Correspondence
Correspondence OPEN DOORS? NICHOLAS EBERSTADT'S "Bring Them Home" (June 6) misleads readers concerning the efforts of the Republic of Korea's government with regard to the refugees and the human...
...Contrary to his claim, all major South Korean networks televised the tape and most newspapers also covered the story...
...in fact, the two South Korean governments that Eberstadt attacks (the administration of President Roh Moo-hyun and his predecessor Kim Dae-jung) have welcomed 86 percent of all North Korean defectors (6,700) to the south since the end of the Korean War in 1953...
...There is no evidence, though, that Patton's anti-Semitism, even if it exceeded the usual country-club variety, affected his conduct during the war...
...Because China considers North Korean refugees as economic migrants and does not publicize their arrest or deportation, it is hard for the south Korean government to acquire facts and information about the forced deportation of North Korean refugees...
...Was that report a journalistic fabrication...
...Roberts castigates one of the reviewed authors, Trevor Royle, for not mentioning Patton's anti-Semitism...
...in reality, the minister stated that the Korean government does not have "any plans to induce the defectors to Seoul en masse...
...PATTON'S ANTI-SEMITISM ANDREW ROBERTS'S review of three recent World War II books on the Anglo-American command in northwest Europe ("Generals at War," May 30) is intriguing but contains some dubious assertions...
...My father, a "90 day wonder" who served on active duty as a USNR officer from 1942 to '46, was told upon his application to the USN that it was a "family" into which he was not welcome because of his Judaism...
...Again, this is in line with the government's position that, while it will provide humanitarian assistance to North Korean refugees and actively support and welcome them to South Korea, it will also continue to pursue a "quiet diplomacy" that the Korean government believes is a more effective approach to assist North Korean refugees, taking into consideration the position of those countries rendering cooperation...
...According to the Korea Herald (June 18, 2004), however, "Chinese security authorities have deported a group of seven North Korean defectors who reportedly staged a hunger protest in a prison camp in the border town of Tumen earlier this year . . . the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade belatedly acknowledged their deportation after denying it for over a month...
...The scale of the settlement stipend is maintained the same as before...
...Few cases, however, are known to the public, because the south Korean government has been dealing with this matter in a low-profile manner, considering the position of other countries who are against making public their cooperation in this matter...
...The south Korean government, on humanitarian grounds, has so far admitted all North Korean refugees who wish to come to south Korea...
...Eberstadt also mischaracterizes South Korea's Unification Minister as saying that he disapproved of mass defections and promised there would be no more large-scale transportations of refugees...
...Mudcat and Jarding are essentially correct in their assessment of the Southern electorate "as voting Republican but they're not Republican" and as "not necessarily satisfied customers...
...in calling on the current Roh Moo-hyun administration to be more aggressive in welcoming North Korean refugees, Eberstadt dismisses some very important facts and realities...
...I AM USED TO READING the kind of breathless dot-connecting to discount conservatives that is present in Matthew Continetti's "A Decade of Reed" (June 27) in Newsweek and other mainstream media, but seeing it in THE WEEKLY STANDARD is disheartening...
...Reynolds is a decent historian and writer, although in his Waffen SS histories he tends to admire his subjects a bit much and overlooks or excuses their quite considerable excesses...
...newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor, reported this week that, under indirect governmental pressure, South Korean television authorities had not allowed the broadcasting of the tape...
...Additionally, there is no truth to the claim that "the ROK Foreign Ministry officially denied that china was rounding up hundreds of escapees and sending them back to North Korea—only to be forced eventually to admit that those stories were true...
...ROGER AUSTIN Gainesville, FL...
...He writes that Michael Reynolds, author of Monty and Patton: Two Paths to Victory, is particularly qualified, having "written three books on the Battle of the Bulge...
...Continetti's portrayal of every single move of Reed as calculated and disingenuous made me feel that he had convicted Reed before he encountered the facts...
...He put a Jewish officer, Abe Baum, in command of the ill-fated Hammelburg raid to rescue his beloved son in law, Colonel John Waters...
