FTR #1142 Deep Politics and the Death of Park Won-Soon, Part 3

Flesh­ing out the deep pol­i­tics under­ly­ing the life and death of Park Won-soon, this pro­gram builds on the foun­da­tion of first two pro­grams in the series. Park Won-soon’s crit­i­cism of Japan’s colo­nial occu­pa­tion of Korea, his advo­ca­cy of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion between the two Kore­as and his suit against the lead­er­ship of the fas­cist Shin­cheon­ji mind con­trol cult (over­lapped with the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church), all bear on the polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic dynam­ics of the Sec­ond World War, the Cold War, the Kore­an War, and the car­tel arrange­ments that con­sti­tute a crit­i­cal, though large­ly invis­i­ble, under­pin­ning of the events of the Twen­ti­eth and Twen­ty-First cen­turies.

Essen­tial to an under­stand­ing of these over­lap­ping events is the land­mark text Gold War­riors by Peg­gy and Ster­ling Sea­grave. (FTR #‘s 427, 428, 446, 451, 501, 688, 689, 1106, 1107 & 1108 deal with the sub­ject mate­r­i­al of that con­sum­mate­ly impor­tant book.)

Indeed, one can­not prop­er­ly ana­lyze the par­ti­tion of Korea after World War II, the Kore­an War and the Cold War as sep­a­rate events. They are inter­con­nect­ed and, in turn, are out­growths of the com­plex pol­i­tics of the Sec­ond World War and the actions and atti­tudes of Chi­ang Kai-shek’s nar­co-fas­cist dic­ta­tor­ship.

Although nom­i­nal­ly a mem­ber of the Allied nations, Chi­ang’s Kuom­intang gov­ern­ment was pri­mar­i­ly con­cerned with fend­ing off Mao Tse-Tung’s com­mu­nist armies and worked with the invad­ing Japan­ese in crit­i­cal areas. In par­tic­u­lar, the Kuom­intang’s pro­found involve­ment with the nar­cotics trade helped dri­ve its trad­ing with the Japan­ese.

The pro­gram begins with the obit­u­ary of gen­er­al Paik Sun-yup of Korea, whose ser­vice in the Impe­r­i­al Japan­ese Army dur­ing World War II has been a focal point of con­tro­ver­sy in South Korea. Gen­er­al Sun-yup embod­ied the ongo­ing con­tro­ver­sy in Korea over Japan’s occu­pa­tion and the sub­se­quent unfold­ing of events lead­ing up to, and includ­ing the Kore­an War.

Again, the Japan­ese occu­pa­tion of Korea was a major focal point of Park Won-soon’s crit­i­cism. “. . . . In 1941, he joined the army of Manchukuo, a pup­pet state that impe­r­i­al Japan had estab­lished in Manchuria, and served in a unit known for hunt­ing down Kore­an guer­ril­las fight­ing for inde­pen­dence . . .”

A lit­tle known fac­tor in the devel­op­ment of the Kore­an par­ti­tion and Cold War pol­i­tics in Asia was the involve­ment of Chi­ang Kai-shek, his wife (the for­mer Mei-Ling Soong, sis­ter of Chi­ang’s finance min­is­ter T.V. Soong–the wealth­i­est man in the world at the time) and advis­ers in the Cairo Con­fer­ence of 1943 and the sub­se­quent Tehran Con­fer­ence with Stal­in and Churchill.

Accord­ing to Colonel L. Fletch­er Prouty, who flew the Kuom­intang inter­ests to Tehran from Cairo, Chi­ang and com­pa­ny were a dri­ving force in set­ting the stage for war in Korea and Indochi­na.

