오늘 새벽 런던 올림픽 축구 경기에서 한국 팀이 일본을 2-0으로 이기고 동메달을 따는 것을 본 한국인들은 "이러다가는 國力에서도 일본을 이기는 것 아닌가"하는 생각을 하는 이들이 많았을 것이다. 일본과 싸우면 힘이 더 나는 건 일종의 민족적 복수심일 것이다. IMF 예측에 의하면 1인당 국민소득(구매력 기준)에선 2017년에 한국이 일본을 추월한다. 물론 축적된 富의 크기에선 일본을 따라잡기가 어렵다. 한국이 일본을 극복할 수 있도록 틀을 짜고 레일을 깐 사람들이 있다.

1951년 초 李承晩 대통령은 日帝 총독부 관료 출신인 任文桓(임문환) 씨를 농림부 장관에 임명하였다. 任씨는 차관엔 일본 고등문관 시험 同期인 李泰鎔씨를 임명하였다. 任씨는 국회에 인사차 갔다. 국회는 그가 親日派라고 인사를 받아주지 않았다. 국회에서 돌아온 그를 李 대통령이 불렀다.

任씨는 회고록에서 가까이서 본 李 대통령을 이렇게 평하였다.
<老志士라기보다는 百獸(백수)를 호령하는 老獅子(노사자)의 인상이었다. 위엄이 몸에 붙은, 鐵의 의지를 가진 達人이었다. 가까이 가면 나보다 키가 작아 보였는데, 떨어져서 보면 뼈대가 굵어 백발의 몸이 나보다 훨씬 크게 보였다. 악수를 해보니 굵은 손아귀에서 뜨거운 피가 흐르는 듯하였다.>

대통령이 물었다.
"君은 오늘 국회에 갔다가 인사를 거절당했다면서?"
"그렇습니다. 친일파라고 거절 당하였습니다."
"그런 걸 알면서 차관까지 친일파를 임명, 世風을 거스르겠다는 건 신중하지 못해. 다른 사람으로 바꾸세요. 李泰鎔은, 姓名을 보니 우리 집안인 듯한데, 그건 별개 문제요."

그런 말을 하는 대통령의 표정은 손자를 타이르는 자상한 할아버지 같았다. 자존심이 강한 任 장관도 승복하지 않을 수 없었다. 엄격한 얼굴로 돌아온 대통령은 이렇게 덧붙였다.

"일본 정부는 하와이에 있는 나의 목에 거액의 현상금을 건 적이 있다. 그래서 내가 일본을 싫어한다고 생각하는 이들이 있는 듯해. 그러나 그런 개인문제는 옛날에 잊었어요. 지금 내가 일본과 러시아를 걱정하고 있는 것은, 우리 나라의 장래를 생각하기 때문입니다. 러시아는 그러나, 공산당이기 때문에 어떻든 민주주의에 지게 되어 있어요. 그 정도로 알고 주의만 하면 되어요. 일본은 다릅니다. 미국에 밀착하여 민주주의와 함께 번영할 것입니다. 내가 비행기를 타고 가면서 내려다 본 일본은 산 꼭대기까지 저수지를 만들고, 비탈도 논이었습니다. 밤에 지날 때 내려다 보니 전등불이 끊어지지 않고 산과 평야에 이어졌어. 저렇게 좁은 땅에 저렇게 많은 사람이 모여 있으니, 오래는 잘 살 수가 없어. 머지 않아 장사나 무엇이든 이름을 빌려 가장 가까운 우리나라로 몰려오게 될 것입니다. 그때야말로 일본을 잘 알고 있는 당신들 親日派가 나라를 지켜야 합니다. 지금은 일단 自重하시고, 시험대에 오른 君부터 불어오는 바람을 피하는 데 전념하셔야 해요."

任 장관은 '놀라운 술회였다'고 썼다.
<그때 謹嚴(근엄)하기 짝이 없던 노인의 자세와, 저 멀리 바라보던 노인의 眼光은 지금도 나의 기억속에 그대로 살아 있다. 일본인과의 대결에 親日派의 등장을 기대한다는 것은, 日帝시절 그들이 맡았던 곡예사로서의 努苦를 알아준 부탁이 아닌가? 친일파를 일본의 개(犬)라고 보았다면 일본인이 다시 올 때 그들이 原주인에게 다시 꼬리를 흔들 것이 분명하므로 그런 중요한 일을 맡길 리가 없다.>

滿軍 장교 출신 박정희는 정권을 잡자, 日帝 관료-군인 출신들을 요직에 등용, 경제개발과 국가 근대화 사업을 맡긴다. 이들이 일본을 줏대 있게 잘 다루고 일본도 이들을 믿고 한국을 도왔다. 李 대통령의 예언대로 知日派로 변신한 親日派 출신들이 한국을 일본에 예속시키지 않고 발전시키는 데 중심이 되었다. 앞으로 5년이면 한국의 구매력 기준 1인당 국민소득이 일본을 능가한다고 한다(IMF 예측). 식민지였던 나라가 宗主國을 따라 잡는 것이다.

