The Will to Win: American Military Advisors in Korea, 1946–1953

A Note on Transliteration

A note on Transliteration The romanization of Korean words has defied consistency. Contemporary documents tend to reflect the McCune-Reischauer system, developed in the 1930s, though they generally omit diacritical marks. Although diacritics are essential to differentiate Korean sounds that sound similar in english (such as “o”and “eo”or “d”and “t”),for most Anglophones,the distinction is inaudible.The Revised Romanization of Korean, now generally accepted in print journalism and official south Korean publications,was promoted by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2000 to replace McCune-Reischauer. it differentiates between aspirated and unaspirated sounds by manipulating english consonants and adding vowels. it is probably the best compromise in written english, but those steeped on “Pusan” may have a hard time accepting “Busan.” for simplicity’s sake, therefore, i’ve adopted a convention that seeks to replicate the romanization as used and understood by the Americans in Korea, which generally lacks diacritical markings. still,there is some flexibility for terms and names that have become more commonly known in subsequent writing. for example, lee Bum suck has become yi Pom-sok and Paek sun yup is Paik sun-yup.other inconsistencies will be found,but the intent is to maintain a single usage throughout the book. syngman Rhee has remained unchanged based on historical usage. Chinese proper names follow the modern pin-yin system over the traditional Wade-Giles: Mao Tse-tung is Mao Zedong. Most other Chinese names will not cause confusion,but Chiang Kai-shek is preferred over Jiang Jieshi. The Will to Win ...