Jang Jun-ha (Korean: 장준하, 27 August 1918 – 17 August 1975) was an independence activist during the Japanese colonial period and a South Korean politician, religious figure, journalist, and social activist.
Born~Died Aug 27, 1918 ~ Aug 17, 1975Last edited Oct 15, 2026, 2:51 PM
Park Jong-man Vice Minister of Education, Choe Gyu-nam Vice Minister of Education, Ko Byeong-gan Vice Minister of Education, Heo Jeung-su Vice Minister of Education
Graduated from Daegwan Common School, transferred to Sungsil Middle School, graduated from Sinsung Middle School, withdrew from the preparatory philosophy program at Toyo University, withdrew from a Japanese theological seminary, bachelor's degree from Korean Theological University
Career
Member of the Party Affairs Committee and Supreme Council of the New Democratic Party, Standing Adviser and Supreme Council member of the National Party
January 1944 - 7 July 1944 (Imperial Japanese Army), August 1944 - February 1945 (National Revolutionary Army), 20 February 1945 - 23 November 1945 (Korean Liberation Army)
His ancestral seat was Andong. During the Japanese colonial period, he worked in education and volunteered as a student soldier for the Imperial Japanese Army12. In January 1944 he was assigned to the 7991st Unit of the 65th Division, but in July of that year he escaped from Xuzhou, Jiangsu, and after receiving training at the Central Military Academy in China he became a warrant officer in the National Revolutionary Army.
In 1945 he went to the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in Chongqing, Sichuan, China, and from February 1945 served as a second lieutenant in the Korean Liberation Army. While serving in the Korean Liberation Army, he worked with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor of the US CIA, and for three months took part in operations to infiltrate Korea. While waiting to be secretly sent back into Korea as a special operative, he was there when Korea was liberated on 15 August 1945. In November 1945 he returned to Korea as part of the first group of the Provisional Government, and afterward served as secretary to Kim Gu, and also worked with Yi Beom-seok's National Youth Corps.
After the establishment of the Republic of Korea government, he was hired as a in the and appointed as a . In 1950 he served as an officer in charge of national spiritual enlightenment at the , and in 1952 he served as planning section chief, general affairs section chief, and secretary-general of the Ministry of Education's National Thought Research Institute. He founded the magazine 《》 and in 1956 established the Dongin Literary Award. 《Sasanggye》 criticized the Liberal Party government of the time and became the starting point of the . After the revolution, under the , he served as a member of the University Education Council of the under the cabinet, planning chief of the , and .
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After the May 16 coup, he took part in the movement opposing the Korea-Japan talks and the movement opposing the deployment of troops to the Vietnam War. During the 6th presidential election, while campaigning in support of Yun Po-son, he raised the issue of Park Chung-hee's past as a pro-Japanese collaborator and member of the South Workers' Party, and for this he served prison time for violating election law3. Afterward he worked in the New Democratic Party and, together with Yun Po-son, in the National Party. From 1967 he served as a 7th National Assembly member and was active in the National Defense Committee. In 1974 he was indicted for violating Presidential Emergency Decree No. 1 and sentenced to 15 years in prison and 15 years of suspension of civil rights, but on 24 January 2013 the Seoul Central District Court panel handed down a not-guilty verdict4.
In 1975, while preparing some kind of plot to oppose the Park Chung-hee government, he met a mysterious death on 17 August at Yaksabong in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province.
His alias was Kim Sin-cheol (金信鐵), and his Japanese-style name change name was "Hariyasu Shunka" (張安俊河)5.
생애
어린 시절
출생과 가계
He was born in 1915 in Yeonha-dong, Goseong-myeon, Uiju County, North P'yŏngan Province, as the eldest son among four sons and one daughter of Jang Seok-in (張錫仁) and Kim Kyeong-mun (金京文). Jang Seok-in was a Presbyterian pastor. Around the age of three, the family moved to Sakju County, and Jang's family registered its residence in Sakju until they left for South Korea after liberation. His grandfather, Jang Yun-hui (張潤熙), reportedly placed great hopes in him. His younger siblings included Jang Ik-ha, Jang Myeong-ha (張明河), Jang Chang-ha (張昌河), and a younger sister, Jang Yeong-ha (張英河). His grandfather Jang Yun-hui was an early enlightenment-minded figure who embraced Christianity and became a Protestant elder. A highly learned intellectual, the grandfather was well versed in Confucian classical learning, could speak Chinese, and worked as a traditional Korean doctor and a Sinologist. He also founded a private school called Yangseong School (陽成學校) in his hometown of Uiju, where he served as a teacher and instructed students.
It is said that Jang Yun-hui did not wear a topknot, and he studied Neo-Confucianism in order to take the civil service examinations. Under the influence of new learning, he became a Christian, and he evangelized his family, establishing a Christian household. Later, with his deep faith, he raised his son to become a Protestantpastor, and this influence extended to his son Jang Seok-in and his grandson Jang Jun-ha. Although Jang Jun-ha came from a family of Christian devotees, he later converted to Catholicism following his future wife, Kim Hui-suk.
In 1920, his father Jang Seok-in, who had joined the independence movement and was pursued by Japanesepolice, left Uiju County and moved to Sakju County. Jang Seok-in, who was also an educator, used his own money to establish Daegwan Kindergarten. Later, Lee Yeong-hee is said to have attended this Daegwan Kindergarten.
When he turned thirteen, he entered the fifth grade at Daegwan Public School in Sakju.9 In 1933 he graduated from Daegwan Public School in Sakju (朔州) and then enrolled at Soongsil Middle School in Pyongyang Prefecture, where his father had worked as a teacher.
Later, when his father became chaplain of Sinsung Middle School in Sŏnch'ŏn, Jang transferred with his father to Sinsung Middle School in Sŏnch'ŏn. In 1937, when the principal of Sinsung Middle School, Chang Ri-uk, was arrested in connection with the Dongwoo Club incident, Jang mobilized student representatives to launch a joint protest campaign demanding the principal's release, and as a result he was briefly jailed. His father, Jang Seok-in, resigned from his post as a teacher at Sinsung Middle School in accordance with his Christian conscience, refusing shrine worship, and then served as an evangelist.
교사생활과 도일 유학
In March 1938, after graduating from Sinsung Middle School, Jang planned to enter Soongsil College and become a Protestant minister like his father. However, when Soongsil College was closed due to a movement to refuse shrine worship, he took up a post as a teacher at Sinan Elementary School in Jeongju, North P'yŏngan Province (Jeongju), and worked as a teacher there for three years. Afterward, at the urging of his friend, marathon runner Kim Ik-jun, he resolved to study in Japan, quit his teaching job, and went to study in Japan.10
In 1940 Jang went to Japan, and in April 1941 he passed through the preparatory course of the philosophy department at Toyo University, and in April 1942 he entered Japan Theological Seminary, affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. When Jang entered, Chon Taek-bu, Moon Ik-hwan, Kim Kwan-seok, Park Bong-rang, and others were also at the same school.911 While studying at Japan Theological Seminary, Jang also served as a member of the committee of Sukdeok Church (Presbyterian Church of Korea (Tonghap)), led by his senior, pastorPark Yeong-chul.
In November 1943, Jang married Kim Hui-suk, the eldest daughter of Kim Jun-deok and No Seon-sam, who had been his student at Sinan Elementary School and lived in the same village. Kim Hui-suk's family came under the attention of the Government-General of Korea because her father, Kim Jun-deok, had fled to China. Kim Hui-suk informed Jang of this situation. Convinced that marriage was the way to protect Kim Hui-suk, Jang returned to Korea immediately after receiving her letter and married her.12 The wedding ceremony took place on January 5, 1944.
청년기
일본군 입대와 탈출
In 1943, Jang refused to join the Imperial Japanese Army and went to the train station to see off his friend Choi Ki-il, who was being taken away under the Labor Mobilization Ordinance. Evading Japanese police surveillance, he saw off Choi Ki-il together with a small number of friends, including Kim Chang-jeong (金昌禎).
During the Japanese colonial period, Jang was known to have been forcibly conscripted by the Japanese.1314 However, his hometown friend Choi Ki-il stated that Jang had volunteered.15Choi Ki-il strongly tried to dissuade Jang from joining the Japanese army, but he did not listen and volunteered to enlist as a student soldier.15
Later, according to Choi Ki-il, he recalled that Jang "was waiting to be enlisted in the Imperial Japanese Army, as if he had some purpose in mind."15 Jang himself also stated that he had volunteered. He explained his reasons for volunteering in his autobiography Dolbegae (돌베개). "Mr. Jang, who attended Japan Theological Seminary in Tokyo, said, 'I entrusted myself to that so-called volunteering in order to bear our family's misfortune alone,'" he recalled. "His father was a Protestant minister who refused Japan's shrine worship and was a person under close watch by the Japanese occupiers. To avoid being conscripted as a student soldier would have meant oppression of his family and those around him, such as his fiancée being taken away to the Jeongsindae, so he volunteered for student soldier service."16 This is his explanation. In addition, he had hoped that, after volunteering as a student soldier, if he were dispatched only to China, he could escape from the Japanese army and join the Provisional Government in Chongqing.17 He himself described this as a fantasy,17 a task so difficult that it bordered on the impossible, but he volunteered relying on that alone.
탈출과 이동
On January 20, 1944, he entered the student soldier training in the Japanese Army and served as a supply soldier in the Supply Unit of the 30th Division stationed in Pyongyang.
On February 17, he was assigned to the Supply Unit of the Japanese army 65th Division stationed in Central China (Unit 7991 of the Sen (専)),5 and on July 7 of the same year he deserted in Xuzhou, Jiangsu, China.
In July 1944, taking advantage of lax security, he deserted from the Japanese army in the city of Xuzhou together with a small number of comrades. In the Chinese Eighth Route Army, he met Kim Jun-yup, No Neung-seo, and other Korean youths who had also deserted from the Japanese army, and together they walked to Linchuan in Anhui. Because there was a risk of being discovered by the Japanese army, they could not use vehicles and had to walk. While deserting, to avoid pursuit, they dressed as civilians and headed for Chongqing. At this time, looking at the stars in the sky, he recalled the stone pillow mentioned in the Bible, and reflecting on the shameful figures of ancestors who had lost their country, he resolved to become ancestors who would not be ashamed before their descendants. Later, his autobiography Dolbegae is said to have drawn inspiration from the stone pillow of Jacob that he recalled at that time.
After deserting, he formed a lifelong friendship with Kim Joon-yup, whom he met. Before enlisting in the army, Jang was studying at Japan Theological Seminary as a candidate for the ministry, while Kim Joon-yup was enrolled in the preparatory course of the Faculty of Letters at Keio University. They were both students from Tokyo but did not know each other. However, Choi Ki-il knew both of them: he was a classmate of Kim Joon-yup at Sinuiju Higher School and Keio University, and he was a hometown friend who had grown up with Jang since childhood in Daegwan-dong, Sakju County. Yet the two men were alike in that they chose the most active way of resisting Japan's demand for student soldiers. As if they had reached an agreement, the two left with a plan decided in advance: "Do not hide or evade, respond to the call for student soldiers, but immediately desert and join the Gwangbokgun." On the dawn of March 29, 1944, Kim Joon-yup deserted, and on July 7, 1944, Jang deserted.
"Suddenly I heard a commotion of the villagers. Running out into the yard, I saw young men in Chinese military uniforms, and from their intellectual faces and manner I immediately concluded that they were Korean student soldiers like me. 'You are Koreans, aren't you?' Upon hearing that they were, I rushed at them and hugged them one by one tightly. I had never been so moved and delighted as I was at that moment. (Omitted) My first meeting with Jang Jun-ha was at this time, and from then on he and I became closer than brothers, sharing joys and sorrows like lovers until he passed away in August 1975." — Kim Joon-yup, Memoirs, Jangjeong vol. 1, p. 249
충칭 도착과 광복군 입대
In 1944, Jang, Kim Joon-yup, and about fifty others who had escaped from Xi'an arrived at Nohagu. When Kim Won-bong obtained this information, he tried to incorporate Jang and his group into the 1st Unit of the Korean Liberation Army, but they refused. Kim Won-bong sent people to try to stop Jang's group from leaving. When those who had deserted and reached Nohagu tried to leave for Chongqing, he tried to prevent their departure through a company commander of the 1st Unit. The content of his persuasion was that they should "stay in Nohagu and reinforce the 1st Unit."18 However, Jang and the others refused. Jang said of this: "It is an ambition to bind fifty young comrades together and firmly establish a base in Nohagu, and this was in fact the scheme of Kim Yak-san of the Provisional Government. Through this battalion commander, Kim Yak-san carried out a scheme to expand and establish his own independent power."18
Jang, who was convinced that Kim Won-bong was a communist, even doubted his promise to arrange airplane transport to Chongqing. "They showered us with affection and excessive kindness, and the empty promise of arranging an airplane was all their trickery."18
After rejecting Kim Won-bong's recruitment offer, he and his companions walked to Linchuan in Anhui and entered the Korean Liberation Army officer training class at the Linchuan Branch (臨川分校) of the Central Military Academy of China. At this time, he published Deungbul (〈등불〉).1119 In August 1944 he received three months of military training at the Linchuan Military Academy (branch) of the Central Military Academy of China, and in December 1944 he was commissioned as a warrant officer in the Central Army of China.20 Afterward, Jang and Kim Joon-yup and others safely arrived in Chongqing, Sichuan.
On February 20, 1945, in Chongqing, he was incorporated into the Korean Liberation Army, commissioned as an officer in the Korean Liberation Army, became a second lieutenant of the Korean Liberation Army, and resided at the Togyo Corps (土橋隊) in Chongqing. Together with his friend Kim Joon-yup and others, he visited the leaders of the Provisional Government and listened to their reminiscences. He also published Deungbul issues 3, 4, and 5 there.
He remained in Chongqing until November 1945 and then returned home.11 On April 29, 1945, Jang and eighteen others were assigned to the 2nd Unit of the Korean Liberation Army stationed in Xi'an. Under the leadership of Syngman Rhee, Kim Gu, Yi Beom-seok, and others, a joint training agreement between the Korean Liberation Army and the Army of the United States was concluded, and he became an agent of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), participating in a three-month operation to penetrate the homeland. On May 1, he was promoted to first lieutenant in the Korean Liberation Army. Afterward, he received U.S. Army military training in Xi'an, China, and waited as a special operative to be dispatched into the homeland.
신익희와 갈등
Meanwhile, he came into conflict with Shin Ik-hui, a Provisional Government leader who sought to build his own power base by pulling away members of the Korean Liberation Army and escaped youths. When the Provisional Government was launched as a coalition cabinet, Shin Ik-hui entered the cabinet as the representative of the Korean Youth Party.22 Jang testified that "that youth party was in fact a lonely one-man party, and it is true that Minister of Home Affairs Shin was lonely."22
Although Jang and other Japanese army deserters had been incorporated into the Korean Liberation Army and moved on, Shin Ik-hui tried to bring these young men into his circle. In addition to young people who deserted from the Japanese army or student soldiers and came to the Provisional Government, Shin Ik-hui also personally visited the Korean Liberation Army training grounds and tried to win over some of the young men. Jang recorded this in his autobiography Dolbegae.
According to Jang, "Even after we had left the Provisional Government and come to Togyo, Minister of Home Affairs Shin kept calling our members out one or two at a time. After one or two comrades had been called away, we understood his intention, but only later did we realize that it was proceeding as a rather secret plan. This is because those who had gone out did not clearly say why they had been called, and merely mumbled. As the number of members who went out several times increased and eventually reached dozens, they finally began to formally propose to leave us and return to the Provisional Government."23 The reason for leaving, they said, was that a new 'Security Corps' (경위대) was being organized under the Home Affairs Ministry of the Provisional Government, and they wanted to become members of that corps.23"
Jang and others tried to hold back the comrades who wanted to return to the Provisional Government to become members of the Security Corps, but they failed. "All of us appealed to them with the affection of the hardships we had shared, and tried to stop them many times, but they had already become so close to Minister Shin that they stubbornly insisted, and in the end they left."23 The young men, captivated by Shin Ik-hui's fluent eloquence, followed him to Chongqing.
When his comrades followed Shin Ik-hui, Jang was enraged. Jang, after sending them off, worked through the night to mimeograph leaflets. The content of the mimeographed leaflets condemned Minister of Home Affairs Shin Ik-hui and the members of other political parties. They made these into an extra edition in the form of the magazine Deungbul. Early the next morning, Jang and about twenty others went out toward the Provisional Government carrying them, each with a club in hand.22 Upon hearing that young men with clubs were coming to find him, Shin Ik-hui went into hiding. When Jang's group reached the Provisional Government office, they shouted slogans such as "Disband the Security Corps" and "Send young people to die on the front," and searched for Shin Ik-hui. But Shin Ik-hui had already quickly disappeared.22 In the end, they missed the target of their condemnation.
광복 이후
해방과 귀국
On August 15, 1945, Japan declared an "unconditional surrender," and as a result all military operations were nullified. Immediately after liberation, he was promoted to captain in the Korean Liberation Army.
On August 17, Yi Beom-seok, Jang, Kim Joon-yup, No Neung-seo, and others boarded an American aircraft bound for Seoul and arrived at Yeouido Airfield, but they were forced to turn back because of Japanese obstruction and American persuasion. Jang and his group then returned to Xi'an, China, and on November 23 of that year, together with Provisional Government Chairman Kim Gu and other Provisional Government leaders, they boarded an airplane and landed at Gimpo Airport in Gimpo County, Gyeonggi Province.11 Afterward, he began his political and social activities as the secretary of Kim Gu.
In early September 1945, there is a claim that Jang, an officer of the Korean Liberation Army, met Park Chung-hee in Xi'an, China.2425 According to the testimony of Lee Cheol-woo, a confidant of Jang, Jang reportedly scolded Park Chung-hee.2526
According to those who say that Jang and Park Chung-hee were acquainted before liberation, Jang, at this time, rebuked Park Chung-hee, who did not express much repentance for his past as an officer of the Japanese army, for not deserting the Japanese army voluntarily until Japan's defeat, for the fact that if Japan had not been defeated he would still have been massacring Korean independence fighters as a Japanese army officer, and for his extremely opportunistic attitude.2526 However, journalist Cho Gap-je and Jang's son Jang Ho-gwon and others say that these claims are not true. According to Cho Gap-je, Jang and Park Chung-hee had never met around this time,2627 and Jang Ho-gwon told Pressian in an interview that Jang and Park Chung-hee were complete strangers.