任文桓 씨처럼 식민지 관료 생활을 하면서 日帝와 동포 사이에서 곡예사 역할을 할 수밖에 없었던 이들의 마음고생을 기억함과 동시에 이들이 그때 익힌 기술을 국가 발전에 쓸 수 있도록 도와준 李承晩과 朴正熙의 위대한 안목에 감사하지 않을 수 없다.

李 대통령이 소련은 공산주의를 하기 때문에 민주주의에 의하여 반드시 망할 것이라고 확신하고 있었다는 대목도 흥미롭다. 무초 미국 대사는 李 대통령을 "아주 고차원의 시각에서 복잡한 세계 정세를 정확하게 이해한 분"이라고 극찬하였는데, 이념적이고 신앙적인 확신이 세계사의 흐름을 장악하게 만든 것 같다.
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무초 대사의 李承晩 격찬
'그는 아주 고차원의 시각에서 복잡한 세계 정세를 정확하게 이해했습니다.'
趙甲濟


李承晩이 독립운동과 建國期에 민족의 지도자 자리에 있지 않았다면 한국은 공산화되어 우리는 지금 김정일 治下에서 살고 있을 가능성이 높다. 李 대통령은 독립운동기엔 좌익들이 주도권을 잡지 못하도록 했고(金九와 함께), 건국기엔 미국의 左右합작 움직임과 공산당 세력의 선동을 저지하고 反共자유민주 국가를 건설했다. 萬難을 무릅쓰고 이 일을 해내도록 그를 몰아붙인 힘은 이념적 확신이었다. 그는 공산주의를 콜레라균 정도로 보고 자유민주주의를 민족의 희망, 미국과의 동맹을 국가의 생명줄이라고 믿었다. 당시는 東西 이념전쟁, 즉 냉전이 시작된 시기였다. 이념이 가장 큰 전략이라는 말이 李承晩에게 해당된다. 李 대통령의 뛰어난 세계정세觀은 이념적 自覺에서 우러난 것이었다. 당시 駐韓 미국대사 무초의 이승만 평이 재미 있다.

'李 대통령은 아주 머리 좋은 사람이었습니다. 그는 45년간 한국의 독립이란 한 목표를 위해 달려온 사람이었습니다. 그는 모든 한국인에게 잘 알려진 인물이었고 이것이 그의 정치적 강점이 되었습니다. 그는 의지의 인간이었습니다. 그는 독립투사로 단련된 성격을 국가원수가 되고나서도 바꿀 수 없었습니다. 그는 이성적일 때는 훌륭한 역사적 이해력을 보여주었습니다. 그는 아주 고차원의 시각에서 복잡한 세계 정세를 정확하게 이해했습니다. 감정적으로 되면 그는 독립투사 시절의 본능으로 돌아갔습니다. 그는 한국인의 생존과 자신의 생존에 집착했습니다. 그는 의심이 많았습니다. 그는 매우 복잡한 인물이었으나 위기 때 일처리를 잘 했으며 자신의 뜻을 고급 영어로 잘 표현했습니다. 그의 영어는 글과 말 무엇이든지 유창했습니다. 그는 '제퍼슨식 민주주의자'임을 자랑했습니다. 이 분야에 대한 그의 레토릭은 미국인들을 사로잡았습니다. 많은 사람들은 외국인 부인(注: 프란체스카 여사)이 그에게 큰 영향력이 있다고 생각했지만 사실은 그렇지 않았습니다.'

무초의 평 중에서 '그는 아주 고차원의 시각에서 복잡한 세계 정세를 정확하게 이해했습니다.'라는 말은 미국의 프로 외교관이 약소국의 지도자에게 바칠 수 있는 최고의 찬사일 것이다. 李承晩은 韓民族史上 2대 외교관이다. 羅唐연합으로 삼국통일을 이룩한 신라의 金春秋와 韓美동맹으로 자유통일의 기반을 만든 李承晩. 이승만, 박정희, 트루먼, 레이건, 대처 같은 이념형 지도자는 국가 대전략을 구사할 줄 안다. 그들은 확고한 이념과 전략을 바탕으로 외교, 안보, 법치의 울타리를 튼튼하게 하여 그 속에서 경제가 잘 되도록 유도한다.

