주한 미 평화봉사단(PeaceCorps Korea) 협상과정의 성격과 1960년대 초중반 한미관계

Abstract

Peace Corps, founded under the Kennedy Administration to assist the United States in its foreign humanitarian aid, symbolized a fragmentary discourse of ‘war over peace’ to create an environment in favor of the American global imperative. Peace Corps was seen as an appropriate means to disseminate certain American ideals and values and expand American political, economic, and social agendas. This study examines how the ongoing discourse of ‘peace’ also arose in the negotiations for the Peace Corps Korea program to challenge the narrative and certain beliefs that Peace Corps Korea was a successful project of public diplomacy beneficient to the Korea-US relations.<BR> Since Korea showed interest in the Peace Corps, debate over the suitability of the Korea program pervaded the minds of many American agencies involved. However, the American’s refusal to grant the Korean program in the first negotiation was an effect of the lack of singularity from the Korean government and the American development agencies in the determining program fields that would befit certain developmental justifications in Korea and, most importantly, a policy that pushed the Korean program back on the priority list. Later, the changing political climate in Indochina became a turning point in the negotiations. The Korean government’s proposal to send troops in aid to the Americans in Vietnam allowed the reopening of the negotiations to bring in Peace Corps to Korea. In return to the proposal, the US gave in in the second negotiation and provided immense human and material support to Korea. The discrepancy between Korean’s courtship to bring Peace Corps and Korean’s lack of interest in support and execution of the Korea program, however, suggests that Peace Corps Korea was a byproduct of other political motives apart from a developmental standpoint.