KSS Twinvestigation.

TRIGGER WARNING: If you are sensitive to the dark side of adoption, then this page is NOT for you.

This page is about KSS (Korea Social Service) Adoptees ONLY. Please DO NOT contact KSS if KSS is NOT your Korean Adoption Agency.

This information is NOT relevant to Adoptees who were adopted through: 

• Holt

• Eastern Social Welfare Society (ESWS) - previously Eastern Child Welfare Society (ECWS)

• Social Welfare Society (SWS) - now Korea Welfare Society (KWS)

A Note Regarding Plagiarism:

The research on this page wholly belongs to Paperslip.org and credit belongs wholly to us for our original research. Any instances of plagiarism which we discover will be called out publicly.

We wish to continue to benefit Korean Adoptees with the information which we provide for FREE. However, we do and we shall insist that proper credit is given where proper credit is due.

Please do not spread misinformation by sharing information from this site without linking our page directly. Please ALWAYS share this link directly when discussing our information, so that the information comes from the SOURCE. Thank you!

KSS Twinvestigation - DISCLAIMER.

Please note that what we present here is DEFINITELY NOT PROOF that KSS (Korea Social Service) was deliberately separating twins to the US for an IQ study of Twins Reared Apart. We are simply presenting the evidence which we have found which leads us to believe that anything was possible within the Korean Adoption program operated by KSS between 1964-2012. KSS adopted to the US, Netherlands, Denmark and Switzerland in specific time periods. You can see a list of KSS Western Partner Adoption Agencies here. The information below is ONLY applicable to KSS (Korea Social Service) Adoptees. We will continue to add relevant information to this page, as we have done YEARS of research into this topic.

KSS Twinvestigation.

Part 1: Where Are All The US KSS Twins?

TRIGGER WARNING: If you are sensitive to the dark side of adoption, then this page is NOT for you.

September 2024

Prologue:

We began investigating our own separated twin case in 2020. Until that time, we were NOT aware of having had a twin at KSS - she unfortunately likely passed away there as a baby, in the mid 1970s. Her identity was then used by KSS to send another child in her place for adoption. We had both been switched in two separate switch cases involving 4 different infant girls. In our switch case, KSS sent us for adoption in the place of a girl whose fate is unknown - we assume she likely died at KSS. In our twin’s switch case, our twin likely died at KSS, and we know that KSS sent another child for adoption in our twin’s place.

A main focus of our frantic investigation during 2020 when we were locked down in the US during COVID was our original research into KSS K-Numbers. We were spurred to do this research thanks to a suggestion by a fellow KSS Adoptee who does not wish to be identified - who thought that perhaps there was a clue as to whether or not a KSS Adoptee had an orphan sibling at KSS contained within the KSS K-Number. (This has since turned out to be a FALSE hypothesis, but it was a hugely important catalyst for our research). Since researching K-Numbers was the only thing we could do while trapped in the US and unable to get to Korea to try to get answers in our twin’s case, we ended up collecting hundreds of KSS Adoptees’ K-Numbers thanks to the participation of the KSS Adoptee community. We discovered that what the same anonymous KSS Adoptee had suggested to us was true - that KSS had uniquely encoded the K-Numbers (Case Numbers) for the children it processed for overseas adoption in the first digit. We were then able to figure out ALL of the first digit KSS K-Number codes, and KSS confirmed these to us in the presence of a prominent journalist in 2021.

Since we know our own K-Number and the K-Number of our twin, we came to realize that KSS had in fact ENCODED us to be adopted through two different KSS Western Partner Adoption Agencies. The first digit in our K-Number is DIFFERENT than the K-Number for our twin. Thus KSS had ENCODED us from the beginning - from the time of our Relinquishment - to be SEPARATED. We knew from other KSS Adoptees’ stories that KSS seemed to often separate biological siblings for adoption, and rarely made ANY attempt to reunite them later in life. A fellow KSS Adoptee friend suggested that IF KSS was NOT encoding KSS Adoptees for REUNION, then they might have been encoding us for SEPARATION. WHOM, we began to wonder, might be INTERESTED in SEPARATED TWINS?

We began to dig, and it didn’t take us long to realize that separated twins are the HOLY GRAIL for a certain kind of Researcher: researchers who study Twins Reared Apart (TRA). From that point forward, we began to desperately look for other KSS twins. And we shortly realized how FEW of them we could find - particularly when it came to the US. We began to wonder if KSS was separating the majority of twins by POLICY, and we began to wonder if they were separating twins for studies of Twins Reared Apart.

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Was KSS Separating Twins By Policy?

We believe but cannot prove that over the course of its adoption program from 1964-2012, KSS (Korea Social Service) was FREQUENTLY SEPARATING TWINS as though by POLICY. (We also know from anecdotal evidence KSS was frequently separating biological SIBLINGS, but this page is specifically about the separation of TWINS). While we have been able to find some KSS twins who were adopted together to the US and Europe, to date, we have ONLY been able to find 3 PAIR of KSS twins adopted TOGETHER to the US AFTER 1979 (as of September 17, 2024). This is after 4 years of looking for KSS twins adopted to the US (and Europe), in the age of the internet.

KSS, according to its own statistics, adopted about 20,000 children to the US, Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland between 1964-2012. We believe that roughly half of these children (roughly 10,000) were adopted to the US, and roughly half (10,000) were adopted to the Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland.

We have been actively seeking to find KSS twins since 2020 through online Facebook forums of Korean Adoptees. We have been able to locate shockingly FEW KSS twins who were adopted together to the US AFTER 1979. We have located a small number of previously separated and now reunited KSS twins both in the US and Europe. We have also been able to find several pair of KSS twins (and even two pair of triplets) adopted together through some of KSS’ European partners. We would never be able to say statistically if KSS was separating more or less twins to the US vs. Europe. We do know that in instances where the customer - the adoptive parents - specifically REQUESTED twins - that KSS would fulfill the order, and keep twins together for adoption. But otherwise, the default policy of KSS appears to have been to separate twins.

Notably, KSS NEVER photographed twins TOGETHER to our knowledge. We have NEVER seen ANY pair of KSS photographed together - only SEPARATELY. We believe but cannot prove that KSS photographed twins separately so as to make them more easily adoptable as individual (non-twin) children. In the vast majority of cases that we have seen where KSS twins were separated for adoption to different adoptive families, there is NO MENTION of a child’s twin in either twin’s “English Adoptive Child Study Summary”, and often not even in their formerly secret “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”.

We believe there are likely MANY separated KSS twins in the US and Europe who simply DO NOT KNOW that they had a twin at KSS. We even know and have heard of KSS twins whom we believe were separated at the airport in both the US and Europe. Such KSS twins would most likely always have been babies, whom non-Korean adults may not even have recognized as having been twins, before handing them off to their respective adoptive families, which then went their different ways.

