Joungwon Alexander Kim died January 25, 2023. Attorney, politician, writer, and educator, he spent his life promoting the US-South Korea relationship and developing a democratic government in South Korea. Born In Seoul, South Korea, December 13, 1937, he witnessed as a child the horrors of Japanese occupation and, then, Communist aggression, including time living in a refugee camp.
Joungwon prepared at Kyunggi High School in Seoul before he came to the USA in 1955, where he attended Phillips Exeter Academy. Then, from 1956 to 1958, he attended Harvard College, where he was a member of Leverett House and the Harvard Class of 1960. He received a B.S. degree from Columbia in 1962, then an M.A. in 1965 and a Ph.D. in 1967 from the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University and a J.D. from the Harvard Law School in 1973. He served professorships in Political Science at Finch College and Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
Living in New York from 1973 to 1987, Joungwon’s legal work focused on the economic development of US-Korean trade as well as on protecting the rights and interests of Korean-American immigrants. He wrote extensively on US-Korean relations, including the books “Divided Korea: The Politics of Development” (1975), “Korea: The Turbulent Decades” (1992), “The Development of Korean Diplomacy” (1996), and various newspaper articles in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and World Politics. Activities included President of the Korean Association of Greater New York, Chairman of the American Federation of Korea Association, Director of Korea Fund Inc., President of The Korea Foundation, and research at the Brookings Institution and the Washington Center of Foreign Policy Research.
In 1987, he returned to Seoul to participate in the pro-democracy political movement, joining the Reunification Democratic Party which subsequently became the Democratic Liberal Party. He was Special Advisor for National Security and Foreign Affairs to Kim Young Sam during his first and second campaigns for president. During the presidency of Kim Young Sam, he served as Deputy Director, Agency for National Security, and as Ambassador-At-Large, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He then returned to teaching International Affairs at Sejong University in Seoul and served as Arbitrator at the International Court of Arbitration (Paris, France).
Joungwon retired in 2017. He is survived by a daughter, Elizabeth Kim (Brian) Mannion, three grandchildren Meghan (Seth Chodosh), Alex, and Peter (Yiyi Zhang) Mannion, and two great-grandchildren, three brothers, two sisters, and several nieces and nephews.
