The Ghost of Communism That Incites Hatred Against America: President Syngman Rhee, Who Fought Alone to the End

Washington D.C. 2025. 09. 12

By Alfred J Kim

I was born in the United States and received my college education here, but I attended elementary, middle, and high school in South Korea. Having experienced South Korea’s education firsthand, especially under teachers with extreme leftist tendencies, students are subjected to anti-American indoctrination that would shock Americans to the point of disbelief. These teachers are not ordinary South Korean citizens. They are far-left activists sympathetic to China and North Korea. Many young South Koreans grow up not even realizing that North Korea is the main enemy until they enter the military. Instead, they are often taught that the real enemies are the United States or Japan. This distortion has its roots in the influence of Chinese and North Korean communists that dates back to the Korean War.

The hatred the communists harbor toward the United States is beyond imagination. For them, it is like an old grudge, because it was the United States that prevented the communization of the Korean Peninsula. They will never forgive this. There is even a saying that the best way to identify spies operating in South Korea is to see whether they like or dislike the United States. Since 1997, when Hwang Jang-yop, the former International Secretary of the Workers' Party of North Korea, claimed that there were approximately 50,000 undercover agents in South Korea, it is now estimated that there are around 1.5 million voluntary and involuntary spies in the country, some 28 years later.

The founding president of the Republic of Korea, who early on recognized the danger and evil of communism, described it as like cholera, the enemy of freedom, and the enemy of mankind. He rejected the U.S. military government’s proposal to establish a coalition government of the left and right, and he also rejected the armistice agreement during the Korean War. Instead, he pursued a march northward to eradicate communism at its roots. He also warned that the threat of the Chinese Communist Party would inevitably come in the future. At that time, President Syngman Rhee had to fight alone against international opinion, including that of the United States itself. U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower remarked that “it seems we have gained another enemy,” and Britain’s Winston Churchill even called him a “treacherous.” Yet Rhee firmly believed that only by fighting communists to the very end could the nation protect itself from their future invasions.

His message was so significant that on August 16, 1953, the leading Washington newspaper The Evening Star featured a rare exclusive contribution by President Syngman Rhee. The Sunday edition, Sunday Star, carried his article prominently across three pages—pages 7, 21, and 22. Here is his story.

Why I Stood Alone

By Syngman Rhee President of South Korea

From Seoul, Korea

In the ebb tide of my life I have been compelled to take a stand against Communist aggression in Asia that has provoked much criticism. Korea’s recent attitude and actions during the truce negotiations have even been labeled “treacherous” by so eminent a statesman as Winston Churchill. Yet I am convinced that Korea’s stiff attitude will serve historically to turn the tide against the tyranny of Communist imperialism even as Churchill’s own decision in 1940 to fight on alone against Hitler meant the beginning of the end of Nazism and black tyranny. As a great orator, Churchill was able to convey to the world why it was better to risk a nation's temporary destruction rather than give up the fight. I have never heard him described as "stubborn" or "reckless"—current favorites in describing my leadership of Korea.Yet my country today, like Great Britain in 1940, believes that rather than accept a truce of appeasement — the kind of truce we truly believe to be suicidal — it is best to fight on. Our continued resistance will gain time for the pressure of events and the actions of the Reds themselves to convince the rest of the free nations that their own self interest is involved in sending the Communist Chinese monster back to his own border. The alternative is that this monster, by feeding on its new conquests, will develop power and appetite for all Asia.

"I Never Lost Confidence."

I have been a long-time scholar of both Christian and Confucian ethics. Deeply imbedded in these two philosophies is the maxim that America expresses in the phrase: “Right will prevail.” After all it took nearly 58 years of my lifetime to achieve the liberation of even South Korea from the reactionary rule of the Korean kings and of the Japanese. Yet I never lost confidence that right would ultimately prevail. This was true even in the dark days when I was condemned to life imprisonment and it seemed as if the principles for which I had fought would be realized only after my death. It is deeply regrettable to me that there appears to have been such serious misunderstanding in the Western world about Korean motives in rejecting an armistice we considered equivalent in our time to a Far Eastern Munich. On the specific issue of the original truce proposals, it is incredible that anyone can seriously assert that Communist aggression has been repulsed so long as millions of Chinese troops retain the North Korean territory seized by force of arms or so long as the armistice contains no time limit on the Red enemy’s continued illegal presence in our country.

