With the end of World War II in August 1945, there was still no consensus on Korea's fate among Allied leaders. Many Koreans on the peninsula wanted independence and rejected re-occupation by foreign forces. Per the agreement at Yalta, the USSR entered the fight against Japan and invaded Manchuria and northern Korea. On August 10, 1945 two young officers, including future Secretary of State Dean Rusk, worked to define an American occupation zone. Working on extremely short notice and without consulting any experts on Korea, they used a National Geographic map to decide on the 38th parallel (not knowing that 40 years earlier, Japan and Russia had discussed sharing Korea along the same parallel.) On August 15, 1945, Japan's last Governor-General handed over power, marking Korea's Victory over Japan (Gwangbokjeol, literally “Restoration of Light Day”). The Republic of Korea was established exactly three years later.
Despite Soviet opposition, a UN-supervised election helped establish two separate Korean governments, with the South Korean government declaring independence from the U.S. military and the USSR's Korea building up military strength. David E. Mark was the Political Advisor (POLAD) to U.S. Forces in Seoul from 1946 to 1949. He discusses the failed attempts to create a unified government for Korea, the reluctant appeal to the right wing for support, and the American Secretary of State's initial declaration that the Korean peninsula would not be inside the U.S. security perimeter. He was interviewed by Henry Precht in July 1989. You can read other stories about the Korean peninsula here.
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