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reported, only that he considered his remarks to be on background and,
therefore, not for attribution or direct quotation. Regardless, in the inter-
view he was quite critical of President Carter’s policy, and these remarks
became the centerpiece of a front-page story in the Post within twenty-four
hours. At midnight of the same day that the story ran, General Singlaub
was directed to report to the White House immediately.
Upon his return to Washington, Singlaub found that he could expect no
support from the senior leadership of either the army or the Defense Depart-
ment. In meetings in the Pentagon before reporting to the White House,
General Rogers accused him of being an embarrassment to the army, and
Defense Secretary Harold Brown gave him neither support nor encourage-
ment. Singlaub’s subsequent encounter with President Carter went no bet-
ter. The general was given no real opportunity to defend himself and was
simply told by Carter that he had “lost confidence in his [Singlaub’s] ability
to carry out his instructions.” According to General Singlaub, the entire
meeting lasted only a few minutes, with Carter displaying his trademark ear-
to-ear smile the entire time.^9
For those of us who hoped to overturn the Carter withdrawal plan, the
Singlaub incident was a blessing in disguise. Until then we had had consid-
erable difficulty getting adequate publicity for our side of the case. Our most
valuable tool was the new intelligence estimate of North Korean forces, but
this information was classified and could not be openly released to the news
media. Singlaub’s dismissal, however, was big news. Carter and his staff had
now ensured that the Korean troop-withdrawal issue would be debated with
a new intensity. Indeed, within hours after the Washington Post article
appeared, Congressman Sam Stratton of the House Armed Services Com-
mittee requested that General Singlaub be permitted to testify before his com-
mittee on the issue. This request was approved, and Singlaub appeared before
the committee only two days after his meeting with Carter.
Congressional committee hearings are of two types, open and closed.^10
The open sessions are for unclassified testimony and are open to the media;
closed sessions are more informal and can include classified information not
available to the public. During closed sessions in this case, General Singlaub
outlined in detail the new estimates of North Korean forces, describing them
as forward deployed and fully prepared for war with little or no warning.
He also briefed the committee on the results of a recently conducted USFK
wargame that indicated that, even with the U.S. d Division in place, our
combined ROK-U.S. defense capabilities were not capable of adequately de-
fending the city of Seoul with any degree of confidence. This shocked the