Han Chae-dok

韓載德

1911–1970 ○ Died in

Journalist who headed propaganda for the Pyongnam CPKI

In 1945 in P'yŏngyang he was propaganda chief of the South P'yŏngan Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence and took part as it became the South P'yŏngan People's Political Committee under Soviet prompting. No source records him personally contacting the Soviet command.

Han Chae-dok (韓載德, 1911–1970) was a journalist from Sŏngch'ŏn in South P'yŏngan Province. Under colonial rule he reported for Chosŏn Chungang Ilbo as its Tokyo correspondent and later for P'yŏngyang Maeil Sinmun, and in 1933 he brought out the literary journal Chiptan with the poet Im Hwa. In 1945 he was propaganda chief of the South P'yŏngan Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence and took part as Soviet pressure reorganized it into the South P'yŏngan People's Political Committee. He edited P'yŏngyang Minbo that year, and from 1946 served as secretary-general of the North Korean League of Literature and Arts and as editor-in-chief of Minju Chosŏn. After heading the Korean Central News Agency's domestic news department, he was dispatched to Japan in 1953; in 1959 he defected to the Republic of Korea, working there as an anti-communist researcher and writer until his death.