⁄ • most ordinary Korean citizens. On numerous occasions various Korean
officers would approach their American counterparts seeking copies of
magazines such as Newsweek or Time or similar international news sources.
In some of these cases, the information was for their superior officers, many
of whom were also desperately seeking information. The true situation at
the time was that some of these men were opposed to Chun Doo Hwan and
his group, and others might have been if they had known the full story. For
this reason, the ruling group carefully controlled the news media during
this period.
The embassy was well aware of this pervasive censorship and was in-
creasingly concerned that the position of the U.S. government was not
widely understood among Koreans. At one time it was proposed that we
might go directly to the Korean people, perhaps by using leaflet distribution
or similar methods. Unlike in , when U.S. officials in the ROK would
again face an internal political crisis, such activities were not approved, for
they were considered incompatible with our diplomatic function.^8 The ulti-
mate result of this communications failure was that again we were widely
perceived as supporting the Chun group. Had we taken more aggressive
action to get our message directly to the Korean people, this might not have
been the case.
The First Countercoup PlotEarly in , rumors began circulating concerning the possibility of op-
position to Chun and his group within the ROK Army. At first these were
not taken seriously, but such reports continued for several days, and we
eventually became concerned.
On a cold January night, I met with an officer who had been close to
Chung Sung Wha and also had many strong contacts among the Class
group, which had been ousted from the army by subordinate officers from
Classes and . This meeting took place in a tearoom near Samgakji,
not far from the Ministry of National Defense and ROK Army Headquar-
ters. I asked this officer if he had also heard these rumors. The answer was
startling.
This individual, in whom I placed much confidence, said that not only were
the rumors true but there was even an organized group actively consider-
ing a countercoup against Chun and his followers. He claimed to be in close
contact with this group and asked what would be the U.S. Embassy’s view
of such a countercoup. I realized that such matters were far outside the au-