...There is no doubt that Patton was an anti-Semite, but so were most of the American regular Army and Navy officers during the war...
...in today's Korea, where freedom of the press is well advocated and practiced, it is inconceivable that the government would attempt to control the content of media reports...
...In short, like the title of Eberstadt's article, we are "bringing them home"— the doors to South Korea are open...
...Also, in order to encourage North Korean defectors to stand on their own feet, we have reduced the initial cash payment and at the same time introduced incentive money that is provided to those who undergo job training...
...Treating the odd Jew well does not make Patton a decent man in this regard, but his anti-Semitism does not seem to have been an important factor in his public and professional life...
...In two of the three books mentioned, Reynolds deals with the Battle of the Bulge, but only as one of the many battles these formations fought...
...Nobody says it, but it's obvious that broadcasting companies, especially KBS, have to walk in line with overall government policy,' said Mr...
...I am surprised, however, that the government should base its defense upon a string of assertions that are disproved by reports from South Korea's own free and open press...
...He added, "What is really important is to provide them with substantive assistance from a humanitarian standpoint and unnecessary visibility would not help...
...The South Korean government asserts, for example, that there is "no truth" to the notion that the ROK Foreign Ministry was caught falsely denying China's forcible deportation of captured North Korean escapees...
...SOO-DONG O Minister for Public Affairs Embassy of the Republic of Korea Washington, DC NICHOLAS EBERSTADT RESPONDS: I am not surprised that the Republic of Korea's government has formally responded to my essay criticizing Seoul's indifference to the plight of North Korean escapees...
...Chun [Ki-won], [a North Korean refugee] who said he was involved in trying to air the tape in South Korea...
...The south Korean government, however, has been consistently requesting China to refrain from deporting them back to North Korea, and to treat them according to their free will from a humanitarian perspective...
...JONATHAN F. KEILER Bowie, MD READING REED WRONGLY...
...Similarly, while the South Korean government insists there has been no official effort to suppress the horrifying video of executions of "refouled" North Korean refugees, South Korea's second largest newspaper, the JoongAng Daily (March 30, 2005), reports that: "Despite broadcasts in Japan of a videotape showing alleged summary executions in North Korea, refugees from the North complain that South Korean broadcasting companies have been reluctant to show it...
...The issue made international headlines when the U.S...
...The Japanese national network NTV aired the tapes two weeks ago...
...We might want to ask the South Korean embassy in Washington: Until his appointment, the current South Korean ambassador to the United States was publisher of that same JoongAng Daily...
...NICHOLAS EBERSTADT'S "Bring Them Home" (June 6) misleads readers concerning the efforts of the Republic of Korea's government with regard to the refugees and the human rights situations of North Korea...
...While maintaining this policy, the Korean government improved and revised some aspects of the framework for receiving North Korean defectors in order to tackle rising problems associated with broker interventions and to assist North Koreans who wish to emigrate to south Korea...
...JACKIE YUAN BYERLY Pleasanton, CA MUDCAT MUSINGS MATT LABASH'S "Hunting Bubba" (June 20) was one of THE WEEKLY STANDARD'S most informative and laugh-out-loud funny articles in years...
...In fact, Reynolds's previous books have been exclusively about the 1st and 2nd SS Panzer Corps...
...We have strengthened the screening procedures to pick out those who merely pretend to be North Korean defectors...
...Eberstadt claims that South Korean authorities have prohibited the broadcast of the video depicting scenes of public executions of deported North Koreans...
...Plenty of Jewish officers and men served under Patton and admired him, and he seems to have treated Jewish fighting men well in return...
...As long as the arrogant, self righteous elitists of the Democratic party continue to condescend to the voters of the South (and there is no reason to assume they won't), Republicans will continue to win here despite our many flaws...
...But because they are also essentially correct in their assessment of the DNC grand pooh-bahs being hopelessly out of touch, unless Mudcat himself replaces Howard Dean as head of the DNC, there is nothing he or anyone else can do about the fundamental disconnect...
Vol. 10 • June 2005 • No. 41
