KOREA: Visiting Tiger

In 1897 the Korean monarchy jailed and tortured a young radical of royal lineage who warned that the Japanese were trying to take over his country. He spent from his 22nd to his 29th year in prison. In 1912, two years after Japan openly annexed his country, the radical fled from Korea and from the Japanese police, who quite correctly suspected him of plotting against their regime. In the next 33 years the world's diplomats came to know stubborn Syngman Rhee as a tiresome, zealous exile, vainly pleading the cause of Korean independence, frantically warning that Japan was a...

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