King of Spies

  “tickled to death”: Ibid., October 3, 1940.

  “To hell with her now”: Ibid., October 24, 1940.

  “My biggest regret in life”: Nichols, 68.

  “Our higher brass evidently forgot”: Ibid., 93.

  “crates of other items”: Ibid., 95–96.

  “Nichols brothers were an explosion”: Author interview with Donald H. Nichols.

  repressed confusion about his sexuality: Author interviews with Nichols’s niece, nephews, and U.S. and South Korean air force colleagues give a consistent picture of a man who rarely, if ever, interacted with women outside of his family. In his autobiography, he mentions that he hated and loved his mother all his life.

  “an impossible situation”: Douglas MacArthur to George Marshall, September 18, 1945, War Department classified message, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/koreanwar/documents/index.php?documentdate=1945-09-18&documentid=kr-6-15&pagenumber=1.

  “use your best judgment”: Blair, 39.

  “same breed of cats”: The “same breed of cats” statement that damaged Hodge’s reputation was taken out of context, according to William R. Langdon, a political adviser in Korea to the State Department. Langdon said that at a press conference in Seoul in 1945 Hodge was narrowly discussing the attitude of the Korean people toward Korean police who served under Japanese colonial rule when he said, “Koreans consider them the same breed of cats as Jap policemen.” A visiting group of American correspondents misunderstood the statement as a broad comparison of Koreans to Japanese when they wrote their stories, Langdon said in a cable to Washington. In any case, Hodge’s reputation for evenhandedness was permanently damaged in Korea by the stories. Langdon, though, does acknowledge that U.S. commanders were biased—mostly out of ignorance and language issues—toward wealthy landowners when they initially arrived in Korea: “As for favoring plutocracy in, and excluding popular left wingers from Military Government, it is quite probable that at the beginning we may have picked out a disproportionate number of rich and conservative persons. But how were we to know who was who among this unfamiliar people? For practical purposes we had to hire persons who spoke English, and it so happened that these persons and their friends came largely from moneyed classes because English had been a luxury among Koreans.” Langdon, “The Acting Political Adviser in Korea to the Secretary of State,” Foreign Relations of the United States [FRUS]: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, The British Commonwealth, The Far East, vol. VI, November 26, 1945, d834. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945v06/d834.

  he was a racist: For the single most authoritative account in English of this often overlooked period of Korean history, see Allan R. Millett, The War for Korea, 1945–1950: A House Burning (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2005).

  “The American people rejoice”: State Department memorandum for the president, Truman Library, September 14, 1945, 2, https://www.trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/index.php?pid=144&st=&st1=.

  Hodge hustled the Japanese out: Millett, 59.

  “The Koreans themselves have”: MacArthur to Marshall, op. cit.

  “older and more educated Koreans”: Ibid., 3.

  “declaration of war” on “communistic”: Hodge to MacArthur, FRUS, November 25, 1945, d826, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945v06/d826.

  Hodge’s orders were: Millett, 60.

  “edge of a political-economic”: Hodge to MacArthur in MacArthur to Joint Chiefs of Staff, FRUS, vol. 6, d835, December 16, 1945, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945v06/d835.

  Soviets got off to: “Political Information: Public Opinion and Discontent in North Korea,” U.S. Central Intelligence Group Report, September 1947 (declassified January 6, 2001). For more on the emergence of North Korea, see my book The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot, 15–62.

  believed he could walk: Hongkoo Han, “Wounded Nationalism: The Mingsaengdan Incident and Kim Il Sung in Eastern Manchuria” (PhD diss., University of Washington, 1999), 365.

  “sun of mankind”: Kim Il Sung, With the Century (Pyongyang: Foreign Language Publishing House), 7:lv.

  North Koreans have been starved: See David Hawk, The Hidden Gulag, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, 2012); Harden, Escape from Camp 14, updated ed. (New York: Penguin, 2015); Kang Chol-hwan and Pierre Rigoulot, The Aquariums of Pyongyang (New York: Basic Books, 2001); and Kim Yong, Long Road Home (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009).

  Hodge warned his officers: See Millett for a detailed discussion of this period, 82–90.

  police made a bloody hash: Ibid.

