ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

Kim Shin-sil served as Secretary General of the Korean Red Cross from 1954 to 1960 and as Vice President from 1962 to 1971. Kim Shin-sil played a significant role in the history of the Korean Red Cross (hereafter, the Red Cross), yet his role has not been adequately recognized. This paper analyzes Kim Shin-sil’s activities during the First Republic, when he served as Secretary General of the Red Cross at the active urging of President Syngman Rhee. He also participated in the Asian People’s Anti-Communist Conference, incorporating his Red Cross activities and aligning with Syngman Rhee’s anti-communist foreign policy. Kim Shin-sil, a devout Christian, moved to Hawaii with her parents as a child and studied at the Korean Central Academy, where Syngman Rhee was the principal. Her connection to Syngman Rhee can be seen as deep. Kim Shin-sil’s educational experience in the United States, where she majored in physical education at Oberlin College in Ohio and earned a master’s degree from the University of Michigan, was instrumental in her international work with the Red Cross. Kim Shin-sil was active in the Asian People’s Anti-Communist League (APACL) from its inception in 1954 during the First Republic. Appointed Secretary-General of the Red Cross, she participated in the 19th International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in New Delhi and worked tirelessly to resolve the abduction issue. On November 7, the final day of the conference, North Korea submitted a list of 337 survivors, out of 7,034 displaced persons, to the South Korean Red Cross representative through the International Red Cross. In the mid-1950s, when Kim Shin-sil served as Secretary-General, the Syngman Rhee government took the lead in establishing the Asian Peoples’ Anti-Communist League (APACL) and the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). Within the broader anti-communist movement, it was skeptical of Japan’s anti-communist stance, which manifested itself in an anti-Japanese stance. Within the global Cold War system and the Korean War still having a profound impact, the role of the North and South Korean Red Cross societies was inevitably limited.

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