Sadly, because of the high infant / child mortality rate in Korea during KSS’ earliest decades of its adoption program - particularly the 1960s and 1970s - it’s a fact that not all twin individuals (or even twin pairs) survived to be adopted.

Also, because in some KSS cases that we know of, the Korean birth parents kept one twin but relinquished the other for adoption, there is often no record of this in a KSS Adoptee’s English facing adoption file - and often there is no record of this even in a KSS Adoptee’s formerly secret “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”. There are always however exceptions.

Only in cases where KSS twins were adopted TOGETHER are the children mentioned as being twins to one another in their “ENGLISH Adoptive Child Study Summary”. For twins who were adopted together, their “English Adoptive Child Study Summary” always lists the twins as being related to one another at the top of the document, and the twins’ K-Numbers (case numbers) are always numerically sequential to one another, such as K-X223 and K-X224 (where “X” is KSS’ first digit K-Number code for the Western Partner Adoption Agency through which the twins were to be adopted). In cases where twins were SEPARATED, we DO NOT believe that their K-Numbers would likely have had a sequential relationship to one another (though there could have been exceptions). Particularly if twins were encoded to be separated between two different Western Partner Adoption Agencies, the K-Numbers of separated twins would not likely be synched with one another, as their K-Numbers would have different first digit codes, and these K-Number lists would not likely have been synched with one another.

Because we believe there may be MANY separated KSS twins out there, we cannot more strongly urge ANY KSS Adoptees (and ANY Korean Adoptees in general) to take ALL POSSIBLE DNA TESTS.

We always recommend that an Adoptee take 23 and Me first, then Ancestry. From Ancestry, you can transfer your raw data for FREE to FTDNA (the test distributed for FREE by 325Kamra) and MyHeritage. Please see this DNA link for more information:

DNA Testing

KSS Twinvestigation.

Part 2: Were Previously SEPARATED Adoptee Twins (White, Black, and Asian) Being Deliberately REUNITED By The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart (MISTRA) Between 1979-1999, Specifially To Study Their IQ?

The world’s largest study of SEPARATED TWINS was conducted from 1979-1999 at The University of Minnesota. It was called The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart (MISTRA). The study purported to have studied around 120 pair of twins who were separated “very early in life”.

*Signficantly, it’s AFTER 1979 - the same year that the MISTRA begins - that we can to date ONLY find 3 pair of KSS twins adopted together to the US. Did KSS begin to heavily separate KSS twins adopted to the US starting in 1979 for the MISTRA? Is this why we can find so few KSS twins adopted together to the US after 1979?

It’s very important to understand that the MISTRA was specifically a study of IQ - the eternal Nature vs. Nurture question. More on the possible political uses of the MISTRA later, but for now it’s important to understand that MISTRA researchers were interested in showing that IQ is more influenced by heredity (nature) than by environment (nurture). While few if ANY of the “remarkably similar” formerly separated twins which MISTRA researchers have paraded through the media over the years, such as the (White) “Jim Twins” - are Black or Asian - it is vitally important to understand the MISTRA’s purpose was to study RACIAL IQ: the study of IQ differences between Whites, Blacks, and Asians. The MISTRA was 60% funded by the Pioneer Fund, an openly racist and Nazi affiliated organization which currently funds the South Korean Twin Registry (SKTR), which was itself founded by a Korean former graduate student of the former Assistant Director of the MISTRA. The remaining 40% of the MISTRA was funded by the US Government.

While we have NO PROOF that KSS twins were separated and reunited specifically for the MISTRA, we HAVE found significant evidence that MISTRA researchers were at the very least REUNITING some previously SEPARATED TWINS FOR the express PURPOSE of the MISTRA. The ethnicity of such reunited twins is not specified. We will later get into more detail about why we believe that any previously separated ASIAN twins which the MISTRA could have been studying between 1979-1999 in Minnesota would most likely have been at the least Korean Adoptees, and most probably KSS Adoptees. Again, we have NO PROOF that any previously separated KSS Adoptee twins were reunited specifically for the MISTRA.

At the very least, it seems very clear by former MISTRA Director Thomas Bouchard Jr.’s own admission, that he had been REUNITING FORMERLY SEPARATED TWINS FOR THE PURPOSE OF THE MISTRA - at least for 7 years prior to his letter which was published in the “CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE” document from October 19, 1988 (see below). This implies that MISTRA researchers were reuniting separated twins from AT LEAST 1981, and the MISTRA began in 1979. (It’s unclear when the letter by Thomas Bouchard Jr. was written - it’s only known that it was quoted in a 1988 Congressional document).

So what would it mean for researchers to “REUNITE” separated twins for the MISTRA? According to the writings of MISTRA researchers whom we will not name here, the MISTRA DID source some separated twins from Adoption Agencies. But what does that mean in practice? We are guessing that logically this would basically have to mean that a US Adoption Agency (in US cases) would REVEAL to MISTRA researchers the presumably CONFIDENTIAL contact information of either separated twins, or US adoptive parents of SEPARATED TWINS, many of whom (we can only surmise) DID NOT THEMSELVES KNOW that they were separated. If this does not sound the least bit ETHICAL to you, you are certainly not alone in your assessment. (Read below about the relatively late influence of Institutional Review Board / IRB on the Social Sciences. As a Psychology study, the MISTRA fell under the Social Sciences).

Most notably, the former Director of the MISTRA, Thomas Bouchard Jr., OPENLY ADMITS in a public record “CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE” document from October 19, 1988 (below) that he REGRETTED REUNITING SEPARATED TWINS for the MISTRA:

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1988-pt22/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1988-pt22-3-1.pdf

*Note: This letter below by then MISTRA Director Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr. is being presented in the context of proposal for a NATIONAL VOLUNTARY REUNION REGISTRY (a national TWIN REGISTRY) in the US.

BOLDS and UNDERLINES Ours.

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE - October 19, 1988

“I would also like to bring to the attention of our colleagues excerpts from a letter I received from Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr., professor of psychology, director, Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart:

"Because of my work with twins reared apart conducted at the University of Minnesota, I have been contacted by parties interested in the passage of the national reunion registry proposed by Senator Levin. I have, over the last 7 years, worked with a large number of twins who were separated early in life and who have experienced adult reunions. The vast majority of these reunions have been monumentally positive experiences for the individuals involved, and in no case has a pair of twins reported that they wish the reunion had not happened. This is not to say that there has never been any emotional turmoil; there has been in some cases. I should mention that my own experience with these twins has resulted in a dramatic change in attitude on my part regarding the ethics of facilitating such reunions. Prior to carrying out research, I would have, at best, been more neutral to the idea. There is no doubt in my mind about the great value of this registry. As Senator Levin points out, a national registry operated by the Department of Health and Human Services would be far more effective (*Paperslip note: “far more effective” than sourcing separated twins from adoption agencies?) and would be a sensible and humane solution to a difficult problem (*Paperslip note: a sensible and humane solution to the problem of reuniting separated twins for a psychological study like the MISTRA?). I strongly support the passage of this bill. It strikes me as just the kind of activity in which the federal government should participate. It involves an activity that neither individuals nor individual states can carry out in any effective manner. Participation in this activity is voluntary, and reasonable fees for the service should cover most of the expenses. In addition, such a registry would meet a real human need."

