ABSTRACT
North Korean residents who escaped to South Korea received special treatment as ‘Defecting Hero’ until the 1980s, a period when Cold-War ideologies dominated both North and South Korea. They were predominantly born into military families and acquired powerful political values, confirming the belligerence and inhumane systems of North Korea and also South Korean superiority, during an era when anticommunist ideologies were still employed as the main methods of political domination and legitimacy. As political logics surpassed economic ones, the idea of the ‘Defecting Hero’ received full support from the South Korean government, and their initial adaptation into South Korean society did not face significant problems, at least financially. Air Force Captain Woong Pyung Lee who defected by flying a MIG 19 Jet Fighter on 25 February 1983, is such a representative. He became a researcher and colonel in the South Korean Air Force Academy.
