The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [251]
It was my good fortune that Carter Eckert, director of the Korean studies program at Harvard University, was on a fellowship in Washington during the final stages of my writing. He gave generously of his time and suggestions. A number of present and former officials of the United States and the ROK governments and personal friends also offered valuable comments on various parts of the manuscript.
I wish to thank The National Security Archive, Washington, for assisting my Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and providing materials obtained by other researchers; the FOIA staff of the Department of State for processing my requests; the Gerald Ford Presidential Library, particularly archivist Karen Holzhausen, and the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, particularly Assistant Director Martin Elzy and archivist James Yancey, for identifying and helping to declassify valuable documentation; the FOIA staff of the Eighth Army, Korea, for declassifying the intelligence portions of its command histories for 1972-87; Jim Mann of The Los Angeles Times for providing materials on U.S.-China diplomacy affecting Korea; and Tim Shorrock of the Journal of Commerce for sharing the extensive material he has obtained under FOIA.
Joong-ang Ilbo, one of South Korea's leading newspapers and the publisher of the Korean edition of this book, graciously provided many of the photographs.
I am very grateful to Mark B. M. Suh of the Free University of Berlin for obtaining important documents from the archives of the former East German Communist Party, the Socialist Unity Party (SED), including transcripts of meetings of East German leader Eric Honecker with Kim Il Sung and diplomatic dispatches from the East German embassy in Pyongyang.
In Seoul, former ambassador to the United States Kim Kyung Won accepted me as a guest scholar at the Institute of Social Sciences, which greatly facilitated my interviews there. I am grateful to him and his efficient secretary, Mrs. Park Soon Rye. I also appreciate the work of the Korean Overseas Information Service, Seoul, especially Suh Sang Myun, in arranging interviews with government officials.
My South Korean journalist friends, especially Kim Yong Hie and Kim Kun Jin of Joong-ang Ilbo, Cho Kap Che and Kim Dae Joong of Chosun Ilbo, Shim Jae Hoon of the Far Eastern Economic Review, and Lee Keum Hyun, special correspondent of The Washington Post, were especially helpful. Sam Jameson, the longtime Tokyo correspondent of The Los Angeles Times, now an independent journalist and scholar in Japan, provided information and suggestions.
My 1991 visit to North Korea was as a Washington Post diplomatic correspondent. My return visit in 1995 was under the sponsor ship of George Washington University's Sigur Center for East Asian Studies, then headed by Young C. Kim, to whom I am grateful. I also wish to express appreciation to officials of the DPRK Mission to the United Nations for many courtesies, including providing me with copies of the works of President Kim Il Sung from 1965 to 1983.
In Beijing my 1993 research trip was sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which also provided introductions and translating assistance, for which I am grateful.
My research and interviewing in Moscow was facilitated by the Moscow Bureau of The Washington Post, which generously treated me as a colleague even though I had retired. Anatoly Chernyayev and Pavel Palazchenko, who continue as aides to Mikhail Gorbachev, helped in obtaining materials from the Gorbachev archive.
David Kyd, the public information officer of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, provided information and arranged interviews for me there.
I wish to thank former president Jimmy Carter for his written responses to my questions about Korea policy in his administration, and especially