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thority of an officer of my rank and position. Although I had no desire to
continue such a conversation, I did stress that any conflict between ROK Army
elements would be a disaster both for South Korea and the United States.
I reported this conversation to Colonel Blottie and Bob Brewster the next
day. Brewster did not seem overly surprised. He said that he had heard simi-
lar stories and that I should continue to stay alert to such reports. He was
also quite clear that embassy policy was to discourage any such attempt at
a countercoup.
A few weeks later I heard from a reliable source within the embassy that
there had indeed been such a plot and that at least one member of the
embassy’s senior staff had been approached and asked point blank if the U.S.
government would support such an attempt. I believe that the one ap-
proached was Brewster but have no direct knowledge of that.^9
For numerous reasons, the U.S. government actively and strongly opposed
a countercoup. First, to do otherwise would have been against our existing
policy, which was to keep the ROK military focused on its external security
mission and out of extralegal, politically oriented activities. Second, support
of a countercoup would have been far outside accepted diplomatic param-
eters. For an embassy that would not even consider the use of leaflets to
disseminate its government’s position directly to the Korean people, involve-
ment in a countercoup was unthinkable. Further, the Carter administra-
tion would never have approved it, despite its dislike for Chun and suspicions
of his motives.
Besides these legal and policy considerations, there were other factors.
Chun and his followers were in effective control of the army units that would
be most important in a coup attempt; therefore the attempt would likely fail.
They also appeared to have the support of younger officers, especially some
from Class and below who were at the time commanding the regiments
and battalions whose loyalty would be necessary to successfully carry out
a seizure of government. There also were indications on the political front
that the government would honor previous commitments to political re-
form; at this time the embassy and Washington were still hopeful that de-
mocracy would prevail. The last thing the U.S. government wanted under
these circumstances was another coup—we were still recovering from the
first one. For these reasons, we actively and aggressively discouraged this
plot. Some may say this was an error or suggest it proves that we secretly
supported Chun, but I think the reasons given above are sensible and that
we reacted properly in light of the situation at the time.