  American plot “to colonize Korea”: “Memorandum for the Officer in Charge: Anti-American and Anti-Military Government Activities,” Counter Intelligence Corps, Seoul, June 20, 1947, 701–2, RG-331, entry A1 134-A, box 78, CIC Activities, N/S Korea, ZF015133, 701–2, National Archives, College Park, MD (NACP).

  “making use of Hirohito’s residue”: Ibid., 698.

  civilians were reported killed: CIC Monthly Information Report, Korea events, September–October 1946, January 17, 1947, 4, RG-331, entry A1 134-A, box 78, CIC Activities, N/S Korea, NACP.

  “fall easy prey to agitators”: Ibid., 3.

  Americans fought protesters: Ibid.

  thirty thousand Koreans were imprisoned: Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 1:259–62.

  “Russian propaganda program”: Hodge to MacArthur, FRUS, vol. 8, d556, October 28, 1946, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1946v08/d556.

  “idea was born”: “History of Detachment No. 2.”

  “We invented it for”: Nichols, 117.

  Nichols did not personally invent: Korea Headquarters CIC, Annual Progress Report for 1947, 1, RG-407, entry 427, WWII Operation Reports, box 14855, NACP.

  CHAPTER 2: Rhee and Son

  university credentials “evoked awe”: Chong-Sik Lee, Syngman Rhee: The Prison Years of a Young Radical (Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 2001), 131.

  “His intellect is a shallow one”: Central Intelligence Agency, “Personality of Rhee Syngman,” October 28, 1948, 9. The profile is listed as appendix A to CIA, “Prospects for Survival of the Republic of Korea,” ORE 44–48, Truman Library, http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/korea/large/documents/pdfs/kr-8-7.pdf#zoom=100.

  “my son Nichols”: Researcher Yoonjung Seo interview with Yoon Il-gyun, former head of South Korea’s Central Intelligence Agency and retired ROK Air Force general, in Seoul, November 5, 2015.

  “sincere friend of Syngman Rhee”: Nichols, 113.

  “President Rhee has recommended Nichols”: Stratemeyer to air force headquarters, op. cit.

  “Mr. Nichols’ case was unique”: FEAF Intel History, vol. I, July 1948 to June 1950, 720.600, 8, AFHRA. Part of excerpt declassified at author request, October 1, 2015.

  “Mr. Nichols had our full trust”: Author interview with Chung.

  masterminded the executions: Kim Dong-choon, “Forgotten War, Forgotten Massacres—the Korean War (1950–53) as Licensed Mass Killings,” Journal of Genocide Research 6, no. 4 (December 2004): 538, 543n58.

  “Kim Chang-ryong was”: Author interview with Kim Dong-choon, professor of social sciences at Sungkonghoe University, Seoul, November 4, 2015. He was a standing commissioner on South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 2005 to 2010. Also, Rhee’s refusal to delegate power to talented people was criticized by State Department officials. Gregory Henderson, a State Department political officer who served in Seoul at that time, wrote that “Rhee’s greatest single fault is his inability to work closely with anyone of ability. . . . [He has a] life-long and almost pathological suspicion of anyone who he considers as a possible rival to himself.” Henderson, “A Memorandum Concerning U.S. Obje
ctives in Korea,” November 30, 1950, Cambridge, MA, Department of State, RG 59, 795, 1950–54, NACP.

  “Nichols was held in awe”: Author phone interview with Gene Mastrangelo, air force lieutenant colonel (ret.), February 20, 2016.

  Rhee personally requested: Rhee to Muccio, August 26, 1949, Nichols’s military service record, part 5, 19.

  “draws his information”: John J. Muccio letter to Major General Charles A. Willoughby, head of intelligence in the Far East Command, May 16, 1950, FEAF Intel History, vol. 1, part IV, January–June 1952, K720.600, IRIS 2-6031, AFHRA. Declassified at author request, October 15, 2015.

  Rhee was “personally interested”: Colonel W. H. S. Wright letter to assistant chief of staff, Far East Command, May 17, 1950, FEAF Intel History, vol. 1, part IV, January–June 1952, K720.600, IRIS 2-6031, AFHRA. Declassified at author request, October 15, 2015.

  he met with Nichols at least five times: Presidential appointment book of Syngman Rhee for 1951, March 5–6, April 29, May 12, and August 13. File 8, documents 00100022, 00100042, 00100047, 00100090, Syngman Rhee Presidential Papers, Yonsei University Library, Seoul.

  “Incredibly, no one in the U.S. government”: Author e-mail exchange with Haas, October 28, 2016.

