Soviet press brands General Jang Do-young a war criminal for 400 deaths
By Marcus Boone ·
400 North Korean citizens were allegedly shot by a pro-American general during a 1961 coup that Moscow claimed was fostered by U.S. army officers to stifle liberation movements.
A cable sent from the Chinese Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on May 18 records the immediate fallout of the military coup in South Korea. The document, available as a published English translation from the Cold War International History Project, functions as a digest of Soviet media reactions to the events of May 16. It is a report on reports, capturing how the Soviet state press framed the sudden shift in Seoul to its domestic and international audiences.
Reactionary Forces
The Soviet Central Newspaper wasted no time in categorizing the coup as "reactionary in nature." According to the cable, the Soviet press claimed the takeover was not a spontaneous internal movement but was instead "incited by extremist reactionary forces." These forces, the reports argue, were driven by a specific fear: the growth of anti-American sentiment within South Korea and the potential for a "peaceful reunification movement."
In the lexicon of the Cold War, "reactionary" was the standard Soviet label for any movement that sought to preserve or strengthen capitalist structures and Western alliances. To the analysts in Moscow, the military's intervention was a preemptive strike against the tide of history. They dismissed the statements of the "Revolutionary Committee" as "completely reactionary," viewing the military's claim of a revolution as a thin veil for a pro-Western power grab.
West Point and the 400
The Soviet narrative focused heavily on the pedigree of the coup's leadership. The cable specifically singles out Lieutenant General Jang Do-young, describing the leaders of the coup as "reactionary pro-American generals." The Soviet press pointed to Jang’s education as evidence of his alignment with Washington, noting that he "went to the U.S. Military Academy to study in 1952."
For a targeting analyst, the mention of West Point is a detail of professional qualification, but for the Soviet press, it was a marker of ideological contamination. The reports went further, attempting to paint Jang as a war criminal. The cable records the Soviet claim that during the Syngman Rhee regime, Jang "personally organized the fatal shootings of 400 [North] Korean citizens" under the pretext that they were "Red Terrorists."
Public records indicate that Chang Do-yong (transliterated as Jang Do-young in the document) was the Army Chief of Staff and a central figure in the May 16 coup, serving briefly as the first chairman of the interim Supreme Council for National Reconstruction before his eventual imprisonment. The Soviet reports used these biographical facts to construct a portrait of a man whose loyalties lay entirely with the American military establishment.
A Conversation in Japan
The most aggressive claims in the cable involve the direct role of the United States. A report from Faxin Press stated that "some high-ranking U.S. army officers in South Korea held an encouraging attitude regarding the coup." This framing suggests that the military takeover was not merely tolerated by the United States but was actively fostered.
The Soviet press cited a conversation between the U.S. embassy in Japan and an individual named Ikeda, occurring three days before the coup. According to this account, the U.S. ambassador indicated that the "America leadership clique believed the situation in South Korea was serious." This attempt to link the coup to diplomatic chatter in Japan suggests a coordinated regional strategy to stabilize the peninsula through military force.
Adding a broader geopolitical layer, a newspaper titled "The Truth" asserted that the "South Korean incident happened at the same time that the U.S. was stepping up its suppression of and struggle against the Vietnamese people." By linking Seoul to Saigon, the Soviet press sought to present the coup as part of a global American campaign to stifle national liberation movements.
While other archives, such as the NSArchive and the State Department's FRUS files, contain records on later intelligence assessments and diplomatic exchanges regarding East Asian security, they do not provide a direct rebuttal to these specific Soviet press claims from May 1961. The cable itself leaves the actual level of U.S. involvement ambiguous, reporting only the Soviet assertion of an "encouraging attitude."
The document concludes with the date of the embassy's transmission: May 18th.