- • but it was naive of them to think they could keep such a secret from either
USFK or the Koreans for very long.
A few weeks after PRM- was circulated, I had dinner with General
Vessey and several other officers at the residence of the commanding gen-
eral of the army’s Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
General Vessey had just returned from Washington, where he had briefed
President Carter on several issues, the focus being on the new intelligence
estimates of North Korean strength. Vessey also presented several other
well-reasoned arguments that U.S. ground forces should not be withdrawn
from the peninsula. He expanded on these reasons during our dinner, ob-
serving as well that he believed President Carter had not been properly
briefed by his staff and was now rethinking his previous decision. At this
point, I believe, General Vessey thought that the troop withdrawal issue was
going to be reexamined and probably overturned. Unfortunately he was
mistaken.
The New Intelligence EstimateReassessment of the military strength of potential enemies is a common
occurrence, and such a process involving North Korea had begun shortly
after President Ford’s visit to the ROK in November, . That event was
part of a longer trip to the western Pacific, which included meetings with
Japanese and Soviet leaders in Tokyo and Vladivostok respectively, and was
aimed at highlighting the ongoing U.S. commitment to South Korea’s de-
fense. ROK officials expressed concern about a military buildup by North
Korea, about the same time we began a study of its forces.^4 The extended
review process came to final fruition just before Carter entered office, and
the product could not have been more clear-cut in its conclusions.
After an initial army study had revealed larger concentrations of enemy
armor and artillery near the thirty-eighth parallel than previously esti-
mated, Maj. Gen. Harold Aaron, the army’s intelligence chief, decided some-
time in late or early to conduct a complete top-to-bottom review
of North Korea’s force structure. Long a believer in Korea’s importance to
the United States, both strategically and politically, my boss wanted the re-
view to use all available information sources, including satellite technology.
As the army’s Korea desk officer, I was responsible for overall staff supervi-
sion and coordination for this top-secret project, and we began to identify
intelligence specialists who were familiar with North Korean forces from
previous assignments and background. Eventually over forty such individu-