Choe Dok-sin

Korean spelling
Hangeul	최덕신
Hanja	崔德 新
Revised Romanization	Choe Deok-sin
McCune- Reischauer	Ch'oe Tŏksin
See also : Korean name

Choe Dok-sin (born September 17, 1914 , † November 14, 1989 in Pyongyang , also written Choi Duck-shin ) was a Korean politician and military.

Choe Dok-sin attended a Chinese military academy before World War II and the US military schools at Fort Riley and Fort Benning after the war . He made a career in the South Korean army and was after the military coup under Park Chung-hee South Korean Foreign Minister from 1961 to 1963. He was then Ambassador of the Republic of Korea in Bonn from 1963 to 1967. Later, Choe was the leader of the religious movement of Cheondogyo . In 1977 he emigrated to the USA, where he asked for political asylum .

In the 1980s he came into contact with the Korean Conference for Democracy and Reunification , a group that sympathized with the North Korean regime under President Kim Il-sung . In 1984 he visited the North Korean capital Pyongyang for the first time . Two years later, he and his wife Ryu Mi-yong moved to North Korea. Until his death in 1989 he was chairman of the central committee of the Chondoist Ch'ŏngu party . After his death, his widow took over this office. In addition, he was the vice-chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland and chairman of the Korean Religious Council . In July 2019, his son Choe In Guk also moved to North Korea.

Works

• The Nation and I. For the reunification of the motherland. Pyongyang: Foreign Languages ​​Publishing House, 1987.
• My Thirty Years in South Korea. Pyongyang: Foreign Languages ​​Publishing House, 1989.
• In the embrace of my motherland. Pyongyang: Foreign Languages ​​Publishing House, 1990.

Web links

• Message about the death Choes on the pages of the New York Times (English)

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Choe is the family name here, Dok-sin is the first name.