Below is a screen capture of the original text from the Congressional document and below that is the entire page (page 51) from which this is excerpted:

Sidenote: The New York based Louise Wise Agency of Three Identical Strangers notoriety, is also mentioned in this document (see original PDF linked above).

KSS Twinvestigation.

Part 3: Was KSS Deliberately Collecting and Separating Twins for The MISTRA?

The short answer is: We DO NOT yet have any PROOF of this.

And yes, we have seen Three Identical Strangers, about the separation of identical twins and triplets by the New York based Louise Wise Agency. Currently, we CANNOT PROVE that something similar was happening between KSS and ANY study of separated siblings or twins in the US or Europe.

However, we think there are some very important “coincidences” which bear exploring when it comes to the (unproven) possibility of deliberate KSS twin separation for the MISTRA:

-The University of Minnesota, site of the MISTRA, was and is a very short 8 minute drive from Lutheran Social Services (LSS) - a major Western Partner Adoption Agency of KSS. We think that it would have been impossible for MISTRA researchers NOT to have been aware of LSS and its connection to KSS in Korea. A study of separated twins is by its definition an Adoption Study, and LSS’ proximity to The University of Minnesota campus, and the fact that LSS dealt with Korean Adoptees when MISTRA researchers were interested in ASIAN twins separated “very early in life” as part of its Racial IQ study makes for compelling circumstantial evidence that MISTRA researchers likely had some connection to LSS.

-The Founder of KSS, Kun Chil Paik (alternately: Baek Geun-chil / Paik, Kun Chil / 백근칠) was the first Korean to receive his Master’s Degree at the University of Minnesota, where he studied between 1954-1957 as part of the “Minnesota Project”. Anecdotally we have heard that many KSS social workers subsequently came to study at The University of Minnesota. Through the Minnesota Project, the University of Minnesota had established a huge connection to S. Korea - specifically to Seoul National University (SNU), the alma mater of KSS Founder Kun Chil Paik - in the wake of the Korean War.

-Significantly, due to the Asian Exclusion Laws which were in effect in the US until 1965, we do not believe that many Asians apart from Korean Adoptees were entering the country in the 1970s when the MISTRA first began in 1979. The US did not begin to adopt from China until after Korean adoption began to significantly decline in 1988. It was not until 1992 that the US began to adopt from China, and the MISTRA concluded in 1999. So we believe that any previously separated Asian twins which were reunited for the MISTRA would most likely have been Korean Adoptees.

-As we have previously pointed out, a major KSS Partner, Lutheran Social Services (LSS) was and is just an 8 minute drive from The University of Minnesota, where the MISTRA was conducted. Signficiantly, Minnesota just so “happens” to have the HIGHEST CONCENTRATION of Korean Adoptees in the US. If the MISTRA was interested in “sourcing” Korean Adoptees in Minnesota, they would need to look no further than LSS, a short 8 minute drive away from The University of Minnesota campus.

-The MISTRA began in 1979, and after 1979 we can only find 3 pair of KSS twins adopted together to the US. Did KSS begin to separate the majority of twins sent to the US starting in 1979? Is this why it is so difficult to find any?

-Oddly, KSS changed its K-Number system in 1979. It previously used an alternating 4 vs. 5 digit K-Number system for ALL of its Western Partner Adoption Agencies, but in 1979 KSS began to use an ALL 5 digit K-Number system.

-An irony that we have discovered in the course of our informal research is that by contrast to KSS, it is very EASY to find a MYRIAD of HOLT Korean Adoptee twins who were adopted TOGETHER to the same family. Everywhere we look, we can find Holt Korean Adoptee twins who were kept together for adoption. It is almost as though Holt were trying to keep twins together by POLICY. In fact, we have anecdotally heard that Holt did have a policy of trying to keep twins together. By stark contrast, we find it practically impossible to find many examples of KSS twins adopted together to the US. It appears as though KSS was SEPARATING at least US TWINS by POLICY. It should be noted that Holt was the largest of the four major Korean Adoption Agencies designated to process international adoption in 1976, and KSS was the smallest. Still, we are continually struck by the difference between our easy ability to locate Holt twins who were adopted together to the US, and our comparative inability to find more than three pair of KSS twins adopted together to the US.

-S. Korea during the time of the Nixon Administration was desperate to keep US military and financial engagement during a time when Nixon was threatening troop withdrawal and a significant reduction of US funding. We believe that the S. Korean government would have done literally ANYTHING to keep US engagement in S. Korea, given the very real threat of N. Korea in the long aftermath of the Korean War. What did S. Korea have to offer to the US apart from women as prostitutes for the US military, men as soldiers for the US war in Vietnam, and children as Adoptees for US families? It is well known that the Korean government was strongly connected to Korean Adoption Agencies. We believe that if there was something which the US asked for Korea to provide during this time period, that Korea would have bent over backwards to provide it.

-File under rumor, but we are struck by how many times we have heard that KSS Founder Kun Chil Paik, while revered as a founding father of Social Work in Korea, was an odd man whose Seoul National University Social Work students found him strange. Prior to his founding of KSS, Kun Chil Paik was former Vice President and President of Seongam Academy in the 1940s, which at least in the 1970s was a notorious concentration camp for young boys who had been swept off the streets. It is unclear if Seongam Academy was as terrible a place in the 1940s under Kun Chil Paik’s command as it was in the 1970s when it was considered a brutal concentration camp. However, from everything that we have read about Kun Chil Paik, he was no ordinary man, and for him to have been selected to study in the US and in the UK prior to his founding KSS in 1964, he would have had to have had some very high ranking connections in Korean society and in the Korean government. We do not believe that a man like Kun Chil Paik would have had any issue with separating twins if it meant that it would bring in more money through KSS. Though to be fair, it’s equally possible that KSS was “merely” separating twins for the expediency of getting twin individuals adopted to different adoptive families. We may never know for sure why KSS appears to have routinely separated twins.

-A former Eastern Social Welfare Society (one of the other 4 main Korean Adoption Agencies the Korean government designated for processing international adoptions in 1976) social worker told us in an interview that KSS was like “The Kremlin” and like “Fort Knox” in that it was very locked down, and no one knew how KSS operated. This former Eastern social worker / whistleblower said specifically that people knew far more about how Holt operated than about how KSS conducted its business. We include her assessment as evidence that KSS really could have done whatever it wanted with impunity.

