Eye on Korea_ An Insider Account of Korean-American Relations

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reconciliation. The letter stated that Carter was “deeply distressed” by the

events of / and warned that similar occurrences in the future “would

have serious consequences for our close cooperation.”^7 The U.S. Embassy

attempted to distribute this letter as widely as possible so that the Ameri-

can position would be well known by ordinary Koreans, but as a practical

matter, it did not seem to have any important effect.

As a result of the Washington meetings, it was becoming clear that the

United States had very limited options to influence the situation. Finally, a

three-legged policy was adopted that would guide our actions over the next

several months. These “marching orders” were as follows:

• Attempt to preserve momentum toward a broadly based
  democratic government under civilian leadership.


• Continue to deter North Korean aggression.


• Strive to keep the new ROK military leadership focused on its
  primary role of defending the country against attack.

As a practical matter, this was really not much of a change in U.S. policy

prior to /. It did have a new urgency, however, and the embassy and

Washington were united in trying to carry it out in the days ahead. Unfor-

tunately we were only partially successful.

The “Gag Order” and Censorship

By late December, , things had settled down to some extent. The em-

bassy focused its efforts toward reestablishing the progress toward democ-

racy, and USFK attempted to put the events of / behind it and stay

focused on its military mission. General Wickham had been subject to some

criticism in Washington for having “lost control” of the ROK Army, and he

therefore spent a great deal of time visiting front-line units and emphasiz-

ing training and readiness. American military officers were instructed not

to discuss the / events with their Korean counterparts and to avoid

political discussions. These orders were well designed to demonstrate the

nonpolitical nature of the military and set the example of a professional

officer corps. The negative side of such an order was to establish a general

feeling that all was now well and it was once again “business as usual.”

There was another downside to this “gag order.” Many ROK officers had

very little information about how the outside world was viewing events in

Korea. Their own access to accurate information was restricted, just as with