While in Oki­nawa dur­ing Japan’s sur­ren­der in World War II, Colonel Prouty was wit­ness to the ear­ly com­mit­ment of deci­sive mil­i­tary resources to the wars that were to take place in Korea and Indochina/Vietnam. ” . . . . I was on Oki­nawa at that time, and dur­ing some busi­ness in the har­bor area I asked the har­bor­mas­ter if all that new mate­r­i­al was being returned to the States. His response was direct and sur­pris­ing: ‘Hell, no! They ain’t nev­er goin’ to see it again. One-half of this stuff, enough to equip and sup­ply at least a hun­dred and fifty thou­sand men, is going to Korea, and the oth­er half is going to Indochi­na.’ In 1945, none of us had any idea that the first bat­tles of the Cold War were going to be fought by U.S. mil­i­tary units in those two regions begin­ning in 1950 and 1965–yet that is pre­cise­ly what had been planned, and it is pre­cise­ly what hap­pened. Who made that deci­sion back in 1943–45? . . . .”

To appre­ci­ate Chi­ang’s influ­ence in the Cairo and Tehran con­fer­ences, it is impor­tant to under­stand that he was “work­ing both sides of the street” in World War II.

Amer­i­can mil­i­tary sup­plies flown over the Hump and/or sent along the Bur­ma Road at great risk and cost to Allied ser­vice­men found their way into the hands of the Japan­ese, cour­tesy of KMT gen­er­al Ku Chu-tung and his orga­nized crime broth­er.

Gen­er­al Ku Chu-Tung com­mand­ed a dev­as­tat­ing oper­a­tion against the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist New Fourth Army, illus­trat­ing why the Sea­graves called him “one of the most hat­ed men in Chi­na.”

Although obscured by the sands of time and pro­pa­gan­dized his­to­ry, Ku-Chu Tung’s actions illus­trate why Gen­er­al Joseph Stil­well held Chi­ang Kai-Shek in con­tempt. Still­well not only (cor­rect­ly) viewed Chi­ang Kai-Shek as a fas­cist, but (cor­rect­ly) saw him as an imped­i­ment to opti­miz­ing Chi­nese resis­tance to the hat­ed Japan­ese invaders.

Col­lab­o­rat­ing with Kodama Yoshio, the Japan­ese crime boss and Admi­ral of the Impe­r­i­al Japan­ese Navy, the Ku broth­ers swapped U.S. lend lease sup­plies for drugs.

It is impor­tant to note the role of the Black Drag­on Soci­ety in the ascent of Kodama Yoshio. Black Drag­on, along with Black Ocean, are key Japan­ese ultra-nation­al­ist soci­eties and the appar­ent fore­run­ners of the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church and, pos­si­bly the over­lap­ping Shin­cheon­ji cult that was sued by Park Won-soon.

Kodama played a key role in the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church, as dis­cussed in FTR #‘s 291  and 970.

Acquir­ing key strate­gic raw mate­ri­als for the Impe­r­i­al Japan­ese Naval Air Force, Kodama bought many of these direct­ly from the chief of Kuom­intang secret ser­vice, Gen­er­al Tai Li, who was paid direct­ly in hero­in.

Before turn­ing to the sub­ject of the Kore­an War and its deci­sive influ­ence on the dis­po­si­tion of glob­al wealth and the resus­ci­ta­tion of the glob­al car­tel sys­tem, we recount the assas­si­na­tion of Kim Koo, an impor­tant Kore­an patri­ot, whose advo­ca­cy of reuni­fi­ca­tion for Korea placed him in the crosshairs of Amer­i­can Cold War strate­gists. (Park Won-soon was called a “com­mie” for advo­cat­ing rec­on­cil­i­a­tion between the Kore­as.) ” . . . . In June 1949, Gen­er­al Kim Chang-Yong, Rhee’s close advi­sor and Chief of Korea’s Counter-Intel­li­gence Corps (CIC)—founded by and pat­terned after the CIA—conspired with Amer­i­can intel­li­gence offi­cers and a young lieu­tenant to assas­si­nate Kim Koo. On June 26, 1949, while the sev­en­ty-three-year-old Kim was rest­ing in his sec­ond-floor bed­room, Lieu­tenant Ahn Do hi walked past three police­men stand­ing guard out­side, entered the house, pro­ceed­ed to Kim’s bed­room, and shot him to death. . . .”