  “It was not a breach”: Nichols, 114.

  She did not allow him: Lee, 4.

  “impetuous . . . arrogant, heedless”: Ibid., 42.

  “It seems he was never”: Bruce Cumings, Origins of the Korean War, 1:190.

  “He was a master”: Ibid., 431.

  Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded: Matthew B. Ridgway, The Korean War (New York: Doubleday, 1967), 12.

  “would in no way constitute”: Dean Acheson, National Security Council Progress Report on the Implementation of National Security Council Report 8/2, Truman Library, July 19, 1949, 2, http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/koreanwar/documents/index.php?documentdate=1949-07-19&documentid=kr-7-6&pagenumber=1.

  “Leftist regime in South Korea”: CIA, “The Current Situation in Korea,” March 18, 1948, ORE 15-48, 1–7.

  As historian Allan R. Millett: Millett, 143.

  Rhee’s forces fought back: Hun Joon Kim, The Massacres at Mt. Halle: Sixty Years of Truth Seeking in South Korea (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015), 14–15.

  Forces loyal to Rhee: Ibid.; the number of people killed on Cheju Island is an estimate that some historians, including Millett, dispute. The War for Korea, 1945–50, 303n74.

  Soldiers shot villagers trying to escape: Ibid.

  “soldiers came to burn down”: Ibid.

  Nichols became “especially close”: Muccio to Willoughby, op. cit.

  Nichols delivered a truckload: Yoonjung Seo interview with Kim Bok-dong, Seoul, July 14, 2015.

  “As an active, circulating agent”: Nichols, 120.

  CIA used waterboarding: Human Rights Watch, “USA and Torture: A History of Hypocrisy,” December 9, 2014, https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/12/09/usa-and-torture-history-hypocrisy.

  “slow drowning and much pain”: Nichols, 120.

  “burned repeatedly on their testicles”: Ibid.

  head apparently was that of: See Millett, 204; Sheila Miyoshi Jager, Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea (New York: W. W. Norton, 2013), 53.

  “I have seen these things”: Nichols, 121.

  “In most cases I did not approve”: Ibid., 120.

  “It became a snow-balling”: Ibid., 118.

  “Nick went over to see Syngman”: Author interview with Torres.

  “may cause Mr. Nichols”: These previously unreleased letters between Rhee and Muccio are in Nichols’s military service record, part 5, 19.

  greeted each other with hugs: Author interviews with Torres and Chung Bong-sun.

  “unique operation which I”: Nichols, 122.

  South Korea “was utterly incapable”: Robert K. Sawyer, Military Advisors in Korea: KMAG in Peace and War (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1988), 93–94.

  Cho Boo-yi, became a noncommissioned: Author interview with Torres.

  attached to KMAG: A Far East Air Forces Intelligence history says: “With the withdrawal of the United States Air Force from Korea, Far East Air Forces was threatened with the loss of its most valuable intelligence agent in the Far East, Mr. Donald Nichols. Mr. Nichols’ case was unique in that he had served in Korea since May 1946 and, in that time, had developed such friendly personal relations with high-ranking Korean personalities that President Syngman Rhee himself requested that [Nichols] be permitted to remain in Korea. . . . To prevent the loss of this highly qualified agent, FEAF sought to have him attached to the Korean Military Advisory Group. In this, FEAF received the assistance of the American Ambassador to Korea, Mr. John J. Muccio, who exerted his influence to have Mr. Nichols retained in Korea. As a result of Ambassador Muccio’s interest [in a letter dated September 12, 1949], General Headquarters Far East Command approved a FEAF request to place seven agents, including Mr. Nichols, on indefinite temporary duty in South Korea and attach them to KMAG for logistic support.” FEAF Intel History, vol. I, July 1948–June 1950, 8, AFHRA.

  “Kiss My Ass Good-bye”: Millett, 213.

  president’s advisers also worried: See Max Hastings, The Korean War (New York: Touchstone, 1987), 42–43.

  “we will gradually starve”: Rhee letter to Robert T. Oliver, September 30, 1949. Full text in Robert T. Oliver, Syngman Rhee and the American Involvement in Korea, 1942–1960 (Seoul: Panmun Book Co., 1978), 251–52.

