My American Memoir 17
The Pentagon Duty

There was a long background check before I landed at the Pentagon, because I was a naturalized citizen from Korea. I confessed to the Pentagon that I had been a poet and writer against the South Korean authoritarian regime and had received North Korean propaganda materials regularly from Havana, Cuba, Wien, Austria, Budapest, Hungary, and Prague, Czechoslovakia. I must have been in the mailing list from North Korea. I did not know how. I just guessed that my anti-South Korean government writings were interpreted as pro-North Korean writings. I could distinguish the South Korean authoritarian regime from the North Korean animal farm under dictator Kim Il-sung. I was invited to a conference for Korea’s unification in Wien or Helsinki in the 1970s. I never accepted the invitation, because I knew I could not express fair or neutral views at North Korea-sponsored conferences. I was granted to deal with secret government documents, but not top-secret level documents, because my job at the Pentagon required only secret-level clearance. The long examination of my background was over. I could land at the Pentagon.

I reported for duty to the Pentagon in the morning of October 1, 1981.  I was fortunate to find work in the Pentagon. As a scholar of public administration and a naturalized citizen, the Pentagon job was a privilege. I thanked the United States. This must be the only nation in the world that could offer an opportunity to work in the Office of the Secretary of Defense to a foreign-born citizen. When I arrived at the Pentagon Metro Station, I slowly walked to the gate, and I called Dr. Don Emig inside.  He was my boss who interviewed me a couple of times in long distance calls, and he offered me a job, more precisely the fellowship. He came out to the gate to pick me up. That was our first meeting. That was my first entrance into the Pentagon, and the first step toward my two years sojourn in the Pentagon. It was my best opportunity to see environmental policy and management inside the government. The two years inside the bureaucracy enriched my teaching and research works.

Don Emig, a tall and handsome man who earned his doctorate degree in environmental engineering from Purdue University, introduced me to his staff, an air force lieutenant colonel and a navy officer with one woman secretary. Immediately, he assigned me to look into the documents stored in the cabinet for a week, and to handle Department of Defense’s low-level nuclear waste papers from a perspective of newly enacted law of Radioactive Waste Policy Act of 1980. The U.S. Congress passed a law for low-level radioactive waste policy just before Christmas that did not mention the Department of Defense waste at all. The law urged the inter-state compact for the waste management. My job was to make DOD as part of Interstate compacts, and to let the interstate compacts accept the DOD waste. However, the state people had fear of the DOD waste. Low level radioactive waste of 10 nano curies is the same regardless of who produced the waste. The state politicians and bureaucrats were thinking the DOD waste was more harmful than the electric utility’s waste. I was a good person to be a liaison officer between the DOD and the 50 State Governments and their interstate compacts.

In a new town, I enjoyed reading the Washington Post every morning, and discovered the Sunday’s Outlook section had an outsider’s essay entitled “Company Town: personal glimpse of Washington.” I composed an essay and mailed it to the Post. The editor called me and informed me that a photographer would visit my office for a photo. What an honor to place my essay with my photo. It was printed on November 1, 1981.

My American Memoir 22
A Korean-American Life in Washington /Literary Activities

Being a Korean-American poet and writer in the Washington area, I organized the Korean Poets and Writers Group in the Washington Area in 1990 and the Korean-American Poets Group in 2005. But in the 1980s, I created a series of poetry readings at the Korean YMCA, and invited famous Korean poets and writers to the YMCA lecture and reading series.

 

One most memorable writer was Mr. Yong-Ik Kim from Pittsburgh. With his help, I produced a full page interview article for the Outlook section of the Washington Post, which was reprinted in the Japan Times (January 27, 1986) and other newspapers. I remember I sent the tape recorded our conversations and the hard copy to the Outlook editor.

Kim was an American literary success story. Arriving in the United States in 1948, speaking only broken English, Kim became a major writer of American fiction. Born and raised in the seaport town of Choongmoo or Tongyoung in South Korea, Kim based his stories on his experiences in his native South Korea or the experiences of Orientals in the United States. After studying English literature in Tokyo in the early 1940s, he resisted his father’s wish that he become a lawyer and came to the United States to continue his study of English literature at Florida Southern College and then at the University of Kentucky and the University of Iowa’s Writers Workshop. Kim identified himself as a “misfit” in a bureaucratic and mechanical society, although he said he tried hard to be an “adjusted misfit.”