-We cannot currently prove it, but we believe it is possible that Thomas Bouchard, Jr. met with Richard Nixon at the White House in 1971 (possibly during the same year during which Nixon was planning to defund Welfare) and also met with other US Presidents of other, mostly conservative US Administrations. It is well documented that “The winds of Jensenism are blowing through Washington with gale force” during Nixon’s administration in the 1970s - in other words, Richard Nixon was highly influenced by known scientific racist Arthur Jensen, who was also highly influential on Thomas Bouchard, Jr.

Nixon's interest in Scientific Racism and IQ (Twins Reared Apart) researcher Arthur Jensen, who was closely tied to Thomas Bouchard Jr. of the MISTRA: 

“The Atlantic” article below makes explicit the connection between Nixon’s racism against African Americans and Hispanics and his interest in IQ studies as embodied by scientific racist Arthur Jensen.

We will add more about this later, but Arthur Jensen’s research was partly predicated on the discredited research of Cyril Burt, who had falsified some of his work. We have surmised that Nixon may have been seeking a replacement Racial IQ study which was more “legitimate” in the form of the MISTRA, in order to have stronger “scientific” justifcation for his planned defunding of Welfare. It was the Federal Government after all which provided 40% of the MISTRA’s funding.

It’s clear from the article in “The Atlantic”, which we have quoted below, that Nixon was seeking scientific justification for the defunding of Welfare in the 1970s. His liberal predecessor Lyndon B. Johnson had set up Welfare programs such as Headstart to benefit minority populations in the US. Nixon aimed to defund such programs and was clearly seeking to find scientific justification in order to do so:

Ronald Reagan’s Long-Hidden Racist Conversation With Richard Nixon
In newly unearthed audio, the then–California governor disparaged African delegates to the United Nations.
By Tim Naftali

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-reagans-racist-conversation-richard-nixon/595102/

*Underlines ours

”In the fall of 1971, the Nixon administration was engaged in a massive welfare-reform effort, and was also facing school busing. These two issues apparently inspired Nixon to examine more deeply his own thinking on whether African Americans could make it in American society. Only three weeks before the call with Reagan, Nixon had revealed his opinions on Africans and African Americans in a conversation with the Harvard professor Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who had briefly served in the Nixon administration. Nixon was attracted to the theories of Richard Herrnstein and Arthur Jensen, which linked IQ to race, and wondered what Moynihan thought.

“I have reluctantly concluded, based at least on the evidence presently before me … that what Herrnstein says, and what was said earlier by Jensen, is probably … very close to the truth,” Nixon explained to a quiet Moynihan. Nixon believed in a hierarchy of races, with whites and Asians much higher up than people of African descent and Latinos. And he had convinced himself that it wasn’t racist to think black people, as a group, were inferior to whites, so long as he held them in paternalistic regard. “Within groups, there are geniuses,” Nixon said. “There are geniuses within black groups. There are more within Asian groups … This is knowledge that is better not to know.”

*Paperslip Note: Notably we believe that MISTRA Director Thomas Bouchard, Jr. may have met with Richard Nixon at the White House in 1971. We know that at some point there were protests against Thomas Bouchard, Jr. on the campus of The University of Minnesota due to his known support of Arthur Jensen.

The author of “The Atlantic” article writes (underlines ours):

"Fifty years later, the one fact that we should have in mind is that our nation’s chief executive assumed that the nonwhite citizens of the United States were somehow inferior. Nixon confided in Moynihan, who had been one of his house intellectuals, about the nature of his interest in research on African American intelligence: “The reason I have to know it is that as I go for programs, I must know that they have basic weaknesses.”

*Paperslip Note - How far would Nixon’s need to know go in order to find out if Welfare programs which benefitted African Americans and Hispanics were effective, in terms of his “support” of the MISTRA? We know that the MISTRA would come to be 40% funded by the US Government. Hypothetically, given Nixon’s connections to S. Korea and its US backed dictators, how far would he go to ensure a steady supply of separated twins for the study?

”As these and other tapes make clear, the 37th president of the United States was a racist: He believed in treating people according to their race, and that race implied fundamental differences in individual human beings. Nixon’s racism matters to us because he allowed his views on race to shape U.S. policies—both foreign and domestic. His policies need to be viewed through that lens."

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The MISTRA and The Scientific Racism Associated With IQ Studies of Twins Reared Apart:

We think that there are some striking “co-twin-cidences” between when major works of Scientific Racism were being undertaken and presented to the US public and to Richard Nixon’s government back further in time in 1969, during a time when Korea was desperate to keep US military and financial support to guard against N. Korea. It’s important to understand that significant works of Scientific Racism have often been grounded in Twin Studies - specifically, in studies of twins reared apart (see the section above).

We have done a lot of research specifically about the connection between known scientific racist researcher Arthur Jensen and TRA researcher Thomas Bouchard, Jr., the latter of whom was the Director of the “landmark” Twins Reared Apart study called The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart (MISTRA). The MISTRA ran from 1979-1999 and significantly its researchers have never revealed the source of its raw data nor the ethnicity of its participants. The MISTRA purports to have studied 120 pair of twins “separated very early in life”.

The MISTRA was a Racial IQ study which purported to “prove” that IQ is 70% the result of heredity (nature), and 30% the result of environment (nurture). However most other studies of IQ attribute the influence of heredity and environment on IQ at about equal (50/50) percentages. We believe that the MISTRA findings were employed for political purposes to “scientifically” justify the defunding of Welfare programs by the Nixon Administration. For IF IQ could be “proven” to be MOSTLY the result of HEREDITY / Nature - then no amount of money spent by the Federal Government on liberal Welfare Programs like Headstart (ENVIRONMENT / Nurture) could improve the lives of the American minority population which such programs had been set up to benefit by the previous liberal US Administration. (See section above).

Fun Fact: It’s beyond ironic to use Adoptees whose ENVIRONMENT has fundamentally changed by being adopted in order to “prove” that one’s ENVIRONMENT has less of an impact on IQ than HEREDITY:

Assuming the MISTRA used Korean Adoptee twins in its study, which we don’t know for sure, we only assume as being inevitable - we want to point out here the SIGNIFICANT IRONY of the MISTRA possibly using Korean Adoptee twins for the purpose of “proving” that IQ is MORE the result of heredity (nature) than environment (nurture), as the MISTRA purports to have shown. For what GREATER CHANGE occurs for a 1970s or even 1980s era Korean Adoptee - adopted out of post-war, still third world level S. Korea, and placed into the home of a middle or upper middle class white adoptive family in the prosperous US - than their ENVIRONMENT. We’re pretty sure that your average Korean Adoptee’s ENVIRONMENT significantly improved once they were removed from a post-war orphanage and adopted into a prosperous American home (We are of course making assumptions about the actual ENVIRONMENT that a child was adopted into). The idea of using such Korean Adoptee twins for an IQ study which is inherently about Heredity vs. Environment is LAUGHABLE, assuming your objective is to DISPROVE that Environment has a lesser effect on one’s IQ than Heredity.

