May 1948, Yun was named Minister of Home
Affairs by President Rhee in August of that year,
He held the post until December 1948, when his
resignation was forced by the National Assem-
bly following his involvement in the arrest of Yu
Chinsan, leader of a rightist youth group, in the
home of ChM Chinhan, then R.O.K.- Medster of
Social Affairs. In July 1949, he was elected vice
speaker of the National Assembly, but was de-
feated for reelection to that body in the May 1950
elections, In August 1950, Yun was appointed min-
ister to France, a post he never assumed. He spent
several months in New York but never got to
Paris, and returned to Korea in 1951.
Although still chairman of the practically de-
funct Korean (Taehan) Nationalist Party, his suc-
cess in the February 1952 National Assembly by-
elections was - made possible by the support of
Rhee's Liberal Party. His victory was unusually
significant, as his opponent was Cho Pyongok, in-
fluential leader of the powerful, opposition Demo-
cratic Nationalist Party. In the election the Rhee-
backed candidates made a clean sweep, winning
seven out of eight seats.
- Yun's political reputation in Korea is none too
savory. He was accused of using "strong-arm"
methods as Home Minister and serving as Rhee's
"hatchet-man," and is a close associate of poli-
ticians of doubtful character such as Louise Yim,
"Montana" Chang (Chang Sokyten), newly ap-
pointed Minister of Home Affairs, former Home
Minister Pack Songuk, and Yi PernsOk. (Chang�
SOkyam is married to a daughter of Brigadier
General Yun Ch'iwang, surgeon general of the
R.O.K. Army and a cousin of Yun.) Also, his ac-
tivities as Home Minister in connection with the
Yu Chinsan Affair left a bad impression in the
minds of the Korean people. Yun's influence in
R.O.K. affairs will depend primarily on two factors:
first, the fortunes of Rhee and his supporters in
R.O.K. politics, and second, the state of Yun's
health, which is said to be poor.
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CH'OE Yo'wax. APPROX. 1948.
HO CHONc wt. 1950.
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. �
CH6NG CH'UNT'AEK. Appox. 1948.
HONG MYONG11111. APPROX. 1948.
KIM TALHYoN. APPROX. 1948,
CHU YONGHA. � 1949.
KA� YANCUX. APPROX. 1948.
Kii TUBONG.
APPROX, 1948.
V:40 5'
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KIM WONBONG. APPROX. 1948.
PA < CEONGAE. 1951.
FA K 1145KyONG. 1949.
NAM It 1951.
� PAX ILU. APPROX. 1048.
tiRE 59-2
PAK MUNKYU. APPROX. 1948. Yi YONG. APPROX. 1918.
NORTH KOREA
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Approved for Release: 2023101123C00010262
AN CHAT HONG. 1945.
CHANG TAEKSANG. 1951.
Arr Hos. G
CHI CteeNcelfori. 1952.
CKANc MY0N (Jorui M. CH 61.1949
�
IISIK. 1950. _
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KIM TAIRSoN, 1952 to
�. Af
Yx FOrvzsox. 1949.
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� -�����
� � �
� 'a�
ur.,1
SiN boari. 1951.
Yi Cit'ifq.w1514 (CLARENct C. REEE) � 1952,
Yl SIINGM.AN (SINGMAN RIM). 1952.
Yi YuNYOND. 1952.
FIGURE 59-4
YIN PlIONGCHIK MEN C. LIMB). 1950.
ROK (SOUTH KOREA)
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