In his work—which was published in English and included roughly 30 published short stories, four novels, two one act plays and a full-length drama—he said he was “drawn to life untouched by modern mechanism and conformity and standardization.” He neither owned nor knew how to drive a car, did not have a phone and a television set until 1974, 10 years before I invited him to the Korean YMCA lecture in 1984. His work often involves simple tales of people who could be his relatives, looking for universal meaning in faraway provincial settings.

In addition to writing, Kim taught fiction writing at the University of California at Berkeley. When he was visiting the Korean YMCA, he was teaching at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.

Kim became an American citizen in 1976. His work appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, the Hudson Review and the Sewanee Review. He received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for his creative writing.

Following is the printed interview article with Mr. Yong Ik-Kim in the Washington Post.
Finding Voice in a Foreign Tongue

Question: Did you have a great ambition to be a writer in the United States?
Answer: I never thought about becoming a professional writer. In this country, I had adjustment problem, and I was very lonely, so every morning I got up and I started write—three hours every day. My roommate asked me, “What are you doing” (I said) “I am writing a book.” He said, “If you get your work published in America, I’ll give you $500. Even for American writers, it’s very hard to break into that racket.” But I wrote every morning about three hours, and more or less I wrote three hours all my life.

Q: What did you write at that time?
A: I missed my hometown, and so I tried to capture that emotion and passion of the Korean children through my work. I write what I feel, and my playmates in my childhood come to me very natural. They were poor people even by Korean standards. Some didn’t have fathers. Their mothers are out all day peddling homegrown bean sprouts. Some are retarded. But we chased the runaway kites under the blue sky. We sometimes slipped and fell in cow dung, but we always got up laughing, chasing those kites. I like my hometown largely because they are untouched (by) modern mechanism and conformity. I remember one of those boys showing me a picture card of (a) great painting which he had bought at the store. Why didn’t he buy goodies instead of those pictures?

Q: What was the first story you published?
A: I wrote about “The Wedding Shoes.” A butcher’s son falls in love with the beautiful daughter of the shoemaker who refused the marriage proposal from the young man. When you write a story in this country, a story of Korea, you have to have some universal appeal. Although my father was not (a) butcher, I felt that I was a butcher’s son. When you start to think about when (the) first Americans came to this country, they had to fight Indians and so on. All of us are butcher’s sons. So I thought, perhaps American readers can understand the Korean themes, the beautiful wedding shoes from the butcher’s son’s point of view.

Q: How long did you spend writing and rewriting the story?
A: Actually that story took two months. I was working on one book, “The Happy Days” and I finished it and sent it to New York, but it always returned to me. One day I was so discouraged, and so I just listened to music the whole day and I didn’t eat. Somehow the image of wedding shoes came to my mind. I thought if I capture that wedding shoes, the elusive wedding shoes, maybe I can write a real story.

But I felt very hungry, so I went to a grocery store and after spending so much money sending my manuscript, I didn’t have much money. I went to meat counter, and I said, ‘a few slices of meat please.” He picked a huge hunk of meat and wrapped it up and marked it 30 cents. I said I only ask you for two slices, three slices. He said, “Oh, that’s okay.” I went to the cashier. The cashier looked at the package and loot at me, but she didn’t say anything.

Every time I return, somehow the package seems to grow bigger, but still he charge me 30 cents. For two months when I was working on that wedding shoes, I had a very high protein diet. Before that I used to eat only doughnuts and coffee. He was a butcher, and I wrote the story from butcher’s son’s point of view.

Q: Was your book finally published?
A: Yes, by Little Brown.

Q: T.S. Eliot went to England and became a subject and never returned to the United States. Do you think you can stay the rest of your life in this country? Do you plan to die in this country?
A: To me, it doesn’t matter where you live. I always think about Korea and I write about Korea mainly, and what’s the difference whether I stay in Korean mountain to write about Korea or living in America writing about Korea? I don’t see any difference, because my mind returns to Korea always. Actually I shouldn’t say return, because my playmates in my hometown are always within me, not the books.

