Abstract
During the war against Japan, the future of the Japanese possession of Korea was rarely discussed. Stalin wanted a friendly government on this frontier as elsewhere. But he was willing to conciliate Roosevelt’s desire for a joint occupation of the peninsula. Roosevelt did not want the Red Army too close to Japan. Therefore they divided the peninsula into zones of occupation along the 38th parallel. Roosevelt — a committed anti-colonialist — saw Korea as simply a colony, which must have its independence. But he felt it would need to be supervised for many years until it was ready for independence. He also assumed that a joint Soviet-American trusteeship would undertake that supervision. He was wrong on both counts.
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© 2003 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Swift, J. (2003). Korea — Partition and War. In: The Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of the Cold War. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230001183_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230001183_16
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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