Kilsoo Haan

1.1. Birth and immigration to Hawaii

Kilsoo Kenneth Haan was born on May 31, 1900, in Jangdan County, Gyeonggi Province, which was then part of the Korean Empire. When he was five years old, his family joined the wave of Korean immigration to Hawaii, arriving as plantation laborers. Although his father returned to Korea in 1910, Haan and his mother remained in Hawaii, where he continued his education.

1.2. Education and Salvation Army service

In Hawaii, Haan attended the Korean Compound School and the Ka'iulani School, completing his education up to the eighth grade. In August 1920, he left Hawaii to pursue a year of ministerial preparation at the Salvation Army Training School in San Francisco, California. Upon his return to Hawaii, he began his service as a Salvation Army representative on the island of Kauaʻi. Over the next six years, Haan steadily rose through the ranks within the organization, eventually achieving the position of Captain.

1.3. Marriage and resignation

Haan's religious career with the Salvation Army concluded in 1926 following his marriage to Stella Yoon, a Korean woman from Honolulu. He reportedly resigned from the Salvation Army because his new wife's religious beliefs were in conflict with his service in the organization. After his resignation, the couple returned to Honolulu.

2.1. Involvement in Korean independence movement

In the 1930s, Kilsoo Kenneth Haan became actively involved in the Korean independence movement. He joined the Korean National Association (KNA) of Hawaii, a prominent organization dedicated to advocating for Korea's liberation from Japanese colonial rule. His involvement with the KNA marked his formal entry into political activism and set the stage for his subsequent intelligence activities.

2.2. Intelligence activities regarding Pearl Harbor

In 1941, Haan acquired critical intelligence regarding Japan's impending attack on Pearl Harbor. He provided multiple warnings to the United States government, including informing the State Department two days before the attack that the Japanese embassy had begun selling its cars, an indicator of an imminent event. Despite these explicit warnings, the attack proceeded. Following the attack, the State Department reportedly threatened Haan with incarceration if he disclosed his prior warnings to the press, highlighting the controversial nature of his intelligence work and the government's response.

2.3. Advocacy for Korean American rights

A significant aspect of Haan's advocacy was his successful lobbying of the United States Department of Justice to exclude Koreans from the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. This was a crucial achievement, particularly given that Korea was legally considered part of Japan at the time, meaning Korean Americans could have been subjected to the same internment policies as Japanese Americans. His efforts ensured that Korean Americans retained their nationality and property, distinguishing them from Japanese nationals and protecting their rights during a period of intense national security concerns and ethnic profiling.

2.4. World War II intelligence activities

During World War II, Kilsoo Kenneth Haan continued his intelligence operations. In the summer of 1942, he circulated a "secret report" to American newspapers claiming that Japanese leaders Hideki Tōjō and Kōki Hirota had been wounded by gunshots from a Korean patriot named Park Soowon. In December 1942, Haan also met with George Atcheson Jr. and Laurence E. Salisbury of the United States Department of State to seek a written assurance that the United States would assist in establishing an independent Korean government after the war, believing this would encourage Korean agents in Japanese territory. On May 5, 1943, Haan appeared before Chairperson Samuel Dickstein's House Immigration Committee, which was considering the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act. During his testimony, Haan stated that his network of spies in East Asia had discovered evidence of the Japanese government's plan to conclude the war in China and redeploy its naval assets to convoy over 100,000 seasoned troops for an invasion of Crescent City, California, "before Christmas." These activities underscored his deep involvement in providing intelligence to the U.S. government regarding Japanese military strategies and internal affairs.

2.5. Cold War intelligence activities

Following the conclusion of World War II, Kilsoo Kenneth Haan shifted his focus to addressing the emerging global political landscape. He actively campaigned against the expansion of Soviet communism. In this capacity, he continued to provide intelligence to the United States government, offering information on the Sino-Soviet alliance, the Soviet atomic bomb project, and developments related to the Korean War. His contributions extended his intelligence career beyond World War II, demonstrating his sustained engagement in geopolitical affairs.