광복 직후
Immediately after liberation, Kim Won-bong's faction tried to re-recruit newly deserted and discharged former Japanese army personnel, including Jang and others, but Jang refused Kim Won-bong's recruitment efforts. Later, Jang criticized him, saying, "He tried to dazzle us with a honey trap."282930
As the abuses of some members of the Korean Liberation Army continued, Kim Won-bong sought to exploit them.33 He applied distrust of the Provisional Government and the Korean Liberation Army to units composed of former Japanese army members.33 On October 7, 1945, Yi Cheong-cheon, commander of the Korean Liberation Army from Chongqing, came to Shanghai, but the units composed of former Japanese army members refused to be reviewed by Commander Yi Cheong-cheon. Jang and others went around personally to certain officers among them and began discussions on this issue.33 Later, Jang described this as "we began discussions, but in fact it was a co-optation operation."33
Jang described Kim Won-bong's plan as a "scheme."33 Jang and his group informed the plan of Kim Won-bong and gave materials on the person in charge, Hwang, and on Yi So-min, who had acted as his agents, and thereby discredited them.33 The persuasion was effective, and Yi Cheong-cheon was able to personally review the troops.32
On April 26, 1946, he joined and became active in the Korean Youth Association founded by Usa Kim Kyu-sik. Kim Kyu-sik appointed Jang as director of the investigation department of the Korean Youth Association. However, as Jang left Kyungkyo Villa, he also withdrew from the Korean Youth Association.
Afterward, Jang made contact with his hometown friend Choi Ki-il, who was serving as secretary to Yun Chi-yeong, a confidant of Syngman Rhee, and he worked for cooperation between Syngman Rhee and Kim Gu, but these efforts ended in failure.
In the summer of 1946, Yi Beom-seok of the Korean Liberation Army, who had returned home, sought out Jang and repeatedly asked him to help him. Jang was troubled, and when he told Provisional Government Chairman Kim Gu the truth and asked for his understanding, Kim Gu let him go. In December 1947 he left Kyungkyo Villa and joined Yi Beom-seok's Joseon National Youth Corps, where he took the post of head of the Central Training Institute's Academic Affairs Office. However, Jang soon left the Korea National Youth Corps.34
관료, 언론 활동
정부 수립 직후
Afterward, from 1946 to 1947, for two years, he met with his friend Choi Ki-il, who had become public information secretary to Syngman Rhee, and consulted and worked toward agreement and cooperation between Syngman Rhee and Kim Gu, but the cooperation between Syngman Rhee and Kim Gu failed after the assassination of Chang Duk-soo. After the failure of cooperation, he took the position of supporting the establishment of the government without participating in the North-South negotiations led by Kim Gu and Kim Kyu-sik. Afterward, Jang did not engage in any particular political activity for a time.
In January 1949 he founded the publishing house Hangilsa.35 While engaged in publishing activities, in February 1949 he transferred into Korea Theological University, and in June of the same year he graduated from Korea Theological University with a bachelor's degree.35 Afterward, he also took part in journalism, publishing editorials and columns in Dong-a Ilbo and other newspapers.
In March 1952 he became planning director of the National Ideology Research Institute under the Ministry of Education, and afterward he served as general affairs director and secretary-general of the National Ideology Research Institute.35 Recognizing the inevitability of the establishment of the Republic of Korea government, he was convinced that the only way to defeat North Korea was to acquire ideological and doctrinal legitimacy, and he engaged in column writing and lecture activities for national enlightenment.
In December 1952, after the December 1952 issue of Sasanggye (No. 4) was published, the magazine temporarily suspended publication due to financial problems, as funds for it were difficult to raise during the war. Afterward, in April 1953, he resigned from the National Ideology Research Institute of the Ministry of Education, and ended his brief career as a civil servant. In April 1953 he also founded the magazine Sasanggye and became active in it.36 With the armistice in 1952, he returned to Seoul. He interpreted the armistice ending the Korean War positively.
"The June 25 war broke out. The whip that was surely due has fallen on the land. Yet heaven is not indifferent, and so it did not completely hand this people over to the grasp of the communist traitors (共産逆盜)."37
When the armistice came, he returned to Seoul.
언론 활동
With the September 1953 issue of Sasanggye, the Busan era came to an end. He moved into an office in Hancheong Building in Jongno, Seoul, and continued to publish Sasanggye.
In 1956 he established the "Dongin Literary Award" and announced its first recipients.38 The Dongin Literary Award was created in memory of the novelist Kim Tong-in, and was thus the Kim Tong-in Literary Award.10 Through the Dongin Literary Award, Jang discovered writers such as Sunwoo Hui, Oh Sang-won, Son Chang-seop, Lee Beom-seon, Seo Ki-won, Nam Jeong-hyeon, Jeon Gwang-yong, Lee Ho-cheol, Song Byeong-su, Kim Seung-ok, Choi In-ho, and Lee Cheong-jun.38
On October 10, 1957, Choe Nam-seon, who had shouted slogans such as "Naisen ittai" (Japan and Korea as one body) and "promotion of imperial Japanese culture," and who had enjoyed positions and financial benefits from the Japanese, died at the age of 68. The publisher Jang hastily published a special feature commemorating Yukdang's death,39 and also published an article in Sasanggye defending him.40
The editorial committee of Sasanggye, together with all persons who place their will in the rise and fall of culture and the fate of the nation, sincerely mourns the late Choe Nam-seon, Yukdang, and, in order to pass down to eternity the outstanding character and the greatness of the achievements he left behind in life, dedicates the year-end issue of 1957, the year of his death, as a commemorative issue on Yukdang to his memorial tablet in heaven.3941
— Jang Jun-ha, Dedication to Choe Nam-seon
For a time there were also public misunderstandings about Sŏn-saeng's integrity. But it is now an established historical fact that Sŏn-saeng's true intention lay, above all, in the destiny of this people and the preservation of this nation's culture. It was entirely different from the baseless arguments of wicked youths and frivolous women that circulated in the streets. Because of the unjust atmosphere in which people did not pardon others, did not know how to cherish talented people as the apple of their eye, and could not think broadly about matters, we did not, even after liberation, give Sŏn-saeng any honor or praise his efforts. On the contrary, there was no shortage of shameful treatment. This is truly something the whole nation should be ashamed of.394041
— Chang Jun-ha, editorial foreword
Among the columns published in Sasanggye in August 1958, Chang was arrested together with Ham Sok-hon over Ham's article "Only a Thinking People Survive" and was later released. In September 1958 he established the Kim Dong-in Literary Award in memory of the novelist Kim Dong-in, which was presented annually to selected new novelists. In February 1959, in connection with the 2.4 Security Law controversy, he protested against the Liberal Party government with a blank editorial.
In 1958 and 1959, he published columns critical of the dictatorship of Syngman Rhee and denounced Rhee and the Liberal Party government.
In March 1960, in his editorial in Sasanggye, he sharply denounced the ruling Liberal Party for carrying out the rigged 15 March election. After the April Revolution, in May he was appointed a central executive committee member of the Korean Commission for UNESCO. He later served as chairman of the UNESCO public relations subcommittee.
Bureaucratic life in the Second Republic
After the April Revolution of 1960, in July the Chang MyonCabinet was launched. Afterward, with the support of Prime MinisterChang Myon, he organized the Institute for International Affairs, received research funds from the Democratic Party government, and carried out research and development on economic policy. Prime MinisterChang Myon sent people to him several times asking him to help.
Chang Jun-ha accepted Chang Myon's repeated requests for help and took office. With the support of Kim Yeong-seon, the financeminister and a power figure in the Chang Myon government who was also a member of the Sasanggye circle, he also settled the debts of the Sasanggye company.42 In October 1960 he was appointed a member of the Higher Education Deliberation Council of the Ministry of Education under the Chang Myon Cabinet, and in January 1961 he was selected as planning director of the National Land Construction Corps of South Korea.35 He later also served as head of the National Land Construction Corps.43
While serving as planning director of the National Land Construction Corps, he was in effect responsible for, and oversaw and directed, the operation of the Corps. He also invited Ham Sok-hon, Ju Yo-han, Park Sun-cheon and others as lecturers to educate college graduates who had not found employment about their views of the state and society, and they handled the cultivation and education of the students' character. Chang Jun-ha himself also took charge of spiritual education as a lecturer for the Corps.
Amid a national crisis of extreme disorder, chronic corruption, and a social order that had fallen into paralysis, the May 16 military revolution rose as a last resort to open a path for the nation in its time of emergency.
If the April Revolution was a democratic revolution to win constitutional government and freedom, the May 16 revolution is a nationalist military revolution aimed at destroying corruption, incompetence, disorder, and the machinations of communism and at setting the country's course right.
Therefore, judged by the democratic ideals that we must nurture and cause to bloom, the May 16 revolution is nothing but an unfortunate and regrettable event; yet judged from the urgent national reality, it is an unavoidable one.
After Yun Bo-seon president endorsed the May 16 coup, the Chang Myon Cabinet resigned en masse on May 20, and after the collapse of the Second Republic, Chang Jun-ha mainly engaged in media activities. In the early stage of the military government he supported the military coup. However, when Park Chung-hee later pursued retention of power without transferring it to a civilian government, Chang reacted against this, changed his line, and took a position criticizing Park Chung-hee. Under the military government, the authorities seized on his borrowing 10 million hwan from Tae Wan-seon, labeled him a corrupt journalist, and placed him among those banned from political activity; thereupon he withdrew his support for the military coup.
Although he expressed support for the military government, Chang Jun-ha soon clashed with it.46 After the July 1961 issue carried Chang's editorial "Completing the Revolutionary Task That Requires Urgency and Returning to Democratic Politics" and Ham Sok-hon's article "How Should We View May 16?", Chang was summoned by the military regime.46
The June 1961 editorial of Sasanggye, immediately after May 16, said, "If the April Revolution was a democratic revolution to win constitutional government and freedom, the May 16 revolution is a nationalist military revolution aimed at destroying corruption, incompetence, disorder, and the machinations of communism and at setting the country's course right,"4247 and in effect supported the May 16 coup.48
However, the editorial foreword of Sasanggye was written under Chang Jun-ha's name from 1955 through the late 1950s, and afterward, when someone other than Chang ghostwrote it, the author was not identified and was left anonymous.4950 Because the June 1961 editorial and editor's note were anonymous, it is uncertain whether they were Chang's writing or were ghostwritten by someone else under pressure from the coup forces.51 Nevertheless, the responsibility of Chang as publisher cannot be excused, and the June 1961 issue of Sasanggye went so far as to carry not only the editorial but also a photo spread of Park Chung-hee and Chang Do-yong. Kim Sam-ung, who wrote a biography of Chang Jun-ha, criticized the June 1961 issue of Sasanggye as having damaged the spirit of Sasanggye the most.52 Afterward, in the July issue, it ran Ham Sok-hon's article "How Should We View May 16?", which indirectly criticized the military revolution, but Sasanggye nevertheless acknowledged the inevitability of the coup for a considerable period afterward.48
The reason Chang Jun-ha lavished such praise on the May 16 military coup as a "nationalistmilitary revolution" was that he expected the military regime that emerged on May 16 to follow a pro-American (親美) line.46 In fact, Chang Jun-ha was an active pro-American. Contrary to his later statements that all unification is good, at that time Chang Jun-ha placed anti-communism first and regarded "pro-Americanism" as most important.46 For this reason, Chang Jun-ha sent his support to a military regime that had risen armed with anti-communist logic, which at a stroke brought down the Chang Myon government that was rushing toward extreme chaos.46 Moreover, the fact that the United States supported the military regime also served as a major motive for Chang's support of the military government.4653
In the early stage of the military government, Chang Jun-ha also arranged a meeting between military government forces and American forces.46 This was a party intended to improve relations between the leaders of the coup and the United States.48 At the time, the military government forces were a non-mainstream faction within the military, so their relations with the United States were poor, and Chang Jun-ha held a party to improve these relations.46 This party, held in early July 1961 at Changgyeongwon, is known to have been attended on the American side by Ambassador Berger and Political Counselor Habib, and on the military government side only by the Chang Do-yong faction.4654 However, no figures from the Park Chung-hee faction attended the party, and this later became the basis for claims of a connection with Chang Do-yong.
Park Chung-hee and the other leaders of the coup were mostly marginalized non-mainstream forces within the military, and therefore their relations with the United States, especially with the local officials, were not smooth. Although the United States recognized the coup as a reality, relations between the two sides were poor even immediately after the coup.48 Therefore Chang Jun-ha, who was an "American hand," attempted to improve relations by inviting key figures from both sides to the Changgyeongwon party in early July in the name of the Sasanggye company.48 He also recommended certain figures (Lee Jeong-hwan and Park Dong-myo) to the agents of the coup.48
Before and after the libel incident
About four or five days after the July issue of Sasanggye was published, which carried Ham Sok-hon's article urging a prompt transfer of civilian government, as quitting time approached, two soldiers appeared at the Sasanggye company. They said they had come from the revolutionary army and conveyed the business that they would come to pick up the president and the editor-in-chief the next morning at seven o'clock and asked that they be ready by that time.55 The next day Chang Jun-ha, together with the editor-in-chief, Ko Seong-hun, the head of the editorial department, went to the company at seven in the morning, the appointed time. A black jeep was waiting first, and two other soldiers were waiting. The jeep took Chang Jun-ha and Ko Seong-hun and dropped them off in a dilapidated two-story house somewhere in Hoehyeon-dong at the foot of Namsan.55
Twenty minutes later Kim Jong-pil appeared,56 and Kim Jong-pil raised the issue of the column in the July issue of Sasanggye by Ham Sok-hon that indirectly criticized the May 16 military coup.57
Chang Jun-ha continued speaking.
In response to Chang Jun-ha's words, Kim Jong-pil hurriedly picked up the book he had pushed forward, opened the problematic article and the editorial, which were covered in red lines, read them to Chang line by line here and there, and thrust them at him.58 He demanded in a bullying tone what this was and whether this was advice, and Chang protested.58
Interested in Chang's answer, Kim Jong-pil pressed him persistently for details, and since Chang had nothing to hide, he gave a statement recounting his memories of Chang Do-yong, whom he usually found disagreeable.
Chang Jun-ha and Chang Do-yong were together in Xuzhou, China. There, Korean desertions occurred frequently, so surveillance and persecution of the student soldiers became severe. At that time Chang Do-yong drew a Japanese sword and fussed that he would be the first to execute anyone who tried to flee, and in the process he clashed with Chang Jun-ha. Then, when they were moved together to the Tsukada unit, where escape was difficult, the two became estranged over the "Rejection of Remnant Rations Movement" that Chang Jun-ha led.596061 Just because they shared a surname and came from neighboring hometowns did not mean they were in tune with each other.60 Although they were both from the Seobuk region, Chang Jun-ha could not endure being lumped together with him by the mention of Chang Do-yong's name.62
— Summary of Chang Jun-ha's statement
There was one more reason Kim Jong-pil might suspect a relationship between Chang Jun-ha and Chang Do-yong. Around this time, the Sasanggye company held a reception in the Crystal Palace (水晶宮) of Changgyeonggung to celebrate the publication of the 100-volume Sasang Library. Because of the international reputation of Sasanggye at the time, the American ambassador attended in person on July 4, which was the American Independence Day, and countless domestic and foreign distinguished guests gathered, and from the coup military, Chang Do-yong, chairman of the Supreme Council, and his entire faction all attended. At that time, no one came from the side of Park Chung-hee and Kim Jong-pil.5962 Then, on July 5, all of the Chang Do-yong faction were arrested.
In mid-July 1961, two weeks after Chang Jun-ha returned from Namsan, a summons came from the Disposal Committee for Illicit Wealth of the military regime, which was located at Seoul City Hall.63 When he visited the committee, a major of the army addressed him informally and interrogated him in an insulting manner.
Kim Yeong-seon, while trying to persuade Chang Jun-ha to take part in the work of the government by one means or another, heard about Chang's debts and promised that he, as finance minister, would take responsibility and arrange the money.64 Kim Yeong-seon, the finance minister of a government so poor that Chang Myon, the prime minister of the Cabinet, had to bring his own lunch box to work, boasted that he would settle the 30 million hwan debt of the Sasanggye company, but what he sent the next day through a messenger was 10 million hwan.64 Kim Yeong-seon's intention was "first to put out the urgent fire with this money, and I will try to arrange the rest somehow.64" However, Kim Yeong-seon did not raise any more money to send, and Chang Jun-ha also did not press him further.64 Nevertheless, because he had received the money, Chang answered truthfully. Still, the major's informal interrogation continued.
*Chang Jun-ha: Please change your manner of speaking. The other day I met Mr. Kim Jong-pil, and he did not speak to me the way you do. Why are you different here?
Major: What? Stop your nonsense and answer the question quickly!
Chang Jun-ha: I will. It is true that I received it, and it was 10 million hwan.
Major: Is that all? There should be more. Tell me straight. I'll kill every one of you.64
The major ordered his subordinates to "go to the Sasanggye company and seize all the documents and ledgers,64" and afterward handed him over to a civilian investigator. Kim Yeong-seon also, under interrogation, disclosed that he had given Chang Jun-ha 10 million hwan. Chang did not know where or how Kim Yeong-seon had obtained the money and sent it, but since Chang was not the type of person who would take someone else's money without repaying it, he had given the deed to the house he lived in as collateral for the 10 million hwan loan.65
After being handed over to the civilian investigator, Chang wrote the statement of circumstances as directed and left. However, on that day the military did not actually come to the Sasanggye company to take the ledgers.