On the eve of the out­break of the Kore­an War, John Fos­ter Dulles was in Seoul with Kodama Yoshio. It is not known just what they were doing, but Fos­ter direct­ly fore­shad­owed the impend­ing (and alleged­ly unan­tic­i­pat­ed) North Kore­an inva­sion in a speech just before the com­mence­ment of hos­til­i­ties.

Kodama recruit­ed thou­sands of yakuza sol­diers and Japan­ese World War II vet­er­ans to fight for South Korea, dressed in Kore­an uni­forms.

Next, we high­light the 1951 “Peace” Treaty between the Allies and Japan, an agree­ment which false­ly main­tained that Japan had not stolen any wealth from the nations it occu­pied dur­ing World War II and that the (already) boom­ing nation was bank­rupt and would not be able to pay repa­ra­tions to the slave labor­ers and “com­fort women” it had pressed into ser­vice dur­ing the con­flict.

Japan was not bank­rupt at all when John Fos­ter Dulles nego­ti­at­ed the Treaty. U.S. bomb­ing left crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture intact, and the infu­sion of war loot helped boost the 1951 Japan­ese econ­o­my above its pre-World War II peak.

Fos­ter Dulles’s role in the 1951 Peace Treaty with Japan, his curi­ous pres­ence in Seoul with Kodama Yoshio on the eve of the out­break of the Kore­an War, his pre­scient fore­shad­ow­ing of the con­flict just before the North Kore­an inva­sion and the role of these events in shap­ing the post World War II glob­al eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal land­scapes may well have been designed to help jump­start the Japan­ese and Ger­man economies.

The Kore­an War did just that. ” . . . . A sub­stan­tial infu­sion of mon­ey into this new Fed­er­al Repub­lic econ­o­my result­ed from the Kore­an War in 1950. The Unit­ed States was not geared to sup­ply­ing all its needs for armies in Korea, so the Pen­ta­gon placed huge orders in West Ger­many and in Japan; from that point on, both nations winged into an era of boom­ing good times. . . .”

Indeed, John Fos­ter Dulles’s world view enun­ci­at­ed a phi­los­o­phy alto­geth­er con­sis­tent with those aims: ” . . . . He churned out mag­a­zine and news­pa­per arti­cles assert­ing that the ‘dynam­ic’ coun­tries of the world–Germany, Italy, and Japan–‘feel with­in them­selves poten­tial­i­ties which are sup­pressed’ . . .”

Those economies, the car­tels that dom­i­nat­ed them and the Dulles broth­ers Cold War strate­gic out­look are dom­i­nant fac­tors in the deep pol­i­tics under­ly­ing the life, and death, of Park Won-soon.

Rest In Peace, Heartfelt Thanks and Admiration: Peggy and Sterling Seagrave

In FTR #446, we high­light­ed the seri­ous death threats, harass­ment, and covert dis­rup­tion expe­ri­enced by Peg­gy and Ster­ling Sea­grave in con­nec­tion with their writ­ing. In 509, we also not­ed the sus­pi­cious cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the death of the hero­ic Iris Chang, who aid­ed the Sea­graves in their “Gold War­riors” project. Hav­ing authored a book on the Rape of Nanking and work­ing on anoth­er about the Bataan Death March, Ms. Chang had crossed the very pow­er struc­ture delin­eat­ed at length, depth and detail in the Sea­graves’ vol­ume. In our last vis­it with the Sea­graves, a 2009 inter­view that was the focus of FTR #689, Ster­ling expressed anx­i­ety about the prox­im­i­ty of their res­i­dence in South­ern France to the Span­ish bor­der and the for­mi­da­ble pres­ence of Opus Dei in Fran­co’s for­mer domain. His fear turned out to be pre­scient. On Christ­mas Day of 2011, he nar­row­ly escaped assas­si­na­tion while return­ing home. He felt that the attempt on his life may well have been moti­vat­ed by the pub­li­ca­tion of the Span­ish lan­guage edi­tion of “Gold War­riors.” Peg­gy passed in 2016 and Ster­ling in the spring of 2017. Listeners/readers may hon­or these heroes by read­ing their con­sum­mate­ly impor­tant books.

