King of Spies Page 25

  “destroy every means”: Futrell, U.S. Air Force in Korea, 221.

  “we tried to burn”: Homer Bigart, “Why We Got Licked,” Look, January 30, 1951.

  400 MiG-15s took control: Robert F. Dorr, Jon Lake, and Warren Thompson, Korean War Aces (London: Osprey, 1995), 16.

  Pentagon lied about: For a more detailed account, see my book The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot, 102–3.

  avoiding air combat: Futrell, U.S. Air Force in Korea, 289.

  nothing like it had existed before: Nichols’s unit was “the first covert collection agency of a tactical nature in the history of the U.S. Air Force,” writes Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence V. Schuetta, Guerrilla Warfare and Airpower in Korea, 1950–53 (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University, 1964), 77.

  explicitly limited his “administrative burden”: Historical Report for 6004th AISS, Tokyo, May, June 1951, K-SQ-Intel-6004-#1, 1950–57, 3, AFHRA.

  “all hell broke loose”: Evanhoe, 15–16.

  “stop all efforts”: Ibid.

  “he was a dumb”: “Historical Notes: Giving Them More Hell,” Time, December 3, 1973, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,908217,00.html.

  “information of inestimable value”: Citation for Nichols for the Distinguished Service Cross, General Order No. 159, FEAF, June 22, 1951.

  “coolly and efficiently photographed”: Ibid.

  dismantled the MiG: These details appear in “Operation MiG” in the Fifth Air Force history, January 1, 1951, to June 30, 1951, IRIS 00521685, K730.01 vol. 2, 72, AFHRA; also in “They Snatched a MiG,” American Legion 67, no. 5 (November 1959): 45. The magazine story gives Nichols a pseudonym, Mike Roberts, and says he is “an old hand at intrigue” and “a shadowy figure.”

  “I never saw so much”: Nichols, 131.

  As Yoon tells the story: Yoon has given his detailed and consistent account of the April 17, 1950, MiG rescue in three separate forms: an interview with researcher Yoonjung Seo in Seoul on October 29, 2015; in his 2005 memoir, op. cit.; and in The Korean War Testimonies (Seoul: Republic of Korea Air Force Headquarters, 2001), 595.

  Yoon presented Nichols: Plaque of appreciation given to Nichols by Yoon in Seoul on April 4, 1987.

  changed American assumptions: “Operation MiG,” op. cit.

  “a wonderful piece of work”: Partridge diary, April 18, 1951.

  “by any means necessary”: Schuetta, 77.

  “legal license to murder”: Nichols, 132.

  “the Korean political situation”: Partridge diary, April 28, 1951.

  “very helpful” adviser and informant: Francesca Donner (wife of Syngman Rhee) to Robert T. Oliver, May 4, 1951. File 88, document 0090010-12, Syngman Rhee Presidential Papers, Yonsei University Library, Seoul.

  “Mr. Nichols hugged and kissed him”: Author interview with Chung.

  “took turns giving him”: Author interview with Kim In-ho, Seoul, November 5, 2015.

  no “rehabilitation” of homosexuals: Rhonda Evans, “U.S. Military Policies Concerning Homosexuals,” Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2001.

  standards of conduct to be: Nichols’s military service record, part 3, 40.

  wear metal braces: Author interview with Steve Wyatt, owner of the Florida print shop that published Nichols’s book, Brooksville, FL, March 23, 2016.

  “everyone else had better jump”: Nichols, 130.

  “some fool has to do”: Ibid., 135.

  shot three agents to death: Kim Gye-son quoted in Korean-language blog Guwolsan guerrilla unit comrades, October 31, 2007, http://blog.daum.net/hidkki55/13160967.

  “he shot me out of”: Lee Kun Soon, interviewed on February 12, 1965, in Korean War Testimonies, 615.

  “audacious yet level-headed”: Nichols’s military service record, part 3, 38, 40.

  Only the general was responsible: Fifth Air Force, “Special Activities,” periodic history, January 1, 1951, to June 30, 1951, IRIS 00521685, K730.01, vol. 2, 51, AFHRA.

  “He didn’t care for human rights”: Lee Kun Soon, op. cit.

  a flight over the Han: Sariego served as an airman second class in 1952, according to “History of Detachment No. 2.” The information about the flight that dropped a North Korean colonel over the Han River comes from an e-mail Sariego sent to the author on November 25, 2014.

  “let the enemy do it”: Nichols, 135.