However, Chang was summoned four more times over this matter. He was summoned once more to the Seoul City Hall Disposal Committee for Illicit Wealth, and once each to the Revolutionary Prosecutor's Office, the Revolutionary Court, and the Seoul Regional National Tax Service. Only after agreeing to repay the 10 million hwan by the end of 1961 did the summonses finally end.65 However, at that time Chang was buried under a mountain of debt, including the still-outstanding debts to Time and Life. His assets were seized, his residence was taken over, and he settled his debts in March 1962.65 The deed to the house that he had given to Kim Yeong-seon when receiving the 10 million hwan was never recovered, and the house was simply lost.65
Political purification law and transition to the opposition
In March 1962, when Chang paid 10 million hwan to the Seongdong Tax Office in Seoul, on March 16, 1962, the military government announced the Political Activities Purification Act. Chang was then banned from political activity under this Political Purification Act.66 That a man unconnected with politics was caught by the Political Purification Act was because he had been included among "corrupt journalists." Even though his house had been taken because of the 10 million hwan he had received from Kim Yeong-seon, he was included among the 4,734 people banned from political activity.66
For Chang, who had never considered entering politics, the Political Purification Act may seem irrelevant, but when newspapers reported that he had been labeled a corrupt journalist and bound by the Purification Act, the most sensitive reaction came from the readers of Sasanggye. As a result, sales dropped noticeably. The label of corrupt journalist was a humiliating yoke for Chang, and who would explain to the readers that it was not true, and even if someone did, once a rumor has spread it may not be easy to change people's minds.66 Afterward he politically supported Yun Bo-seon.
When Yun Bo-seon, Chang Taek-sang, Park Sun-cheon and others defined the Korea–Japan talks of the Park Chung-hee government as "humiliating diplomacy toward Japan" and launched a movement against the talks, Chang Jun-ha also joined their activities. Afterward, in March 1964, Chang Jun-ha and Sasanggye took the lead in the demonstrations against the Korea–Japan talks. When the Committee for the Struggle Against Humiliating Diplomacy toward Japan was established around Yun Bo-seon and Chang Taek-sang, from March 1964 onward he toured the country giving lectures as an invited speaker of the committee, and through some seventy speeches he criticized Park Chung-hee, Kim Jong-pil and the leading forces of the Korea–Japan talks.
In the presidential election, Chang Jun-ha argued that he could not tolerate a man who had served in the army of Japan's imperialist military becoming president.67 Chang Jun-ha judged that the Korea–Japan agreement of the Park Chung-hee government was a sellout negotiation carried out by a former officer of Japan's imperialist military with the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, a group of war criminals and aggressors, and in April 1964 he issued an emergency extra issue.11 "The Various Problems of the Korea–Japan Talks" became the textbook of the opposition camp against the Korea–Japan talks, critically reflecting the will of the intellectual class of this country who opposed the talks. Then, in July 1965, he published "An Analysis of the New Eulsa Treaty" as another emergency extra issue, which became the theoretical bridgehead of the opposition camp.11 The Park Chung-hee government sent back Sasanggye in a "return campaign," and in 1965 it carried out tax audits twice in a thorough manner, driving Sasanggye to the brink of death.1111
In 1966 the Saccharin smuggling scandal occurred. In the course of this, information leaked that there had been collusion between the ruling circles and Lee Byung-chul of Samsung, and the opposition parties and university students held nationwide denunciation rallies. On October 15, 1966, at a rally in the Suseong Stream in Daegu, organized by the Minjung Party as the "National Rally for Exposing and Denouncing the Smuggling of a Specific Chaebol," he attended as a speaker for the political address. At the rally, Chang Jun-ha exposed what had passed between the chaebol chairman and the high-ranking government officials, and criticized, saying, "The king of smugglers in our country is none other than Park Chung-hee." 11 Also, his remark that "President Johnson's visit to Korea is not to see how great Park Chung-hee is, but because he needs more of the blood of Korean youth" also drew attention.
As Chang Jun-ha harshly criticized Park Chung-hee and the chaebol, his remarks about Park as the "smuggling king" became a problem, and on October 26 he was arrested. He said that "as the head of the administration, he must take responsibility for the smuggling by a specific chaebol," and that "what I said about the receipt of political funds was based on the revealed facts and was my own opinion." On December 24 he requested that Park Chung-hee be called as a witness, but An U-man, judge of the 10th Single Division of the Seoul Criminal District Court, rejected the request. After being detained for one month, on December 30, 1966, he was released on bail, having been granted bail on conditions of a 50,000-won deposit and restriction of residence to his home. Afterward, at the final hearing on February 20, 1967, prosecutor Jeong Myeong-rae said, "Even if it is a political statement, insulting the head of state goes beyond the limits of freedom of the press," and demanded a sentence of two years in prison.68 On February 28 the court sentenced him to six months in prison, saying, "Even if it is a politician's political statement, it deserves regulation if it violates the statutory law," and "since there is no concrete evidence that can prove the truth of the content of the defendant's speech, intent can be recognized," but it maintained his bail.697071
Opposition unity and candidate unification campaign
In the 1967 election, after Park Chung-hee returned from a trip to Southeast Asia and the United States, he talked about the idea of selling young people to Vietnam, and for this he was arrested.72
In March 1967, to unify the opposition candidates, he arranged a four-party meeting (Paik Nak-joon–Yun Bo-seon–Yu Jin-o–Lee Beom-seok), but because of disagreements among the presidential candidates of each party, the coordination failed. Nevertheless, pursuing opposition unification, he joined the New Democratic Party and served as a member of the party's central steering committee and as chairman of the New Democratic Party 4th constituency committee in Seoul. In the 1967 National Assembly election, he ran with the nomination of the New Democratic Party, was elected, and served as a National Assembly member. In election speeches he criticized Park Chung-hee, saying, "Park Chung-hee swore loyalty to the Japanese emperor, became a Japanese army officer, and aimed his rifle at our Gwangbokgun. Park Chung-hee was a person who carried out underground activities in South Korea as the military organizer of the former South Korean Workers' Party, and to save his own life he sold out and sacrificed his organization members." In 1971 Chang Jun-ha edited his autobiography Dolbegae while looking back on his escape from the student soldier draft and his time in the Gwangbokgun. In publishing Dolbegae, he stated as the reason for writing it that it was a "testimony of modern history," and said, "It is also to make clear before history what some people who loudly claim to be from the Gwangbokgun actually did after wearing a Gwangbokgun cap." 11 In April 1967, during the opposition presidential election campaign, he was also imprisoned for one month for violating election law.73 In 1971 he founded the publishing house Sasangsa and published his autobiography Dolbegae.35
The 6th presidential election: opposition to the Vietnam War and outrage over the novel Gwangbokgun
During the campaign period of the 6th presidential election, Chang Jun-ha supported Yun Bo-seon.74Yun Bo-seon criticized the dispatch of troops to the Vietnam War during the campaign as a "contract war" of the United States,74 and Chang Jun-ha, who supported Yun Bo-seon, raised the suspicion of Park Chung-hee's pro-Japanese background as an issue, saying, "He swore loyalty to the Japanese emperor, became a Japanese army officer, and aimed his rifle at our independent Gwangbokgun."74 Yun Bo-seon and Chang Jun-ha criticized Park's decision to push ahead with sending troops to Vietnam as a treasonous act of selling the blood of young people in the name of national interest, and as a deceptive trick to divert public opinion.
Also, Chang Jun-ha criticized the dispatch of Vietnam troops, saying, "Our country's young people are being sold to South Vietnam, and the government is maintaining its power with money from selling their blood."74 According to Seo Jung-seok, at that time only Yun Bo-seon and Chang Jun-ha vehemently condemned the dispatch to Vietnam.75 In the 6th presidential election, he supported Yun Bo-seon, and while touring to campaign for him, his remarks regarding "pro-Japanese collaborators" became a problem, and in April 1967 he was arrested for violating the election law during the presidential campaign76 and imprisoned for three months. He was released in July 1967. Even after his release, he continued to oppose the dispatch of Korean troops to the Vietnam War.
Chang Jun-ha, a veteran of the Gwangbokgun, became outraged over the novel Gwangbokgun (author Park Yeong-man), which came out in time for the 1967 presidential election. It was because the novel transformed the pro-Japanese Park Chung-hee into a secret Gwangbokgun member. In 1967, Chang campaigned for the opposition presidential candidate Yun Bo-seon across the country and kept criticizing the book. It is also mentioned in Ko Sang-man's book What the KCIA Recorded About Chang Jun-ha. "Right now, in some quarters, there is a book written claiming that the presidential candidate Park Chung-hee was in the Gwangbokgun, but it is all a lie. Because I was in the Gwangbokgun, I know exactly. At that time he was serving as a Japanese army officer in Manchuria." In response to such remarks, the Central Intelligence Agency at that time recorded all of Chang Jun-ha's statements in its important situation reports.77
Chang Jun-ha, who had escaped from the Japanese army and joined the Gwangbokgun, explained as follows how Manchurian and Japanese army veterans were incorporated into the Gwangbokgun in China (Manchuria) upon liberation. 《What saddened us even more was a new fact. Until just before Japan's surrender, everyone from interpreters to opium peddlers wandering the front lines and the pimps of Japanese army brothels, overnight put on a Gwangbokgun cap and called themselves independence activists, exiles, and revolutionaries, a sight beyond description. Moreover, the people most eager to confiscate the property of compatriots in the same foreign land were usually these very people, and the Gwangbokgun itself was divided into the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd detachments and showed signs of conflict. (……) Under such conditions, regardless of their past, the names of independence activists were handed out indiscriminately. Whoever came in was welcomed with honor(?) and given a Gwangbokgun cap.》78
In November 1967 he entered the National Assembly and began his legislative activities. During his time in the National Assembly, Chang Jun-ha served as a member of the National Assembly's economics and science subcommittee and as a member of the National Assembly's national defense subcommittee. As he engaged in legislative activities, on January 1, 1968, he temporarily entrusted the publisher position of Sasanggye to Bu Wan-hyeok.
On April 19, 1969, after giving a lecture commemorating the tenth anniversary of April 19, he also staged a silent protest.
Fourth Republic
Participation in the founding of the National Party
In around February 1970, he began pushing a movement to form a new party in order to unite new political forces. In 1970, when Yun Posun and other members of the old faction of the Democratic Party left the New Democratic Party, Jang Jun-ha also left the New Democratic Party and served for a time as an independent legislator. On January 6, 1971, he took part, together with Yun Posun, Park Ki-chul and others, in founding the National People's Party (國民黨).79 Ahead of the 1971 presidential election, when Kim Dae-jung was selected as the New Democratic Party's presidential candidate, Yun Posun protested, left the New Democratic Party, and founded the National People's Party together with Park Ki-chul and Jang Jun-ha.
Ahead of the presidential election, he and Yun Posun espoused nationalism, founded the National People's Party, and came to exert considerable influence over young students.80 In the 1971 presidential election, Yun Posun ran as a presidential candidate. However, instead of withdrawing his candidacy, he decided to yield it to another politician.81 At that time, among the opposition forces across the political spectrum, in the name of unifying the opposition candidate, opposition figures repeatedly asked him to withdraw his candidacy in favor of a single candidate. Jang Jun-ha zealously supported Yun Posun and toured the country to campaign on his behalf.
Meanwhile, Yun Posun, who was chairman of the National People's Party, did not like Jang Jun-ha very much, and so he nominated Park Ki-chul, who had once participated in the Progressive Party, as the presidential candidate.81 Although Jang Jun-ha was at one point also considered as an alternative to the National People's Party's candidate, one reason Yun Posun regarded him with disfavor was that he had once served as secretary to Kim Gu, then passed through Yi Beom-seok's Korean Youth Association, and was recruited by Chang Myon. Nevertheless, regardless of Yun Posun's negative view, Jang Jun-ha worked hard to support him. However, the National People's Party was forcibly dissolved after the October Yushin.
Around the October Yushin
In 1972, he joined the National Council for the Protection of Democracy. When the July 4 South-North Joint Statement was announced on July 4, 1972, Jang Jun-ha welcomed it, saying that "all unification is good."
The Path of a Nationalist
Is all unification good? Yes. There is no supreme mandate higher than unification. If the nation divided by unification becomes one, and if that is the advance of national history, then naturally all valuable things must be realized within it. Communism, of course, and democracy, equality, freedom, prosperity, welfare—all of these cannot attain true substance as long as they remain concepts opposed to unification. When all truths, all morals, and all goods are opposed to unification, they are false pretexts, not truth.
If, in accordance with the demands of the great powers surrounding the Korean Peninsula—the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan, and China—North and South Korea are frozen into peaceful coexistence and effectively abandon efforts toward unification beyond that, the division of the nation will become even more permanent and will race in the direction opposite to unification. National unification is, from beginning to end, the work of the people. Unification is a sentimental longing, but it is also directly connected to our daily lives, day by day.
Is all unification good? Yes. There is no supreme mandate higher than unification.
He warned that the hidden background of the July 4 South-North Joint Statement must also be watched, and in fact the statement revealed itself to be humiliating talks with North Korea. However, he refused the position of South-North talks representative offered by Park Chung Hee. Park Chung Hee repeatedly proposed that he continue to serve as the representative for South-North talks, and offered him a national merit award and a pension, but he refused.
In February 1973, Jang Jun-ha took part in founding the Democratic Unification Party and was elected to its Supreme Council. In 1973, he was indicted on charges of criticizing the emergency decrees as an infringement of basic rights and arguing that the constitution needed to be amended, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison and 15 years' suspension of civil rights.82 In March, he received the nomination of the Democratic Unification Party for the 9th National Assembly general election, and ran as a Unification Party candidate, but lost.
Release from prison and hospitalization
On December 24, 1973, he suddenly launched the Headquarters for the Movement to Petition for Constitutional Revision at the YMCA building and conducted a "one million signatures campaign for constitutional revision." As a result, in April 1974 he was arrested for violating Emergency Decree No. 1, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison and 15 years' suspension of civil rights on the charge of "dividing the nation's opinion and creating social unrest under the pretext of constitutional revision." However, in December of that year, he was released through suspension of execution of his sentence due to the worsening of his heart angina and cirrhosis of the liver.
After being released from prison after 10 months and 20 days due to high blood pressure, angina and other conditions, he was hospitalized in Room 203 of Jo Gwang-hyeon Internal Medicine Clinic in Gyeonggi-dong, Jongno-gu.83
Immediately after his release, besides his wife Kim Hee-sook and family, Kim Ok-gil and others visited him at the prison, and after he was hospitalized, he was visited by Ham Sok-hon.83
Final years
Attempted plot
In April 1975, he left the Democratic Unification Party.35 A few days before his death on August 17, 1975, he donated the Taegukgi flag of the Provisional Government in Chongqing, which he had kept for more than thirty years, to a university museum, and he suddenly held a Catholic-style wedding ceremony with his wife, and visited the graves of Baekbeom and of his parents at Mangu-ri to pay his respects. It is said that he hurried to settle his personal affairs like a man about to undertake something important.84
In 1975, Jang Jun-ha met with Kim Dae-jung, whom he had not usually met, and made contact with Ham Sok-hon and Hong Nam-soon, and planned some kind of plot for August 15, the 30th anniversary of Liberation Day. By chance, Kim Young-sam was traveling in Southeast Asia, so the plan was postponed until August 20, after he returned.85 Jang Jun-ha's son Jang Ho-kwon testifies that at that time "something enormous" was being planned, and that Jang Jun-ha said, "It is beyond the power of the people to bring down Park Chung Hee, so we must remove Park even through guerrilla warfare. We have considerable connections within the military."8687 Also, in April 1976, when he himself was subjected to an assassination attempt, the U.S. ambassador to Korea, Habib, is said to have visited him and said, "What your father wanted to achieve will be achieved, so take care of yourself and wait."88
Given these circumstances, it seems certain that Jang Jun-ha was planning some kind of plot that would encompass the entire opposition and the non-establishment forces and that some elements of the military would support, and, judging from various testimonies, that it was scheduled for around August 20.89 Furthermore, Jang Jun-ha met with Kim Jae-gyu, with whom he had a personal connection while serving as a National Assembly member,90 and Kim Jae-gyu, who was then commander of the 2nd Corps, was moved by Jang Jun-ha's activities in the National Defense Committee and his integrity, and after Jang Jun-ha's death had Park Sun-ho look after his family.9192 At the end of 1976, Kim Jae-gyu summoned Jang Ho-kwon to Namsan and told him, "The truth about your father's death will someday come to light," and about three months before October 26, he recommended that he go to the United States.8693 In an interview with a news outlet in November 2005, Jang Ho-kwon claimed that the military collaborators included in Jang Jun-ha's plan were people such as Kim Jae-gyu, and that it was certain that the October 26 incident was also influenced by Jang Jun-ha.94
Death
On August 17, 1975, as the surveillance by the Park Chung Hee government grew even stricter, Jang Jun-ha invited his aide Lim Chun-won, who was then secretly helping liaise with Kim Dae-jung and other opposition figures in connection with the plot against the Yushin regime, to his home and had breakfast with him. After the meal, Jang Jun-ha, together with about 40 members of the Horim Mountaineering Club, arrived at the entrance of Yaksa Valley in Idong-myeon, Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, and climbed Yaksa Peak. Then that afternoon, his body was discovered below a cliff stretching from Yaksa Peak toward Yaksa Valley by Kim Yong-hwan and members of the Horim Mountaineering Club.95 After a formal accident investigation and recovery of the body that day, the body was handed over to the family.
