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{
    "localId": "225247905",
    "label": "Central Intelligence Group, Office of Reports and Estimates Report, Number 5/1, The Situation in Korea",
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    "title": "Central Intelligence Group, Office of Reports and Estimates Report, Number 5/1, The Situation in Korea",
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        "President's Secretary's Files (Truman Administration)",
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    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 3,
            "logicalDate": "1947-01-03",
            "month": 1,
            "year": 1947
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    "seq": 4,
    "pageIndex": 0,
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    "ocrText": "ENCLOSURE\nTHE SITUATION IN KOREA\nThe Dominating Influence of Partition\nThe partition of Korea into two zones dominates the political\nand economic life of the peninsula. The division of Korea. at the 38th\nparallel has turned into a hard and fast boundary which cuts off all\nintercourse between the northern and southern halves of the country,\nexcept for the exchange of mail and the transfer of surplus electric\npower from North to South Korea.\nKorean Aspirations and US-USSR Policies\nUnity and independence are the chief aspirations of the Ko-\nrean people. Korean nationalism is a deep-rooted movement which sur-\nvived forty years of Japanese repression and finally won international\nrecognition at the Cairo Conference in December, 1943. The US, Great\nBritain, and China pledged themselves at that time to restore the inde-\npendence of Korea. Soviet adherence to this declaration was subse-\nquently obtained at Yalta in February, 1945, and the policy was reaf-\nfirmed at Potsdam in July of that year. The Conference of Foreign Min-\nisters at Moscow in December, 1945, agreed to establish a provisional\ngovernment for all Korea in order to prepare the Korean people for in-\ndependence and democracy. Since the occupation had divided the penin-\nsula into separate zones, the Moscow Decision also provided for a Joint\nCommission of the US and USSR to organize the provisional government\nand consult with it in working out a broad program of democratic re-\nforms for a united Korea. This program in turn was to be submitted to\nthe governments of the US, USSR, UK and China as the basis for a four-\npower trusteeship which would last \"for a period of up to five years\".\nAll efforts to carry out the Moscow Decision have failed principally\nbecause of the conflict over trusteeship, and Korea remains bisected\nat the 38th parallel.\nSince the ad !journment of the Joint Commission in May of this\nyear, the USSR has persistently refused to return its delegation to\nSeoul, except on terms unacceptable to the US. The Soviet Commander\nin North Korea has made it clear that the USSR would not retreat from\nits contention that the opponents of trusteeship must be excluded from\nthe provisional government of Korea. General Hodge is equally insis-\ntent on the Koreans' right of free speech and on a broad interpretation\nof the trusteeship clause of the Moscow Decision. There is consequently\nlittle prospect of reconvening the Joint Commission in the near future."
}