Q: You are now a famous writer. Are you rich?
A: This year I received a fellowship from National Endowment for the Arts, and also I was commissioned to work on my teleplay. I made money, but I don’t know, when I think about my Korean village. My playmates came from, very poor homes. My father was a small landlord, and they used to call my family rich. Of course, when I went to Seoul and Japan and America, my family was not that rich. This materialistic aspect of life doesn’t interest me that much. Just to write.

When I write one good short story, I’m always excited and that story I created comes back to me again and again. I write about human success in the rapture of darkness. This is my happy times. Every time I write, I feel good.

Q: The United States has changed dramatically since 1948. What have been the most dramatic changes you have noticed?
A: First, as a teacher, I noticed change. During the Vietnam War I started to teach in America. When I gave grade D or F, my students behind my back called me “that damned gook.” But now they’re interested in Oriental culture and would like to learn something about Oriental people. As a writer, publishers and editors talk about serious literature, but when you and I look at the books at the store, it is only a lip service. For some commercial reason, they are not interested in publishing stories that settings are Korean villages, because they feel that they cannot make money perhaps.

Q: You spent several years in your early college life in Japan. What was that like?
A: I went to a college in Tokyo, Japan, during the Second World War. The first American air attack---I criticized the Japanese war effort and was put in jail. Four or five days later, when the Japanese chief of police passed my cell, I told him, “I’ve been in here for four days without even being questioned.”
When the chief of police left the jail, I heard him asking the guard, “What is his name?”
The guard said, “He’s a Korean.” The chief didn’t say anything further. After that, the guard came over with a bucketful of cold water and threatened me to pour the water into my cell. It was a cold winter. I had to sleep on the wooden floor. My cellmate, a Japanese vagrant caught stealing money from donation box, hit me and asked me to apologize to the guard. I was frightened. I apologized to the guard. I felt very bad about saying, “Sorry” to the guard, and I realized I would never become a hero.

Q: Why do you live here, even though you miss and love your home country?
A: I always like a strange town where no one knows me and (I can) run around seeing strange place and meeting strange people. Also, in small countries like Korea and Japan, human relations are so tightly knitted that I wanted to be liberated.
But away from Korea, I always think of Korea. When I returned to my hometown three years ago, I lost my way to the home in which I grew up and had to ask someone how to get there. With all sorts of new buildings and new paved roads, the town has changed a great deal. After that experience, I don’t get homesick as much as I used to, and I begin to realize that Pittsburgh is my home. Sometimes my relatives in my hometown send me a package of Korean food. When I open the package and find the dry squids and kelp, anchovy, bracken shoots and ginseng, I can smell my hometown seafront. I can smell the Korean earth. Then I laugh and sigh.

My American Memoir 24
Korean-American Life in Washington/
Korean Democracy Movement: Before and After 1987

I became friendly to those who were fighting against the authoritarian government in Korea. Washington was and is a political town. Human rights and civil rights-oriented American organizations were also interested in the democracy movement in South Korea and sympathetic to them.

In one autumn evening in 1981, Rev. George Ogle visited the town and made a speech for the Korean congregation at an American church in Washington, D.C. located at the borderline of D.C. and Maryland, where I was asked to serve as an impromptu interpreter for him. He was a famous American Christian missionary kicked out of Korea by the Park Chung-hee government in 1974 for his political activities agitating the Korean workers. That was my first physical contact with the Korean organization for democracy and freedom in Washington, D.C., even though I had frequently written my political commentaries against the authoritarian government in the Korean language newspaper in Los Angeles and Philadelphia since the 1960s. After President Park Chung-hee was assassinated by his Korean CIA chief in 1979, another Army General Chun Doo-hwan controlled the Korean government. The Korean freedom fighters were expressing their concern for democracy in Korea to the White House and the Congress. I still remember Rev. George Ogle’s impressive speech: “I am seeing Jesus’ face from the faces of struggling Korean workers at the Inchon harbor.” He was a missionary for the Korean workers. Since that night, I translated the statements and speeches of the Korean anti-governmental leadership people from Korean into English and disseminated to the U.S. President and the Congress until 1987.

Rev. Moon Tong-hwan was the first person who sought an exile in Washington, D.C. in 1982. My friends and I gathered for a prayers’ meeting once a week with Rev. Moon, and later they proposed to start a church in an American church in Washington D.C. where Rev. George Ogle made his speech once. I was anxious to start a church for Rev. Moon, because we were concerned about his livelihood. His American wife and young children needed financial help.