Lim Chun-won was a wealthy man who had established and operated the Sangatap Academy in Jongno, Seoul, in the 1960s and amassed a large fortune. He had secretly helped financially with the publication of Jang Jun-ha's Sasanggye, and after suffering hardship from the repression of the Park Chung Hee government, became a close associate of Jang Jun-ha. According to his testimony, Jang Jun-ha said that he had entered the Catholic Church and that he had donated the Provisional Government's Taegukgi flag and other items to the museum of Ewha Womans University, and he showed the palm of his hand, cracked from mowing the grass, saying that he had recently visited his parents' graves at Mangu-ri. However, the wound on this palm was later distorted and announced by the police as evidence supporting the account of his fall, claiming that it was caused by Jang Jun-ha grabbing a pine branch while falling down the mountain.84
"When August comes, my heart flutters. August has Liberation Day, and you loved August, the month of our nation's liberation, so much. But regrettably, you departed in sorrow on August 17, 1975, in a corner of the steep Yaksa Valley in Idong-myeon, Dopyeong 3-ri, Pocheon-gun, Gyeonggi-do. On the day you left, in the morning you called me to your home and we had breakfast together. That day was extremely hot. Your wife, who did not even fan herself much, set up a strange electric fan and turned it on, and even the clattering sound it made seemed to make it hotter. You showed me your palm and said that you had visited the grave at Mangu-ri a few days before, and showed me your palm, which was cracked. But a few days later, I saw the distorted news reports saying that while you were hiking you slipped and fell down the mountain and your palm was cracked from grabbing a pine tree as you fell, and I still vividly remember how I protested those absurd reports and was arrested again and held for a week at Namdaemun Police Station. That morning you also said something else. Whether it was fifteen days before or twenty-some days before, I am not sure, but you said you had given everything you had related to independence, such as the Taegukgi flag and the items you had received from Kim Gu, to Ewha Womans University. You also said that you had entered the Presbyterian Church. I thought this was very strange. Why would someone who had been so deeply immersed in Christian faith enter the Presbyterian Church? And even after you passed away, I have still wondered why, a few days before you so emptily left us, you donated all the precious things you had cherished during your life to a school and entered the Presbyterian Church." Lim Chun-won, Ttoo [The Lamp That Breathes Within Me], from the collection of tributes "Ah, Jang Jun-ha," Jang Jun-ha Memorial Project Association.84
Aftermath
The body, transported by the family, was placed on August 18 in the morning in a wake room set up in the main room of the family home in Sangbong-dong. Ham Sok-hon, Yang Ho-min, Kim Jun-yeop, Gye Hun-je and others, who received news of his death, kept vigil from August 17. On August 18, politicians including Kim Dae-jung, Yang Il-dong, Go Heung-mun, and Chung Il-hyung, as well as Kim Ok-gil, president of Ewha Womans University, and Professor Kim Dong-gil, and more than a hundred people, visited the wake. New Democratic Party chairman Kim Young-sam was abroad, so he sent a floral tribute.96
On the morning of August 21 at 8 a.m., a family funeral service was held at the home. Afterward, the remains were moved by hearse to the Presbyterian Church, and at 10 a.m. a funeral service was held, conducted by pastors. At this funeral, held jointly by the old and new political establishments, figures from various fields, including Paek Nak-jun, Yu Chin-o, Kim Young-sam, Kim Dae-jung, Park Soon-cheon, Ham Sok-hon, Yang Il-dong, Kim Hong-il, Kim Jun-yeop, Kim Dong-gil, Chun Kwan-woo and others, along with about 1,500 citizens, attended. After the funeral service, the remains passed through Shicheong-ap, the National Assembly building, and Joongang Cheong, then passed in front of Seodaemun Prison, and were interred at the Nazareth Cemetery in Gwangtan-myeon, Paju-gun, Gyeonggi Province.97
One week after Jang Jun-ha's death, members of the Horim Mountaineering Club and acquaintances held a memorial climbing event at the accident site. One month later, on September 17, a monument unveiling ceremony was held at the accident site, attended by about 80 scholars and comrades in the democratization movement. The inscription on the monument reads as follows:
Alas, Mr. Jang Jun-ha!
Here, in this silent valley, is where the great leader of the struggle to regain stolen democracy, of a society where all live well, of national independence and peace, and of the unification movement, Jang Jun-ha, died in grief. Young people who share his aspirations carved this stone with their bare hands and erected this monument. Though the stones and roots cannot speak, far in the future they will surely bear witness correctly to the meaning of the "stone pillow."
In August 1985, the "Tenth Anniversary Memorial Event for Mr. Jang Jun-ha" was held. After the inauguration of the Roh Tae-woo administration, on August 15, 1991, he was posthumously awarded the Order of National Foundation, Patriot Medal, and on April 15, 1993, he was posthumously awarded the first Hanshin Prize.
On August 16, 1995, a 20th anniversary memorial event and a publication celebration for a memorial anthology were held. On November 1, 1999, he was posthumously awarded the Geumgwan Culture Medal.
On August 17, 2012, Jang Jun-ha Park was built in Seongdong-ri, Tanhyeon-myeon, Paju-si, and before its opening, Jang Jun-ha's remains were relocated on August 1 from the Nazareth Catholic Cemetery to the park.98
Evaluation
Positive evaluations
Ahn Byung-wook, in "The Power of the Sword and the Power of the Pen" (Sasanggye, December 1969 issue), wrote the following:11 "Sasanggye confronted the sword with the pen. It approached the bastion of power with the weapon of intellect. Sasanggye had the message of enlightenment and the language of criticism. It had the cry of freedom resisting dictatorship and the brush of civil rights confronting state authority."11 Ham Sok-hon, in an essay titled "Stone Pillow and Peniel," evaluated Jang Jun-ha, saying, "If you look at Jang Jun-ha's character, there is something of Jacob of the Old Testament. He abundantly possesses the virtue of fearlessness (無畏), which is indispensable for becoming a true person. He has no fear. He fears nothing."11
Kim Jun-yeop, a professor at Korea University and a friend of Jang Jun-ha, cited a Chinese magazine called New Youth and said that Sasanggye persistently pursued liberty and civil rights, the question of unification, economic development, the creation of a new culture, and a just welfare society, and that with Sasanggye at its center, the leading intellectuals of our country gathered and left a great mark on modern history.11
Ji Myeong-gwan highly praised Sasanggye for establishing a tradition of engagement (engagement) among Korean intellectuals. He said, "I think someone like Jang Jun-ha will never again exist in our country's history."11 The English literature scholar Yeo Seok-gi said that Sasanggye was a "good magazine" and a "magazine that sold well," and added, "I find it hard to believe such a case will happen again in the future."11 The media scholar Jeong Jin-seok assessed that from the 1950s through the 1960s, Sasanggye was the representative of Korean magazines, and that Jang Jun-ha, as the foremost figure among magazine journalists, left epoch-making achievements for the development of our country's press and democracy.11
Meanwhile, in a survey conducted by Hankyoreh 21, he was highly rated for having carried on the tradition of nationalism after the August 15 Liberation,99 and for having founded Sasanggye in the barren intellectual climate of the 1950s and 1960s and exerting a great influence on the intellectuals of the time.99
Negative evaluations
Kang Won-yong said that although he deserves respect, his activities such as Sasanggye had strong political aims.36 He said that he founded Sasanggye and others for political purposes, and that after the launch of the Third Republic he changed his political goal to opposing Park Chung Hee.36 Meanwhile, there is also a critical view of his support for the May 16 military coup in its early stages.100 There is also criticism that he "clung to Kim Gu, then to Chang Myon, and then followed Yun Posun and enthusiastically engaged in the color-politics controversy."101
Moreover, although Jang Jun-ha was so incorruptible that he cut off ties with Yi Beom-seok when Yi Beom-seok rose to power through the Korean National Youth League, despite Yi having been his commander during the independence army days,102 on the other hand he once made an irrational accusation that Kim Won-bong was attempting to bribe Korean youths who had escaped from the Japanese army through honey traps.103104 Behind this appears to be an anticommunist perspective influenced by his time as secretary to Kim Gu. Furthermore, he was such an anal-retentive anti-Japanese that he refused to run advertisements for Yamaha pianos because they were Japanese products,105 yet he established the Dongin Literary Award in honor of Kim Tong-in, a representative pro-Japanese writer,106 and in the December 1957 issue of Sasanggye he published a memorial issue for Choe Nam-seon, also a pro-Japanese figure, and wrote an introductory editorial praising Choe as a "close friend and a revered teacher,"107 displaying behavior that is difficult to understand. Jang Jun-ha's contradictory conduct shows that his perspective was somewhat distorted, and can be regarded as the inevitable limit of an anticommunist intellectual during the Cold War era.
Other
Besides Yun Posun, Chang Myon, Lee Chul-seung, Yu Chin-san, Kim Young-sam, and Kim Dae-jung, he was regarded as one of the strongest political rivals of Park Chung Hee during the Third and Fourth Republics, and some people even gave him the nickname "shadow president" (재야 대통령), in contrast to Park Chung Hee, the sitting president.
Jang Ho-jun, a pastor who is the son of Jang Jun-ha and resides in Connecticut, USA, wrote an open letter to Park Ji-man, the son of Park Chung Hee and younger brother of Park Geun-hye. "A letter from the son of Jang Jun-ha to Park Ji-man"108
Discovery of military service records
To seek the truth behind the claim that Jang Jun-ha and others deserted the Imperial Japanese Army, in 2004 Uri Party National Assembly member Jeon Byeong-heon personally investigated materials on the Japanese army side and uncovered evidence of Jang Jun-ha's desertion from the Japanese army as well as his military service record (yusu myeongbu). This was disclosed to the press at the National Assembly Political Affairs Committee in October 2004.
At that time, Uri Party National Assembly member Jeon Byeong-heon said on the 6th, "A record was discovered in the Yusu Myeongbu (留守名簿) that Mr. Jang Jun-ha was conscripted as a Japanese student soldier in January 1944, and on July 7 of that year escaped from Xuzhou in China, arrived in Chongqing after a great march of 6,000 li, and joined the Korean Liberation Army," and stated that "this record also matches the account in Mr. Jang's autobiography Stone Pillow." Through this, the records of Mr. Jang Jun-ha's conscription into the Japanese army and his escape were made public. 0
According to the materials disclosed by Representative Jeon, the name of Mr. Jang Jun-ha found in the Yusu Myeongbu (Hariyasu Shunga, 張安俊河), his unit (Unit 7991), date and place of birth and registered domicile (258 Daegwan-dong, Oenam-myeon, Samju-gun, Pyeongan-bukdo), his father's name (Jang Seok-in, 張錫仁), his category of service and branch of service and rank, the deposit number, and at the top the date and place of escape, are all recorded. The "Yusu Myeongbu," which consists of 114 volumes in total, is the roster of soldiers and civilian employees dispatched overseas by the Imperial Japanese Army, and records the date and place of escape (desertion), separation, death, and other cases of persons who went missing, and the records of Korean soldiers who deserted or escaped from the Japanese army are separately organized at the back of each volume.
According to the service record, on January 20, 1944 (Showa 19), he was assigned to Unit 7991 of the Japanese army's 65th Division, and it appears that on July 7 of the same year he deserted at Xuzhou (徐州) in Jiangsu (江蘇省), China. The roster notes at the top "Desertion (逃亡) Xuzhou," thereby revealing Mr. Jang's desertion.5 This matches what Jang Jun-ha himself revealed in his autobiography Stone Pillow during his lifetime.5
Right after his escape from the Imperial Japanese Army in 1944, Jang Jun-ha and Kim Jun-yeop and others rejected an offer to recruit them. However, Kim Won-bong continued to send people to persuade them, and Jang Jun-ha says that Kim Won-bong schemed to sow discord among the Japanese army deserters and student soldiers. "When they realized that the persuasion efforts by the branch commander dispatched as Kim Yak-san's subordinate had failed, they immediately began a campaign to sow discord among us."18 That is how he put it.
Jang Jun-ha stated that in recruiting Japanese army and student soldier deserters, "the Kim Won-bong faction even resorted to honey traps."110 He also accused Kim Won-bong of devising schemes to undermine the trust in the Korean Liberation Army, stating, "Kim Won-bong diligently applied anti-trust tactics against the Provisional Government and the Korean Liberation Army to the units of former Japanese army personnel."33
Jang Jun-ha also doubted Kim Won-bong's intentions in forming a unified national party. "Kim Yak-san, at that time, though serving as deputy leader of the Korean National Revolutionary Party, which he led with Dr. Kim Kyu-sik as its nominal head, was already one of the communists of the standard type. Perhaps he founded the Korean National Revolutionary Party in order to join a coalition government cabinet."18 That is what he said. He evaluated Kim Won-bong negatively, and when Kim Won-bong defected to North Korea, his claims gained credibility.
Furthermore, Jang Jun-ha raised suspicions that Kim Won-bong sowed discord even immediately after the Liberation in 1945. He claimed that Kim tried to exploit the ignorance and misconduct of Korean Liberation Army members. "It was Kim Won-bong's calculation to fan distrust of the Provisional Government and the Korean Liberation Army within the units of former Japanese army personnel, and to reap the benefit from it."33 He said that, to bring into the 1st Brigade of the Korean Liberation Army the unit of former Japanese army personnel whose leader, a man named Hwang, had refused to be incorporated into the Korean Liberation Army, Kim Won-bong personally dispatched Yi So-min to carry out the maneuver.33 Jang Jun-ha also stated that "Kim Won-bong diligently applied anti-trust tactics against the Provisional Government and the Korean Liberation Army to units of Japanese army origin."33
Education
Graduated from Gyodong Elementary School in Seonchon, North Pyongan Province (completed)
Graduated from Daegwan Common School in Samju, North Pyongan Province
1941: At the urging of his friend, marathon runner Kim Ik-jun, decided to study in Japan, and went to study in Tokyo.
April 1941: Entered the preparatory course of Toyo University.
November 1943: Married Kim Hee-sook (then 17), a former student from his days at Sinan Elementary School and the daughter of his boarding house. It was also partly intended to prevent her from being taken away as a "comfort woman" (jeongsindae).
January 1945: Joined the Korean Liberation Army in Chongqing, China, was commissioned as a captain in the Korean Liberation Army, and devoted himself to the independence struggle.
August 18, 1945: Entered Seoul as a member of the Korean independence army, but was blocked by the Japanese army and returned.
April 26, 1946: Joined the Korean Youth Association founded by Kim Kyu-sik. However, he soon left the Korean Youth Association and moved to the National Youth Corps of Yi Beom-seok.
June 1967: Elected as a National Assembly member for Seoul Dongdaemun Eul district while in prison.
February 1970: Pushed a new party movement to unite new national forces.
April 1970: Left the New Democratic Party together with Yun Posun and others when they left the party, after which he served as an independent National Assembly member. Published his book Stone Pillow.
1970: Took part, together with Yun Posun, Park Ki-chul and others, in founding the pro-government National People's Party.
1971: Took part in the "National Council for the Protection of Democracy."
Even after his death, his family continued to suffer pressure from the government of Park Chung-hee. His eldest son, Jang Ho-gwon, was attacked in 1976 and was hospitalized for a time. Pressure from intelligence agencies also made it difficult for him to find employment, which led to the family being scattered. On the other hand, Kim Jae-gyu, who was director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency at the end of the Park Chung-hee administration, provided some favors to the bereaved family, such as recommending that they move to the United States.115 In 2012, Jang Ho-gwon testified that he and his elderly mother were living in a monthly-rent apartment in Ilwon-dong and were struggling financially, relying on a pension of about 1 million won per month.116 In response, the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs stated that, under Article 6 of the Enforcement Decree of the Act on the Honorable Treatment of Persons of National Merit, the widow was receiving compensation of 1,431,000 won per month, and that the Ilwon-dong apartment was a house supplied under special allocation pursuant to the same act.117
Family
Both paternal aunts were older than Jang Jun-ha's father, Jang Seok-in.
Daughter-in-law: Shin Jeong-ja (1948 – 27 May 2022)
Granddaughter: Jang Won-gyeong (1976 – 28 October 2021)
Granddaughter: Jang Won-hui (1986 – )
Second son: Jang Ho-seong (張豪誠, 1952 – )
Daughter-in-law: Mun Ju-ja (文珠子, 1951 – )
Granddaughter: Jang Jeong-a (張晶雅, 1977 – )
Grandson: Jang Hyeon-uk (張賢煜, 1980 – )
Eldest daughter: Jang Ho-gyeong (張豪瓊, 1955 – )
Son-in-law: Han Yeong-sang (韓永相, 1952 – 2006)
Maternal granddaughter: Han Ji-yeon (1978 – )
Maternal granddaughter: Han Ga-yeon (1980 – )
Second daughter: Jang Ho-yeon (張豪姸, 1957 – )
Son-in-law: Yang Chung-heon (梁忠憲, 1949 – )
Maternal grandson: Yang Seok-min (1980 – )
Maternal grandson: Yang Seok-jin (1982 – )
Third son: Jang Ho-jun (張豪峻, 1958 – ), Pastor of Yukon Stores Korean Church, a United Church of Christ (UCC) congregation in Connecticut, United States / Chairman of the "Migrant Hope Alliance for a World Where People Live Well" (사람 사는 세상을 위한 미주희망연대)118
Daughter-in-law: Kwon Hye-won (權惠媛, 1958 – )
Granddaughter: Jang Hae-ni (張海馜, 1982 – )
Father-in-law: Kim Jun-deok (金俊德)
Mother-in-law: No Seon-sam (盧仙三), a Catholic whose baptismal name was Veronica
Jang Jun-ha, 《장준하 문집 3권, 사상계지 수난사》 (by Jang Jun-ha; edited by the Committee for the 10th Anniversary Memorial Collection of Jang Jun-ha, August 1985, Doso Ch'ulp'an Sasang), chronology, p. 473 ↩
Park Kyung-soo (2006). 《장준하(민족주의자의 길)》. Dolbegae. p. 165. ↩
Jang Jun-ha, 《장준하 문집 3권, 사상계지 수난사》 (by Jang Jun-ha; edited by the Committee for the 10th Anniversary Memorial Collection of Jang Jun-ha, August 1985, Doso Ch'ulp'an Sasang), chronology, p. 474 ↩↩2↩3↩4↩5↩6
This is presumed to have initially been caused by disappointment with and weariness of the factional struggle between the old and new factions within the Second Republic of South Korea ruling party, the Democratic Party (the forces of Yun Bo-seon and the forces of Chang Myon).43 ↩
시사인물사전 7 (by Kang Jun-man et al., Inmul gwa Sasangsa, 2000) p. 150 ↩↩2↩3↩4↩5↩6↩7↩8↩9
시사인물사전 7 (by Kang Jun-man et al., Inmul gwa Sasangsa, 2000) p. 149 ↩
Institute for Korean Historical Studies, 1950년대 남북한의 선택과 굴절 (Yeoksa Bipyeongsa, 1998) p. 183 ↩↩2↩3↩4↩5↩6
Yu Kyung-hwan, 〈기둥 잘린 나무―사상계 15년 소사〉, 《광복 50년과 장준하》 (Committee for the 20th Anniversary Memorial Collection of Jang Jun-ha, 1995), p. 276 ↩
His ancestral seat was Andong. During the Japanese colonial period, he worked in education and volunteered as a student soldier for the Imperial Japanese Army12. In January 1944 he was assigned to the 7991st Unit of the 65th Division, but in July of that year he escaped from Xuzhou, Jiangsu, and after receiving training at the Central Military Academy in China he became a warrant officer in the National Revolutionary Army.