How in the world did the MISTRA find 120 pair of separated twins who were separated “very early in life” in the age before the internet?

For MISTRA researchers to have located 120 separated twins in the age BEFORE the internet is a feat which defies logic - unless you recall that MISTRA researchers have openly ADMITTED that they sourced some previously separated twins from Adoption Agencies. We have previously read that any study of separated twins is inherently an Adoption Study - since in the US during the time of the MISTRA in particular, there would have been few ways apart from “media” and “referrals” (which MISTRA researchers purported to use) to find such separated twins. In other words, we believe it is most likely that the majority of the separated twins involved in the MISTRA must have been “sourced” from Adoption Agencies. And of course, today such practices would be considered wholly unethical and abhorrent.

The previous “major” TRA study which immediately preceded the MISTRA was a Danish study which only studied a tiny handful of Identical Twins reared apart. The Danish researcher who conducted the study, Niels Juel-Nielsen, describes identical twins reared apart as being *“rarer than hens’ teeth” in the publication below:

*The Danish Twin Registry: Past and Present
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/8514597_The_Danish_Twin_Registry_Past_and_Present

“One of the most frequent objections to the classic twin method is that identical twins are more concordant than fraternal twins, not only because they have identical genes, but also because their environmental circumstances are more similar, because of, among other things their physical likeness which makes those around them treat them more alike. This objection cannot be raised against identical twins reared apart. Unfortunately twins reared apart are “as rare as hens’ teeth”.

We will say that it took us 6 months of searching in the internet age to find ONE pair of Identical KSS Twins. Of the 11 pair of KSS Twins we have been able to find in the age of the internet, we currently only know of ONE pair of KSS “Identical Twins”. Statistically most twins in general are FRATERNAL.

MISTRA Criticism:

There is a highly critical article of the MISTRA by San Francisco based psychologist Jay Joseph, who lambasts the MISTRA for never allowing independent researchers near its raw data:

Bad-Science Warning: The “Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart” (MISTRA)
By Jay Joseph, PsyD, November 6, 2018

Our UNPROVEN hypothesis is that KSS may have agreed to collect and separate twins to be divided between different US Western Partner Adoption Agencies - possibly for the purpose of the MISTRA. However, we DO NOT HAVE PROOF OF THIS. We just believe that it would likely have been inevitable, given all of the circumstantial evidence which we have laid out in the section above.

We have asked ALL of the KSS twins we have found who were adopted TOGETHER to the same adoptive family if they have ever participated in any study of siblings or twins, and very few have done so. We have never come across any previously separated KSS twins who were reunited specifically for the purpose of the MISTRA.

To date, we do not know of ANY US KSS Twins who were separated at birth by KSS for adoption who have reunited via a 100% positive DNA test. (We exclude here those KSS Adoptee twins whose twin was kept by birth family in Korea, and not put up for adoption).

And we can only find 3 pair of KSS twins who were adopted TOGETHER to the US AFTER 1979.

*And WHY can we find so FEW KSS twins adopted together to the US AS SOON AS The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart (MISTRA) STARTS in 1979?

Where are all of the US KSS Twins?

Please let us know if you are out there! Contact us: paperslipadoptee@gmail.com

KSS Twinvestigation.

Part 4: We Believe The MISTRA Began BEFORE IRB (Institutional Review Board) Likely Governed The Social Sciences.

We will add more on this topic later, but we believe that the MISTRA - which was conducted from 1979-1999 - was likely designed and first conducted BEFORE the time when IRB (Institutional Review Board) began to affect the SOCIAL SCIENCES in any meaningful way. Our understanding of this comes from our own hunch that the MISTRA was likely designed PRE-IRB - likely well before 1979 when it was first implemented, in the early 1970s or even late 1960s. We bought the book below which confirmed our belief that the MISTRA may have been born in the time BEFORE IRB (based on the IRB timelines outlined in the book - not on anything explicitly mentioned about the MISTRA in the publication). We believe the MISTRA may have gone “underground” once IRB came into effect for the social sciences - this could be part of why MISTRA researchers have never allowed any outside researcher to review its raw data, which is STANDARD PRACTICE in the world of scientific research. The MISTRA has also never revealed the ethnicity of its participants. If you only look at the “Jim Twin” type examples of MISTRA participants which MISTRA researchers have often paraded through the media before a public wholly willing to gobble it all up, you would never guess that non-white participants were included in the study - even though the study was explicitly a study of RACIAL IQ.

The MISTRA is a Psychology study, and thus a Social Science study. IRB was first introduced to govern not the Social Sciences, but the Biological “Hard” Sciences. IRB may not have come to govern the Social Sciences until the MISTRA was well underway. After all, Thomas Bouchard Jr. admitted in the letter quoted in the 1988 Congressional document linked above that he had specifically reunited formerly separated twins for the MISTRA. He must have had no fear of IRB at that point if he were quoted as admitting as much in 1988.

In other words, we believe it is possible that MISTRA researchers may have gotten away with things they could NEVER get away with today under current IRB protocol. We believe this plays a large role in why the MISTRA study - like KSS - has been called “Fort Knox”. No one apart from the researchers can obtain access to their raw data. We believe we know what they may be hiding, though we cannot currently prove it.

See:

Ethical Imperialism: Institutional Review Boards and the Social Sciences, 1965–2009 1st Edition - by Zachary M. Schrag (Author)

KSS Twinvestigation.

Part 5:*TWIN FLIGHT: 1976

When we flew to the US through JFK in 1976 - we believe that out of the 12 known children on our flight, there were at least 4 SEPARATED KSS TWIN INDIVIDUALS. All four of us were babies. The other 8 children (not all of whom we have been able to contact) were toddlers. It would have been significantly easier to separate twins who were infants rather than toddlers, as toddlers would have recognized that they had a twin, and would have made a fuss if separated. Furthermore, a toddler twin would later be able to articulate that they had been separated from a twin. So we believe that it was just easiest for KSS to separate infant twins.

A blockbuster study like the MISTRA, which studied 120 pair of twins “separated very early in life” which was conducted from 1979-1999, would have been DESIGNED in the earlier 1970s and possibly as early as the 1960s. We do not believe there was any IRB policy in place then to prevent the sourcing of separated Korean Adoptee twins from Adoption Agencies in the US for a study of Twins Reared Apart.

Hypothetically - if you are a Twins Reared Apart researcher like Thomas Bouchard Jr., with high level connections to the US government and with an ally like Richard Nixon who was keenly interested in Racial IQ studies to provide “scientific” justification for the defunding of Welfare because he was a racist - and if Richard Nixon, as President of the US had close ties to Korean dictators who in turn had close ties to Korean Adoption Agency heads - how hard would it be for a Korean Adoption Agency head like KSS Founder Kun Chil Paik (operating as he was in the shadows with impunity) to make sure that a flight (or two, or three…) chock full o’ separated twins was sent en route to the US in 1976, 3 years prior to the start of the MISTRA? For a baby must grow up in order to be studied as a child…and that takes time…

KSS Twinvestigation.

