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moderate than Chun and believed that the army would follow his leader-
ship and respect the outcome of the election. There were, of course, some
hard-line officers who liked the old system better, but they kept their views
to themselves for the most part. My feeling was that the Korean people would
not stand for another military government, that the military knew and re-
spected this fact, and that the election would proceed on schedule.^6
The thing that concerned most of us in the embassy was not the process
itself, but the possible outcome. Specifically, what would the armed forces
do if Kim Dae Jung was elected? My analysis was that the military clearly
favored a Roh victory but that they would accept an alternative winner such
as Kim Young Sam without causing any problem. There was some sympa-
thy for Kim Dae Jung among some of the embassy staff, particularly the
younger officers, but we were careful to approach the election in a totally
neutral way, using facts and not emotions to reach our judgments. In this
way, both John Stein and I believed that there was a greater-than-even
chance of the military refusing to accept a Kim Dae Jung victory. We began
to prepare an informal reaction plan in the event he was elected.
This plan, which was never finalized or adopted as policy, called for the
U.S. government to take an active role to influence the ROK military to re-
spect the election results regardless of who won. The elements of this plan
were that the U.S. government would immediately announce, in both Wash-
ington and Seoul, its unqualified support for the newly elected president.
The ambassador would then congratulate the winner immediately in a well-
publicized meeting to demonstrate our support. There would also be strong
statements issued in both Washington and Seoul, simultaneously, directed
against any military intervention. This plan proved unnecessary since Roh
Tae Woo won the election, but I believe it would have been implemented
aggressively if there had been a different outcome.
Ambassador Lilley, in addition to being very concerned over the possibil-
ity of military intervention, was determined that the embassy not be per-
ceived to favor one candidate over another. There were rumors that the U.S.
government supported Roh because we thought he would be more accept-
able to the military and thus would ensure stability. The truth is that we had
no favorite candidate officially, but I believe we would have been least com-
fortable with Kim Dae Jung. Of course, we would have supported him as
indicated before, but most of us were secretly relieved when he did not win.
Anyhow, Lilley preached to all the embassy staff on a regular basis the im-
portance of maintaining our neutrality and not to make any comments that
would be interpreted as supporting a particular candidate.