In 1945 he went to the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in Chongqing, Sichuan, China, and from February 1945 served as a second lieutenant in the Korean Liberation Army. While serving in the Korean Liberation Army, he worked with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor of the US CIA, and for three months took part in operations to infiltrate Korea. While waiting to be secretly sent back into Korea as a special operative, he was there when Korea was liberated on 15 August 1945. In November 1945 he returned to Korea as part of the first group of the Provisional Government, and afterward served as secretary to , and also worked with 's .
After the establishment of the Republic of Korea government, he was hired as a civil servant in the First Republic and appointed as a secretary. In 1950 he served as an officer in charge of national spiritual enlightenment at the Ministry of Education, and in 1952 he served as planning section chief, general affairs section chief, and secretary-general of the Ministry of Education's National Thought Research Institute. He founded the magazine 《Sasanggye》 and in 1956 established the Dongin Literary Award. 《Sasanggye》 criticized the Liberal Party government of the time and became the starting point of the April 19 Revolution. After the revolution, under the Second Republic, he served as a member of the University Education Council of the Ministry of Education under the Chang Myon cabinet, planning chief of the National Construction Corps, and head of the National Construction Corps.
After the May 16 coup, he took part in the movement opposing the Korea-Japan talks and the movement opposing the deployment of troops to the Vietnam War. During the 6th presidential election, while campaigning in support of Yun Po-son, he raised the issue of Park Chung-hee's past as a pro-Japanese collaborator and member of the South Workers' Party, and for this he served prison time for violating election law3. Afterward he worked in the New Democratic Party and, together with Yun Po-son, in the National Party. From 1967 he served as a 7th National Assembly member and was active in the National Defense Committee. In 1974 he was indicted for violating Presidential Emergency Decree No. 1 and sentenced to 15 years in prison and 15 years of suspension of civil rights, but on 24 January 2013 the Seoul Central District Court panel handed down a not-guilty verdict4.
In 1975, while preparing some kind of plot to oppose the Park Chung-hee government, he met a mysterious death on 17 August at Yaksabong in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province.
His alias was Kim Sin-cheol (金信鐵), and his Japanese-style name change name was "Hariyasu Shunka" (張安俊河)5.
생애
어린 시절
출생과 가계
He was born in 1915 in Yeonha-dong, Goseong-myeon, Uiju County, North P'yŏngan Province, as the eldest son among four sons and one daughter of Jang Seok-in (張錫仁) and Kim Kyeong-mun (金京文). Jang Seok-in was a Presbyterian pastor. Around the age of three, the family moved to Sakju County, and Jang's family registered its residence in Sakju until they left for South Korea after liberation. His grandfather, Jang Yun-hui (張潤熙), reportedly placed great hopes in him. His younger siblings included Jang Ik-ha, Jang Myeong-ha (張明河), Jang Chang-ha (張昌河), and a younger sister, Jang Yeong-ha (張英河). His grandfather Jang Yun-hui was an early enlightenment-minded figure who embraced Christianity and became a Protestant elder. A highly learned intellectual, the grandfather was well versed in Confucian classical learning, could speak Chinese, and worked as a traditional Korean doctor and a Sinologist. He also founded a private school called Yangseong School (陽成學校) in his hometown of Uiju, where he served as a teacher and instructed students.
It is said that Jang Yun-hui did not wear a topknot, and he studied Neo-Confucianism in order to take the civil service examinations. Under the influence of new learning, he became a Christian, and he evangelized his family, establishing a Christian household. Later, with his deep faith, he raised his son to become a Protestantpastor, and this influence extended to his son Jang Seok-in and his grandson Jang Jun-ha. Although Jang Jun-ha came from a family of Christian devotees, he later converted to Catholicism following his future wife, Kim Hui-suk.
In 1920, his father Jang Seok-in, who had joined the independence movement and was pursued by Japanesepolice, left Uiju County and moved to Sakju County. Jang Seok-in, who was also an educator, used his own money to establish Daegwan Kindergarten. Later, Lee Yeong-hee is said to have attended this Daegwan Kindergarten.
When he turned thirteen, he entered the fifth grade at Daegwan Public School in Sakju.9 In 1933 he graduated from Daegwan Public School in Sakju (朔州) and then enrolled at Soongsil Middle School in Pyongyang Prefecture, where his father had worked as a teacher.
Later, when his father became chaplain of Sinsung Middle School in Sŏnch'ŏn, Jang transferred with his father to Sinsung Middle School in Sŏnch'ŏn. In 1937, when the principal of Sinsung Middle School, Chang Ri-uk, was arrested in connection with the Dongwoo Club incident, Jang mobilized student representatives to launch a joint protest campaign demanding the principal's release, and as a result he was briefly jailed. His father, Jang Seok-in, resigned from his post as a teacher at Sinsung Middle School in accordance with his Christian conscience, refusing shrine worship, and then served as an evangelist.
교사생활과 도일 유학
In March 1938, after graduating from Sinsung Middle School, Jang planned to enter Soongsil College and become a Protestant minister like his father. However, when Soongsil College was closed due to a movement to refuse shrine worship, he took up a post as a teacher at Sinan Elementary School in Jeongju, North P'yŏngan Province (Jeongju), and worked as a teacher there for three years. Afterward, at the urging of his friend, marathon runner Kim Ik-jun, he resolved to study in Japan, quit his teaching job, and went to study in Japan.10
In 1940 Jang went to Japan, and in April 1941 he passed through the preparatory course of the philosophy department at Toyo University, and in April 1942 he entered Japan Theological Seminary, affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. When Jang entered, Chon Taek-bu, Moon Ik-hwan, Kim Kwan-seok, Park Bong-rang, and others were also at the same school.911 While studying at Japan Theological Seminary, Jang also served as a member of the committee of Sukdeok Church (Presbyterian Church of Korea (Tonghap)), led by his senior, pastorPark Yeong-chul.
In November 1943, Jang married Kim Hui-suk, the eldest daughter of Kim Jun-deok and No Seon-sam, who had been his student at Sinan Elementary School and lived in the same village. Kim Hui-suk's family came under the attention of the Government-General of Korea because her father, Kim Jun-deok, had fled to China. Kim Hui-suk informed Jang of this situation. Convinced that marriage was the way to protect Kim Hui-suk, Jang returned to Korea immediately after receiving her letter and married her.12 The wedding ceremony took place on January 5, 1944.
청년기
일본군 입대와 탈출
In 1943, Jang refused to join the Imperial Japanese Army and went to the train station to see off his friend Choi Ki-il, who was being taken away under the Labor Mobilization Ordinance. Evading Japanese police surveillance, he saw off Choi Ki-il together with a small number of friends, including Kim Chang-jeong (金昌禎).
During the Japanese colonial period, Jang was known to have been forcibly conscripted by the Japanese.1314 However, his hometown friend Choi Ki-il stated that Jang had volunteered.15Choi Ki-il strongly tried to dissuade Jang from joining the Japanese army, but he did not listen and volunteered to enlist as a student soldier.15
Later, according to Choi Ki-il, he recalled that Jang "was waiting to be enlisted in the Imperial Japanese Army, as if he had some purpose in mind."15 Jang himself also stated that he had volunteered. He explained his reasons for volunteering in his autobiography Dolbegae (돌베개). "Mr. Jang, who attended Japan Theological Seminary in Tokyo, said, 'I entrusted myself to that so-called volunteering in order to bear our family's misfortune alone,'" he recalled. "His father was a Protestant minister who refused Japan's shrine worship and was a person under close watch by the Japanese occupiers. To avoid being conscripted as a student soldier would have meant oppression of his family and those around him, such as his fiancée being taken away to the Jeongsindae, so he volunteered for student soldier service."16 This is his explanation. In addition, he had hoped that, after volunteering as a student soldier, if he were dispatched only to China, he could escape from the Japanese army and join the Provisional Government in Chongqing.17 He himself described this as a fantasy,17 a task so difficult that it bordered on the impossible, but he volunteered relying on that alone.
탈출과 이동
On January 20, 1944, he entered the student soldier training in the Japanese Army and served as a supply soldier in the Supply Unit of the 30th Division stationed in Pyongyang.
On February 17, he was assigned to the Supply Unit of the Japanese army 65th Division stationed in Central China (Unit 7991 of the Sen (専)),5 and on July 7 of the same year he deserted in Xuzhou, Jiangsu, China.
In July 1944, taking advantage of lax security, he deserted from the Japanese army in the city of Xuzhou together with a small number of comrades. In the Chinese Eighth Route Army, he met Kim Jun-yup, No Neung-seo, and other Korean youths who had also deserted from the Japanese army, and together they walked to Linchuan in Anhui. Because there was a risk of being discovered by the Japanese army, they could not use vehicles and had to walk. While deserting, to avoid pursuit, they dressed as civilians and headed for Chongqing. At this time, looking at the stars in the sky, he recalled the stone pillow mentioned in the Bible, and reflecting on the shameful figures of ancestors who had lost their country, he resolved to become ancestors who would not be ashamed before their descendants. Later, his autobiography Dolbegae is said to have drawn inspiration from the stone pillow of Jacob that he recalled at that time.
After deserting, he formed a lifelong friendship with Kim Joon-yup, whom he met. Before enlisting in the army, Jang was studying at Japan Theological Seminary as a candidate for the ministry, while Kim Joon-yup was enrolled in the preparatory course of the Faculty of Letters at Keio University. They were both students from Tokyo but did not know each other. However, Choi Ki-il knew both of them: he was a classmate of Kim Joon-yup at Sinuiju Higher School and Keio University, and he was a hometown friend who had grown up with Jang since childhood in Daegwan-dong, Sakju County. Yet the two men were alike in that they chose the most active way of resisting Japan's demand for student soldiers. As if they had reached an agreement, the two left with a plan decided in advance: "Do not hide or evade, respond to the call for student soldiers, but immediately desert and join the Gwangbokgun." On the dawn of March 29, 1944, Kim Joon-yup deserted, and on July 7, 1944, Jang deserted.
"Suddenly I heard a commotion of the villagers. Running out into the yard, I saw young men in Chinese military uniforms, and from their intellectual faces and manner I immediately concluded that they were Korean student soldiers like me. 'You are Koreans, aren't you?' Upon hearing that they were, I rushed at them and hugged them one by one tightly. I had never been so moved and delighted as I was at that moment. (Omitted) My first meeting with Jang Jun-ha was at this time, and from then on he and I became closer than brothers, sharing joys and sorrows like lovers until he passed away in August 1975." — Kim Joon-yup, Memoirs, Jangjeong vol. 1, p. 249
충칭 도착과 광복군 입대
In 1944, Jang, Kim Joon-yup, and about fifty others who had escaped from Xi'an arrived at Nohagu. When Kim Won-bong obtained this information, he tried to incorporate Jang and his group into the 1st Unit of the Korean Liberation Army, but they refused. Kim Won-bong sent people to try to stop Jang's group from leaving. When those who had deserted and reached Nohagu tried to leave for Chongqing, he tried to prevent their departure through a company commander of the 1st Unit. The content of his persuasion was that they should "stay in Nohagu and reinforce the 1st Unit."18 However, Jang and the others refused. Jang said of this: "It is an ambition to bind fifty young comrades together and firmly establish a base in Nohagu, and this was in fact the scheme of Kim Yak-san of the Provisional Government. Through this battalion commander, Kim Yak-san carried out a scheme to expand and establish his own independent power."18
Jang, who was convinced that Kim Won-bong was a communist, even doubted his promise to arrange airplane transport to Chongqing. "They showered us with affection and excessive kindness, and the empty promise of arranging an airplane was all their trickery."18
After rejecting Kim Won-bong's recruitment offer, he and his companions walked to Linchuan in Anhui and entered the Korean Liberation Army officer training class at the Linchuan Branch (臨川分校) of the Central Military Academy of China. At this time, he published Deungbul (〈등불〉).1119 In August 1944 he received three months of military training at the Linchuan Military Academy (branch) of the Central Military Academy of China, and in December 1944 he was commissioned as a warrant officer in the Central Army of China.20 Afterward, Jang and Kim Joon-yup and others safely arrived in Chongqing, Sichuan.
On February 20, 1945, in Chongqing, he was incorporated into the Korean Liberation Army, commissioned as an officer in the Korean Liberation Army, became a second lieutenant of the Korean Liberation Army, and resided at the Togyo Corps (土橋隊) in Chongqing. Together with his friend Kim Joon-yup and others, he visited the leaders of the Provisional Government and listened to their reminiscences. He also published Deungbul issues 3, 4, and 5 there.
He remained in Chongqing until November 1945 and then returned home.11 On April 29, 1945, Jang and eighteen others were assigned to the 2nd Unit of the Korean Liberation Army stationed in Xi'an. Under the leadership of Syngman Rhee, Kim Gu, Yi Beom-seok, and others, a joint training agreement between the Korean Liberation Army and the Army of the United States was concluded, and he became an agent of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), participating in a three-month operation to penetrate the homeland. On May 1, he was promoted to first lieutenant in the Korean Liberation Army. Afterward, he received U.S. Army military training in Xi'an, China, and waited as a special operative to be dispatched into the homeland.
신익희와 갈등
Meanwhile, he came into conflict with Shin Ik-hui, a Provisional Government leader who sought to build his own power base by pulling away members of the Korean Liberation Army and escaped youths. When the Provisional Government was launched as a coalition cabinet, Shin Ik-hui entered the cabinet as the representative of the Korean Youth Party.22 Jang testified that "that youth party was in fact a lonely one-man party, and it is true that Minister of Home Affairs Shin was lonely."22
Although Jang and other Japanese army deserters had been incorporated into the Korean Liberation Army and moved on, Shin Ik-hui tried to bring these young men into his circle. In addition to young people who deserted from the Japanese army or student soldiers and came to the Provisional Government, Shin Ik-hui also personally visited the Korean Liberation Army training grounds and tried to win over some of the young men. Jang recorded this in his autobiography Dolbegae.
According to Jang, "Even after we had left the Provisional Government and come to Togyo, Minister of Home Affairs Shin kept calling our members out one or two at a time. After one or two comrades had been called away, we understood his intention, but only later did we realize that it was proceeding as a rather secret plan. This is because those who had gone out did not clearly say why they had been called, and merely mumbled. As the number of members who went out several times increased and eventually reached dozens, they finally began to formally propose to leave us and return to the Provisional Government."23 The reason for leaving, they said, was that a new 'Security Corps' (경위대) was being organized under the Home Affairs Ministry of the Provisional Government, and they wanted to become members of that corps.23"
Jang and others tried to hold back the comrades who wanted to return to the Provisional Government to become members of the Security Corps, but they failed. "All of us appealed to them with the affection of the hardships we had shared, and tried to stop them many times, but they had already become so close to Minister Shin that they stubbornly insisted, and in the end they left."23 The young men, captivated by Shin Ik-hui's fluent eloquence, followed him to Chongqing.
When his comrades followed Shin Ik-hui, Jang was enraged. Jang, after sending them off, worked through the night to mimeograph leaflets. The content of the mimeographed leaflets condemned Minister of Home Affairs Shin Ik-hui and the members of other political parties. They made these into an extra edition in the form of the magazine Deungbul. Early the next morning, Jang and about twenty others went out toward the Provisional Government carrying them, each with a club in hand.22 Upon hearing that young men with clubs were coming to find him, Shin Ik-hui went into hiding. When Jang's group reached the Provisional Government office, they shouted slogans such as "Disband the Security Corps" and "Send young people to die on the front," and searched for Shin Ik-hui. But Shin Ik-hui had already quickly disappeared.22 In the end, they missed the target of their condemnation.
광복 이후
해방과 귀국
On August 15, 1945, Japan declared an "unconditional surrender," and as a result all military operations were nullified. Immediately after liberation, he was promoted to captain in the Korean Liberation Army.
On August 17, Yi Beom-seok, Jang, Kim Joon-yup, No Neung-seo, and others boarded an American aircraft bound for Seoul and arrived at Yeouido Airfield, but they were forced to turn back because of Japanese obstruction and American persuasion. Jang and his group then returned to Xi'an, China, and on November 23 of that year, together with Provisional Government Chairman Kim Gu and other Provisional Government leaders, they boarded an airplane and landed at Gimpo Airport in Gimpo County, Gyeonggi Province.11 Afterward, he began his political and social activities as the secretary of Kim Gu.
In early September 1945, there is a claim that Jang, an officer of the Korean Liberation Army, met Park Chung-hee in Xi'an, China.2425 According to the testimony of Lee Cheol-woo, a confidant of Jang, Jang reportedly scolded Park Chung-hee.2526
According to those who say that Jang and Park Chung-hee were acquainted before liberation, Jang, at this time, rebuked Park Chung-hee, who did not express much repentance for his past as an officer of the Japanese army, for not deserting the Japanese army voluntarily until Japan's defeat, for the fact that if Japan had not been defeated he would still have been massacring Korean independence fighters as a Japanese army officer, and for his extremely opportunistic attitude.2526 However, journalist Cho Gap-je and Jang's son Jang Ho-gwon and others say that these claims are not true. According to Cho Gap-je, Jang and Park Chung-hee had never met around this time,2627 and Jang Ho-gwon told Pressian in an interview that Jang and Park Chung-hee were complete strangers.
