Abstract
Oliver Elliott outlines the five main factors that explain why the American press did not pay greater attention to the rise of authoritarianism in South Korea. First, the dominance of anti-Korean and Cold War press narratives ensured that little attention was paid to the repression of the Korean population. Second, most journalists were deferent to American authorities in the Far East. Third, American military authorities put heavy constraints on journalists during the occupation period. Fourth, the ROK’s public relations activities dramatically improved during Rhee’s time as president. And, fifth, US political interest in the situation in South Korea was marginal. Elliott also examines the broader significance of this failure in terms of the long-term impact on South Korea’s democratic development and the evolution of American journalism.
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Notes
- 1.
Murray Schumach, “Bickering in Korea Hinders Aim of U.S.,” New York Times, 12 May 1951.
- 2.
See, for instance, Deane, The Korean War: 1945–1953, 23; Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, Vol. 2: The Roaring of the Cataract, 1947–1950, 701.
- 3.
Robert Jervis, “The Impact of the Korean War on the Cold War,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 24, no. 4 (1980), 563–92. See also Masuda Hajimu, Cold War Crucible: The Korean Conflict and the Postwar World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015).
- 4.
After the start of the Korean War, the United States greatly strengthened ties with several authoritarian regimes which had previously been diplomatically isolated, including Spain, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua: Schmitz, Thank God They’re on Our Side: The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1921–65, 144–67.
- 5.
See Chung, “‘The Pictures in Our Heads’: Journalists, Human Rights, and U.S.−South Korean Relations, 1970–1976,” 1137.
- 6.
The term the “forgotten war” was first used by U.S. News and World Report in 1951 and was given greater prominence by Matthew Ridgway’s memoir of the war in the 1960s: “Korea: The ‘Forgotten’ War,” U.S. News and World Report, 5 October 1951; Matthew B. Ridgway, The Korean War (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1967), 88.
- 7.
For more on American memory and the Korean War, see Philip West, Suh Ji-moon, and Donald Gregg, Remembering the Forgotten War: The Korean War Through Literature and Art (New York: Routledge, 2015); Melinda L. Pash, In the Shadows of the Greatest Generation: The Americans Who Fought the Korean War (New York: New York University Press, 2012); Paul M. Edwards, To Acknowledge a War: The Korean War in American Memory (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000).
- 8.
Steven I. Levine, “Some Reflections on the Korean War,” in Remembering the Forgotten War: The Korean War Through Literature and Art (New York: Routledge, 2015), 3–4.
- 9.
An opinion poll in October 1948 showed that 28% of respondents regarded themselves as mildly interested and 10% greatly interested in news of US policy towards Korea: National Opinion Research Center [NORC]. NORC Survey: Foreign Affairs, October 1948 [dataset]. USNORC1948-0161, Version 3. National Opinion Research Center [NORC] [producer]. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, RoperExpress [distributor], accessed 25 September 2016.
- 10.
K. W. Lee to the editor, 25 April 1960, Box 24, Chicago Daily News, Field Enterprises Collection, Newberry Library.
- 11.
E. Allan Lightner, Jr., Oral History by Richard D. McKinzie, 26 October 1973, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library.
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Elliott, O. (2018). Conclusions. In: The American Press and the Cold War. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76023-0_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76023-0_9
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