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Gollywog
Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Location: Debussy's brain
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 Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 8:07 am Post subject: Son fights to clear name of executed 'seductress spy' |
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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- She was "The Korean Seductress Who Betrayed America," a Seoul socialite said to have charmed secret information out of one lover, an American colonel, and passed it to another, a top communist in North Korea.
In late June 1950, as North Korean invaders closed in on this panicked city, Kim Soo-im was executed by the South Korean military, shot as a "very malicious international spy." Her deeds, thereafter, only grew in infamy.
In 1950s America, gripped by anticommunist fever, one TV drama told viewers Kim's "womanly wiles" had been the communists' "deadliest weapon." Another teleplay, introduced by host Ronald Reagan, depicted her as Asia's Mata Hari. Coronet magazine, under the "seductress" headline, reviled her as the Oriental queen of a vast Soviet "Operation Sex."
Kim Soo-im and her love triangle are gone, buried in separate corners of a turbulent past. But in yellowing U.S. military files stamped "SECRET," hibernating through a long winter of Cold War, the truth survived. Now it has emerged, a half-century too late to save her.
The record of a confidential 1950 U.S. inquiry and other declassified files, obtained by The Associated Press at the U.S. National Archives, tell a different Kim Soo-im story:
Col. John E. Baird had no access to the supposed sensitive information. Kim had no secrets to pass on. And her Korean lover, Lee Gang-kook, later executed by North Korea, may actually have been an American agent.
The espionage case, from what can be pieced together today, looks like little more than a frame-up.
Her colonel could have defended her, but instead Baird was rushed out of Korea to "avoid further embarrassment," the record shows. She was left to her fate -- almost certainly, the Americans concluded, to be tortured by South Korean police into confessing to things she hadn't done.
Historians now believe the Seoul regime secretively executed at least 100,000 leftists and supposed sympathizers in 1950. This one death, for one American, remains a living, deeply personal story....
As her court-appointed lawyer noted, the government presented neither material evidence nor witnesses to back up the charges. But on the trial's third day, according to a summary in the declassified U.S. file, Kim Soo-im confessed and was sentenced to death.
Just weeks after her execution, however, and across the Pacific, U.S. military investigators reviewing Baird's role were hearing confidential testimony from Army officers indicating Kim's conviction was a contrivance of the Seoul authorities.
On point after point -- alleged illicit use of jeeps, an Army truck, a radio and other items for "communistic activities" -- Baird denied such dealings with Kim, and the Army inspector general's office repeatedly found that "the evidence does not substantiate the allegation," according to the long-secret record.... |
More:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/08/17/myth.miss.kim.ap/index.html
Who was at fault, Korea or the U.S.?
I don't care, so long as the historical record is truthful and fair.
This seems a step in the right direction. |
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bobbyhanlon
Joined: 09 Nov 2003
Location: 서울
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 2:36 pm Post subject: |
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| if that picture is anything to go by, i'd say she'd have to be totally innocent.. |
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Gollywog
Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Location: Debussy's brain
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 1:18 am Post subject: |
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| f that picture is anything to go by, i'd say she'd have to be totally innocent.. |
The superficial emphasis we see today in Korea on women's looks and the industrial strength use of makeup probably was not the case in the 1930s.
Actually, Kim Soo-im looks surprisingly modern and Western. And I can't help wondering whether that was part of the reason the Koreans went after her: not conforming to the image of a true Korean.
I think her son did right to try to get the truth out about her. She seems like a nice, intelligent person. |
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wanamin
Joined: 14 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:06 am Post subject: |
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this story has BS written all over it.
sounds like someone is trying to dredge up even more anti-American sentiment.
How can we possibly be sure of anything after all this time, and when we're dealing with NK?
The fact that her other lover got executed by the North means nothing. The crazy Kim's are known for executing people for no reason. He could have simply been too popular, and been perceived as a threat to 김일성.
I doubt we will ever know the truth.
Unless we get hard evidence, all we can do is speculate. |
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Gollywog
Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Location: Debussy's brain
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 4:08 am Post subject: |
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| sounds like someone is trying to dredge up even more anti-American sentiment. |
I don't get that impression. These stories are part of an AP series. Associated Press is mainly an American press agency. The stories have run in the States, but I don't think the Korean papers have run the AP versions.
Look, Americans are among the most critical at looking at American history. That's one of our strengths, and one of the things other countries, especially Korea, can learn from us. When you make mistakes, be honest, admit them, learn from them, change and move on.
American history is an open book. And not just ancient history. Bush's press secretary Scott McClellan wrote a little tell all recently, for example.
I don't mind people criticizing America, so long as they get their facts straight, and understand America well enough to distinguish history from present day realilty. This makes it easy for other countries to criticize the U.S. But it sure bugs me when they just make up patently obvious lies to turn the Korean people against the West.
I think the AP story does a good job of presenting both sides of the argument. And I think someone reading it objectively would come away thinking the Koreans were at least as much to blame as the American.
What gets lost in these stories is the big picture. We saved Korea's ass during the Korean War, but they seem to think America was the bad guy.
Sorry. |
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