The Korean Presbyterian Church became the center of South Korean people’s democracy and freedom movement. Professor Han Wan-sang of Seoul National University Sociology Department was the second person who exiled in the town. He was a popular speaker on the Biblical interpretation of the Korean political situation at church. Mr. Kim Dae-jung, the opposition leader and a presidential candidate who opposed Gen. Park was the third person exiled in the town. The church attracted many distinguished opposition party leaders and intellectuals from Korea: Mr. Ham Sok-hon, Professor Lee Moon-young of Korea University, Poet Ko Eun and Rev. Kim Jae-joon were among them.

The church played an important role for their Washington haven until June 1987 when the Chun Doo-hwan government yielded to the popular presidential election as demanded by the opposition forces in1987. It was a turning point of South Korean politics toward democracy. I was free to visit my home country in that summer. That was also an end of my long journey for South Korea’s democracy.

That summer, I taught Korean-American students at Yonsei University International Summer School for five weeks. The students’ 3 to 6 credit hours were transferable to their American colleges and universities. Many of them were from Ivy League schools. So Yonsei University’s summer school was popular. The students took courses such as Korean history, Korean literature, Korean language and Korean political economy. I taught Comparative Politics—Asian Governments course in the summer of 1987 and in the summers of the following years. More than teaching, I enjoyed seeing and living with my mother. Taking care of the aging mother was the son’s job, especially the elder son’s duty.

At the summer school, I felt something wrong at Yonsei University which was founded more than a century before by the American missionaries. The Yonsei University students were openly showing anti-American sentiment to Korean-American students in the summer school who could not speak Korean fluently. A great majority of the Korean-American students were born in the United States. How could they speak Korean fluently? Many nationalistic Korean students could not understand the Korean students from the United States. I criticized their narrow tribalism which could not tolerate their fellow Korean students from the other side of the Pacific Ocean who tried to learn Korean language, history and government in hot and humid summer. They should not have come to Yonsei University, if they were anti-American students. Why did they attend Yonsei University founded by the Underwood family more than a century before?

The split of the opposition party by Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung in the 1987 presidential election resulted in the victory of former Army General Roh Tae-woo. I was personally disappointed from former army general’s victory, but enjoyed my freedom to visit Korea in the following summers and to live with my mother who was lonely after my father had passed away in June 1982. Five weeks’ living with my mother in Seoul made my mother happy. I was happy, too.

Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung became the presidents from their respective victories from the 1992 and 1997 presidential elections. Kim Dae-jung won the Nobel Peace Prize during his presidency. Many of my old friends I met at the Korean Church in Washington, D.C. became the cabinet members and national assemblymen. But my role as a poet and writer ended when Korea started its democratization in June 1987 and I enjoyed their victories. Later, I disagreed with Kim Dae-jung’s so-called “sun shine policy” toward North Korea, because his appeasement policy could not bring any real change to North Korea under a dictatorial rule.

During a couple of years in early 1980s when Kim Dae-jung exiled in Washington, I often visited his Landmark apartment and spent many hours with him. Following was my interview with Kim Dae-jung which was printed in the Korean Roots, a Los Angeles-based magazine. The interview shows our ideas and thoughts on the U.S. foreign policy and South Korea’s democratization in 1982. It was conducted in Korean language. So I had the freedom to translate our conversations. It seems a very old story when I re-read it again in 2007.

An Interview with Mr. Kim Dae Jung
Q: You were critical of President Reagan’s quiet diplomacy when you arrived at the National Airport last December. The Washington Post editorial, in response to your statement, endorsed Reagan’s quiet diplomacy. Do you still stand against quiet democracy?

A: In principle, I still have the same view against quiet diplomacy. Quiet diplomacy may confuse the world’s nations and people. Quiet diplomacy only connects the government to government leaders, not the general public. How do the world’s people know the United States’ foreign policy? There is no way of knowing it. The U.S. foreign policy should be openly understood by the nations of the world. I don’t deny there is some virtue in quiet diplomacy. For example, in my own case, saving my life and rescuing me from a death sentence to a life sentence, and then to the United States, should not and cannot be done by open diplomacy. But the principle of U.S. foreign policy should be known to the world’s people. I don’t expect every detailed foreign policy action to be open. But the principle should be open.

