PDFs of my Collection of “Cherokee Files” are going on-line
This website and archive will now include a full collection of downloadable PDFs of the 4,000 declassified U.S. government documents on American policy in South Korea from 1979 to 1980 that I first obtained in 1996. This came about following meetings I held last month in Gwangju with representatives of the 5.18 Archives and the government-funded May 18 Democratization Movement Truth Commission in Seoul.
Please note that all new documents and posts to The Cherokee Files (after May 8, 2023) will only be available to subscribers to my Patreon at the minimum rate of $3 a month. New documents will be released to non-subscribers after 60 days. All previous postings and documents dating back to 2006 will continue to be available for free.
I donated all of my documents, known as the “Cherokee Files,” to the 5.18 Archives in Gwangju City in 2017. They are available there to researchers and citizens interested in exploring all facets of U.S. policy in South Korea during the period of political unrest that followed the 1979 assassination of Park Chung Hee and culminated in the armed uprising against military rule in Gwangju from May 18 to May 27, 1980.
While in Korea, I also learned that my collection of documents is now being used as key evidence in the work of the 5.18 Truth Commission in Seoul, which was created by law in 2019 and will deliver its initial report to the public in June, 2023 (I will be reporting on this commission shortly at this site). While in Gwangju, I spent time with Shin Dong Il, a team leader on the commission, who recently translated all of my documents into Korean; that’s him with me in the photo below. He completed that monumental task while holed up in a farmhouse for three and a half months. Inside the commission, my collection is now called “The Tim Shorrock Documents” – an amazing honor.
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