광복 직후
Immediately after liberation, Kim Won-bong's faction tried to re-recruit newly deserted and discharged former Japanese army personnel, including Jang and others, but Jang refused Kim Won-bong's recruitment efforts. Later, Jang criticized him, saying, "He tried to dazzle us with a honey trap."282930
As the abuses of some members of the Korean Liberation Army continued, Kim Won-bong sought to exploit them.33 He applied distrust of the Provisional Government and the Korean Liberation Army to units composed of former Japanese army members.33 On October 7, 1945, Yi Cheong-cheon, commander of the Korean Liberation Army from Chongqing, came to Shanghai, but the units composed of former Japanese army members refused to be reviewed by Commander Yi Cheong-cheon. Jang and others went around personally to certain officers among them and began discussions on this issue.33 Later, Jang described this as "we began discussions, but in fact it was a co-optation operation."33
Jang described Kim Won-bong's plan as a "scheme."33 Jang and his group informed the plan of Kim Won-bong and gave materials on the person in charge, Hwang, and on Yi So-min, who had acted as his agents, and thereby discredited them.33 The persuasion was effective, and Yi Cheong-cheon was able to personally review the troops.32
On April 26, 1946, he joined and became active in the Korean Youth Association founded by Usa Kim Kyu-sik. Kim Kyu-sik appointed Jang as director of the investigation department of the Korean Youth Association. However, as Jang left Kyungkyo Villa, he also withdrew from the Korean Youth Association.
Afterward, Jang made contact with his hometown friend Choi Ki-il, who was serving as secretary to Yun Chi-yeong, a confidant of Syngman Rhee, and he worked for cooperation between Syngman Rhee and Kim Gu, but these efforts ended in failure.
In the summer of 1946, Yi Beom-seok of the Korean Liberation Army, who had returned home, sought out Jang and repeatedly asked him to help him. Jang was troubled, and when he told Provisional Government Chairman Kim Gu the truth and asked for his understanding, Kim Gu let him go. In December 1947 he left Kyungkyo Villa and joined Yi Beom-seok's Joseon National Youth Corps, where he took the post of head of the Central Training Institute's Academic Affairs Office. However, Jang soon left the Korea National Youth Corps.34
관료, 언론 활동
정부 수립 직후
Afterward, from 1946 to 1947, for two years, he met with his friend Choi Ki-il, who had become public information secretary to Syngman Rhee, and consulted and worked toward agreement and cooperation between Syngman Rhee and Kim Gu, but the cooperation between Syngman Rhee and Kim Gu failed after the assassination of Chang Duk-soo. After the failure of cooperation, he took the position of supporting the establishment of the government without participating in the North-South negotiations led by Kim Gu and Kim Kyu-sik. Afterward, Jang did not engage in any particular political activity for a time.
In January 1949 he founded the publishing house Hangilsa.35 While engaged in publishing activities, in February 1949 he transferred into Korea Theological University, and in June of the same year he graduated from Korea Theological University with a bachelor's degree.35 Afterward, he also took part in journalism, publishing editorials and columns in Dong-a Ilbo and other newspapers.
In March 1952 he became planning director of the National Ideology Research Institute under the Ministry of Education, and afterward he served as general affairs director and secretary-general of the National Ideology Research Institute.35 Recognizing the inevitability of the establishment of the Republic of Korea government, he was convinced that the only way to defeat North Korea was to acquire ideological and doctrinal legitimacy, and he engaged in column writing and lecture activities for national enlightenment.
In December 1952, after the December 1952 issue of Sasanggye (No. 4) was published, the magazine temporarily suspended publication due to financial problems, as funds for it were difficult to raise during the war. Afterward, in April 1953, he resigned from the National Ideology Research Institute of the Ministry of Education, and ended his brief career as a civil servant. In April 1953 he also founded the magazine Sasanggye and became active in it.36 With the armistice in 1952, he returned to Seoul. He interpreted the armistice ending the Korean War positively.
"The June 25 war broke out. The whip that was surely due has fallen on the land. Yet heaven is not indifferent, and so it did not completely hand this people over to the grasp of the communist traitors (共産逆盜)."37
When the armistice came, he returned to Seoul.
언론 활동
With the September 1953 issue of Sasanggye, the Busan era came to an end. He moved into an office in Hancheong Building in Jongno, Seoul, and continued to publish Sasanggye.
In 1956 he established the "Dongin Literary Award" and announced its first recipients.38 The Dongin Literary Award was created in memory of the novelist Kim Tong-in, and was thus the Kim Tong-in Literary Award.10 Through the Dongin Literary Award, Jang discovered writers such as Sunwoo Hui, Oh Sang-won, Son Chang-seop, Lee Beom-seon, Seo Ki-won, Nam Jeong-hyeon, Jeon Gwang-yong, Lee Ho-cheol, Song Byeong-su, Kim Seung-ok, Choi In-ho, and Lee Cheong-jun.38
On October 10, 1957, Choe Nam-seon, who had shouted slogans such as "Naisen ittai" (Japan and Korea as one body) and "promotion of imperial Japanese culture," and who had enjoyed positions and financial benefits from the Japanese, died at the age of 68. The publisher Jang hastily published a special feature commemorating Yukdang's death,39 and also published an article in Sasanggye defending him.40
The editorial committee of Sasanggye, together with all persons who place their will in the rise and fall of culture and the fate of the nation, sincerely mourns the late Choe Nam-seon, Yukdang, and, in order to pass down to eternity the outstanding character and the greatness of the achievements he left behind in life, dedicates the year-end issue of 1957, the year of his death, as a commemorative issue on Yukdang to his memorial tablet in heaven.3941
— Jang Jun-ha, Dedication to Choe Nam-seon
For a time there were also public misunderstandings about Sŏn-saeng's integrity. But it is now an established historical fact that Sŏn-saeng's true intention lay, above all, in the destiny of this people and the preservation of this nation's culture. It was entirely different from the baseless arguments of wicked youths and frivolous women that circulated in the streets. Because of the unjust atmosphere in which people did not pardon others, did not know how to cherish talented people as the apple of their eye, and could not think broadly about matters, we did not, even after liberation, give Sŏn-saeng any honor or praise his efforts. On the contrary, there was no shortage of shameful treatment. This is truly something the whole nation should be ashamed of.394041
— Chang Jun-ha, editorial foreword
Among the columns published in Sasanggye in August 1958, Chang was arrested together with Ham Sok-hon over Ham's article "Only a Thinking People Survive" and was later released. In September 1958 he established the Kim Dong-in Literary Award in memory of the novelist Kim Dong-in, which was presented annually to selected new novelists. In February 1959, in connection with the 2.4 Security Law controversy, he protested against the Liberal Party government with a blank editorial.
In 1958 and 1959, he published columns critical of the dictatorship of Syngman Rhee and denounced Rhee and the Liberal Party government.
In March 1960, in his editorial in Sasanggye, he sharply denounced the ruling Liberal Party for carrying out the rigged 15 March election. After the April Revolution, in May he was appointed a central executive committee member of the Korean Commission for UNESCO. He later served as chairman of the UNESCO public relations subcommittee.
Bureaucratic life in the Second Republic
After the April Revolution of 1960, in July the Chang MyonCabinet was launched. Afterward, with the support of Prime MinisterChang Myon, he organized the Institute for International Affairs, received research funds from the Democratic Party government, and carried out research and development on economic policy. Prime MinisterChang Myon sent people to him several times asking him to help.
Chang Jun-ha accepted Chang Myon's repeated requests for help and took office. With the support of Kim Yeong-seon, the financeminister and a power figure in the Chang Myon government who was also a member of the Sasanggye circle, he also settled the debts of the Sasanggye company.42 In October 1960 he was appointed a member of the Higher Education Deliberation Council of the Ministry of Education under the Chang Myon Cabinet, and in January 1961 he was selected as planning director of the National Land Construction Corps of South Korea.35 He later also served as head of the National Land Construction Corps.43
While serving as planning director of the National Land Construction Corps, he was in effect responsible for, and oversaw and directed, the operation of the Corps. He also invited Ham Sok-hon, Ju Yo-han, Park Sun-cheon and others as lecturers to educate college graduates who had not found employment about their views of the state and society, and they handled the cultivation and education of the students' character. Chang Jun-ha himself also took charge of spiritual education as a lecturer for the Corps.
Amid a national crisis of extreme disorder, chronic corruption, and a social order that had fallen into paralysis, the May 16 military revolution rose as a last resort to open a path for the nation in its time of emergency.
If the April Revolution was a democratic revolution to win constitutional government and freedom, the May 16 revolution is a nationalist military revolution aimed at destroying corruption, incompetence, disorder, and the machinations of communism and at setting the country's course right.
Therefore, judged by the democratic ideals that we must nurture and cause to bloom, the May 16 revolution is nothing but an unfortunate and regrettable event; yet judged from the urgent national reality, it is an unavoidable one.
After Yun Bo-seon president endorsed the May 16 coup, the Chang Myon Cabinet resigned en masse on May 20, and after the collapse of the Second Republic, Chang Jun-ha mainly engaged in media activities. In the early stage of the military government he supported the military coup. However, when Park Chung-hee later pursued retention of power without transferring it to a civilian government, Chang reacted against this, changed his line, and took a position criticizing Park Chung-hee. Under the military government, the authorities seized on his borrowing 10 million hwan from Tae Wan-seon, labeled him a corrupt journalist, and placed him among those banned from political activity; thereupon he withdrew his support for the military coup.
Although he expressed support for the military government, Chang Jun-ha soon clashed with it.46 After the July 1961 issue carried Chang's editorial "Completing the Revolutionary Task That Requires Urgency and Returning to Democratic Politics" and Ham Sok-hon's article "How Should We View May 16?", Chang was summoned by the military regime.46
The June 1961 editorial of Sasanggye, immediately after May 16, said, "If the April Revolution was a democratic revolution to win constitutional government and freedom, the May 16 revolution is a nationalist military revolution aimed at destroying corruption, incompetence, disorder, and the machinations of communism and at setting the country's course right,"4247 and in effect supported the May 16 coup.48
However, the editorial foreword of Sasanggye was written under Chang Jun-ha's name from 1955 through the late 1950s, and afterward, when someone other than Chang ghostwrote it, the author was not identified and was left anonymous.4950 Because the June 1961 editorial and editor's note were anonymous, it is uncertain whether they were Chang's writing or were ghostwritten by someone else under pressure from the coup forces.51 Nevertheless, the responsibility of Chang as publisher cannot be excused, and the June 1961 issue of Sasanggye went so far as to carry not only the editorial but also a photo spread of Park Chung-hee and Chang Do-yong. Kim Sam-ung, who wrote a biography of Chang Jun-ha, criticized the June 1961 issue of Sasanggye as having damaged the spirit of Sasanggye the most.52 Afterward, in the July issue, it ran Ham Sok-hon's article "How Should We View May 16?", which indirectly criticized the military revolution, but Sasanggye nevertheless acknowledged the inevitability of the coup for a considerable period afterward.48
The reason Chang Jun-ha lavished such praise on the May 16 military coup as a "nationalistmilitary revolution" was that he expected the military regime that emerged on May 16 to follow a pro-American (親美) line.46 In fact, Chang Jun-ha was an active pro-American. Contrary to his later statements that all unification is good, at that time Chang Jun-ha placed anti-communism first and regarded "pro-Americanism" as most important.46 For this reason, Chang Jun-ha sent his support to a military regime that had risen armed with anti-communist logic, which at a stroke brought down the Chang Myon government that was rushing toward extreme chaos.46 Moreover, the fact that the United States supported the military regime also served as a major motive for Chang's support of the military government.4653
In the early stage of the military government, Chang Jun-ha also arranged a meeting between military government forces and American forces.46 This was a party intended to improve relations between the leaders of the coup and the United States.48 At the time, the military government forces were a non-mainstream faction within the military, so their relations with the United States were poor, and Chang Jun-ha held a party to improve these relations.46 This party, held in early July 1961 at Changgyeongwon, is known to have been attended on the American side by Ambassador Berger and Political Counselor Habib, and on the military government side only by the Chang Do-yong faction.4654 However, no figures from the Park Chung-hee faction attended the party, and this later became the basis for claims of a connection with Chang Do-yong.
Park Chung-hee and the other leaders of the coup were mostly marginalized non-mainstream forces within the military, and therefore their relations with the United States, especially with the local officials, were not smooth. Although the United States recognized the coup as a reality, relations between the two sides were poor even immediately after the coup.48 Therefore Chang Jun-ha, who was an "American hand," attempted to improve relations by inviting key figures from both sides to the Changgyeongwon party in early July in the name of the Sasanggye company.48 He also recommended certain figures (Lee Jeong-hwan and Park Dong-myo) to the agents of the coup.48
Before and after the libel incident
About four or five days after the July issue of Sasanggye was published, which carried Ham Sok-hon's article urging a prompt transfer of civilian government, as quitting time approached, two soldiers appeared at the Sasanggye company. They said they had come from the revolutionary army and conveyed the business that they would come to pick up the president and the editor-in-chief the next morning at seven o'clock and asked that they be ready by that time.55 The next day Chang Jun-ha, together with the editor-in-chief, Ko Seong-hun, the head of the editorial department, went to the company at seven in the morning, the appointed time. A black jeep was waiting first, and two other soldiers were waiting. The jeep took Chang Jun-ha and Ko Seong-hun and dropped them off in a dilapidated two-story house somewhere in Hoehyeon-dong at the foot of Namsan.55
Twenty minutes later Kim Jong-pil appeared,56 and Kim Jong-pil raised the issue of the column in the July issue of Sasanggye by Ham Sok-hon that indirectly criticized the May 16 military coup.57
Chang Jun-ha continued speaking.
In response to Chang Jun-ha's words, Kim Jong-pil hurriedly picked up the book he had pushed forward, opened the problematic article and the editorial, which were covered in red lines, read them to Chang line by line here and there, and thrust them at him.58 He demanded in a bullying tone what this was and whether this was advice, and Chang protested.58
Interested in Chang's answer, Kim Jong-pil pressed him persistently for details, and since Chang had nothing to hide, he gave a statement recounting his memories of Chang Do-yong, whom he usually found disagreeable.
Chang Jun-ha and Chang Do-yong were together in Xuzhou, China. There, Korean desertions occurred frequently, so surveillance and persecution of the student soldiers became severe. At that time Chang Do-yong drew a Japanese sword and fussed that he would be the first to execute anyone who tried to flee, and in the process he clashed with Chang Jun-ha. Then, when they were moved together to the Tsukada unit, where escape was difficult, the two became estranged over the "Rejection of Remnant Rations Movement" that Chang Jun-ha led.596061 Just because they shared a surname and came from neighboring hometowns did not mean they were in tune with each other.60 Although they were both from the Seobuk region, Chang Jun-ha could not endure being lumped together with him by the mention of Chang Do-yong's name.62
— Summary of Chang Jun-ha's statement
There was one more reason Kim Jong-pil might suspect a relationship between Chang Jun-ha and Chang Do-yong. Around this time, the Sasanggye company held a reception in the Crystal Palace (水晶宮) of Changgyeonggung to celebrate the publication of the 100-volume Sasang Library. Because of the international reputation of Sasanggye at the time, the American ambassador attended in person on July 4, which was the American Independence Day, and countless domestic and foreign distinguished guests gathered, and from the coup military, Chang Do-yong, chairman of the Supreme Council, and his entire faction all attended. At that time, no one came from the side of Park Chung-hee and Kim Jong-pil.5962 Then, on July 5, all of the Chang Do-yong faction were arrested.
In mid-July 1961, two weeks after Chang Jun-ha returned from Namsan, a summons came from the Disposal Committee for Illicit Wealth of the military regime, which was located at Seoul City Hall.63 When he visited the committee, a major of the army addressed him informally and interrogated him in an insulting manner.
Kim Yeong-seon, while trying to persuade Chang Jun-ha to take part in the work of the government by one means or another, heard about Chang's debts and promised that he, as finance minister, would take responsibility and arrange the money.64 Kim Yeong-seon, the finance minister of a government so poor that Chang Myon, the prime minister of the Cabinet, had to bring his own lunch box to work, boasted that he would settle the 30 million hwan debt of the Sasanggye company, but what he sent the next day through a messenger was 10 million hwan.64 Kim Yeong-seon's intention was "first to put out the urgent fire with this money, and I will try to arrange the rest somehow.64" However, Kim Yeong-seon did not raise any more money to send, and Chang Jun-ha also did not press him further.64 Nevertheless, because he had received the money, Chang answered truthfully. Still, the major's informal interrogation continued.
*Chang Jun-ha: Please change your manner of speaking. The other day I met Mr. Kim Jong-pil, and he did not speak to me the way you do. Why are you different here?
Major: What? Stop your nonsense and answer the question quickly!
Chang Jun-ha: I will. It is true that I received it, and it was 10 million hwan.
Major: Is that all? There should be more. Tell me straight. I'll kill every one of you.64
The major ordered his subordinates to "go to the Sasanggye company and seize all the documents and ledgers,64" and afterward handed him over to a civilian investigator. Kim Yeong-seon also, under interrogation, disclosed that he had given Chang Jun-ha 10 million hwan. Chang did not know where or how Kim Yeong-seon had obtained the money and sent it, but since Chang was not the type of person who would take someone else's money without repaying it, he had given the deed to the house he lived in as collateral for the 10 million hwan loan.65
After being handed over to the civilian investigator, Chang wrote the statement of circumstances as directed and left. However, on that day the military did not actually come to the Sasanggye company to take the ledgers.