東西냉전의 핵심은 이념대결이었다. 마가렛 대처는 '서양이 냉전에서 이겼다는 의미는 진실, 정의, 자유를 지켜냈다는 뜻이다'는 취지의 말을 했다. 냉전은 가치관의 싸뭉이었던 것이다. 한반도에선 아직도 그 이념전쟁이 끝나지 않았다. 그럼에도 '이념의 시대는 갔습니다'라고 외치는 李 대통령은 노선 수정을 하지 않으면 안보, 외교, 法治에서 실패할 가능성이 높다. 안보가 실패했는데 경제만 성공할 것이라고 바라는 것은 밑빠진 독에 물을 붓는 격이다.
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Controversy over Japan's Surprise Attack on the United States and Britain in December 1941

Prof. Takeo Iguchi
Lecture 2004-03-22

The weather was unkind to us, but still there was a respectable turnout for the March meeting, which was held at the International House of Japan. It was attended by Mr. Hiroshi Matsumoto in one of his last appearances as Senior Executive Director of International House before his retirement at the end of the month.

Our speaker was Prof. Takeo Iguchi of Shobi Gakuen University, former ambassador to New Zealand, who had taken as his subject "Controversy over Japan's Surprise Attack on the United States and Britain in December 1941." In the preface to his speech, Prof. Iguchi said that the U.S. had destroyed the Japanese embassy documents of the period, but records still survived in MAGIC, the military decoding network. He also handed out copies of articles he had written for the Asahi Evening News of June 4, 2002, and the Japan Times of December 15, 2002, in which he had written that he had found the original version of Japan's Final Memorandum to the U.S. in a top-secret file in the Foreign Ministry. Further documentary evidence was also contained in a "Confidential War Diary" published in 1998, which showed that the military had been opposed to the sending of any ultimatum which would jeopardize their carrying out a surprise attack.

The so-called ultimatum was delivered to the State Department more than one hour after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Controversy still rages over whether Roosevelt or Churchill knew about the attack in advance but suppressed their knowledge in order to arouse anger against the treacherous enemy. However, this theory lacks credibility, as it is unlikely that Roosevelt had sources of information not available to his top cabinet members also the latest research tends to endorse the view that Churchill preferred the U.S. to enter the war only in Europe, and not against Japan. Further, the attack on Pearl Harbor would not have been a surprise if the officer who picked the Japanese planes up on the radar had not mistaken them for American planes.

The 'revisionists' who back this theory of prior knowledge also maintain that the note submitted by Secretary of State Cordell Hull to ambassadors Nomura and Kurusu on November 26, 1941, was deliberately aimed at provoking Japan to war, so that America would have an excuse for entering the war against Germany. Prime Minister Tojo and Foreign Minister Togo regarded the Hull Note, which demanded the Japanese army's withdrawal from China, as an ultimatum but it did not impose a deadline, and was not couched in the terms of an ultimatum. Already on November 22, Tokyo had instructed the Washington embassy that if negotiations for the lifting of American sanctions on the export of petroleum in exchange for the Japanese withdrawal of troops from southern Indo-China were unsuccessful they would be discontinued after December 1. And by the time the Hull Note was delivered, Japanese naval forces with four aircraft carriers were already on their way to Hawaii.

The available evidence now proves that the operations against the American forces in Pearl Harbor and the British forces in Malaya were planned as surprise attacks, without the local commanders being given warning of them by a break-off in diplomatic relations. The Final memorandum was delivered to the U.S. State Department at 2:00 p.m. on December 7 (Washington time), one hour later than the attack on Pearl Harbor and three hours later than the landings on the Kota Bahru beachhead. Roosevelt labelled the day "a day of infamy". Churchill was elated, as the U.S. was now brought into the war as a full ally, and Chiang Kai Shek was relieved that China would be saved from defeat.

A question that can legitimately be asked here is whether this Memorandum qualified as an ultimatum, that is, a lawful notice of the declaration of war, as required under the Hague Convention. In fact it simply gave notice of the termination of negotiations without mentioning the Japanese government's intention to go to war. This is because the final words in the original draft were deleted at the express demand of the military high command, as their military strategy required a surprise attack. This has been admitted by Toshikazu Kase, the only surviving member of the team who drafted the document. Moreover Hisashi Owada (who was then Ambassador to the United Nations) made it clear in a speech made in September 1997, at the Centennial Symposium of the Japanese Association of International Law, that the memorandum could not be construed as an ultimatum and that Japan's conduct prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor violated the whole spirit of the agreement requiring a declaration of war.