  “if there were any regulations”: Partridge to Nichols, April 26, 1955, Partridge personal correspondence, January 1, 1954, to January 1, 1959, IRIS 12608, 168.7014-4, vol. 6, AFHRA.

  CHAPTER 7: Empire of Islands

  “no enemy can take”: Partridge diary, May 19, 1951.

  just him and three air force: Author interview with Torres.

  “an organization of tremendous”: “History of Detachment No. 2,” 53.

  he laughed and sometimes: Author interview with Chung.

  an ambitious mission: Details about the June 1, 1951, mission are in a letter from Nichols to the Fifth Air Force deputy for intelligence, June 2, 1951. Letter is exhibit 11 in “History of Detachment No. 2.”

  “they were to steal”: Ibid., 5–22.

  ship high off the mudflat: Ibid., 5.

  “I can contribute much more”: Nichols’s letters to FEAF headquarters requesting “additional overseas extension,” dated only as 1950, in Nichols’s military service record, part 5, 23.

  promoting him to major: The promotion was by Special Order #308, Far East Air Forces, December, 3, 1951, in Nichols’s military service record, part 5, 1.

  “the tremendous opportunities”: “History of Detachment No. 2,” 24.

  “infiltration and exfiltration”: Ibid.

  One North Korean whom Nichols: Author interview with Kim Ji-eok, Seoul, November 3, 2015. Kim was eighty-two at the time.

  destroyed 75 percent of Pyongyang: Air Force 548th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron, “Bomb Damage Assessment of Major North Korean Cities,” appendix B, tab 1, K720.323A, AFHRA.

  “effectiveness as a stopping weapon”: Quoted in Robert M. Neer, Napalm: An American Biography (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013), 103.

  “lasting burning effect”: Nichols, “Enemy Locomotive Repair Shop Located near Ssangga, North Korea,” November 30, 1952, AF510886, RG 341, entry (NM15) 268, Records of Headquarters U.S. Air Force (Air Staff), Office of the Deputy Director for Intelligence and Collection and Dissemination, Dissemination Control Division, Documents Branch, Air Intelligence Report Files, box 1381, NACP.

  “heartily endorsed napalm”: Air Force Research Studies Institute, “Communist Military Casualties Inflicted by Airpower in Korea,” June 26, 1950, to July 27, 1953, IRIS 00468000, K110.7034-3, AFHRA.

  “first choice weapon”: Ibid.

  napalm was its “primary weapon”: Balchen files, part 1, unsorted note cards, IRIS 1031199, AFHRA.

  “goal of burning the city”: Cumings, Origins of the Korean War, 2:753.

  twice as much napalm: Neer, 99.

  nearly every man-made structure: See an extended discussion of the bombing and its morality in Conway-Lanz, Collateral Damage, 83–121.

  “we have been attacking”: Partridge diary, December 16, 1950.

  “you know you’ve accomplished”: Conrad C. Crane, American Airpower Strategy in Korea, 1950–1953 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas), 65.

  “Fifth Air Force’s preference”: “Communist Military Casualties Inflicted by Airpower in Korea,” op. cit., 3.

  “effects of air power”: Colonel Jean H. Daugherty to Nichols, mission letter, November 12, 1952, “History of Detachment No. 2,” exhibit 14.

  told to travel to their: Author interview with Kim Ji-eok.

  acceptable loss rate: Daugherty to Nichols, op. cit., 5.


  “one of the crewmen”: This account is included in Nichols’s biography as a separate chapter written by George T. Gregory in 1969. Nichols, 146–61.

  “increasing flow of reports”: “History of Detachment No. 2,” 43.

  “most important single collector”: Futrell, United States Air Force in Korea, 502.

  hand-grenade factories: The target list comes from dozens of air intelligence reports signed by Nichols. Air Intelligence Reports, April 17, 1951, to December 23, 1952, AF305754 to AF510886, RG 341, entry (NM-15) 268, Records of Headquarters U.S. Air Force (Air Staff), Office of the Deputy Director for Intelligence and Collection and Dissemination, Dissemination Control Division, Documents Branch, Air Intelligence Report Files, boxes 664–1381, NACP.

  aircraft repair shop disguised: Air Intelligence Information Report, “Pyongyang Downtown Airfield and Nearby Installations,” Detachment No. 2, 6004th AISS, September 28, 1951, AF371112, AFHRA.

