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Today on the Korean Atlas and History: Famous Koreans. 이승만.

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이승만 was the first president of South Korea. He had a strong communist

stance and he led the South through the Korean War.

이승만 was born on April 18th, 1875, in Dae-Gyeong, a village in what is now

North Hwang-Hae, North Korea. Lee was the oldest boy in his family to survive

infancy. He had two sisters. He could trace his lineage back to King 태종 of Joseon.

In 1877, his family moved to Seoul where he had a traditional Confucian education.

At the age of nine, he was rendered virtually blind until cured by Horace Newton

Allen, and American medical missionary. In 1894, he enrolled in an American

Methodist school called 배재학당, where he converted to Christianity. While in

school, he worked as the head of and main write of the newspapers 배재학당 and

매일신문. He also earned money by teaching Korean to Americans. He graduated

from school in 1895.

In 1895, the first Sino-Japanese War ended, and influence over Korea passed

from the Chinese to the Japanese. Lee became involved in anti-Japanese groups

from around this time. At one point, Lee was implicated in an assassination of
Empress Myeong-Seong, the wife of the King Go-Jong, but a female American

physician helped him avoid the charges.

Lee was one of the forerunners for Korean independence, and obtained the

rank of 의관 in the Imperial Legislature. After entering the civil service, he was

implicated in a plot to remove King Go-Jong from power, and was then imprisoned.

After a failed escape attempt, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. During this

time he faced abuse and torture, yet also had time to write. He translated and

compiled The Sino–Japanese War Record, wrote The Spirit of Independence,

compiled the New English–Korean Dictionary, and wrote in the Imperial Newspaper.

In 1904, Lee was released from prison, and he moved to the U.S. In 1905, Lee

and Yun Byeong-Gu met with President Theodore Roosevelt and Secretary of State

John Hay, in an attempt to convince the U.S. to preserve Korean independence. The

attempt was unsuccessful.

Lee stayed in the U.S. in what was called an “exile.” From the years 1905 to

1910, he received a Bachelor’s of Arts from George Washington University, a Master

of Arts from Harvard, and a Ph.D. from Princeton. In 1910, he returned to a Japanese

occupied Korea. In 1912, he was implicated in the 105-Man Incident, an event in

which over 700 Koreans were arrested for what the Japanese believed to be and

attempt to assassinate Masatake Terauchi, the Governor General of Korea at the

time. He fled to the U.S., and met with Woodrow Wilson in an attempt to convince
him to help those involved in the 105-Man Incident. Lee’s attempt to convince

Wilson failed to bring any change.

On March 1st, 1919, the March 1st Movement occurred. In Korea,

approximately two million Koreans participated in more than 1,500 demonstrations

that mostly focused on Korean independence from Japan. As the processions grew,

the Japanese local and military authorities could not control the crowds, panicked,

and called for the military to quell them. The Japanese police force and army

massacred several thousand people. As a reaction, Lee and Soh Jai-Pil held the First

Korean Congress in Philadelphia. The goal was to get the United States to help

secure Korean independence from Japan.

Lee was later appointed Prime Minister for the Provisional Government of the

Republic of Korea. This was a group that acted as the Korean government in exile,

based in Shanghai, China. He was also given a position equivalent to President for

the Hansung Provincial Government. In June, 1919, as Prime Minister of the

Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, he declared Korea’s Independence

from Japan.

In 1922, Lee returned to Hawaii to focus on publication, education, and

religion. In March, 1925, Lee was impeached over allegations of a misuse of power,

and he was removed from office. Yet, he still continued to claim the position of

president by referring to the Hansung Provisional Government. He continued

working for Korean Independence and moved to Washington in 1939 to help further

this goal. After the outbreak of World War II, Lee convinced President Franklin D.

Roosevelt to approve the existence of the Korean Provincial Government. As part of

this plan, he cooperated with anti-Japan strategies conducted by the Office of

Strategic Services.

