President’s memoir

The memoir of former U.S. President George W. Bush includes lines suggesting that he could neither talk with his aides nor his wife at the Congress from Air Force One, dubbed the White House in the sky on the day of 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, which is hard to believe. Bizarre episodes that happened in such historic moment would not have been publicized if the president did not leave such records in person.

When Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union, was serving as the second secretary of the Communist Party’s chapter in his hometown of Stavropol, ethnic Korean residents in the Soviet Union visited, and asked him to allow them to cultivate onions in irrigated land, and let the government authorities take up 45 tons per hectare, and that they possess the remainder. Ethnic Koreans slept and worked hard day and night by the farmland, and reap high yield. However, federal prosecutors raised issue with it by claiming that the ethnic Koreans violated socialist principle, and forced out the ethnic Koreans, while communities in Russia ended up importing onions due to short supplies. This episode, which illustrates ethnic Koreans’ strong spirit of living, is mentioned in Gorbachev’s memo that was published in 2013.

Former Korean President Lee Myung-bak will publish his memoir "The President’s Time" on February 2. The book starts with Chapter 1 with the headline "I`ve never dreamed about the president." The book contains extensive data amounting to a volume of 800 pages, but his aides said politically sensitive issues were excluded to the extent possible. However, the book seeks to advocate for major projects that were conducted during his term in office, which became an issue of controversy, including “We have no choice but to exert efforts in resources diplomacy in Korea, a country that lacks natural resources,” and “The effect of the four-river restoration project has already been found.” We can hardly deny that the president’s publishing the book at this time may entail political consideration.