IN OUR TIMES
SERIES
As one of its projects, the
OKSPN (Overseas Korean Senior Professionals Network) has launched
an essay project titled IN OUR TIMES. It represents
unique Korean-American experience and
perspective shared by many members of OKSPN, most of whom
have lived almost a half century
in America since their arrival here, starting from the end
of the Korean War. As to "What and
Why" of OKSPN, they are explained in the SKAS homepage (www.skas.org)
under the
heading of OKSPN.
Contributions from its members will be posted in this OKSPN
Forum. We will follow a format
similar to book jackets - About the Author, Author's photo,
and the essay. This is a project
in progress, an open-ended one. Any member of OKSPN,
when their spirit moves them,
can contribute with a view toward enhancing the Korean-American
experience and hence
provide insights gained from their experiences to all those
who followed and will follow us
in the future.
IN OUR TIMES SERIES, PART 5
Korea:
Key to preventing Pearl Harbor
Tai-Hyung
(Tommy) Kwon
Professor Emeritus of Physics
The University of Montevallo
http://members.aol.com/thkwon/
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Professor Kwon earned his BS (1963), MS (1965) and Ph D (1967),
all in physics, at the University of Georgia.
After two years of postdoctoral research at Georgia Tech., he
has been at the University of Montevallo in
Alabama (1969-97). His specialty is condensed matter physics.
His life after the retirement in 1997 has been filled
with activities of traveling, ballroom dancing, and writing
for magazines and newspapers. He lives in Birmingham,
Alabama with his wife Young-Ju Choi.
Korea: Key to preventing
Pearl Harbor
At 6 a.m. on December 7, 1941, the first wave of Japanese
bombers took off from six carriers in the Pacific
about 230 miles north of Oahu for Pearl Harbor. "It was
like the sky was filled with fireflies," bomber pilot
Abe Zenji recalled. "It was a beautiful scene-183 aircraft
in the dark sky." Together with the second wave
of 170 aircraft that followed an hour later, the Japanese
raiders sank or seriously damaged 21 ships,
destroyed 347 planes, wounded 1178, and killed 2403 Americans
by 9:55 a.m.
Was Pearl Harbor fiasco inevitable?
In 1899 and again in 1900, U.S. Secretary of State John
Hay proclaimed the "open door" policy in China,
seeking an equal trade opportunity for all nations and
urging major powers to respect the independence
and territorial integrity of China. The United States
feared that partition of China would damage American
trade and sought to preserve equal privileges. "As long
as no nation achieved hegemony over East Asia,
the security of the United States would not be endangered,"
was the underlying thought.
When the idea of "open door" policy was germinating in
Washington, the Korean King Kojong asked
Horace N. Allen, American Minister in Seoul, to obtain
the same policy for Korea. Allen, who sensed a
growing Japanese imperial ambition evidenced by increasing
military buildup, warned his American
superiors about the danger. He complained to his government
that the indifferent attitude of the United
States toward Korea would only encourage a war that could
ultimately harm the United States.
Most members of the American community in Seoul - diplomats,
advisers, missionaries, traders, and
concession hunters - believed that a stronger tie between
the Unites States and Korean kingdom would
benefit both countries. They wrote their friends in the
States, published articles in the media and gave
interviews about the stake of the United States in Korea's
future. When on leave, they contacted their
most influential acquaintances and tried their luck at
lobbying in Congress, at the State Department and
the White House.
When Secretary Hay announced his "open door" policy,
however, there was no mention of Korea.
President Theodore Roosevelt decided that Japan should
have Korea as a check upon Russia. In stark
contrast, 45 years later in 1950, President Harry S.
Truman ordered American troops into Korea to
block the Soviet communist domination of Korea.
When Japan emerged triumphant from the Russo-Japanese
War of 1904-1905, Roosevelt often praised
Japan. "Nothing in history has quite paralleled her rise
during the last 50 years. Her progress has been
remarkable alike in war, in industry, in statesmanship,
in science," he said.
In the summer of 1905, the Roosevelt administration signed
the Taft-Katsura Memorandum, whereby
Japan recognized American control over the Philippines
and the United States granted a Japanese
protectorate over Korea.
Unaware of this, the Korean government had made six appeals
to the Roosevelt administration between
September 1904 and December 1905. The United States,
the first Western treaty power to open a
legation in Seoul, was the first to abandon Korea. "It
was like the stampede of rats from a sinking ship,"
observed an American legation secretary. "We might
have given them an expression of sympathy and
waited until the funeral was over before nailing up the
coffin," lamented Minister Allen.
In view of America's eventual opposition to Japanese
expansionism in Asia that culminated in the attack
of Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt's pro-Japanese policy has
been a subject of a hot debate among students
of international relations. Given the climate of the
Asian power politics of 1904 and 1905, however, the
American policy of realism in relation to Korea and Japan
can hardly be criticized.
Nevertheless, had President Theodore Roosevelt perceived
the strategic importance of Korea as did
President Truman 45 years later, the United States could
have prevented the Pearl Harbor attack of
Dec. 7, 1941 - which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
declared "a date which will live in infamy."