At the end of the war, Lee returned to Korea with a strong anti-communist

disposition. He refused to join the U.S.-Soviet Cooperation Committee and later

refused to negotiate with the North. As he had some deal of fame among Koreans,

he was seen more or less acceptable by Korean politicians. More importantly,

though, he spoke fluent English, which none of his rivals did, which bolstered

support from the American Occupation Government.

In November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly recognized

Korean Independence. Only July 20, 1948, Lee was elected president of South Korea,

with 92.3% of the vote. The next month, the north proclaimed its own statehood.

Soon after taking office, Lee enacted laws that severely curtailed

political dissent. Allegedly, many leftist opponents were arrested and killed at this

time, the most controversial case being Kim Gu, who was assassinated with what

appeared to be a link to Lee. Lee’s government was authoritarian, and began

detaining and torturing suspected communists. Lee’s government also oversaw

several massacres, including the 문경 massacre, which included over 80 people, mostly

elderly and children, as well as the Jeju Uprising, which reported over 14,000 victims.

By 1950, Lee had about 30,000 alleged communists in jail, and about 300,000

suspected sympathizers enrolled in reeducation programs. Before the start of the

war, both Lee and Kim Il-Sung of the north hoped to hold the entire peninsula

under their control. The U.S. had refused to arm the South with heavy weapons, yet

the north was heavily armed. On June 25th, 1950, there was an outbreak of hostilities,

and the 38th parallel was overwhelmed by the north. Lee advised citizens not to

worry and remain in their workplaces, and he told the people that all cabinet

members and parliament would do the same. In fact, though, Lee had already left

the city with most of the government. At midnight, on June 28th, the South

destroyed the Han bridge in order to prevent the north’s advance, which also

prevented thousands of citizens from fleeing. Lee’s government created safe zone

around a defensive perimeter at the Nakdong Bulge, near Busan. The war raged on

and in December, Lee began the December Massacres of 1950, in which the

thousands of alleged communists in prison camps were executed.

The time of Lee’s regime during the Korean war marks what is probably the

worst corruption in any regime of south Korea. High ranking soldiers would steal the

pay of low ranking soldiers, and leave the low ranking soldiers completely unpaid.

One of the worst marks of this abuse was the National Defense Corps Incident, in
which thousands of men were recruited for the National Defense Corps, but many

froze or starved to death, as the money for food and heating was embezzled by

General Kim Yun Gun. General Kim and five other officers were publically shot in

Daegu on August 12, 1951.

In 1952, it seemed unlikely that Lee would be reelected by the National

Assembly because of corruption and political repression. However, Lee was still

popular with the people. Thus, Lee attempted to amend the constitution to allow

him to hold direct popular vote elections. The National Assembly rejected this, so

Lee held a mass arrest of the political opposition, and then passed his desired

amendment. He received 74% of the popular vote, and was reelected in 1952.

In 1953, the U.S. began negotiating an armistice which Lee strongly opposed.

The armistice was signed by the United Nations Command, on behalf of the

international community, with Lee not attending.

After the war, South Korea began rebuilding, and Lee ran for presidency again

in 1956. It should have been his last term, but as soon as he became president, he

amended the constitution to allow the president to run for an unlimited amount of

terms. He won again in 1960, but he won with such a large margin that the

opposing Democratic party claimed the election was rigged. This led to

demonstrations. Police in the city of Masan shot demonstrators, and this led to the
April Revolution, which forced Lee to resign on April 26, 1960. On April 28 th, the CIA

flew Lee out of South Korea to avoid angry protests.

Lee lived out the rest of his life in exile, in Honolulu Hawaii, until he suffered

a stroke and died on July 19th, 1965. His body was returned to Seoul and buried in

Seoul National Cemetary.

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Thank You for listening to this episode of the Korean Atlas and History. Most

of today’s information was taken from the 나무 Wiki and Wikipedia. All of our

episodes can be found and downloaded from koreanatlasandhistory.com. Thank

you for listening and we’ll see you next time.