Back in 1950 my country faced a North Korean force of some half million men. In 1953 we are confronted with the presence of a combined Chinese-North Korean force of three times the numerical strength of the original. aggressors. The new Communist armies possess first-rate modern weapons, including the first Asiatic jet air force, and are situated within 20 miles of Seoul, our capital city, at one area of the front. We are far too close to this ugly reality to call it progress for anyone except the Reds. Is it really so unreasonable then that we have asked an automatic guarantee of United States aid should the aggressor strike again?I know personally that many high-ranking United Nations officers share our apprehensions about the impact of such a powerful Communist military machine near the Thirty-eighth Parallel. Communist-controlled airfields in North Korea endanger not only the South but also America's position in Japan, Okinawa, etc.

The Struggle

The Struggle In a broader sense, the regrettable gulf dividing Korea and its friends is based on a differing diagnosis of how best to cope with Communist tyranny and expansionism. Korea's difficulties remind one of my earliest experience as an individual in the struggle against oppression. It was the year 1896. Our Independence movement was demanding the establishment of a constitutional government with a national congress, and protesting the dictatorial methods of the King and his Japanese advisors. After the King arrested 17 leaders of our Independence movement I began a continuous mass meeting that went on for many days and at times was attended by several hundred thousand persons.

Even after the release of the Independence fighters we continued the popular demonstrations. We knew that if we ever dispersed the police would never let us regroup.At the climax of this marathon, I was warned that the police were planning to use force to break up the meeting and was advised to give up and go into hiding. Instead when the police turned up the crowds at our meeting showed themselves so united and defiant that the police did not dare attack the throng. They realized that the mood of the people was such that police action could precipitate outright national revolt. Our defiance cowed them. If I had wavered I would have been lost.

Same Principle

I was not always so fortunate. As any patriot confronted with ruthless rulers I have suffered my share of jail and torture. But the principle remains the same. Don't get into a fight unless you are prepared to risk as much to win as the enemy is. You cannot waver. Expediency of any kind merely tips off the enemy as to your breaking point and encourages him to harsher deeds.This is not some strange Oriental psychology. Historical parallels don't prove anything but they do sometimes help to clarify national attitudes. Consider the case of France in the Second World War. In 1940 Marshal Petain, the French Premier, deciding that "Half a loaf is better than none," agreed to an armistice that provided for German occupation of half his country.

Legal sanction given the Nazis dimmed the impulse for resistance and so aroused the contempt of the Germans that when it suited them they took over the rest of the country. Pétain was later condemned as a traitor by his own people.The tragedy of leaving a nation half slave, half free has been illustrated time and again in the period after the Second World War. The division of Germany and Austria between the Reds and the free world has caused nothing but trouble. Why repeat the same mistake in Korea? We certainly know that the anguished people of North Korea have tasted the iron rule of the Communists yearn for liberation with a fervor reserved for those who have personally tasted the fear and the indignity of oppression.

Maximum Power

KOREA is not asking for a Third World War. But we do believe that the only way to make the Communist aggressor return to his own border is to convince him that the United Nations means business. We believe that the Chinese Reds would be out of Korea within six months if the United Nations made it plain that it was prepared to use maximum power in achieving this end. Perpetual hesitation and wavering are symptoms of weakness that theReds are sure to take advantage of. This encourages new Red aggression and tends so to disrupt the balance of power in the world in the Communist favor that the chances of a Third World War will indeed be enhanced.Self-delusion is always easier when you are geographically remote from the scene. Back in 1945 I was called many names when I opposed the American agreement with Russia whereby the Soviets were to occupy Korea for the purpose of receiving the surrender north of the 38th Parallel of Japanese troops.

At the time American officials assured me this was only a temporary expedient and that there was no intention of permitting the Russians to retain the area. America's intentions no doubt were excellent. But the fact is that America never succeeded by peaceful means in shaking the Red grasp in North Korea once it had been "temporarily" granted.President Eisenhower undoubtedly was sincere in hoping that the Chinese could be persuaded at a political conference to get out of North Korea. But now with the Chinese stronger than ever why should they be any more prepared today than yesterday to leave the North?It has of course been painful for me to face suggestions that selfish personal ambitions have motivated my stand. If I wanted ease, comfort and power would it not be simpler to take half a loaf? Why not live out the last years of my life without any more struggle hoping that the Communist deluge will come after my time? But one cannot dedicate a life to a cause and then give up at the end for the sake of material comfort.

Threats Don't Work

CERTAINLY those Western statesmen who have sought to influence us by hints of withdrawing their aid and support or by other threats have completely misunderstood us. Such threats work only with nations that are prepared to put temporary advantage above long-range conviction of what is necessary to save freedom in one's country. What good is United Nations aid to Korea if the price we pay gives the Reds such advantages that they can overwhelm us any time they choose?Should worse come to worst and Korea ever have to carry on the struggle alone, we would do so in hope that our fate would ultimately rally all nations of good will. We count especially on the United States to see that in this global civil war between dictatorships and republics the survival of freedom as we know it depends on halting Red aggression here and now.The End