 •   

CHAPTER 11

My Fourth Tour in Korea Begins

I

arrived back in Korea in August, , with my wife and youngest

son; by now my two oldest sons were no longer living with us, one

being an army officer stationed in Hawaii, and the other attending

college on the U.S. mainland. The defense attaché was always as-

signed the same house on Yongsan South Post, and within a few days we

were reasonably settled in our new quarters and were adjusting once more

to diplomatic life in Seoul.

In contrast to my first two assignments to the U.S. Embassy, which were

concerned primarily with training and situation reporting, this time my

duties were more managerial. The Defense Attaché Office, which was only

one officer and an administrative assistant when I was attached there in

 as a foreign-area-officer student, had expanded by .^1 In addition

to the defense attaché, who was in overall charge, there were now principal

attachés representing the air force and navy, two assistant attachés for the

army (since it was the largest service in Korea), and a four-person adminis-

trative staff.

As was the case during the / incident and following events, we worked

closely with the embassy’s Political Section, the Office of the Special Assis-

tant to the Ambassador, and increasingly with the embassy’s Commercial

Section. This latter relationship was because of the growing importance of

Korea as an economic partner and the increasing importance that trade and

other economic matters held in our nations’ official relationship.

My counterpart in the Political Section was Charles Kartman, the politi-

cal counselor. Chuck, as we called him, had a very young appearance and

was sometimes mistaken for a junior officer. In fact, he had a reputation as

one of the brightest stars in the State Department and had been promoted

very rapidly. We got along quite well together; even when we were on oppo-

site sides of some issues, I always had the greatest respect for his views and

opinions.^2

The special assistant to the ambassador in  was John Stein. John had

been with the CIA for many years and had already held very senior posi-