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were reports of a certain high-level weapons-development committee that
recommended the development of new weapons systems to the Blue House
(the ROK equivalent of the U.S. White House). According to one such re-
port, this committee had informed President Park that development of a
nuclear device was feasible and had recommended that Korea go forward
with it. With these reports and the clear evidence that the ROK was attempt-
ing to purchase many of the necessary components from a wide variety of
international sources, the U.S. intelligence community in early deter-
mined that Korea was most likely attempting to develop nuclear weapons.
Following this determination, a series of meetings occurred in Washing-
ton to decide how to deal with the problem. Along with Japan, our closest
Asian ally, South Korea had many supporters, particularly in the Defense
Department. On the issue of nuclear proliferation, however, there was al-
most total agreement that development of a Korean nuclear weapon would
be destabilizing and would probably lead to attempts by other countries in
the region to build their own weapons. There was particular concern that,
if South Korea was successful in this program, the Soviet Union would as-
sist North Korea in building a nuclear weapon or that Japan would rethink
its existing nonnuclear policy.
In an unusual unanimous agreement, U.S. policymakers decided to take
all necessary measures to convince the South Koreans to abandon this project.
The next step was to determine how we could pressure them to do so.
At the time, the United States had been assisting South Korea in de-
veloping its peaceful nuclear power program. The American company
Westinghouse Corporation had already supplied two small research reac-
tors, and Korea had expected to build several civilian nuclear power plants
over the following years. These plants were past the design stage; in fact,
one was already under construction. There were also ongoing plans and pro-
grams to train a substantial number of Korean nuclear technicians in the
United States. Further, the ROK’s peaceful nuclear power program was to
be financed in large part by low-interest loans and U.S.-guaranteed loans.
Some of this money was from the U.S. Export-Import Bank directly and was
to be used for equipment, construction, reactors, and fuel purchases. It was
clear that we had fairly substantial technical and economic leverage vis-à-
vis the civilian nuclear power program that could be used if necessary.
The United States also had obvious leverage related to defense. South
Korea was under the protection of the U.S. nuclear umbrella. It also enjoyed
the guarantees of the mutual-security treaty with the United States, backed
up by the visible presence of American forces forward-deployed on the