However, Chang was summoned four more times over this matter. He was summoned once more to the Seoul City Hall Disposal Committee for Illicit Wealth, and once each to the Revolutionary Prosecutor's Office, the Revolutionary Court, and the Seoul Regional National Tax Service. Only after agreeing to repay the 10 million hwan by the end of 1961 did the summonses finally end.65 However, at that time Chang was buried under a mountain of debt, including the still-outstanding debts to Time and Life. His assets were seized, his residence was taken over, and he settled his debts in March 1962.65 The deed to the house that he had given to Kim Yeong-seon when receiving the 10 million hwan was never recovered, and the house was simply lost.65
Political purification law and transition to the opposition
In March 1962, when Chang paid 10 million hwan to the Seongdong Tax Office in Seoul, on March 16, 1962, the military government announced the Political Activities Purification Act. Chang was then banned from political activity under this Political Purification Act.66 That a man unconnected with politics was caught by the Political Purification Act was because he had been included among "corrupt journalists." Even though his house had been taken because of the 10 million hwan he had received from Kim Yeong-seon, he was included among the 4,734 people banned from political activity.66
For Chang, who had never considered entering politics, the Political Purification Act may seem irrelevant, but when newspapers reported that he had been labeled a corrupt journalist and bound by the Purification Act, the most sensitive reaction came from the readers of Sasanggye. As a result, sales dropped noticeably. The label of corrupt journalist was a humiliating yoke for Chang, and who would explain to the readers that it was not true, and even if someone did, once a rumor has spread it may not be easy to change people's minds.66 Afterward he politically supported Yun Bo-seon.
When Yun Bo-seon, Chang Taek-sang, Park Sun-cheon and others defined the Korea–Japan talks of the Park Chung-hee government as "humiliating diplomacy toward Japan" and launched a movement against the talks, Chang Jun-ha also joined their activities. Afterward, in March 1964, Chang Jun-ha and Sasanggye took the lead in the demonstrations against the Korea–Japan talks. When the Committee for the Struggle Against Humiliating Diplomacy toward Japan was established around Yun Bo-seon and Chang Taek-sang, from March 1964 onward he toured the country giving lectures as an invited speaker of the committee, and through some seventy speeches he criticized Park Chung-hee, Kim Jong-pil and the leading forces of the Korea–Japan talks.
In the presidential election, Chang Jun-ha argued that he could not tolerate a man who had served in the army of Japan's imperialist military becoming president.67 Chang Jun-ha judged that the Korea–Japan agreement of the Park Chung-hee government was a sellout negotiation carried out by a former officer of Japan's imperialist military with the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, a group of war criminals and aggressors, and in April 1964 he issued an emergency extra issue.11 "The Various Problems of the Korea–Japan Talks" became the textbook of the opposition camp against the Korea–Japan talks, critically reflecting the will of the intellectual class of this country who opposed the talks. Then, in July 1965, he published "An Analysis of the New Eulsa Treaty" as another emergency extra issue, which became the theoretical bridgehead of the opposition camp.11 The Park Chung-hee government sent back Sasanggye in a "return campaign," and in 1965 it carried out tax audits twice in a thorough manner, driving Sasanggye to the brink of death.1111
In 1966 the Saccharin smuggling scandal occurred. In the course of this, information leaked that there had been collusion between the ruling circles and Lee Byung-chul of Samsung, and the opposition parties and university students held nationwide denunciation rallies. On October 15, 1966, at a rally in the Suseong Stream in Daegu, organized by the Minjung Party as the "National Rally for Exposing and Denouncing the Smuggling of a Specific Chaebol," he attended as a speaker for the political address. At the rally, Chang Jun-ha exposed what had passed between the chaebol chairman and the high-ranking government officials, and criticized, saying, "The king of smugglers in our country is none other than Park Chung-hee." 11 Also, his remark that "President Johnson's visit to Korea is not to see how great Park Chung-hee is, but because he needs more of the blood of Korean youth" also drew attention.
As Chang Jun-ha harshly criticized Park Chung-hee and the chaebol, his remarks about Park as the "smuggling king" became a problem, and on October 26 he was arrested. He said that "as the head of the administration, he must take responsibility for the smuggling by a specific chaebol," and that "what I said about the receipt of political funds was based on the revealed facts and was my own opinion." On December 24 he requested that Park Chung-hee be called as a witness, but An U-man, judge of the 10th Single Division of the Seoul Criminal District Court, rejected the request. After being detained for one month, on December 30, 1966, he was released on bail, having been granted bail on conditions of a 50,000-won deposit and restriction of residence to his home. Afterward, at the final hearing on February 20, 1967, prosecutor Jeong Myeong-rae said, "Even if it is a political statement, insulting the head of state goes beyond the limits of freedom of the press," and demanded a sentence of two years in prison.68 On February 28 the court sentenced him to six months in prison, saying, "Even if it is a politician's political statement, it deserves regulation if it violates the statutory law," and "since there is no concrete evidence that can prove the truth of the content of the defendant's speech, intent can be recognized," but it maintained his bail.697071
Opposition unity and candidate unification campaign
In the 1967 election, after Park Chung-hee returned from a trip to Southeast Asia and the United States, he talked about the idea of selling young people to Vietnam, and for this he was arrested.72
In March 1967, to unify the opposition candidates, he arranged a four-party meeting (Paik Nak-joon–Yun Bo-seon–Yu Jin-o–Lee Beom-seok), but because of disagreements among the presidential candidates of each party, the coordination failed. Nevertheless, pursuing opposition unification, he joined the New Democratic Party and served as a member of the party's central steering committee and as chairman of the New Democratic Party 4th constituency committee in Seoul. In the 1967 National Assembly election, he ran with the nomination of the New Democratic Party, was elected, and served as a National Assembly member. In election speeches he criticized Park Chung-hee, saying, "Park Chung-hee swore loyalty to the Japanese emperor, became a Japanese army officer, and aimed his rifle at our Gwangbokgun. Park Chung-hee was a person who carried out underground activities in South Korea as the military organizer of the former South Korean Workers' Party, and to save his own life he sold out and sacrificed his organization members." In 1971 Chang Jun-ha edited his autobiography Dolbegae while looking back on his escape from the student soldier draft and his time in the Gwangbokgun. In publishing Dolbegae, he stated as the reason for writing it that it was a "testimony of modern history," and said, "It is also to make clear before history what some people who loudly claim to be from the Gwangbokgun actually did after wearing a Gwangbokgun cap." 11 In April 1967, during the opposition presidential election campaign, he was also imprisoned for one month for violating election law.73 In 1971 he founded the publishing house Sasangsa and published his autobiography Dolbegae.35
The 6th presidential election: opposition to the Vietnam War and outrage over the novel Gwangbokgun
During the campaign period of the 6th presidential election, Chang Jun-ha supported Yun Bo-seon.74Yun Bo-seon criticized the dispatch of troops to the Vietnam War during the campaign as a "contract war" of the United States,74 and Chang Jun-ha, who supported Yun Bo-seon, raised the suspicion of Park Chung-hee's pro-Japanese background as an issue, saying, "He swore loyalty to the Japanese emperor, became a Japanese army officer, and aimed his rifle at our independent Gwangbokgun."74 Yun Bo-seon and Chang Jun-ha criticized Park's decision to push ahead with sending troops to Vietnam as a treasonous act of selling the blood of young people in the name of national interest, and as a deceptive trick to divert public opinion.
Also, Chang Jun-ha criticized the dispatch of Vietnam troops, saying, "Our country's young people are being sold to South Vietnam, and the government is maintaining its power with money from selling their blood."74 According to Seo Jung-seok, at that time only Yun Bo-seon and Chang Jun-ha vehemently condemned the dispatch to Vietnam.75 In the 6th presidential election, he supported Yun Bo-seon, and while touring to campaign for him, his remarks regarding "pro-Japanese collaborators" became a problem, and in April 1967 he was arrested for violating the election law during the presidential campaign76 and imprisoned for three months. He was released in July 1967. Even after his release, he continued to oppose the dispatch of Korean troops to the Vietnam War.
Chang Jun-ha, a veteran of the Gwangbokgun, became outraged over the novel Gwangbokgun (author Park Yeong-man), which came out in time for the 1967 presidential election. It was because the novel transformed the pro-Japanese Park Chung-hee into a secret Gwangbokgun member. In 1967, Chang campaigned for the opposition presidential candidate Yun Bo-seon across the country and kept criticizing the book. It is also mentioned in Ko Sang-man's book What the KCIA Recorded About Chang Jun-ha. "Right now, in some quarters, there is a book written claiming that the presidential candidate Park Chung-hee was in the Gwangbokgun, but it is all a lie. Because I was in the Gwangbokgun, I know exactly. At that time he was serving as a Japanese army officer in Manchuria." In response to such remarks, the Central Intelligence Agency at that time recorded all of Chang Jun-ha's statements in its important situation reports.77
Chang Jun-ha, who had escaped from the Japanese army and joined the Gwangbokgun, explained as follows how Manchurian and Japanese army veterans were incorporated into the Gwangbokgun in China (Manchuria) upon liberation. 《What saddened us even more was a new fact. Until just before Japan's surrender, everyone from interpreters to opium peddlers wandering the front lines and the pimps of Japanese army brothels, overnight put on a Gwangbokgun cap and called themselves independence activists, exiles, and revolutionaries, a sight beyond description. Moreover, the people most eager to confiscate the property of compatriots in the same foreign land were usually these very people, and the Gwangbokgun itself was divided into the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd detachments and showed signs of conflict. (……) Under such conditions, regardless of their past, the names of independence activists were handed out indiscriminately. Whoever came in was welcomed with honor(?) and given a Gwangbokgun cap.》78
In November 1967 he entered the National Assembly and began his legislative activities. During his time in the National Assembly, Chang Jun-ha served as a member of the National Assembly's economics and science subcommittee and as a member of the National Assembly's national defense subcommittee. As he engaged in legislative activities, on January 1, 1968, he temporarily entrusted the publisher position of Sasanggye to Bu Wan-hyeok.
On April 19, 1969, after giving a lecture commemorating the tenth anniversary of April 19, he also staged a silent protest.
Fourth Republic
Participation in the founding of the National Party
In around February 1970, he began pushing a movement to form a new party in order to unite new political forces. In 1970, when Yun Posun and other members of the old faction of the Democratic Party left the New Democratic Party, Jang Jun-ha also left the New Democratic Party and served for a time as an independent legislator. On January 6, 1971, he took part, together with Yun Posun, Park Ki-chul and others, in founding the National People's Party (國民黨).79 Ahead of the 1971 presidential election, when Kim Dae-jung was selected as the New Democratic Party's presidential candidate, Yun Posun protested, left the New Democratic Party, and founded the National People's Party together with Park Ki-chul and Jang Jun-ha.
Ahead of the presidential election, he and Yun Posun espoused nationalism, founded the National People's Party, and came to exert considerable influence over young students.80 In the 1971 presidential election, Yun Posun ran as a presidential candidate. However, instead of withdrawing his candidacy, he decided to yield it to another politician.81 At that time, among the opposition forces across the political spectrum, in the name of unifying the opposition candidate, opposition figures repeatedly asked him to withdraw his candidacy in favor of a single candidate. Jang Jun-ha zealously supported Yun Posun and toured the country to campaign on his behalf.
Meanwhile, Yun Posun, who was chairman of the National People's Party, did not like Jang Jun-ha very much, and so he nominated Park Ki-chul, who had once participated in the Progressive Party, as the presidential candidate.81 Although Jang Jun-ha was at one point also considered as an alternative to the National People's Party's candidate, one reason Yun Posun regarded him with disfavor was that he had once served as secretary to Kim Gu, then passed through Yi Beom-seok's Korean Youth Association, and was recruited by Chang Myon. Nevertheless, regardless of Yun Posun's negative view, Jang Jun-ha worked hard to support him. However, the National People's Party was forcibly dissolved after the October Yushin.
Around the October Yushin
In 1972, he joined the National Council for the Protection of Democracy. When the July 4 South-North Joint Statement was announced on July 4, 1972, Jang Jun-ha welcomed it, saying that "all unification is good."
The Path of a Nationalist
Is all unification good? Yes. There is no supreme mandate higher than unification. If the nation divided by unification becomes one, and if that is the advance of national history, then naturally all valuable things must be realized within it. Communism, of course, and democracy, equality, freedom, prosperity, welfare—all of these cannot attain true substance as long as they remain concepts opposed to unification. When all truths, all morals, and all goods are opposed to unification, they are false pretexts, not truth.
If, in accordance with the demands of the great powers surrounding the Korean Peninsula—the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan, and China—North and South Korea are frozen into peaceful coexistence and effectively abandon efforts toward unification beyond that, the division of the nation will become even more permanent and will race in the direction opposite to unification. National unification is, from beginning to end, the work of the people. Unification is a sentimental longing, but it is also directly connected to our daily lives, day by day.
Is all unification good? Yes. There is no supreme mandate higher than unification.
He warned that the hidden background of the July 4 South-North Joint Statement must also be watched, and in fact the statement revealed itself to be humiliating talks with North Korea. However, he refused the position of South-North talks representative offered by Park Chung Hee. Park Chung Hee repeatedly proposed that he continue to serve as the representative for South-North talks, and offered him a national merit award and a pension, but he refused.
In February 1973, Jang Jun-ha took part in founding the Democratic Unification Party and was elected to its Supreme Council. In 1973, he was indicted on charges of criticizing the emergency decrees as an infringement of basic rights and arguing that the constitution needed to be amended, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison and 15 years' suspension of civil rights.82 In March, he received the nomination of the Democratic Unification Party for the 9th National Assembly general election, and ran as a Unification Party candidate, but lost.
Release from prison and hospitalization
On December 24, 1973, he suddenly launched the Headquarters for the Movement to Petition for Constitutional Revision at the YMCA building and conducted a "one million signatures campaign for constitutional revision." As a result, in April 1974 he was arrested for violating Emergency Decree No. 1, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison and 15 years' suspension of civil rights on the charge of "dividing the nation's opinion and creating social unrest under the pretext of constitutional revision." However, in December of that year, he was released through suspension of execution of his sentence due to the worsening of his heart angina and cirrhosis of the liver.
After being released from prison after 10 months and 20 days due to high blood pressure, angina and other conditions, he was hospitalized in Room 203 of Jo Gwang-hyeon Internal Medicine Clinic in Gyeonggi-dong, Jongno-gu.83
Immediately after his release, besides his wife Kim Hee-sook and family, Kim Ok-gil and others visited him at the prison, and after he was hospitalized, he was visited by Ham Sok-hon.83
Final years
Attempted plot
In April 1975, he left the Democratic Unification Party.35 A few days before his death on August 17, 1975, he donated the Taegukgi flag of the Provisional Government in Chongqing, which he had kept for more than thirty years, to a university museum, and he suddenly held a Catholic-style wedding ceremony with his wife, and visited the graves of Baekbeom and of his parents at Mangu-ri to pay his respects. It is said that he hurried to settle his personal affairs like a man about to undertake something important.84
In 1975, Jang Jun-ha met with Kim Dae-jung, whom he had not usually met, and made contact with Ham Sok-hon and Hong Nam-soon, and planned some kind of plot for August 15, the 30th anniversary of Liberation Day. By chance, Kim Young-sam was traveling in Southeast Asia, so the plan was postponed until August 20, after he returned.85 Jang Jun-ha's son Jang Ho-kwon testifies that at that time "something enormous" was being planned, and that Jang Jun-ha said, "It is beyond the power of the people to bring down Park Chung Hee, so we must remove Park even through guerrilla warfare. We have considerable connections within the military."8687 Also, in April 1976, when he himself was subjected to an assassination attempt, the U.S. ambassador to Korea, Habib, is said to have visited him and said, "What your father wanted to achieve will be achieved, so take care of yourself and wait."88
Given these circumstances, it seems certain that Jang Jun-ha was planning some kind of plot that would encompass the entire opposition and the non-establishment forces and that some elements of the military would support, and, judging from various testimonies, that it was scheduled for around August 20.89 Furthermore, Jang Jun-ha met with Kim Jae-gyu, with whom he had a personal connection while serving as a National Assembly member,90 and Kim Jae-gyu, who was then commander of the 2nd Corps, was moved by Jang Jun-ha's activities in the National Defense Committee and his integrity, and after Jang Jun-ha's death had Park Sun-ho look after his family.9192 At the end of 1976, Kim Jae-gyu summoned Jang Ho-kwon to Namsan and told him, "The truth about your father's death will someday come to light," and about three months before October 26, he recommended that he go to the United States.8693 In an interview with a news outlet in November 2005, Jang Ho-kwon claimed that the military collaborators included in Jang Jun-ha's plan were people such as Kim Jae-gyu, and that it was certain that the October 26 incident was also influenced by Jang Jun-ha.94
Death
On August 17, 1975, as the surveillance by the Park Chung Hee government grew even stricter, Jang Jun-ha invited his aide Lim Chun-won, who was then secretly helping liaise with Kim Dae-jung and other opposition figures in connection with the plot against the Yushin regime, to his home and had breakfast with him. After the meal, Jang Jun-ha, together with about 40 members of the Horim Mountaineering Club, arrived at the entrance of Yaksa Valley in Idong-myeon, Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, and climbed Yaksa Peak. Then that afternoon, his body was discovered below a cliff stretching from Yaksa Peak toward Yaksa Valley by Kim Yong-hwan and members of the Horim Mountaineering Club.95 After a formal accident investigation and recovery of the body that day, the body was handed over to the family.
