- • sored by General Aaron had resulted in new appraisals by both the CIA and
the DIA of North Korean forces. For the first time, these estimates were in-
cluded in another Presidential Review Memorandum, PRM-.
PRM-, the original document by which Carter had officially declared
his withdrawal policy, had been rushed through the government bureau-
cracy with only minimal consultation and review. By contrast, PRM-,
which would eventually be the document that halted the withdrawal, was
widely circulated. PRM- was drafted in late and staffed in early
.^18 It was much more comprehensive than PRM-, for it included ex-
tensive information on U.S. policy interests in Asia and Korea, the North-
South military balance, the views of allies in the region such as Japan, and
numerous other factors that Carter had not adequately considered and that
had not been presented by his inexperienced staff during the early days of
his presidency.
In the spring of , USFK and the embassy in Seoul were finally for-
mally consulted on troop reductions. Personnel there were presented with
a draft of PRM-, which was hand delivered to Seoul by the State
Department’s Korea desk officer, Bob Rich. Both General Vessey and the new
ambassador, William H. Gleysteen Jr., were able to ensure that their views
were incorporated into the final draft. Both opposed Carter’s plans.
Soon after these consultations, there were some press reports speculat-
ing that Carter, who was scheduled to visit South Korea in late June, ,
would announce the reversal of his troop-withdrawal policy at that time.
These reports were false. Actually they were the result of leaks from the
president’s own staff, possibly the offices of Holbrooke and others who sup-
ported his views. These were designed to make it easier for the president to
reverse himself, but the actual result was that he hardened his position. By
this time almost all of Carter’s senior advisers hoped he would reverse his
withdrawal policy. This was even true of Secretaries Vance and Brown, al-
though both men were reluctant to approach Carter on the issue. By the
time of the president’s trip to Korea, only Brzezinski and Carter himself still
wanted to withdraw forces from the peninsula.
It was from the vantage point of Seoul that I observed the Carter visit
and the denouement of the battle over troop withdrawal. During the sum-
mer of , after completing my studies at the U.S. Army’s Command and
General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, I was selected as the
army’s first assistant military attaché to South Korea.