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In this presentation, I examine how the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner to the CIA, became enmeshed with the Korean independence movement during World War II. Finding common interest in Korea’s postwar independence, the OSS staffed, trained and armed two insertion teams, Napko and Eagle, as the vanguard of the Allied assault against the Imperial Japanese Occupation of the Land of the Morning Calm. Before they could launch their invading force, however, Japan surrendered. Nevertheless, the two teams and the OSS involvement in this region left a lasting impact upon the region, some of it positive and some negative, with which we are still dealing with today. The lecture ends with how the OSS and the Korean independence movement connects with the City of Brotherly Love.About Brian Hayashi:
Brian Masaru Hayashi is a professor in the History Department, Kent State University. He was formerly a Professor in the Human & Environmental Studies Graduate School at Kyoto University in Kyoto, Japan which is a top university in that country. Prior to Kyoto University, he was an Assistant Professor at Yale University with appointments in American Studies, History, and East Asian Studies. He founded and directed that university’s Ethnicity, Race, and Migration Program. His research work on Japanese Americans resulted in For the Sake of Our Japanese Brethren (Stanford University Press, 1995), winner of the Kenneth Scott Latourette Award and Democratizing the Enemy (Princeton University Press, 2004), winner of the Robert Athearn Award. He has also co-edited volume with Japan’s top expert on “race,” Professor Yasuko Takezawa to produce New Waves (Kyoto University, 2004). His Asian American Spies, a book about the Office of Strategic Services (forerunner to the CIA) only recently published by Oxford University Press. His current research work is on the Yellow Peril racial ideology. He is featured in National Geographic’s video, “Hell from Below,” and has appeared in a Times’ podcast devoted solely to his most recent book. His course, “History of Espionage,” was even featured in the tv game show, Jeopardy, in 2020.
Social hour and book signing to follow.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Athenaeum of Philadelphia, 219 S 6th St, Philadelphia, PA 19106, United States
Tickets
USD 0 to USD 10