Office of the Historian

740.00119 Control (Korea)/1–2846: Telegram

The Political Adviser in Korea (Benninghoff) to the Secretary of State

top secret
priority
Seoul, January 28, 1946.
[Received January 28—1:49 p.m.]

17. Mr. Goodfellow42 has been working with Korean political groups for past month with considerable success. Already Kim Koo and Syngman Rhee have agreed to dissolution of their “Provisional Government” and to cooperate with efforts to form united group to act with General Hodge and the Joint Commission. Left wing and Communist leaders are being urged to take similar action and we have hopes that in short time a united advisory group can be announced. This will have functions identical to those of the “Consultative group” mentioned in the preliminary draft political directive brought by General Spalding.43 It is hoped that this directive can be approved and transmitted to us at a very early date.44

  1. Col. M. Preston Goodfellow, a friend of Syngman Rhee, proposed by General Hodge for work in Korea.↩
  2. Maj. Gen. Sidney P. Spalding, formerly of the U.S. Military Mission in the Soviet Union, who had returned to Washington in 1945.↩
  3. See footnote 40, p. 623.↩