3.1. Opposition to trusteeship

Following the August 15, 1945 liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule, Kilsoo Kenneth Haan voiced strong opposition to the proposed trusteeship and the subsequent division of the Korean peninsula. His stance reflected a desire for a unified and independent Korea, free from foreign influence.

3.2. Life in the United States

After the establishment of the South Korean government, Kilsoo Kenneth Haan returned to the United States. He settled in California, where he spent the remainder of his life managing a peach farm. He passed away in 1976.

5.1. Re-evaluation of contributions

Kilsoo Kenneth Haan's significant contributions, especially his intelligence work, were not widely recognized during his lifetime and remained largely unacknowledged until well after his death in 1976. Despite his clear achievements in the Korean independence movement and his crucial intelligence activities, his complex role as a double agent led to his classification as "reserved" by the South Korean Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs. This delayed recognition highlights the intricate and often controversial nature of intelligence work and its impact on historical assessment.

5.2. Cultural portrayal

For many years, Kilsoo Kenneth Haan's achievements and life remained largely unknown to the public. His story was first brought to prominent attention through the South Korean spy thriller film HAAN 한길수, released in 2005. The film is based on Haan's experiences as Korea's first notable double agent, specifically depicting his efforts to warn the United States about Japan's impending attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the subsequent disregard of his warnings.

5.3. Archives and documents

Kilsoo Kenneth Haan's personal papers are preserved in the archives of the University of California, Santa Cruz. These materials include correspondence, newspaper clippings, commentaries, and other writings, notably texts for the Korean underground report, reflecting his role as a representative of the Sino-Korean Peoples' League. Additional materials, such as the Fred E. Cannings Pearl Harbor collection (1933-1978), which contains correspondence between Haan, Cannings, and U.S. government officials concerning the Pearl Harbor attack and Japanese activities in Korea, are stored at the University of Wyoming American Heritage Center. These archives serve as vital resources for further research into his life and intelligence career.

6.1. Translation of "How Japan Plans to Win"

Kilsoo Kenneth Haan played a significant role as the English translator of The Three-Power Alliance and a United States-Japanese War, a strategic book written in Japanese by Kinoaki Matsuo. This book was published in Japan in 1940 and outlined strategies in anticipation of a Pacific War. Haan's English translation, titled How Japan Plans to Win, was published in Boston by Little, Brown and Company in 1942. This translation provided crucial insights into Japanese military thinking for the English-speaking world. Matsuo, the original author, was a Japanese Imperial Navy officer and strategist with ties to the Black Dragon Society.

6.2. Further reading and analysis

Several academic works and reviews provide further context and analysis of Kilsoo Kenneth Haan's life and the historical events he was involved in:

• Morton Grodzins's 1949 book, Americans Betrayed: Politics and the Japanese Evacuation, offers insights into the broader context of Japanese American internment, a policy from which Haan successfully lobbied to exclude Koreans.
• Richard S. Kim's 2011 book, The Quest for Statehood: Korean Immigrant Nationalism and U.S. Sovereignty, 1905-1945, provides a detailed account of Korean immigrant nationalism and its interactions with U.S. sovereignty, covering the period of Haan's most active involvement in the independence movement.
• John Koster's 2019 book, Action Likely in Pacific, also delves into the intelligence context of the Pacific War.
• Academic articles such as Brian Masaru Hayashi's "Kilsoo Haan, American Intelligence, and the Anticipated Japanese Invasion of California, 1931-1943" (2014) provide in-depth analysis of specific aspects of Haan's intelligence activities.
• Reviews of How Japan Plans to Win by figures like William Henry Chamberlain (The New York Times, 1942), Robert Gale Woolbert (Foreign Affairs, 1942), and E. Ainger (International Affairs, 1942) offer contemporary perspectives on the significance of Matsuo's work and Haan's translation.
• Another related work is Japan's Internal Affairs Record (일본내막기_{Ilbon Naemakgi}^Korean), published in English in July 1941 by Syngman Rhee. This book aimed to expose the true nature and realities of the Japanese Empire and notably predicted the outbreak of the Pacific War through the attack on Pearl Harbor.