  In Moscow, he assured Stalin: For an account of Kim Il Sung’s persistence in courting Stalin and winning his backing for the invasion of South Korea, see my book The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot, 48–60.

  churn out reports: Futrell, “U.S. Air Force Operations in the Korean Conflict: 25 June–1 November 1950,” FEAF, July 1, 1952, 101–71, AFHRA. This history says “it was the Nichols’ reports which largely formed the basis for estimates made by KMAG, the embassy, and FEAF.”

  In one special report: Donald Nichols, “Review of North Korean Air Power and Its Potentialities,” Air Intelligence Report, February 28, 1950, FEAF Intel History, vol. V, July 1948–June 1950, 120.600, AFHRA.

  “civil war in Korea is”: Cable from commanding general, FEAF, Tokyo, to chief of staff, USAF, Washington, DC, February 25, 1950. Reprinted in Korean Liaison Office—Tactical Liaison Office (Chuncheon, South Korea: Institute of Asian Culture Studies, Hallym University, 1996), 420–23.

  Who the hell is Donald: These questions are paraphrased versions of issues mentioned in a State Department “Memorandum of Conversation” dated April 3, 1950. The memo questions the reliability of Nichols’s reports from Korea. Found in Korean Liaison Office—Tactical Liaison Office, 420.

  “action should and will be”: Ibid.

  CHAPTER 3: Muzzling Mr. Nichols

  “win over by sheer friendship”: Nichols, 117.

  “legal-illegal looky-looky”: Ibid.

  met with Soviet and North Korean: Ibid.

  surveillance flights over North Korea: Ibid., 123; medal citations in Nichols’s military service record describe similar flights that he made throughout the first year of the war, part 4, 45.

  took pictures with a Leica: Detail about the Leica from Torres; the photos Nichols took of the April 1950 execution are in RG 319, entry (NM-3) 85A, Records of the Army Staff, Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff (G-2), Intelligence, Collections and Dissemination Division, Document Library Branch, Army Intelligence Document File, 1950–55, container 4273A, ID #66337, NACP.

  “No newspaper correspondents”: Bob E. Edwards, “Photographs of Communist Execution at Seoul, Korea,” April 26, 1950 (fifteen photographs), RG 319 entry (NM-3) 85A, Records of the Army Staff. Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff (G-2), Intelligence, Collections and Dissemination Division, Documents Library Branch. Ar
my Intelligence Documents File, 1950–55, container 4273A, ID #66337, NACP.

  “I don’t believe they bothered”: Author interview with Torres.

  “Mr. Nichols is the most”: Nichols’s military service record, part 3, 42–44.

  “there will be no”: These cables from Willoughby are quoted in James F. Schnabel, U.S. Army in the Korean War, Policy and Direction: The First Year (Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1992), 62.

  “No more baffling”: William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880–1964 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1978), 3.

  “dream world of self worship”: Stueck, Rethinking the Korean War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 113.

  chief interpreter of intelligence: Millett, 98–99. For an extended and withering dissection of Willoughby, see David Halberstam, The Coldest War (New York: Hyperion, 2007), 372–77.

  called Willoughby “my pet fascist”: Andrew Gordon, A Modern History of Japan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 237.

  both looked down their noses: Millett, 99.

  colleagues would accuse Willoughby: Blair, 377; Millett, 98–99.

  “lowest possible reliability evaluation”: Matthew M. Aid, “US Humint and Comint in the Korean War: From the Approach of War to the Chinese Intervention,” 38. This paper is chapter 2 of Richard J. Aldrich et al., The Clandestine Cold War in Asia, 1945–65 (London: Frank Cass, 1999).

  “in direct competition”: Ibid., 35.

  he barely had enough soldiers: Blair, 41, 78.

  “followed by an invasion”: CIA, Baptism by Fire: Analysis of the Korean War (Washington, DC: CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2013), 8.

  “discount reports and rumors”: “On the 20th Anniversary of the Korean War: An Informal Memoire by the ORE Korean Desk Officer” (draft manuscript, undated), copy reprinted in Korean Liaison Office—Tactical Liaison Office, 384.

  policy makers had to focus: Schnabel, 63.

  never rose to that level: Ibid., 64.

  Willoughby also scolded Nichols’s: “History of Detachment 2,” 6–7. Quoted in Edward J. Hagerty, The Air Force Office of Special Investigations 1948–2000 (Washington, DC: Department of the Air Force, 2009), 104, 132n33.