  “proper maps and annotated photos”: “History of Detachment No. 2,” 59–60.

  agents were apparently still: Futrell, United States Air Force in Korea, 670.

  destroyed more of North Korea: Ibid., 688

  “to get airpower off”: Ibid.

  bombing failed to stop: Crane, 178.

  “our planes couldn’t strafe”: Nichols, 139.

  ordered him to remove: “History of Detachment No. 2,” 65.

  CHAPTER 8: Famous in Pyongyang

  “He was always paranoid”: Author interview with Donald H. Nichols.

  his name was on: Author interview with Torres.

  from $7.50 to $200,000: The first estimate is from Dean E. Hess, Battle Hymn (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1956), 139. The second is from Nichols in Mike Copeland, “Retired Air Force Colonel Gets a Hero’s Welcome on Korean Trip,” St. Petersburg (FL) Times, July 10, 1987, Hernando section, 1.

  three attempts were made: Nichols, 122; Yoon, 48; author interview with Chung Bong-sun.

  official party newspaper: Rodong Sinmun, August 7, 1953, 2.

  infiltrated agents into high positions: Robert Scalapino and Chong-Sik Lee, Communism in Korea (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1972), 1:442–43.

  “How great is Comrade Kim”: Baik Bong, Kim Il Sung Biography (Tokyo: Maraisha, 1969), 2:393.

  “I am a running dog”: Quoted in Kim Nam-sik, Namnodang jongu (Seoul: Tol Pegae, 1984), 504.

  “I will accept with gratitude”: Quoted in Andre Lankov, From Stalin to Kim Il Sung (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002), 97.

  the testimony was wildly implausible: Lankov, 92–100; Dae-Sook Suh, Kim Il Sung: The North Korean Leader (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 130–35.

  “is hardly convincing”: Dae-Sook Suh, 132.

  three thousand American dollars: Rodong Sinmun, August 7, 1953, 2.

  “broke up numerous commy cells”: Nichols, 119.

  “impossible to separate truth”: Scalapino, 446.

  “Such devotion to duty”: Nichols’s military service record, officer performance evaluation for May 1, 1953, to December 8, 1953, part 3, 24.

  “keep those secrets to myself”: Nichols, 197.

  No government records: In Seoul, researcher Yoonjung Seo made repeated attempts to locate any South Korean records of Nichols’s marriage, the birth of Donald Nichols II, and the death of Kim In-hwa. If the records ever existed, they are now unavailable because of privacy laws. They may have been destroyed during war or discarded later as part of bureaucratic housekeeping.

  told the same thing: Nichols’s military service record, part 6, 18.

  hinted that he was the boy’s father: Author interview with Diana Carlin.

  “3 adopted Korean children”: Nichols to Torres, January 2, 1969.

  his bride was nineteen: Nichols, 196.

  war was then: These details about the day come from Edwards, Korean War Almanac, 159–60.

  he had “never been married”: Nichols’s military service record, op. cit.

  he did not mention: In a letter Nichols sent to Torres in 1969, he wrote, “I’m still single.” Nichols to Torres, January 2, 1969.

  moved his spy base: “History of Detachment No. 2,” 56.

  It had a parade ground: Description of base layout from February 2, 2016, letter to author from William V. Bierek, who served there in 1953 as a first lieutenant.

  The pilot from North Korea: This section is based on scores of author interviews with No Kum Sok—now known as Kenneth Rowe—between 2012 and 2016. No’s story is told in my book The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot.

  the first report about No’s: Nichols, Air Intelligence Information Report, Ro [sic] Kum Sok, North Korean People’s Army Air Force, September 24, 1953, 6. USAF Intelligence Reports, 1942–64, AF 59786-597495, box 1793, 631/52/54/5; AF 592236, box 1758, 631/52/53/6, NACP.

  won commendations for Nichols: “Semiannual History of 6002th Air Intelligence Service Group,” July–December 1953, 130, K-GP-Intel-6002-HI, AFHRA.

  “You can’t cooperate with smallpox”: Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, Master of Manipulation: Syngman Rhee and the Seoul-Washington Alliance, 1953–1960 (Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 2001), 65.

  would view him as weak: Ibid., 127.

  “Why are you murdering”: Ibid., 92.

  “biggest trouble came from Rhee”: Chang-jin Park, “The Influence of Small States upon the Superpowers,” World Politics 28, no 1 (October 1975): 97.

  high price in “blood and suffering”: Jin-Woo Kim, 101.