Supposing the Memorandum had qualified as a declaration of war, the next question was whether half-an-hour's notice was justifiable. In this connection, two entries in the "Confidential War Diary" mentioned above are enlightening. One entry of December 2 notes with confidence, "The U.S. is not yet aware of Japan's true intent," and another of December 6 states with satisfaction: "Ambassadors Nomura and Kurusu held a meeting with Secretary Hull. Our deceptive diplomacy is steadily proceeding towards success." Half-an-hour's notice might have been justified in the case of a clear declaration of war, but an ultimatum disguised as a termination of negotiations should have been delivered, at the latest, before the assaulting naval air force had taken off from the aircraft carriers. This was because, if America were to have backpedalled on the Hull Note and pressed Japan to resume negotiations, Japan would have been placed in the indefensible position of attacking a negotiating partner who did not want to break off talks.

In an entry dated December 6 in his diary, which was published a few years ago, Prince Takamatsu criticized the Japanese army for falsely announcing that war had broken out between Britain and Japan because British forces had initiated an attack against Japanese forces landing in Thailand. Further, Togo argued in his memoirs that there had been no need of a separate declaration of war against Britain, as it was an ally of the U.S. On the morning of December 8 in Tokyo, Togo handed to the British ambassador, Sir Robert Craigie, the same Memorandum as had been delivered in Washington, after Malaya had already been attacked. And yet this Memorandum was merely a notice to terminate negotiations with the U.S. Nor did Togo take any formal steps to inform Craigie that Japan was in a state of war against Britain, even after the attack had been broadcast. As Sir Paul Gore-Booth, who was second secretary at the time, observed in his memoirs, "Had Minister Togo told Craigie the truth, he might have been in the position of a foreign minister informing an ambassador that a state of war existed, without being able to hand him a formal declaration of war." It seems that Togo was clearly forbidden by the military to inform both Britain and the United States of the start of war. Mr. Dooman, Counsellor at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo, records in his diary for December 8 that as soon as he got the Domei News Agency's release announcing "a state of armed conflict" he rushed to the Foreign Ministry to see Mr. Haruhiko Nishi, the Vice-Foreign Minister. But Nishi knew no more than he had heard from Domei.

Not only was the Japanese Embassy in Washington instructed not to break off talks until half an hour after the attack on Pearl Harbor began, the deputy chiefs of staff of the army and navy made every effort to put off the delivery of the Final Memorandum until after the attack. The telegram containing the memorandum was divided into 14 parts, and only 13 of these were sent in advance, and the 14th part was withheld for 15 hours, without convincing reasons. Moreover the 13 parts contained lengthy omissions and garbled passages, so that the final version could not be completed by the night of December 6, and the additional cables arrived only at 8:00 a.m. on the 7th, which was a Sunday. At this point, the only person available who was able to type out the finished document was a career diplomat, First Secretary Kazuo Okumura, who struggled unsuccessfully to meet the one o'clock deadline. It was revealed at the Far Eastern Military Tribunal that the army was always able to interfere with the transmission of official telegrams sent from the Foreign Ministry. Subsequent evidence has now made it clear that there was a deliberate attempt to obstruct the timely delivery of the Memorandum, though it is still not clear whether the omissions and garbling were accidental or intentional.

A related item which Prof. Iguchi had discovered and reported on at an academic meeting last year was the suspension of an urgent message sent by Roosevelt to the Emperor at the eleventh hour. That the Foreign Ministry knew the contents of this message is revealed by certain handwritten changes made to the final paragraph of the memorandum, evidently in the light of the contents of the message. Here the army ad the Foreign Ministry flagrantly violated Japanese constitutional practice in taking this action without the sanction of the Emperor and the cabinet. Whether Prime Minister Tojo and Foreign Minister Togo were aware of this is not known, but Prof. Iguchi suspected that they were, and had pretended to know nothing in order not to interfere with the military surprise attack. This demonstrated that the wartime leaders were not courageous and farsighted enough to control the military machine.

In the question time that followed, Prof. Iguchi was asked what he thought of the claims made in Robert Stinnett's Day of Deceit, and replied that as they were completely unsubstantiated they were not worth refuting. On the question of the late Emperor's involvement, Prof. Iguchi said that he had acted as his interpreter for five years, and was convinced that he had been a man of peace.

The meeting concluded with a vote of thanks proposed by Mrs. Eileen Kato, who said how happy she was that Prof. Iguchi had at last completely vindicated Kazuo Okumura (and also his father, of whom he had not spoken), as the Okumuras had always been like parents to her diplomat husband and herself. The younger Okumura had been pilloried for six decades, his slowness in typing being blamed for causing the delay in the transmission of the Memorandum. But the embassy typists had gone home for the weekend. There had been no alternative, although in those days diplomats were not expected to type. Mr. Okumura had never spoken of the matter, but it had always overshadowed his career. Prof. Iguchi's presentation of the affair had been a model of historical objectivity, plainly stating the true facts about these professional diplomats of unimpeachable integrity.