Word: rhee
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...Passive Revolution" earned Koreans little foreign sympathy; but it strengthened the determination of Korean patriots. Late in 1919 independence leaders from Korea and from Korean communities in exile gathered in Shanghai. Rhee, who feared that Chinese police might collar him to earn the $300,000 price placed by the Japanese on his head, was smuggled into Shanghai's International Settlement in a coffin. There he helped establish the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, became its first President...
Yoon Piung-hi's activities made it clear that it was only a matter of time before the Japanese would decide to imprison Rhee, perhaps to dispose of him permanently. In 1912, with the help of missionary friends, Rhee got permission to leave Korea for six months. He sailed for Hawaii, settled down as a leader of the territory's small Korean colony...
Confucianism & a Coffin. Though gone from Korea, Rhee was not forgotten. Many years later he wrote, "Raised in a Confucian family, I was naturally a man of peace." With the coming of World War I, Rhee's Confucian pacifism, reinforced by Christianity, led him to subscribe wholeheartedly to Woodrow Wilson's idealistic visions of a world without violence. Rhee became convinced that a passive uprising in Korea would win his people recognition both from America and from the League of Nations. In 1919 resistance leaders who had remained in Korea met secretly in Seoul to plot a revolt...
Conferences & Croquet. In the next 20 years Syngman Rhee's life fell into the dreary, frustrating round of most exiled politicians. He attended international conferences vainly trying to win recognition for Korea. (The U.S. Government blocked his attendance at Versailles Treaty meetings and at later disarmament conferences, because his presence might have embarrassed the Japanese.) He quarreled with other exiled Korean politicians. (Rhee was for continued passive resistance; other leaders favored violent action.) By World War II, the Provisional Government was almost defunct and Rhee turned over the Korean central agency in China to Kim Koo, Korea...
...Rhee married Franziska Donner, an Austrian whom he had met while attending a League of Nations meeting in Geneva. Twenty years younger than Rhee, Franziska was attractive and chirrupy. She managed efficiently her impractical husband's finances. Said Rhee in 1941, "When I married a foreign lady, my family was very displeased, but they found out it was a perfect marriage." At parties, however, Rhee has been heard to tell Mrs. Rhee, "Now hush. You have talked enough...