Lim Chun-won was a wealthy man who had established and operated the Sangatap Academy in Jongno, Seoul, in the 1960s and amassed a large fortune. He had secretly helped financially with the publication of Jang Jun-ha's Sasanggye, and after suffering hardship from the repression of the Park Chung Hee government, became a close associate of Jang Jun-ha. According to his testimony, Jang Jun-ha said that he had entered the Catholic Church and that he had donated the Provisional Government's Taegukgi flag and other items to the museum of Ewha Womans University, and he showed the palm of his hand, cracked from mowing the grass, saying that he had recently visited his parents' graves at Mangu-ri. However, the wound on this palm was later distorted and announced by the police as evidence supporting the account of his fall, claiming that it was caused by Jang Jun-ha grabbing a pine branch while falling down the mountain.84
"When August comes, my heart flutters. August has Liberation Day, and you loved August, the month of our nation's liberation, so much. But regrettably, you departed in sorrow on August 17, 1975, in a corner of the steep Yaksa Valley in Idong-myeon, Dopyeong 3-ri, Pocheon-gun, Gyeonggi-do. On the day you left, in the morning you called me to your home and we had breakfast together. That day was extremely hot. Your wife, who did not even fan herself much, set up a strange electric fan and turned it on, and even the clattering sound it made seemed to make it hotter. You showed me your palm and said that you had visited the grave at Mangu-ri a few days before, and showed me your palm, which was cracked. But a few days later, I saw the distorted news reports saying that while you were hiking you slipped and fell down the mountain and your palm was cracked from grabbing a pine tree as you fell, and I still vividly remember how I protested those absurd reports and was arrested again and held for a week at Namdaemun Police Station. That morning you also said something else. Whether it was fifteen days before or twenty-some days before, I am not sure, but you said you had given everything you had related to independence, such as the Taegukgi flag and the items you had received from Kim Gu, to Ewha Womans University. You also said that you had entered the Presbyterian Church. I thought this was very strange. Why would someone who had been so deeply immersed in Christian faith enter the Presbyterian Church? And even after you passed away, I have still wondered why, a few days before you so emptily left us, you donated all the precious things you had cherished during your life to a school and entered the Presbyterian Church." Lim Chun-won, Ttoo [The Lamp That Breathes Within Me], from the collection of tributes "Ah, Jang Jun-ha," Jang Jun-ha Memorial Project Association.84
Aftermath
The body, transported by the family, was placed on August 18 in the morning in a wake room set up in the main room of the family home in Sangbong-dong. Ham Sok-hon, Yang Ho-min, Kim Jun-yeop, Gye Hun-je and others, who received news of his death, kept vigil from August 17. On August 18, politicians including Kim Dae-jung, Yang Il-dong, Go Heung-mun, and Chung Il-hyung, as well as Kim Ok-gil, president of Ewha Womans University, and Professor Kim Dong-gil, and more than a hundred people, visited the wake. New Democratic Party chairman Kim Young-sam was abroad, so he sent a floral tribute.96
On the morning of August 21 at 8 a.m., a family funeral service was held at the home. Afterward, the remains were moved by hearse to the Presbyterian Church, and at 10 a.m. a funeral service was held, conducted by pastors. At this funeral, held jointly by the old and new political establishments, figures from various fields, including Paek Nak-jun, Yu Chin-o, Kim Young-sam, Kim Dae-jung, Park Soon-cheon, Ham Sok-hon, Yang Il-dong, Kim Hong-il, Kim Jun-yeop, Kim Dong-gil, Chun Kwan-woo and others, along with about 1,500 citizens, attended. After the funeral service, the remains passed through Shicheong-ap, the National Assembly building, and Joongang Cheong, then passed in front of Seodaemun Prison, and were interred at the Nazareth Cemetery in Gwangtan-myeon, Paju-gun, Gyeonggi Province.97
One week after Jang Jun-ha's death, members of the Horim Mountaineering Club and acquaintances held a memorial climbing event at the accident site. One month later, on September 17, a monument unveiling ceremony was held at the accident site, attended by about 80 scholars and comrades in the democratization movement. The inscription on the monument reads as follows:
Alas, Mr. Jang Jun-ha!
Here, in this silent valley, is where the great leader of the struggle to regain stolen democracy, of a society where all live well, of national independence and peace, and of the unification movement, Jang Jun-ha, died in grief. Young people who share his aspirations carved this stone with their bare hands and erected this monument. Though the stones and roots cannot speak, far in the future they will surely bear witness correctly to the meaning of the "stone pillow."
In August 1985, the "Tenth Anniversary Memorial Event for Mr. Jang Jun-ha" was held. After the inauguration of the Roh Tae-woo administration, on August 15, 1991, he was posthumously awarded the Order of National Foundation, Patriot Medal, and on April 15, 1993, he was posthumously awarded the first Hanshin Prize.
On August 16, 1995, a 20th anniversary memorial event and a publication celebration for a memorial anthology were held. On November 1, 1999, he was posthumously awarded the Geumgwan Culture Medal.
On August 17, 2012, Jang Jun-ha Park was built in Seongdong-ri, Tanhyeon-myeon, Paju-si, and before its opening, Jang Jun-ha's remains were relocated on August 1 from the Nazareth Catholic Cemetery to the park.98
Evaluation
Positive evaluations
Ahn Byung-wook, in "The Power of the Sword and the Power of the Pen" (Sasanggye, December 1969 issue), wrote the following:11 "Sasanggye confronted the sword with the pen. It approached the bastion of power with the weapon of intellect. Sasanggye had the message of enlightenment and the language of criticism. It had the cry of freedom resisting dictatorship and the brush of civil rights confronting state authority."11 Ham Sok-hon, in an essay titled "Stone Pillow and Peniel," evaluated Jang Jun-ha, saying, "If you look at Jang Jun-ha's character, there is something of Jacob of the Old Testament. He abundantly possesses the virtue of fearlessness (無畏), which is indispensable for becoming a true person. He has no fear. He fears nothing."11
Kim Jun-yeop, a professor at Korea University and a friend of Jang Jun-ha, cited a Chinese magazine called New Youth and said that Sasanggye persistently pursued liberty and civil rights, the question of unification, economic development, the creation of a new culture, and a just welfare society, and that with Sasanggye at its center, the leading intellectuals of our country gathered and left a great mark on modern history.11
Ji Myeong-gwan highly praised Sasanggye for establishing a tradition of engagement (engagement) among Korean intellectuals. He said, "I think someone like Jang Jun-ha will never again exist in our country's history."11 The English literature scholar Yeo Seok-gi said that Sasanggye was a "good magazine" and a "magazine that sold well," and added, "I find it hard to believe such a case will happen again in the future."11 The media scholar Jeong Jin-seok assessed that from the 1950s through the 1960s, Sasanggye was the representative of Korean magazines, and that Jang Jun-ha, as the foremost figure among magazine journalists, left epoch-making achievements for the development of our country's press and democracy.11
Meanwhile, in a survey conducted by Hankyoreh 21, he was highly rated for having carried on the tradition of nationalism after the August 15 Liberation,99 and for having founded Sasanggye in the barren intellectual climate of the 1950s and 1960s and exerting a great influence on the intellectuals of the time.99
Negative evaluations
Kang Won-yong said that although he deserves respect, his activities such as Sasanggye had strong political aims.36 He said that he founded Sasanggye and others for political purposes, and that after the launch of the Third Republic he changed his political goal to opposing Park Chung Hee.36 Meanwhile, there is also a critical view of his support for the May 16 military coup in its early stages.100 There is also criticism that he "clung to Kim Gu, then to Chang Myon, and then followed Yun Posun and enthusiastically engaged in the color-politics controversy."101
Moreover, although Jang Jun-ha was so incorruptible that he cut off ties with Yi Beom-seok when Yi Beom-seok rose to power through the Korean National Youth League, despite Yi having been his commander during the independence army days,102 on the other hand he once made an irrational accusation that Kim Won-bong was attempting to bribe Korean youths who had escaped from the Japanese army through honey traps.103104 Behind this appears to be an anticommunist perspective influenced by his time as secretary to Kim Gu. Furthermore, he was such an anal-retentive anti-Japanese that he refused to run advertisements for Yamaha pianos because they were Japanese products,105 yet he established the Dongin Literary Award in honor of Kim Tong-in, a representative pro-Japanese writer,106 and in the December 1957 issue of Sasanggye he published a memorial issue for Choe Nam-seon, also a pro-Japanese figure, and wrote an introductory editorial praising Choe as a "close friend and a revered teacher,"107 displaying behavior that is difficult to understand. Jang Jun-ha's contradictory conduct shows that his perspective was somewhat distorted, and can be regarded as the inevitable limit of an anticommunist intellectual during the Cold War era.
Other
Besides Yun Posun, Chang Myon, Lee Chul-seung, Yu Chin-san, Kim Young-sam, and Kim Dae-jung, he was regarded as one of the strongest political rivals of Park Chung Hee during the Third and Fourth Republics, and some people even gave him the nickname "shadow president" (재야 대통령), in contrast to Park Chung Hee, the sitting president.
Jang Ho-jun, a pastor who is the son of Jang Jun-ha and resides in Connecticut, USA, wrote an open letter to Park Ji-man, the son of Park Chung Hee and younger brother of Park Geun-hye. "A letter from the son of Jang Jun-ha to Park Ji-man"108
Discovery of military service records
To seek the truth behind the claim that Jang Jun-ha and others deserted the Imperial Japanese Army, in 2004 Uri Party National Assembly member Jeon Byeong-heon personally investigated materials on the Japanese army side and uncovered evidence of Jang Jun-ha's desertion from the Japanese army as well as his military service record (yusu myeongbu). This was disclosed to the press at the National Assembly Political Affairs Committee in October 2004.
At that time, Uri Party National Assembly member Jeon Byeong-heon said on the 6th, "A record was discovered in the Yusu Myeongbu (留守名簿) that Mr. Jang Jun-ha was conscripted as a Japanese student soldier in January 1944, and on July 7 of that year escaped from Xuzhou in China, arrived in Chongqing after a great march of 6,000 li, and joined the Korean Liberation Army," and stated that "this record also matches the account in Mr. Jang's autobiography Stone Pillow." Through this, the records of Mr. Jang Jun-ha's conscription into the Japanese army and his escape were made public. 0
According to the materials disclosed by Representative Jeon, the name of Mr. Jang Jun-ha found in the Yusu Myeongbu (Hariyasu Shunga, 張安俊河), his unit (Unit 7991), date and place of birth and registered domicile (258 Daegwan-dong, Oenam-myeon, Samju-gun, Pyeongan-bukdo), his father's name (Jang Seok-in, 張錫仁), his category of service and branch of service and rank, the deposit number, and at the top the date and place of escape, are all recorded. The "Yusu Myeongbu," which consists of 114 volumes in total, is the roster of soldiers and civilian employees dispatched overseas by the Imperial Japanese Army, and records the date and place of escape (desertion), separation, death, and other cases of persons who went missing, and the records of Korean soldiers who deserted or escaped from the Japanese army are separately organized at the back of each volume.
According to the service record, on January 20, 1944 (Showa 19), he was assigned to Unit 7991 of the Japanese army's 65th Division, and it appears that on July 7 of the same year he deserted at Xuzhou (徐州) in Jiangsu (江蘇省), China. The roster notes at the top "Desertion (逃亡) Xuzhou," thereby revealing Mr. Jang's desertion.5 This matches what Jang Jun-ha himself revealed in his autobiography Stone Pillow during his lifetime.5
Right after his escape from the Imperial Japanese Army in 1944, Jang Jun-ha and Kim Jun-yeop and others rejected an offer to recruit them. However, Kim Won-bong continued to send people to persuade them, and Jang Jun-ha says that Kim Won-bong schemed to sow discord among the Japanese army deserters and student soldiers. "When they realized that the persuasion efforts by the branch commander dispatched as Kim Yak-san's subordinate had failed, they immediately began a campaign to sow discord among us."18 That is how he put it.
Jang Jun-ha stated that in recruiting Japanese army and student soldier deserters, "the Kim Won-bong faction even resorted to honey traps."110 He also accused Kim Won-bong of devising schemes to undermine the trust in the Korean Liberation Army, stating, "Kim Won-bong diligently applied anti-trust tactics against the Provisional Government and the Korean Liberation Army to the units of former Japanese army personnel."33
Jang Jun-ha also doubted Kim Won-bong's intentions in forming a unified national party. "Kim Yak-san, at that time, though serving as deputy leader of the Korean National Revolutionary Party, which he led with Dr. Kim Kyu-sik as its nominal head, was already one of the communists of the standard type. Perhaps he founded the Korean National Revolutionary Party in order to join a coalition government cabinet."18 That is what he said. He evaluated Kim Won-bong negatively, and when Kim Won-bong defected to North Korea, his claims gained credibility.
Furthermore, Jang Jun-ha raised suspicions that Kim Won-bong sowed discord even immediately after the Liberation in 1945. He claimed that Kim tried to exploit the ignorance and misconduct of Korean Liberation Army members. "It was Kim Won-bong's calculation to fan distrust of the Provisional Government and the Korean Liberation Army within the units of former Japanese army personnel, and to reap the benefit from it."33 He said that, to bring into the 1st Brigade of the Korean Liberation Army the unit of former Japanese army personnel whose leader, a man named Hwang, had refused to be incorporated into the Korean Liberation Army, Kim Won-bong personally dispatched Yi So-min to carry out the maneuver.33 Jang Jun-ha also stated that "Kim Won-bong diligently applied anti-trust tactics against the Provisional Government and the Korean Liberation Army to units of Japanese army origin."33
Education
Graduated from Gyodong Elementary School in Seonchon, North Pyongan Province (completed)
Graduated from Daegwan Common School in Samju, North Pyongan Province
1941: At the urging of his friend, marathon runner Kim Ik-jun, decided to study in Japan, and went to study in Tokyo.
April 1941: Entered the preparatory course of Toyo University.
November 1943: Married Kim Hee-sook (then 17), a former student from his days at Sinan Elementary School and the daughter of his boarding house. It was also partly intended to prevent her from being taken away as a "comfort woman" (jeongsindae).
January 1945: Joined the Korean Liberation Army in Chongqing, China, was commissioned as a captain in the Korean Liberation Army, and devoted himself to the independence struggle.
August 18, 1945: Entered Seoul as a member of the Korean independence army, but was blocked by the Japanese army and returned.
April 26, 1946: Joined the Korean Youth Association founded by Kim Kyu-sik. However, he soon left the Korean Youth Association and moved to the National Youth Corps of Yi Beom-seok.
June 1967: Elected as a National Assembly member for Seoul Dongdaemun Eul district while in prison.
February 1970: Pushed a new party movement to unite new national forces.
April 1970: Left the New Democratic Party together with Yun Posun and others when they left the party, after which he served as an independent National Assembly member. Published his book Stone Pillow.
1970: Took part, together with Yun Posun, Park Ki-chul and others, in founding the pro-government National People's Party.
1971: Took part in the "National Council for the Protection of Democracy."
Even after his death, his family continued to suffer pressure from the government of Park Chung-hee. His eldest son, Jang Ho-gwon, was attacked in 1976 and was hospitalized for a time. Pressure from intelligence agencies also made it difficult for him to find employment, which led to the family being scattered. On the other hand, Kim Jae-gyu, who was director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency at the end of the Park Chung-hee administration, provided some favors to the bereaved family, such as recommending that they move to the United States.115 In 2012, Jang Ho-gwon testified that he and his elderly mother were living in a monthly-rent apartment in Ilwon-dong and were struggling financially, relying on a pension of about 1 million won per month.116 In response, the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs stated that, under Article 6 of the Enforcement Decree of the Act on the Honorable Treatment of Persons of National Merit, the widow was receiving compensation of 1,431,000 won per month, and that the Ilwon-dong apartment was a house supplied under special allocation pursuant to the same act.117
Family
Both paternal aunts were older than Jang Jun-ha's father, Jang Seok-in.
Daughter-in-law: Shin Jeong-ja (1948 – 27 May 2022)
Granddaughter: Jang Won-gyeong (1976 – 28 October 2021)
Granddaughter: Jang Won-hui (1986 – )
Second son: Jang Ho-seong (張豪誠, 1952 – )
Daughter-in-law: Mun Ju-ja (文珠子, 1951 – )
Granddaughter: Jang Jeong-a (張晶雅, 1977 – )
Grandson: Jang Hyeon-uk (張賢煜, 1980 – )
Eldest daughter: Jang Ho-gyeong (張豪瓊, 1955 – )
Son-in-law: Han Yeong-sang (韓永相, 1952 – 2006)
Maternal granddaughter: Han Ji-yeon (1978 – )
Maternal granddaughter: Han Ga-yeon (1980 – )
Second daughter: Jang Ho-yeon (張豪姸, 1957 – )
Son-in-law: Yang Chung-heon (梁忠憲, 1949 – )
Maternal grandson: Yang Seok-min (1980 – )
Maternal grandson: Yang Seok-jin (1982 – )
Third son: Jang Ho-jun (張豪峻, 1958 – ), Pastor of Yukon Stores Korean Church, a United Church of Christ (UCC) congregation in Connecticut, United States / Chairman of the "Migrant Hope Alliance for a World Where People Live Well" (사람 사는 세상을 위한 미주희망연대)118
Daughter-in-law: Kwon Hye-won (權惠媛, 1958 – )
Granddaughter: Jang Hae-ni (張海馜, 1982 – )
Father-in-law: Kim Jun-deok (金俊德)
Mother-in-law: No Seon-sam (盧仙三), a Catholic whose baptismal name was Veronica
Jang Jun-ha, 《장준하 문집 3권, 사상계지 수난사》 (by Jang Jun-ha; edited by the Committee for the 10th Anniversary Memorial Collection of Jang Jun-ha, August 1985, Doso Ch'ulp'an Sasang), chronology, p. 473 ↩
Park Kyung-soo (2006). 《장준하(민족주의자의 길)》. Dolbegae. p. 165. ↩
Jang Jun-ha, 《장준하 문집 3권, 사상계지 수난사》 (by Jang Jun-ha; edited by the Committee for the 10th Anniversary Memorial Collection of Jang Jun-ha, August 1985, Doso Ch'ulp'an Sasang), chronology, p. 474 ↩↩2↩3↩4↩5↩6
This is presumed to have initially been caused by disappointment with and weariness of the factional struggle between the old and new factions within the Second Republic of South Korea ruling party, the Democratic Party (the forces of Yun Bo-seon and the forces of Chang Myon).43 ↩
시사인물사전 7 (by Kang Jun-man et al., Inmul gwa Sasangsa, 2000) p. 150 ↩↩2↩3↩4↩5↩6↩7↩8↩9
시사인물사전 7 (by Kang Jun-man et al., Inmul gwa Sasangsa, 2000) p. 149 ↩
Institute for Korean Historical Studies, 1950년대 남북한의 선택과 굴절 (Yeoksa Bipyeongsa, 1998) p. 183 ↩↩2↩3↩4↩5↩6
Yu Kyung-hwan, 〈기둥 잘린 나무―사상계 15년 소사〉, 《광복 50년과 장준하》 (Committee for the 20th Anniversary Memorial Collection of Jang Jun-ha, 1995), p. 276 ↩