Oliver Elliott Libros

The narrative explores the role of American journalism during the Cold War, specifically focusing on the rise of President Syngman Rhee's authoritarian regime in South Korea. It examines how foreign correspondents challenged U.S. military and political narratives, pushing the issue of South Korean repression into public discourse. However, as the Korean War began in 1950, the media shifted its focus, abandoning critical coverage of South Korean democracy, signaling a transition to a more supportive stance towards authoritarian allies in the context of Cold War politics.

During the Cold War, the United States enabled the rise of President Syngman Rhee’s repressive government in South Korea, and yet neither the American occupation nor Rhee’s growing authoritarianism ever became particularly controversial news stories in the United States. Could the press have done more to scrutinize American actions in Korea? Did journalists fail to act as an adequate check on American power? In the first archive-based account of how American journalism responded to one of the most significant stories in the history of American foreign relations, Oliver Elliott shows how a group of foreign correspondents, battling U. S. military authorities and pro-Rhee lobbyists, brought the issue of South Korean authoritarianism into the American political mainstream on the eve of the Korean War. However, when war came in June 1950, the press rapidly abandoned its scrutiny of South Korean democracy, marking a crucial moment of transition from the era of postwar idealism to the Cold Warnorm of American support for authoritarian allies.