Youtube coughed up some great short video with some old JTBC photos from the Korean CIA, circa 1965. I don't know how to share or embed it. This is the link below. Some of the characters in the video are Kim Jong-pil, (of the political troika, the three Kims); Park Jong-kyo, Chief of the Presidential Security Service (for dictator Park Chung-hee); and Kim Hyung-yook, head of the Korean CIA during the Park dictatorship. They are shown partying it up, with Japanese heavies, Kodama Yushio (former Class A war criminal released by the US after WWII with no trial); and Hisayuki Machii, a Korean born Yakuza gang leader in Japan. Kodama, was reported in one historical account I read, responsible for coordinating looting in Japanese occupied territories during WWII on behalf of the Japanese Imperial family. During WWII he was commissioned as a general officer. He also coordinated drug trafficking, smuggling of war materials with Chinese warlords and gangs.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DZIpiDi-WTY
Wikipedia has a this on Hisayuki:
Under the American occupation
Like fellow yakuza powerbroker Yoshio Kodama, Machii had good relations with the US occupation authorities due to his staunch anti-Communist stance: Tosei-kai soldiers were often used as strikebreakers during the occupation years. Machii himself worked with the United States Counter Intelligence Corps.[citation needed] While leaders of the Japanese yakuza were imprisoned or under close scrutiny by the American occupying forces, the Korean yakuza were free to take over the lucrative black markets. But rather than trying to rival the Japanese godfathers, Machii made alliances with them, and throughout his career, he remained close to both Kodama and Taoka.[3]
Machii's vast empire included tourism, entertainment, bars and restaurants, prostitution, and oil importing. He and Kodama made a fortune on real estate investments alone. More importantly, he brokered deals between the Korean government and the yakuza that allowed Japanese criminals to set up rackets in Korea. Thanks to Machii, Korea became the yakuza's home away from home. Befitting his role as fixer between the underworlds of both countries, Machii was allowed to acquire the largest ferry service between Shimonoseki, Japan, and Busan, South Korea—the shortest route between the two countries.[2]
Role in the kidnapping of Kim Dae-jung
...
He was widely believed to have helped the Korean Central Intelligence Agency kidnap then-leading Korean opposition leader Kim Dae-jung from a Tokyo hotel (see kidnapping of Kim Dae-jung).[3] Kim was whisked out to sea where he was bound, gagged, blindfolded and fitted with weights so that his body would never surface.
Kim's life was allegedly spared because of the personal intervention of the US Ambassador to Seoul, Philip Habib, who didn't wait for instructions from Washington to find Kim. This led me to an archived NY Times article basically trying to lionize Kim Hyung Wook
Former Chief of Korea's C.I.A. Kim Hyung Wook
June 23, 1977
https://www.nytimes.com/1977/06/23/archives/former-chief-of-koreas-cia-kim-hyung-wook.html
Surprised youtube put the short video with the KCIA photos in the cue, and surprised the old NY Times article opened for me.
So the bottom line here is that the 1965 Japanese-Republic of Korea Settlement Agreement which purportedly absolved Japan of legal liability for any Korean claims including those for war crimes, specifically massive slave labor and sex slave crimes against humanity, was (Surprise!) negotiated by war criminals and yakuza on behalf of Japan. (Kodama's cellmate in Sugamo prison, Kishi Nobusuke was also involved in the negotiations that led to the 1965 agreement).
There are many legal authorities in Korea,(including the Korean high court) and some in Japan, who say it doesn't bar personal claims for war crimes. The agreement doesn't bar personal claims for injury, it precludes property claims, and subrogation claims. There was an internal Japanese Justice Ministry memo to this effect also. Ignorantly, President Yoon said he wouldn't pursue the "subrogation claims" of any South Korean corporation that volunteers to pay for Japan's war crimes. One commentator noted that that Samsung hadn't come forward with any contribution pledge so far. POSCO did (they received a large share of the economic development funding that Japan provided). I saw another video showing that Lee Jae-yong, the Samsung Group Executive Chairman, was in Beijing for the China Development Forum which was attended by 100 corporate executives from around the world, including Tim Cook from Apple.
Wendy Sherman, US Deputy Sec. of State- "Why can't they just get over it?"
(edited 3.29.23 for typos)
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