[1] The Australian delegate on UNTCOK referred to the torture and murder of political opponents as “accepted and commonplace.” See my Cold War Hot War: An Australian Perspective on the Korean War, Sydney,, Hale and Iremonger, 1983, resumed in subsequent books, including Target North Korea: Pushing North Korea to the Brink of Nuclear Catastrophe, New York, Nation Books, 2004 (Korean edition from Icarus Media, Seoul, 2007).

[2] K.P.S. Menon, Many Worlds Revisited: An Autobiography, Bombay 1981, p. 259. Menon’s waxed poetic and nostalgic in his memoirs, describing the accord he felt with Mo on “such elemental things as the sun and moon and stars, love and grief and joy.” Mo pinned all her hopes on him and wrote poems to him as “saviour of Korea.” He did not disappoint her.

[3] J.W. Burton, The Alternative, Sydney, 1954, p. 90. (Burton, Secretary of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs between 1947 and June 1950, was the first to describe Australia’s foreign policy shift in these terms.)

[4] Interview with this author, Sydney, 14 August 1982.

[5] Stephen Simmons (journalist) and Haywood Magee (photographer), “War in Korea,” Picture Post, vo.l 48, No. 5, July 1950, p. 17. (The caption describes the incident as a matter “which has been investigated by a United Nations observer.”)

[6] Alan Winnington, “U.S. Belsen in Korea,” The Daily Worker, 9 August 1950. (The British government gave serious consideration to trying Winnington for treason over this report.)

[7] Park Myung-lim, [Pak MyÅ$$ng-nim], Han’guk 1950: ChÅ$$njaeng-gwa P’yÅ$$nghwa (Korea 1950: War and Peace), Seoul, Nanam, 2002, p. 324 (According to Park, these orders were issued “at the highest levels” and were not limited by geographical area.).

[8] “Korean Historical Report,” War Crimes Division, Judge Advocate Section, Korean Communications Zone, APO 234, Cumulative to 30 June 1953, Copy in Australian Archives, Victorian division, MP 729/8, Department of the Army, Classified Correspondence Files, 1945-1957, File 66/431/25.

[9] See, for example, Daily Telegraphï¼^Sydney), 30 October 1953.

[10] No Ka-Won, “Taejon hyongmuso sachon sanbaek myong haksal sakon” (The massacre of 4,300 men from the Taejon prison), Mal, February 1992, pp. 122-31.

[11] Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Republic of Korea, “Alleged communists massacred under the eyes of American soldiers,” Seoul, 16 June 2008, (with photographs released on 5 May 2008 by US National Archives and records Administration).

The Associated Press has made great efforts to investigate and publish this story. See especially Charles Hanley, “Fear, secrecy kept 1950 Korea mass killings hidden,” May 18, 2008, and Charles J Hanley and Jae-Soon Chang, “Impact: Thousands killed by US’s Korean ally” Associated Press, 18 May 2008. See also the remarkable “Inter active” file, with its video testimony of one of those involved in the mass killings.

Gregory Henderson, then employed in the US embassy in Seoul and later prominent historian and author of a classic study of Korean politics (Korea: the Politics of the Vortex, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard UP, 1968, p. 167) also put the figure of “probably over 100,000” on those summarily executed at this time.

[12] Despite Australia’s involvement in the events surrounding the establishment of the Republic and in the War itself, the findings of the Commission are yet (as of late August 2008) to be reported there.