Part 6: Our Twin Sister Likely Died At KSS. Did She Die Because We Were Separated?

Since 2020 when we first learned that we might have had a twin at KSS and that she had likely died there, we began to wonder if she had died BECAUSE we were SEPARATED?

After reading about twins, we realized that even under the best, first world circumstances, twins are often fragile - it is not uncommon for at least one twin individual to get sick or to die. Thinking about a pair of twins who have first been separated from their parents, and then separated from EACH OTHER - we bet that countless twin individuals died at KSS.

IF KSS was DELIBERATELY separating twins, for WHATEVER reason, then we consider the fact that our twin died at KSS to be MURDER. While this will not likely be something that we can ever prove in court, we think it’s important to understand that the system out of which we were adopted essentially shoved children into orphanages and adoption agencies by the bucket load in the 1970s and 1980s, and did not care how many DID NOT come out.

We may never know what happened to our twin or to her body after she died.

We think that those of us who survived to be adopted are merely the tip of the iceberg. Those like our twin sister are part of the frozen mountain of children who died in the system who will forever be concealed beneath the waves.

KSS Twinvestigation.

Part 7: The Laughably Unscientific Methodology of A Former MISTRA Researcher Who Is Still Conducting Studies of Twins Reared Apart Today.

We have run across ONE KSS Adoptee who has participated in a study of separated twins, conducted within the last few years by a former MISTRA researcher whom we will not name here, due to her rampant love of media attention. Anytime there is any mention of “separated twins”, there she is in the media, as though someone has rung a little bell. She most recently turned up in a recent documentary about separated Colombian twins - ICK.

The KSS Adoptee we spoke with was not separated deliberately from her twin by KSS for adoption. This KSS Adoptee had been become lost in a market and was then put up for adoption (likely all too quickly by Korean authorities). The KSS Adoptee was reunited with her birth mother and twin sister through a Korean Police “Missing Persons” DNA test. After appearing in the media, presumably they were contacted by the former MISTRA researcher to participate in her “study”.

We spoke with this US KSS Adoptee via Zoom a few years ago, and her account of the study, conducted during COVID, reveals how laughably UNSCIENTIFIC this MISTRA researcher’s methodology really is. The US KSS Adoptee (we will call her “Allison” and we will call her Korean raised twin “Min Hee” - not their real names) told us about her experience with the separated twin study in which she and Min Hee had recently participated.

Allison and Min Hee were supposed to complete their questionnaires under a controlled environment at a hospital or clinic in their respective cities in the US and Korea, but due to COVID, were allowed to complete their questionnaires at home. They were not supposed to contact one another while filling out the questionnaires, but Allison said that her twin Min Hee would call her from Korea to ask her how to answer the questions. Furthermore, Allison showed us example pages of the questionnaire, which literally had 1980s era dates on them. We believe that these are likely just old MISTRA questionnaire forms and Allison confirmed that most of the questionnaire questions centered around IQ.

Furthermore, Allison had experienced multiple traumatic brain injuries which would almost certainly have affected her testing outcomes, especially as compared to Min Hee who had not experienced the same injuries. How these profound differences could have been controlled for in a study is anyone’s guess.

We don’t see how ANY “scientific” information could be derived from this “study” of twins reared apart. Yet the results of this study were plastered all over pop culture news platforms, where many of the commenters derided the lack of scientific credibility of this “study” and openly mocked its methodology.

In short, if THIS is the same kind of “scientific” standard and approach applied by MISTRA researchers during their “blockbuster” study from 1979-1999, we have serious doubts about the validity of their outcomes.

We also find it ironic that this former MISTRA researcher who once participated in a blockbuster study which was able to locate 120 pair of twins separated “very early in life” in the time BEFORE the internet - is now, in the information age, REDUCED to studying just ONE pair of twins reared apart. Shouldn’t a former MISTRA researcher be able to find exponentially MORE separated twins in the age of the internet??? Gosh golly, WHAT changed???

What changed, we believe - was IRB. Thanks to IRB, this former MISTRA researcher can likely no longer call up an Adoption Agency and request the confidential contact information of twins who had been separated for adoption or adoptive parents who had adopted (likely without their knowing) a separated twin. Despite MISTRA Director Thomas Bouchard Jr.’s best efforts in 1988 to support the creation of a US Twin Registry through his letter presented to Congress in which he admitted to reuniting separated twins for the MISTRA, no such registry exists in the US even today. Since TRA (Twins Reared Apart) researchers can no longer legally just phone up their nearest Adoption Agency to obtain the contact information of unknowing separated twins or their adoptive parents, we believe this is part of why we see this former MISTRA researcher scrounging after individual formerly separated twins which occasionally pop up in the media, so that she can cling onto the spotlight with these little one-off exercises in pseudo science.

We hope that we will not be seeing another predatory “blockbuster” Twins Reared Apart study like the MISTRA for a long time.

KSS Twinvestigation.

Part 8: We Are Seeking Formerly Separated KSS Twins Who Have Participated In Twin Studies.

If you are or if you know of any KSS (Korea Social Service) TWINS (or TRIPLETS) who have participated in ANY STUDIES OF SEPARATED TWINS, please contact us!

paperslipadoptee@gmail.com

We are particularly interested in locating PREVIOUSLY SEPARATED TWINS who may have been unethically REUNITED for the purpose of a SEPARATED TWIN STUDY! KSS adopted to the US, Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland between 1964-2012.

However we are interested in ANY KSS TWINS who have participated in ANY SEPARATED TWIN STUDY.

KSS appears to have separated twins, particularly those adopted to the US (but also possibly those adopted to Europe) almost as though by POLICY.

To date we CANNOT FIND more than 3 PAIR of KSS twins adopted TOGETHER to the US AFTER 1979. While we cannot prove this, we deeply suspect that KSS was ROUTINELY SEPARATING TWINS, for whatever reason, to be adopted through its Western Partner Adoption Agencies in the US and Europe.

*Please note that to date, while we have located previously separated KSS twins who have since reunited on their own, we have only located ONE pair of previously separated KSS twins who have participated in any study of separated twins.

If you are a previously SEPARATED and now REUNITED Korean Adoptee Twin, please DO NOT participate in ANY STUDIES OF SEPARATED TWINS!!!

For a complete list of KSS’ Western Partner Adoption Agencies, please see:

KSS Partner Western Adoption Agencies

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If you are a KSS Adoptee (or ANY Korean Adoptee) we strongly urge you to take ALL POSSIBLE DNA TESTS. All of the Korean Adoption Agencies separated at least SOME siblings and twins. However, we believe (but cannot prove) that KSS (Korea Social Service) was ROUTINELY SEPARATING siblings and twins, as though by POLICY - EXCEPT in cases where Western adoptive parents SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED to adopt siblings or twins TOGETHER.

