The meat of this post is simply to point out former USFK Commanding Gen John Wickham's book on the Kwangju Massacre period (1979-1980) can be read online for free.

Korea on the Brink - by John Wickham

It is located at this link. There is no pdf file of the whole thing to download, so you'll have to read it all online (or print out page by page).

What follows below is a brief backgrounder on the Kwangju Massacre issue and how South Korean society as whole generally thinks about it:

Background

The Kwangju Massacre (1980) is known by all familiar with Korea as a "turning point" in US-SK relations and in Korean history. In South Korean society, whether you are a radical 20-something university student, or just an average adult, you believe the US "most likely" had a hand in it. The US is responsible - either partly or directly - depending on how radical or mainstream you are. It is just understood as the common truth of events.

There are many reasons for this and a wide variety of them. One small factor was an article translated and reprinted in Korea by an American investigative journalist that argued exactly the same thing.

I believe any reasonable American reading the article would begin to read between the lines and know how to place the author in the context of American political thought - especially in the time period of the 1960s and 70s in the Vietnam and post-Vietnam era. I did a detailed reading of the article, pointing out what I saw between the lines, at this page of my site.


I offer the Shorrock article here simply so people unfamiliar with Korean society can gain an understanding of how the society as a whole thinks about the issue. Both the claims against the US in Korea --- and the way in which those claims are formed (logical or illogical, founded or unfounded) ---- are mirrored in Shorrock's claims and style.

Some conservative Koreans would heatedly disagree with those views, but, for the most part, Korean society takes it for granted an item like Shorrock's article is just laying out the plain truth.

Gen. Wickham's book is a very different view.