Chung Il-kwon, who served as foreign minister during Park Chung-hee’s regime, then as prime minister for six years, and then as speaker of the National Assembly for six years, was regarded as the protagonist of “Kwan-un, a sailboat in a gentle wind” (Kyunghyang 1964.5.11). An incident that greatly damaged his image was the Chung In-sook scandal.
In the middle of the night on March 17, 1970, a passenger car was stopped on Gangbyeon 3-ro (now part of Gangbyeon Buk-ro) north of the Han River, near Jedusan Mountain in Mapo-gu, Seoul, and Jung In-sook, a 25-year-old fairy employee, was found dead, shot in the head and chest. The name of Prime Minister Chung Il-kwon was found in the notebook, along with the names of President Park Chung-hee and former Central Intelligence Chief Kim Hyung-wook, and rumors quickly spread that the three-year-old son was either Park’s or Chung’s son.
“When you enter the Yeouido National Assembly Speaker’s Office, you are overwhelmed by the portraits of past Speakers,” said a December 17, 1993, Dong-A Ilbo article, “Gazing at these almost life-size portraits one by one, you can feel the ups and downs of our modern political history.” “The ninth Speaker, Chung Il-kwon, enjoyed a long and enviable career, but in recent years he was plagued by a dispute over his real child with a woman, Chung In-sook,” it said.
While it is true that Chung Il-kwon’s life was marred by the Chung In-sook scandal, it was his pro-Japanese behavior that was far more damaging. Chung’s pro-Japanese behavior was so dramatic it could have been a movie or a soap opera. He was even arrested by the Soviet Union’s KGB shortly after Japan’s defeat and dramatically escaped.
“There were three moments of desperate prayer that were unknown to me,” he said in the seventh episode of his memoir, “Secret 6-25,” published in the Dong-A Ilbo on June 10, 1985, “The second time was immediately after the liberation of August 15. “Through the betrayal of a trusted friend, I was captured by the KGB,” he said, recounting how he was taken to Siberia on a deportation train.
“I was then put into a Siberian type train. Inside the car, I was watched by a Soviet soldier with a submachine gun at his side. It was one of those moments when everything is over if you don’t escape. I decided to escape when the train entered an uphill grade near Harbin Station. I kicked the Soviet guard to the ground and jumped off the train.”
It is unlikely that the heavens would answer the prayers of a pro-Japanese who served an imperialist nation that exploited nature and humanity to the utmost, but through his prayers, he gained confidence and courage to escape. This is what happened to him because he was pro-Japanese. In South Korea, where the pro-Japanese movement was suppressed, only the Jung In-sook scandal was highlighted, not his pro-Japanese scandal.
A similar path to Park Chung-hee, who was born seven days earlier
Like Chung Il-kwon, who suffered from the destruction of the country he served, his father, Chung Jung-young, had a similar experience. Chung was working for the Russian Empire (Czarist Russia). He was born on November 21, 1917, in Nikolisk (Ussuriisk), in the Russian Federation.
<“In 1922, when the aftermath of the Russian Revolution reached the Far East and the Far Eastern Revolutionary Committee was created, his father, an interpreter officer in the Far Eastern Army of Imperial Russia, was dismissed and placed under surveillance,” explains the entry for Jung Il-kwon in Volume 3 of the Dictionary of Pro-Japanese People.
Her father, Chung Ji-young, also escaped punishment and returned to Hambuk. Chung’s dramatic return from Russian influence during a time of turmoil was mirrored by his son, Chung Il-kwon, in 1945. The two men’s experiences were similar, albeit in different contexts.
After attending Gyeongwon Normal School, Longjing Yongsan Middle School, and Gwangmyeong Middle School, Chung Il-kwon entered the Central Military Training Center (Bongcheon Military Academy and Fengtian Military Academy) in Japanese-occupied Manchuria in 1935 at the age of 18. He graduated in 1937. He then followed a similar path to Park Chung-hee, who was born seven days before him.
Like Park, who graduated from another Manchurian military academy, the Army Military Academy (Shinjing Military Academy), and then went on to join the Japanese Army, Chung Il-kwon was a second cadet in Japan. His graduation was four years earlier than Park’s, as he did not go on to become a teacher, so he was able to devote more time to pro-Japanese activities than Park did. <“After graduating from the Japanese Military Academy in 1940, he was commissioned as a major in the Manchukuo Army and was assigned to the instructor of the Jilin Unit of the Manchukuo Army,” the Dictionary of Pro-Japanese People explains.
“As a Manchurian gendarme officer, he was assigned to the Independent Gendarmerie and, along with Gye In-joo and Choi Nam-geun, trained for three months in a special force assault unit created by the Japanese to blow up Siberian railroads. In 1941, he served in the Advanced Staff Office of the Manchukuo Army General Headquarters in Xinjing, where he was promoted to gendarmerie lieutenant in March. In 1942, he visited his alma mater, Guangming Middle School, and encouraged his juniors to enlist in the Manchukuo army.”
The length of time that Chiang ate the Japanese army’s food is significant토토사이트. From June 1, 1937, when he enlisted for basic military training, to August 15, 1945, when Japan was defeated, he ate, slept, and was paid for eight years. While accumulating pro-Japanese property, he was captured by the KGB shortly after Japan’s defeat and almost taken to Russia.
After his dramatic escape, which took him to Pyongyang and then to Seoul, Rhee began to stretch the straps of his bag. Instead of the Korean flag, the straps were painted with the Stars and Stripes. On December 15, four months after liberation, he enrolled in the U.S. Military English School.
After graduation, he was commissioned as a captain and rose through the ranks of company commander, regimental commander, and chief of staff to become combat commander of the Jirisan District. He then studied at the U.S. General Staff College and returned to South Korea shortly after the Korean War in 1950, becoming Chief of Army Staff and Commander-in-Chief of the Third Army at the age of 33. He resigned due to the Syngman Rhee regime’s massacre of civilians at Geochang, a national crime, but was reappointed to the Army Chief of Staff, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and retired in 1956 at the age of 39 with the rank of general.
Chung Il-kwon’s pro-Japan stance underlying the humiliation diplomacy in 2023
President Park Chung-hee signing the ratification document for the Korea-Japan talks in 1965, amid harsh criticism of humiliation diplomacy. Standing to the left of Park is Prime Minister Chung Il-kwon.
Photo by Yonhap
After the war, he turned to diplomacy. Under Syngman Rhee, he served as ambassador to Tunisia, France, and the United States.