We can find countless HOLT twins adopted TOGETHER, but very FEW KSS Twins adopted together!

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Often the ONLY way to find your separated twin or sibling is through DNA Testing.

We recommend that Korean Adoptees take 23 and Me and Ancestry. From Ancestry, you can transfer your raw data for FREE to FTDNA (the test distributed for free by 325Kamra) and MyHeritage.

See the DNA Testing page for more information:

DNA Testing

S. Korea’s Fear of Troop Withdrawal and Reduction of Foreign Aid In The Era of Richard Nixon’s Presidency + Park Chung Hee’s Dictatorship.

We believe that what may have potentially been a major factor in S. Korea’s (UNPROVEN) willingness to provide the US with separated twins for the MISTRA through KSS (Korea Social Service) and its Western Partner Adoption Agencies in the US is the existential threat which S. Korea was facing in the midst of US President Richard Nixon’s threats to withdraw troops from S. Korea and to reduce foreign aid in the wake of the Korean War. Nixon was in office from 1969-1974. N. Korea was still very much a threat to S. Korea in the 1960s and 1970s, and the thought of losing both US troops and US foreign aid were serious causes for alarm for S. Korean dictator Park Chung Hee, who came to power through a coup and ruled S. Korea from 1961-1979. We believe that this existential crisis may have made S. Korea willing to do literally ANYTHING for the US. And as we have previously discussed, what Richard Nixon was very much interested in was finding scientific justification for the defunding of Welfare programs set up by his liberal predecessor Lyndon B. Johnson in the US. That scientific justification, we believe, would require a new Twins Reared Apart study to study Racial IQ - the differences between Black, White and Asian IQ. And such a study would require A LOT OF SEPARATED TWINS. We believe that Nixon found the answer he wanted to his Nature vs. Nurture question through the US government’s 70% funding of the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart (MISTRA), which purports to have studied 120 pair of twins separated “very early in life”, miraculously finding this HUGE number of separated twins in an era before the internet and in a time when the US did not have any twin registry (the US still to this day does not). The MISTRA purported to have “proven” that IQ is 70% the result of heredity, and only 30% the result on one’s environment (despite most IQ studies finding the influence of Nature vs. Nurture to be about an even 50/50) - thus conveniently providing “scientific” justification for the defunding of Welfare programs which were meant to benefit Black and other underprivileged minorities in the US. The fact that former MISTRA Director Thomas Bouchard Jr. openly admitted in a letter to Congress in 1988 that he was having second thoughts over the ETHICS of reuniting previously separated twins EXPRESSLY FOR THE MISTRA is clear evidence that at least some MISTRA twins were being sourced from Adoption Agencies. (MISTRA researchers also openly admit in other publications to having sourced some separated twins from Adoption Agencies, so this is not a secret). As we have previously laid out, KSS’ US Partner Adoption Agency Lutheran Social Services (LSS) was just an 8 minute drive from the University of Minnesota campus where the MISTRA was conducted, and to date, we cannot find more than 3 pair of KSS twins adopted together to the US AFTER 1979 - which significantly is the same year when the MISTRA began.

The article below from the publication “The Diplomat” illustrates the existential crisis which S. Korea was facing in the wake of the Korean War, and its fears of abandonment by the US.

Bolds ours.

From “The Diplomat”
”Evolution of the U.S.-ROK Alliance: Abandonment Fears
South Korea has at times had reason to fear the strength of its alliance with the United States. Part II in a series.
By Leon Whyte | June 22, 2015

Excerpt:

“Throughout the history of the U.S.-ROK alliance, South Korea has faced abandonment fears stemming from the possibility that its great power sponsor would remove its troops from the Korean peninsula and end or weaken the alliance. South Korea’s fear is a reasonable reflection of historical events. In 1950, Kim Il Sung’s decision to invade South Korea depended on his belief that the United States would not come to Seoul’s rescue. Even today, South Korean fears of abandonment persist despite the current strength of the alliance. The U.S. is a global actor with an array of interests that make it difficult to maintain focus on any one relationship, no matter the importance. Since the United States has interests across the globe, it often has to react to unplanned circumstances that distract attention from declared policies and long-term strategies.

These ROK abandonment fears were especially acute during the Nixon and Carter administrations.”

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Complete article:

”Throughout the history of the U.S.-ROK alliance, South Korea has faced abandonment fears stemming from the possibility that its great power sponsor would remove its troops from the Korean peninsula and end or weaken the alliance. South Korea’s fear is a reasonable reflection of historical events. In 1950, Kim Il Sung’s decision to invade South Korea depended on his belief that the United States would not come to Seoul’s rescue. Even today, South Korean fears of abandonment persist despite the current strength of the alliance. The U.S. is a global actor with an array of interests that make it difficult to maintain focus on any one relationship, no matter the importance. Since the United States has interests across the globe, it often has to react to unplanned circumstances that distract attention from declared policies and long-term strategies.

These ROK abandonment fears were especially acute during the Nixon and Carter administrations.

Nixon Doctrine and Opening to China

On November 3, 1969, on a stopover in Guam and during the Vietnam War, President Richard Nixon delivered the three points of the Nixon Doctrine:

• “First, the United States will keep all of its treaty commitments.

• Second, we shall provide a shield if a nuclear power threatens the freedom of a nation allied with us or of a nation whose survival we consider vital to our security.

• Third, in cases involving other types of aggression, we shall furnish military and economic assistance when requested in accordance with our treaty commitments. But we shall look to the nation directly threatened to assume the primary responsibility of providing the manpower for its defense.”
  

Of the three points, the third was the most important, because it signaled that the United States was shifting the primary security burden to its Asian allies. Nixon added in the same remarks, “We must avoid that kind of policy that will make countries in Asia so dependent upon us that we are dragged into conflicts such as the one we have in Vietnam.” More than just a speech, this policy resulted in the reduction of U.S. Military personnel in Asia from 727,300 in 1969 to 284,000 in 1971 and in South Korea from 63,000 to 43,000. Then South Korean President Park Chung Hee saw this military withdrawal as sign of U.S. disengagement, telling his aide Kim Seong Jin that it was “a message to the Korean people that we won’t rescue you if North Korea invades again.”

Nixon gave South Korea even more reason for concern during his détente with communist China. During the Korean War, the U.S. intervened because it saw North Korea’s invasion as part of larger communist aggression, which justified spending U.S. lives and resources to turn it back. It was a major policy change to go from fighting Chinese communist “volunteer forces” in 1950 to sending secret delegations to Beijing to discuss the possibility of cooperation, and one that caused unease in Seoul about the U.S. commitment to standing up to communist forces on the Korean peninsula. This threatened the relevance of the anti-communist U.S.-ROK alliance, and opened the possibility that the PRC would ask for concessions harmful to the ROK’s security, such as Chinese Premier Chou Enlai’s request to Henry Kissinger to remove all U.S. forces from the Korean peninsula.