  “too horrible to contemplate”: Minutes of discussion at White House with Korean delegation, Hagerty diary, July 27, 1954, FRUS, 1952–54, vol. 15, part 2, 1845, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v15p2/d923.

  “the stubborn old fellow”: Ibid., 1839.

  singled out Nichols: “A Report on the Present Status of Foreign Intelligence Units and Guerrilla Forces in Korea,” January 27, 1954. File 247, document 00759109-00750121, Syngman Rhee Presidential Papers, Yonsei University, Seoul.

  CHAPTER 9: Sacked

  Nichols wrote him and asked: Nichols to Partridge, February 23, 1954, personal correspondence of Partridge, IRIS 126058, 168.7014-4, vol. 6, AFHRA.

  “Although Nichols has been”: Partridge to O’Donnell, February 26, 1954.

  often did, according to: Nichols’s military service record, part 3, 2–3.

  “the utmost confidence”: Partridge to Nichols, April 26, 1955.

  created a ragged peace: On July 25, 1954, Chinese fighters attacked two U.S. Navy fighters; on February 4, 1955, eight U.S. Sabre jets engaged twelve MiG-15s over the Yellow Sea, with one MiG shot down. Korean War Almanac, 428.

  killing three American pilots: Ibid.

  “continuing effort shall be exerted”: “History of Detachment No. 2,” 70.

  Squadron was in better shape: “History of 6002 AISS,” 173.

  “for the purpose of expediting”: Ibid., 170.

  “Major Nichols should be promoted”: Nichols’s military service record, part 3, 15.

  “He is an invaluable man”: Ibid.

  “involving command of USAF personnel”: Ibid., part 3, 4.

  “minimum action considered appropriate”: Ibid., part 3, 2.

  “allowed himself to gain weight”: Ibid., part 3, 2–3.

  “no loyalty to Major Nichols”: Ibid., part 3, 4.

  “never ask a Korean”: Haas, 64.

  “He was strict about parties”: Author phone interview with Cuneo.

  “He knew every one of us”: Author phone interview with Dean.

  “a consistently splendid ‘individual’ job”: Nichols’s military service record, part 3, 2.

  “relief of Major Nichols”: Ibid.

  Nichols “challenged” the authority: Ibid., part 3, 3.

  have been
destroyed: The reports would have been destroyed as part of routine procedures after Nichols was discharged from the air force, according to Dick Law, a retired colonel who served for thirty years in the air force Office of Special Investigations.

  “revealed numerous instances”: Letter from Captain Hays Bricka to Commander, Continental Air Command, Mitchel AFB, NY, December 8, 1958. Nichols’s military service record, part 6, 12.

  “all I could see was cash”: Author interview with Chung.

  “he was my best customer”: Author interview with Winslow.

  he suspected Nichols was involved: Author interview with Haas.

  “Uncle Don had big bags”: Author interview with Donald H. Nichols.

  “air force regulation 36-2”: Bricka letter, op. cit.

  “People thought he was”: Author phone interviews with and letter to author from Bierek, a retired lawyer who lives in Hillsboro, OR, January–March, 2016.

  “startling decline in President Rhee’s”: National Security Council meeting, June 7, 1956, box 7 NSC Series, Papers as President, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Ann Whitman file, 2.

  “somewhat sterile policies”: “Situation and Short-Term Prospects of the Republic of Korea,” dispatch from American embassy in Seoul to State Department, November 21, 1957.

  “an extremely precarious base”: Donald Stone MacDonald, U.S.-Korean Relations from Liberation to Self-Reliance (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), 192.

  “creates increasing danger”: Ibid., 168.

  He maintained his special access: Nichols’s military service record, part 3, 15.

  made an honorary colonel: Nichols’s family copy of Rhee’s March 24, 1954, letter making Major Nichols an honorary colonel in the South Korean air force.

  a second Order of Military: “History of 6002nd Air Intelligence Service Group,” January–June 1955, 171, K-GP-Intel-6002-HI, AFHRA.

  Nichols stayed “very close”: Author interview with Chung Bong-sun. Chung said Nichols met nearly every week with Kim Chang-ryong until Kim was assassinated by his own men.

  Nichols entertained Kim frequently: Ibid.

  Kim ran the country’s: Fred Charles Thomas Jr., U.S. diplomat stationed at the American embassy in Seoul in the 1950s, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, March 8, 1995, 67. Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/item/mfdipbib001171.