ABSTRACT
On October 17 General John P. Hodge, commander of US forces occupying Korea south of the 38th parallel, held a press conference to introduce another Korean patriot, Dr. Syngman Rhee. Financial backing from a number of wealthy Koreans helped Rhee to strengthen his political position. Liberated from thirty-five years of Japanese colonialism and anticipating a joyous rebirth as an independent unified nation, the Korean people were trapped in a divided condition by the sharpening cold war confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. The first mission of Soviet and US forces entering Korea was to accept the surrender of the Japanese forces and repatriate both military and civilian Japanese. The privileged Japanese residents of Japan's Korean colony looked down on the locals as second-class citizens. The economic consequences of the division of Korea were serious and immediate, for the two areas had been heavily interdependent.