Q: How do you appreciate the Regan government’s contribution to freeing you from a Korean prison?

A: Well, I think there was some contribution. I appreciate his concern and care. I read President Carter’s memoir. During the presidential transition, President Carter asked President-elect Reagan to be concerned for my life and for Korean politics. Consequently, President Reagan paid due attention to saving my life. I feel I owe a lot to President Carter, Senator Edward Kennedy, and other American friends who showed sympathy and compassion toward Korean democracy, human rights and hope.

Q: Last month, you met President Carter at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. What did you discuss with him?

A: With my family, I expressed my gratitude for his care for my life. I suggested him to continue to campaign for human and civil rights. I told him, “You will be remembered as the U.S. president re-established the American foreign policy based on human rights. Your policy really lifted the American conscience. You will be remembered for your noble cause or human rights in this 20th century.”
I also told him that we should establish a carter Human rights Center and an award which might be equivalent to the Nobel Prize. He told me that he and Emory University are working to establish a Center for Human rights. It was a very good meeting.

Q: Many American intellectuals have reviewed the Carter presidency and said that his leadership was more style than substance. Do you really evaluate him as a great leader?

A: I think he is, even though I tend to agree that there was more style than substance. In his early presidential campaign, he said, “human right is the heart of the U.S. foreign policy.” I think that sort of statement affected the world’s nations at that time. Human right was the spirit of this new nation in 1787. “Give me liberty, or give me death” was an expression of the cause of the American people’s independence from the British colonial rule. Human rights have been expanded within the nation, but forgotten in its foreign policy for a while. President Carter just renewed it.

Q: Style not substance?

A: Style and substance would be better. But style itself is an important element of political leadership. Well, look at President Kennedy’s one thousand days in the White House. We still remember him as a leader more for his style than his substance. President Lyndon B. Johnson also substantiated his style.

Q: You have made a series of speeches at Harvard, Columbia, Emory, and Princeton. You are also scheduled to speak at other colleges and universities. What did you try to tell the audience?

A: In my past and future speeches, I have pointed out, and will continue to point out, that the United States Constitution and the spirit of the United State nation-building should be renewed in U.S. foreign policy toward Korea and other nations. What I mean is the United States should not support dictatorial or authoritarian governments which have alienated and betrayed the majority of the people. The democratic aspiration of the Korean people is enormous. Why does the United States not support Korean democracy? Democracy in Korea is consistent with U.S. interests. The majority of the Korean supports a legitimate government. The majority of the Korean people are alienated from the Korean military government which suppresses the freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

Q: I believe that the United States government wanted and still does want democracy in South Korea.

A: the U.S. government until 1960s supported democratic government in South Korea. The U.S. government tried to stop the first Korean military coup detat in 1961. After the coup succeeded, the U.S. government seemed to support the Korean military government for the sake of economic development and stability.

Q: It seems now that the United States government is more than concerned about Korea’s stability and security than democracy.

A: I have heard that kind of reasoning. It is absurd. Why? National security without democracy is an empty can. There is nothing inside. A good can without any valuable thing inside does not make any sense. National security is and has been endangered by the Korean military government, and the U.S. government which has been supportive of the Korean military governments. Adolf Hitler’s Germany invited communism in East European nations, and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and mainland China invited communism in China.

Q: The U.S. government seems to know that there is less than a desirable democracy in South Korea. There is some democracy, but not wholesome. The U.S. government believes that in South Korea, most people can pursue life, liberty and happiness.

A: Well, it is less than desirable democracy. Yes, there is some democracy. But my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness were not there. Hundreds of Korean people who want their lives, liberties, and happiness were sent to prisons. There are many newspapers, political parties, a parliament…..But the newspapers have not published a single article on my forced trip to the United States. Political parties were made by Army colonels. They cannot criticize the president or his policies. There has been no democratic popular presidential election in South Korea since 1971. The National Assembly is without any meaningful power and authority. These days, many Korean college students stage protests against the military rule in South Korea. They know that their participation in such protest movements will ruin their lives. But they have participated, and will continue to do so. Why do they sacrifice their lives? They want democracy, freedom and social justice.

Q: Maybe, the U.S. government simply believes that South Korea is not ready for Western democracy.

