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other Asian countries were looking to the United States to show its resolve
to remain a Pacific power following the collapse of South Vietnam. This was,
in their view, the worst possible time to withdraw any forces from Korea.
The civilian strategy was to declare support for Carter’s plan officially and
publicly while delaying its actual implementation. Rather than directly
challenge Carter as Generals Stilwell, Singlaub, and to some extent Vessey
were doing, Holbrooke cleverly arranged to delay certain orders and action
memoranda that would have pushed the withdrawal schedule forward. By
bureaucratic maneuverings of this sort, he allowed time for Congress to
become further involved in the process, for public opposition to grow, and
for the intelligence community to expand on and refine the detailed army
study of North Korean forces that would eventually result in the policy’s
defeat. Holbrooke and his supporters were working quietly and were quite
concerned following the Singlaub affair. They believed that such overt ac-
tions as pursued by Stilwell and Singlaub would only cause Carter to fur-
ther harden his attitude toward Korea, and they probably viewed the
generals’ actions as unsophisticated.^15
An important problem for Holbrooke was that two key players in the
Carter administration, National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and
Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Philip Habib, supported the presi-
dent in his withdrawal policy. As a former ambassador in Seoul who was
considered the ultimate Washington expert on Korea, Habib was a critical
supporter. Despite his background, he held a somewhat negative view of
the need for U.S. ground troops in the ROK.^16 Above all, he was extremely
loyal to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who in the early stages also sup-
ported Carter’s plan.
The “delay and further study” tactic employed by Holbrooke and his sup-
porters obviously could not continue indefinitely. By the spring of , one
battalion of the d Infantry Division had been withdrawn, accompanied by
some support troops. Other units were expected to be withdrawn soon. On
a positive note, however, Holbrooke’s tactics were beginning to succeed.
Congressional opposition to the ongoing pullout had grown, and such in-
fluential senators as Sam Nunn and John Glenn, both members of Carter’s
own Democratic Party, had expressed concern and reservations over the
policy. Also, a bill providing large-scale arms assistance for the ROK, which
was considered a prerequisite by the military for further U.S. troop withdraw-
als, was having difficulty in Congress, partly due to opposition to troop with-
drawal itself but also because of anger over the alleged bribing of American
officials by members of the Park government.^17 Finally, the army study spon-