"the korean seductress who betrayed america"

The Associated Press recently ran this crazy, fascinating story on Kim Soo-im, known as "The Korean Seductress Who Betrayed America." She was a Seoul socialite is said to have charmed secret information out of one lover, an American colonel, and passed it to another, a top communist in North Korea. Sort of like a cross between Lust Caution and M. Butterfly.

In late June 1950, Kim Soo-Im was executed by the South Korean military, shot as a "very malicious international spy." In America, fueled by anticommunist hysteria, her story was salaciously recounted and depicted in various headlines and TV dramas calling her a "seductress."

However, new information has recently emerged that could apparently clear her name. The AP has obtained the record of a confidential 1950 U.S. inquiry and other declassified files that tell an entirely different Kim Soo-Im story.

Colonel John E Baird, her American lover, had no access to the supposed sensitive information. Kim had no secrets to pass on. And her Korean lover, Lee Gang-kook, later executed by North Korea, may actually have been an American agent. Oops.

From what it looks like, the entire case against Kim was little more than a frame-up. What a crazy story. Now, Wonil Kim—son of Kim Soo-im and Colonel Baird—is on a quest to bury the damaging myths about his mother: Son fights to clear name of executed 'seductress spy.' Somebody really needs to make a movie about this. With the true story.

angry archive