A: That is ridiculous. I hope it is your guess. When the United States first opened democracy in 1787, there was not so many literate people and not so many thoughtful people in this continent as today’s South Korean people. I think that South Korea is much better prepared for democracy.

Q: Well, South Korea’s silent majority accepts the military rule. Isn’t that a fact?

A: Do you expect Korean people to revolt against the gun and bayonet? It is not easy to revolt against the military rule. The Korean people’s discontent may be erupted like a volcano. It may erupt suddenly. But it may not really come suddenly. Naturally.

Q: Korean people enjoyed economic progress under the Park Chung Hee leadership. The Korean people may justify less than desirable democracy with a higher standard of living.

A: We should distinguish economic progress from economic growth. There has been economic growth in South Korea. The Gross National Product is bigger than ever. But there has been high inflation and gross injustice in the distribution of that wealth. Foreign loans constitute a big portion of the Korean economy. Too much dependence on the foreign market, mainly on the United States and Japan, and too much foreign debt may not good for the nation’s economic well-being.

Q: The United States lost Vietnam and Iran. That may affect the U.S. foreign policy toward South Korea.

A: we see the same international events, but then make different conclusions. Because the United States has learned the lessons from Vietnam and Iran, the United States should support democratic governments in the Third World. If they don’t, they will be forced to turn to communism. Iran is not. Iran has not yet been committed to communism.

Q: The American people are not the most knowledgeable people in international affairs. Foreign policy-making may therefore be decided by the White House.

A: The American people should learn more about world affairs. The national television networks, daily newspapers, and weekly magazines spend much time and space on international affairs. This world is becoming a smaller community. The reality is that this is one earth. This small planet is connected by new communication and transportation modes. Multinational corporations dominate our markets. For example, the General Motors and Toyota have made a joint venture. Under these circumstances, U.S. citizens should know world affairs, because the U.S. is the leader in international affairs. However, to win over the U.S.S.R., the U.S. should gain support from the Third World nations which constitute the majority of the world’s nations.

Q: I heard you are going to spend an academic year at Harvard Center for International Affairs. What is your work there? What are your ties with Harvard, if there are any?

A: Professor Edwin Reischauer first invited me as Visiting Fellow in 1973 before I was kidnapped in Tokyo by the Korean CIA. In 1979, Professor Ezra Vogel renewed that invitation. The Korean government did not allow me to leave the country. I was confined to my house. Now that I am in the United States, Harvard accepted my application to be a Visiting Fellow. I met Professor Jerome Cohen, who now practices law in New York City, and Professor John Fairbank during my first visit to Harvard in 1973. They have since been kind and generous to me. They are sympathetic to South Korea’s democratic movements.

During my one year fellowship, I am going to write a book which can cover my last 10 years—first my exile in the United States in 1973, my trip to Tokyo, the kidnapping from Tokyo, and the forced trip to Korea, house arrest, the assassination of Park Chung Hee, the short period of freedom, followed by another military coup detat, and my death sentence, subsequently commuted to life imprisonment, and followed by the present and second exile in the United States. I also plan to write a book about Korean democracy. In it, I will propose ideas for the democratic system of South Korean government—the presidency, legislature, and the court. I have been dreaming of this ideal but feasible construction. If I have some more time, I will write about unification efforts for Korea in relationship with the four World Powers—the United States, Japan, U.S.S.R. and people’s Republic of China.

Q: The Christian Science Monitor reported that some Harvard scholars were reluctant to accept your presence, because you could use Harvard as your political base.

A: I read that. But I believe that opinion was exaggerated.

Q: That means that you are going to use Harvard as your political base. Isn’t that true?
A: I do not understand the meaning of political base.

Q: Political base means that you are not going to do scholarly works at Harvard. Rather you are going to use the Fellowship for your political campaign.
A: Democracy is democracy to scholar and politician. I am trying to be a knowledgeable person on democracy, whether I am a political or a scholar. Thomas Jefferson was a politician and scholar. Woodrow Wilson was a scholar and politician. Both are among my favorite American presidents. I am interested in building a democratic nation and culture advocated by Thomas Jefferson, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill among others.