Requiem for “Victory at Sea,” Part 2

In numer­ous pro­grams, we have dis­cussed Kodama Yoshio, one of Japan’s pre­mier orga­nized crime boss­es, who was head of the Kodama Agency, charged with procur­ing mate­ri­als for Japan’s Impe­r­i­al Naval Air Force. Kodama was aid­ed in his efforts by Gen­er­al Tai Li, Chi­ang Kai-shek’s chief of intel­li­gence, who swapped key raw mate­ri­als for nar­cotics to back the Kuom­intang nar­co-dic­ta­tor­ship. ” . . . . Offi­cial­ly, Kodama was in Shang­hai as a buy­er for the Impe­r­i­al Navy Air Force, under the rubric of the Kodama Kikan, or Kodama Agency. (Spe­cial Ser­vice Units were named after the offi­cer in charge and then called an agency.) On paper, his mis­sion was to locate and acquire sup­plies of cop­per, cobalt, nick­el and mica. In most cas­es, he bought these direct­ly from KMT secret police chief Gen­er­al Tai Li, who was paid in hero­in. . . . Because the Strike South would involve Japan’s navy, and the navy would admin­is­ter the Malay Arch­i­pel­ago through which [Gold­en Lily] trea­sure ships must pass, Kodama was trans­ferred overnight from the army to the navy, and giv­en the rank of rear admi­ral. This was like mak­ing Al Capone a U.S. Navy admi­ral. . . . Kodama returned to Shang­hai just in time for Pearl Har­bor. . . .”

FTR #813 Return of the Rising Sun, Part 3

Grand­son of the Japan­ese war crim­i­nal who signed that coun­try’s dec­la­ra­tion of war against the U.S., Shin­zo Abe is fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of Nobo­suke Kishi (his grand­fa­ther), as well as those of Kishi’s asso­ciates in Japan’s expan­sion­ist empire. Revis­ing school text­books about World War II, pass­ing a new secre­cy law, insti­tut­ing greater state con­trol of news media, dra­mat­i­cal­ly increas­ing defense spend­ing while mov­ing to alter the con­sti­tu­tion to per­mit a more mil­i­taris­tic agen­da, Abe is turn­ing back the Japan­ese his­tor­i­cal and polit­i­cal clock. Japan­ese gov­ern­ment offi­cials are open­ly sanc­tion­ing anti-Kore­an racism and net­work­ing with orga­ni­za­tions that pro­mote that doc­trine. Sev­er­al mem­bers of Abe’s gov­ern­ment net­work with Japan­ese neo-Nazis. Vice-Prime Min­is­ter Taro Aso is a long­time admir­er of Nazi polit­i­cal strat­e­gy and advo­cates using the Nazi method for seiz­ing pow­er to sneak con­sti­tu­tion­al change past the Japan­ese pub­lic.

FTR #689 Interview with Sterling and Peggy Seagrave

William Faulkn­er not­ed that “the past is nev­er dead and buried. It isn’t even past.” War Gold stolen by the Japan­ese dom­i­nates the con­tem­po­rary eco­nom­ic land­scape; the engines of world polit­i­cal pow­er turn in pre­ci­sion with these hid­den engines of wealth.

FTR #344 Pearl Harbor Meets the Reichstag Fire, Part1: “This Is No Drill! This Is a Real Attack!”

Bush admin­is­tra­tion, Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, bin Laden and Old Nazis col­lab­o­rate to sub­vert the U.S.