The Korean-American Council’s Petition Diplomacy: Diplomacy for the United States’ Military Support of the Korean Provisional Government

This study focused on research about the nature and process of Syngman Rhee’s lobbying association, the Korean-American Council’s military petition during the Pacific War. The Korean-American Council desired to receive military aids from the U.S. Government for the Korean Provisional Government(KPG)’s military operations. Also, the council hoped to build the U.S.-Korea alliance by solidifying the military relationship between the KPG and the U.S. Therefore, the council members highlighted the petition for military assistance for Koreans, rather than only requesting approval of the KPG as the official Korean government during negotiation attempts with the U.S. State Department and U.S. military organizations. In the course of negotiation, the U.S. government largely emphasized its military interests related to U.S.-Korean military associations. The characteristics of the negotiations were found as follows. First, During the negotiations, the U.S. Department of State, which was the main target of the Korean-American Council’s diplomacy, did not disregard the negotiation. However, the State Department delivered information about the Korean-American Council’s military petitions to the U.S. military organizations. Thereby, the State Department, despite its plan of Korean Trusteeship, let the Korean-American Council understand the State Department’s favorable opinions on the KPG’s will of carrying out war operations against Japan. Secondly, the Korean-American Council’s military petitions aligned partially with the Korean-U.S. military operation plan prepared by the OSS at the time. This reflects the council members’ awareness of the need to forge the Korean military operations led by the U.S. government. However, there was a task that Korea’s military capacity and reliability had to be demonstrated before practicing the plan devised by OSS. In the course, the Korean-American Council’s military petitions played a certain important role.