Q: Who else is your favorite president?
A: There are a few more: Andrew Jackson for his democratization of the American political system and process; Abraham Lincoln for his maintaining unity of this nation from the Civil War; John F. Kennedy for his dream and ambition; and Jimmy Carter for his human rights.

Q: Do you still want to run for the presidency in South Korea?
A: That is not my concern any more. Democracy in Korea is what I am running for. I believe I was elected as president of South Korea in 1971. Park Chung Hee’s Korean CIA chief admitted that in his memoir that I had won the election as the president. There was a series of illegal manipulations of the election results.

Q: Do you plan to go back to Korea?
A: Korea is my home country. I have every right to go back to my country. I know I am not a criminal. The South Korean government made me a criminal.

Q: Even under the present Korean government’s rule?
A: Yes, I am firm about it.

Q: What is your definition of politics?
A: Politics is an art, or science of the management of human and social justice. Every citizen’s self-fulfillment is the goal of politics.

Q: What is your definition of democracy?
A: Government by the people. Government of the people and for the people is claimed by all 160 nations. Government by the people prevails only in 30 nations in West Europe, Australia, Japan and North America.

Q: Even in American politics, government by the people does not fully exist. Many people don’t participate in the electoral process. They are apathetic.
A: Low-level participation does necessarily mean low quality politics and democracy, because all the qualified citizens are guaranteed the right to run for office and vote for his or her favorite candidate. Low-level participation is less than desirable. However, low-level participation is a kind of choice. Choice is the key element in democracy. In South Korea, there is no choice for the people.

Q: Government by the people is not feasible in the modern supersonic era. People simply cannot participate in every national decision-making process.
A: Government by the people means that the people are guaranteed to vote in the electoral process. Choice should be given to the voters to choose.

Q: Well, American people seem to me not to be interested in politics. Most college students often say that there was no choice between the two major party candidates in the last presidential elections.
A: Happy discontent. Reagan and Carter were distinctively different candidates. One is a moderate liberal and the other is a typical conservative. They are conservative economic policy advocates.

Q: If you have a chance to meet President Reagan, what would you like to say?

A: You are the symbol of American conservatism. You had better conserve the precious national spirit: that is, human rights and democracy, in your foreign policy. The national spirit is well expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. If your foreign policy with human rights does not work as expected, please don’t be disappointed. History will remember the United States’ foreign policy even in the case of its defeat. World history will record the glorious and honorable U.S. foreign policy with its novel cause.

Interview with Yearn Hong Choi by Voice of America on Broadcast January 27, 2003:

This month the Korean-American community is marking the one-hundredth anniversary of Korea immigration to the United States. It was in January 1903 that the first group of Koreans went to Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations there. Today on New American Voices, we introduce you to a Korean-American professor and poet who talks about his experiences during three decades in this country.

“All-in-all I am positive towards US society and the US government and the American people as the leading nation and the leading people of this world society in the 21st century. Sometimes I see the glorious aspect of American life, sometimes I see some tragedic, or arrogance-of power side, sometimes I see the human-being dominated, or law-dominated society, and I try to reflect this in my poems.”

Yearn Hong Choi came to the United States as a student in the late 1960s. At Indiana University, while studying for his doctorate in political science, he became involved in student activities that were part of the social and political upheavals this country was experiencing at the time.

“Well, I shouldn’t say this, but during my Pentagon experiences NATO people couldn’t come to my office, or they were led to another room, skipping my office. I felt some bias and prejudice still existing in this country. All these kind of things are still in my memory, but I still say this country is greater than any other country in accepting and accommodating foreign people, and that it is the land of hope and opportunities.”
While pursuing a scholarly career in the United States, Yearn Hong Choi has all along been writing poetry – mostly in English, which he then translates into Korean.

One of Mr. Choi’s early poems, entitled “MY SAIL”, shows his dichotomy of feeling on leaving Korea to come to America.

For the past three years Mr. Choi has been commuting from his home in a Washington suburb to Seoul, Korea, where he is a professor and chairman of the environmental policy program in Seoul University’s Graduate School of Urban Studies. He accepted the job, he says, because he has an aged mother in Korea, and as the eldest son he has a duty to take care of her. Mr. Choi says that after 30 years in the United States, he still embodies strong Korean, as well as American, values.

Yearn Hong Choi wrote two poems entitled “America”, one written recently and the other shortly after he arrived in the United States.

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