Eye on Korea_ An Insider Account of Korean-American Relations

 •   

By the time Carter and his entourage left Seoul on July , we had man-

aged to put a reasonably positive face on the visit for the public, but we were

not at all certain that Carter would finally relent on troop withdrawal. Many

Koreans and Americans believe that the trip to Korea changed Carter’s mind

on the issue, but in fact it almost had had the opposite effect. Ambassador

Gleysteen’s frank talk and the excellent staff work that had been done on

PRM- in Washington helped save the day. Apparently, though, so did

President Park’s private assurances to Carter that he would increase ROK

defense spending beyond  percent of the country’s gross national product

and make some positive moves on human rights. Only days after Carter’s

departure, Park informed Gleysteen that over the next six months he would

release  political prisoners.

On his return to Washington, Carter was overwhelmed by other issues.

Follow-up action on the Korea trip was delegated to others. PRM- was

eventually approved by the president in late July, if still reluctantly. The ac-

tual decision as publicly announced was to temporarily “suspend” the troop

withdrawal pending “further review,” but this was just face-saving rheto-

ric. The Carter plan was dead. It was perhaps fitting that the official an-

nouncement of the policy change was made by National Security Adviser

Brzezinski, who had been the last holdout favoring withdrawal.^4

The Looming Storm

By the late summer and fall of , political unrest in South Korea had

reached new heights. Student demonstrations, labor unrest and dissatisfac-

tion, and the mysterious death of a student in the Pusan area had fueled

large demonstrations against the government. The U.S. Embassy viewed

these protests seriously and took efforts to encourage the Korean govern-

ment to treat the demonstrators with more compassion and less force. The

embassy was particularly concerned that military forces might have to be

used to augment the police if the demonstrations got out of control, and it

wanted to avoid direct conflict between government forces and citizens if at

all possible. This was the message emphasized to the Park government at

every opportunity, but it did not seem to have much effect. Even in those cases

where senior ROK government officials were sympathetic, they were either

afraid to stand up to the Blue House or were blocked in their efforts to urge

a more conciliatory policy. Among the hard-liners appeared to be Cha Chi

Chol, the Blue House secretary, or chief of staff, who had a great influence

over direct access to President Park and what information he received. Since