Eye on Korea_ An Insider Account of Korean-American Relations

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threat. For the first time, Wickham stated his frank opinion that Chun in-

tended to use these arguments as a pretext to take those steps that would

allow him to move directly into the Blue House. This assessment further

increased the distance between the U.S. Embassy, which was still hopeful

that constitutional processes would prevail, and the U.S. military, which

supported General Wickham’s view.

Rumors of North Korean Activities

ROK authorities quickly spread around Seoul rumors of North Korean ac-

tivities. This had become such a hot topic that the State Department issued

a statement to the press on May  designed to counter them. “From our

information we see no movement of troops in North Korea out of the usual

and we see no movement which would lead us to believe that some sort of

attack upon the South is imminent.”^13

In Seoul that same day I spent several hours at the intelligence center in

the Yongsan bunker, personally monitoring the North Korean forces, and

was unable to determine anything out of the ordinary. By now it was clear

that the stories about North Korea were being cooked up in order to justify

further domestic crackdowns and related activities.

Contacts with Opposition Leaders

Ambassador Gleysteen became even more actively involved at trying to head

off a confrontation between the military and opposition elements.^14 On May

 he met with the Blue House secretary general in order to urge restraint

and moderation in dealing with opposition politicians and student demon-

strators. General Wickham had left for the United States the previous

evening, but his deputy delivered a similar message to the ROK minister of

defense.

Gleysteen also contacted opposition leaders such as Kim Young Sam, Kim

Dae Jung, and others to ask that they exercise restraint as well and urge

moderation by their followers. By now, however, antigovernment protests

had reached such a point that it was uncertain whether the opposition lead-

ership could even control its own followers. The leaders did cooperate to

some extent, but these efforts were not very successful since the government-

controlled media failed to give their calls for moderation adequate public-

ity. The size of the demonstrations had by now grown to quite large

proportions but had not yet turned violent.