• they had been used improperly during the Kwangju incident and were now
being made into scapegoats for that tragic event. According to these men,
some of whom had personally participated in those events, their units had
been told that the Kwangju resistors were Communists and under the di-
rect influence of North Korea. This propaganda by their own leaders ap-
parently played a big part in the overreaction by the special-warfare forces
in the city. Basically these men felt that their leadership had misled them
about the Kwangju situation and the motivation of the resistors. Now their
national leaders were not supporting them adequately while the special-
warfare units were being widely criticized.
I know that Colonel Blottie was being briefed on this situation regularly
and that Bob Brewster also was informed. I believe that the situation was
ultimately resolved by the Korean Army itself, without any confrontation
or bloodshed but with some reasoning with the group and using strong lead-
ership skills. Some “troublemaking” personnel may have been transferred
as well. As far as I know, the American side played no role in this at all, at
most only passive listening. Obviously, even had this not been the case, we
would have discouraged any countercoup for many of the same reasons that
we had discouraged it during the previous anti-Chun rumors in January.
The Trial of Kim Dae JungOf the opposition politicians who had been arrested, Kim Dae Jung was the
best known internationally. There was great concern over his fate, and we
at the embassy were under strong pressure to monitor his situation.^28 The
military authorities brought him to trial on charges that appeared to be weak
and perhaps even fabricated. After numerous protests, we were allowed to
have an embassy observer at the trial, and he came to the conclusion that
the evidence against Kim was far too weak to justify a death sentence. The
U.S. government issued a statement calling the charges against the dissi-
dent “farfetched” and was somewhat successful at directing international
concern. After Chun Doo Hwan became president in August, direct and
prolonged negotiations began over Kim’s fate. In mid-September the court
sentenced Kim to death, and Chun maneuvered skillfully on the matter to
gain full and formal acceptance of his presidency. Early in the Reagan ad-
ministration, he was invited to Washington in return for the commutation
of Kim Dae Jung’s sentence to life imprisonment.^29 Chun had been success-
ful in blackmailing the United States, and from that time forward our rela-
tions were essentially normalized.