The Nixon administration’s handling of the ROK during these years led Park to later write, “this series of developments contained an almost unprecedented peril to our people’s survival.” During the early 1970s, this fear of abandonment had real consequences, such as Park’s decision to pursue a clandestine nuclear weapons program, including negotiating with France to buy the technology necessary to create plutonium for a nuclear weapon. The ROK only quit the nuclear program after the U.S. discovered it in 1976. Another outcome was Park’s Yusin reforms, which he started in 1972 and which included the imposition of martial law, dissolution of the National Assembly, and the banning of all antigovernment activity. This policy led to abuses such as the jailing and torture of political dissidents and opposition figures. One of the reasons given for the Yusin reforms was the fear of U.S. unreliability and external threats that necessitated tighter domestic control.

South Korea is a small country, and during Nixon’s presidency was still relatively poor and weak. Despite this, during the Vietnam War, the ROK demonstrated its commitment to the U.S.-ROK alliance by sending 312,853 soldiers to fight alongside U.S. forces, more than any other U.S. ally did. It is understandable that strategic interests dictate U.S. foreign policy, rather than a sense of warm feelings towards South Korea; however, this neglect can have serious implications for U.S. strategy in East Asia. If Park had been successful in building a nuclear weapon, it would have shaped the security calculations of every other power in the region, and would have harmed the overall goal of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation. Nixon’s options in Asia were constrained by the failure of U.S. strategy in Vietnam, so the removal of U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula as well as the caution demonstrated in response to North Korean provocations were arguably prudent responses to reality. Still, the lack of attention towards a partner that had fought and died alongside the United Sates in Vietnam was shortsighted and weakened the U.S.-ROK relationship during Park’s time in office.

Carter and the Threat of Total Withdrawal

Nixon created his policies based on a reaction to the failed Vietnam War, with repercussions for all U.S. allies in Asia. However, Nixon did not call for a total withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea. This is in contrast to President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), who used the call to withdraw as part of his presidential campaign. Carter’s desire to pull American troops out of the ROK came from, at least partially, his repulsion at the human rights record of ROK President Park.

Like the Nixon Administration, Carter neglected ROK concerns and interests when developing his plan to withdraw troops from the peninsula. In this case, Carter developed his plan without consulting the ROK, and even, through Vice President Walter Mondale, notified Japan of his intention to withdraw U.S. troops from Korea one month before notifying the ROK. This lack of consultation deeply angered Park, and resulted in a tense meeting in 1979 when Carter visited South Korea for a summit. During a meeting at the summit, Park lectured Carter for forty-five minutes about why pulling all the troops out of South Korea was ill advised, despite Carter’s staffers telling him earlier that Carter did not wish to speak about the troop withdrawal issue at the summit. The meeting left Carter deeply angered.

One reason why Seoul was so concerned by the prospect of a complete U.S. troop withdrawal was the importance of the tripwire function U.S. troops play on the Korean peninsula. If there are U.S. troops in South Korea, then North Korea would kill them in any invasion. If North Korea kills U.S. troops, than that would ensure that the United States become involved in fighting North Korea and pushing them out of South Korea again. If Carter had successfully withdrawn all U.S. troops from the ROK, it would have removed that tripwire function, signaling to the DPRK that U.S. support was no longer guaranteed. While Carter insisted that the U.S. would maintain its treaty obligations, would provide air coverage, and would help the ROK build up its own forces, after the Vietnam War, it was unlikely that the U.S. people would be willing to support another large-scale ground war in mainland Asia.

Ultimately, despite Carter’s absolutist goals, during his time in office he only brought about 3,000 U.S. troops home. Carter predicated his withdrawal plan on the belief that South Korea would be able to defend itself from another DPRK invasion. Ultimately, it was the discovery that this assumption was false that prevented the withdrawal from taking place. This assessment changed due to the work of John Armstrong, an Army officer who was assigned to analysis intelligence about North Korea during this time. Armstrong discovered that North Korea’s military was far stronger than had been previously assumed. Armstrong’s work influenced Army generals, members of Carter’s own bureaucracy, and Congress, who then put pressure on Carter to reconsider the withdrawal. Three weeks after Carter’s trip to Seoul, his National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski announced that the U.S. would postpone further troop withdrawals until 1981, and that they would depend on “credible indications that a satisfactory military balance has been restored.” The deadline was made meaningless when Carter lost the election for his second term and Ronald Reagan became president.

Modern Day Fear of Abandonment

After Carter, no other U.S. president has attempted to withdraw all U.S. ground troops from South Korea. However, this does not mean that the ROK fear of abandonment has disappeared, or that it is not possible for the U.S. to change their alliance policy in ways that affect ROK security. One recent example of this is Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s announcement in 2003 that he intended to withdraw or relocate U.S. forces in 2013, believing them to be an outdated remnant of the Cold War. The reasoning that Rumsfeld offered was similar to that of Carter, with Rumsfeld pointing out that since South Korea had a powerful economy and a better-equipped military, Seoul had “all the capability in the world of providing the kind of up-front deterrent that’s needed.” The Iraq War was highly unpopular in South Korea; however, the threat of the U.S downgrading alliance ties was enough to convince the South Korean government to send ROK forces to Iraq when the United States requested it. Yet, as the Nixon Doctrine demonstrated, ROK participation in U.S. wars does not guarantee strong alliance relationships – a downgrading could still occur. For example, in 2004, the U.S. moved 3,600 U.S. troops from South Korea to Iraq.

For the United States, it is important to be aware of abandonment fears of its allies. Awareness of these fears does not mean that U.S. strategy should be held hostage to them, but as in all relationships communication is important. Rather than consult with the ROK, Nixon and Carter unilaterally made plans that had serious implications for ROK security, and even let other parties know before South Korea. ROK feelings of insecurity can result in outcomes that are not in America’s best interests, such as Park’s secret plan to build a nuclear weapon.

For the ROK, it is important to realize that the U.S-ROK alliance is not an iron-clad guarantee, but a relationship that the ROK needs to tend carefully. Carter was clear that Americans found Park Chung Hee’s human rights violations repugnant and that this divergence in the U.S. and ROK government’s values was a factor in the planned troop withdrawal. While the ROK is today a liberal democracy that is closely aligned to the United States, maintaining close relations should remain a priority and should not be taken for granted. However, no matter how much communication and relationship building the United States and the ROK commit to, as the weaker partner in the relationship, it is likely that the ROK’s abandonment fear will play an important role in the alliance as long as it exists.

Leon Whyte is a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University as well as the Senior Editor for the Current Affairs section of the Fletcher Security Review. His research interests include transnational security and U.S. alliances in East Asia. You can follow him at @leon_whyte”