KELLY M. RICH Sight Unseen: Proxy War, Proxy Adoption

https://watermark.silverchair.com/rep.2023.163.4.51.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAA5QwggOQBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggOBMIIDfQIBADCCA3YGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMv486s8HgYJs6tccSAgEQgIIDRwczuWaKBUQQAmbeY_iOEvtRTtOTRnqnqs7t5-oX2yIqU-u7ZsMvHvLdPJtN_1qmlMMi-MXozBylE3v46ENuyBol_rvesK9JOImZG9_mqoaUqcmCh-gGyHM7ciUgAom3tw94oN3A6EXCWATGMXe4yDNkFXxA-r9N-OFiv-7h55PFbVb2EOsTVCbCrb7GQsadw8khuzvn-Fo5tVpqIcvM3Af-FcQxhLJeUToguubFkNMOLKqyQoeKr4AmAC8lA-BaArKLm458axC4u6hMZJ9ROTQOhPrAhyXiRBwO52b-yv0V8NNc_kzGRkeQtU7fuyFgS_HiOvpgNi6TYVAtrTFvz_ug80D8HLXgcdJ0atgrnQVgro8gsaAjHplQ-5-hb8ihsg7lZ0KN7fr5MvL9u__7fu8ARMYyU63zxZ_TN5-aWORkGfEEjbFp8IpQydLg9NBpc-JeF0MIfmECLKKSh7lTOxAAZ8P8fVHBSRyOAvoahcfpAgCynH-fXTwzv6LQF1D3naaa9uRr_ne3Hx0RfbM7tGst4WtyeRpBQHTbJ9_WwvdX4JAOhf-sh8f2WT6gh4GHgTyA8rnhlSD8ZVQ9Mw8cc-UEft1Of0FdfdQ9TvhVDU61z0m0_XC_UuZJTnQhcBAKIuAsntXHTG4rduBGClFWltMVwlb4BhJ2XpKikA29p8O26-xUrwXAErNjt_uvkh2DVtZOpAlYCG398d0QLgF-vzYM0CjLHuBb8k_PzOBUWQGMx1XSFSMQN1WAia5mdKXs9_1u9HBH_DJGxrcDP88UDv3g5MRlRYdcEAW6WoMT_0yAZQD7aItDijIKB1nwpulXJSopmUk9LK3K8WkLC97LtfJus-v8GuU4ZVQGgiWEf65i9YVPYxnh5R2ZWgcUMbGA9rmKuI0VvdjA1oPdhnJgPRQtFWt94CW-uUtWJYrKC_CKInGOgS2V6TIjFlCUAKGJnEpfbhTDg0v1mUFoSuZLOeXKM2BzRm0UluuA_HPRW-VGWJ4HzK4Vbu1qgpxfiNEcO0njqi64Ll4BEDSh894HFo-sMwyNKRa7Zxm-YyMVXAuuEXJvQoMcJ6h0ajTQK3A2p51FXHUVQMfkDhUFimrRlS7SXQVctBsU

T. R. FEHRENBACH’ S CLASSIC HISTORY of the Korean War,
This Kind of War (1962), famously calls the conflict “not a test of power—
because neither antagonist used full powers—but a test of wills.”1 Originally
subtitled A Study in Unpreparedness, it describes a US that learned the hard way
what it took to fight a limited proxy war abroad. The first chapter, “Seoul,
Saturday Night,” recounts the eve of the Korean War in anticipatory detail,
with the pathos of retrospective knowledge. Surveying the American colony
and its embassy bars, the narrator observes:
Over tax-free liquor, the colony laughed over Foster’s [John Foster Dulles] visit, and
over the official who had been caught keeping North Korea’s Number One female
spy. This man had even bought the woman a short-wave radio, and it was said the
ROK’s would shoot her.
In spite of American influence, the ROK’s were still extremely brutal to leftist
elements in their midst. Of course, they could not shoot the American official.
There had been a child, towheaded yet, the American wives in Seoul told each
other. Some American couple would, of course, adopt it.
2

The final sentence of this anecdote appears to end this story of sex, violence,
and treason rather matter-of-factly. Though Fehrenbach often sums up other
passages with quotable philosophical adages, this sentence is not one. As
a line of free indirect discourse, it offers complexity rather than a voice of
clear moral insight. Does it belong to the American wives, retaining the
previous sentence’s whisper of scandal? Or has the omniscient historian
picked up the thread here, returning us to a world of objective fact? And
what about the “would” of “would adopt it”? If part of the local gossip, the

adoption could range from speculative to probable; if spoken from the nar-
rator’s present, it would be a fait accompli. Regardless, adoption is figured

here as a thing taken for granted. As a geopolitical solution, its potential
ramifications are dismissed in their very expression.