The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (14 page)

In November 1974, the embassy sent to Washington a highly classified intelligence assessment that South Korea “is proceeding with initial phases of a nuclear weapons development program.” This kicked off an interagency intelligence study in Washington that concluded that the ROK could develop a limited nuclear weapon and delivery capability within ten years, but that its efforts to build a bomb would become known well before that time, with significant political impact on neighboring countries. A secret cable to the embassy in Seoul from Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, with the concurrence of the Ford White House, emphasized the gravity of the issue:

In the case of Korea our general [proliferation] concerns are intensified by its strategic location and by the impact which any Korean effort to establish nuclear capability would have on its neighbors, particularly North Korea and Japan. ROK possession of nuclear weapons would have major destabilizing effect in an area which not only Japan but USSR [Soviet Union], PRC [People’s Republic of China] and ourselves are directly involved. It could lead to Soviet or Chinese assurances of nuclear weapons support to North Korea in event of conflict. . . . This impact will be complicated by fact that ROK nuclear weapon effort has been in part reflection of lessened ROKG confidence in U.S. security commitment, and consequent desire on Park’s part to reduce his military dependence on U.S.

American policy as set forth in the secret instructions was “to discourage ROK effort in this area and to inhibit to the fullest possible extent any ROK development of a nuclear explosive capability or delivery system.”

The administration decided on a multifaceted approach, using both direct US pressure and the development of common policies with other nuclear supplier nations to inhibit South Korean access to nuclear weapons technology. The tough issue was how to accomplish this without a serious rift in the US-ROK alliance, especially at a time when Korean confidence in the United States was plummeting due to the developments in Vietnam.

Initially, the emphasis was on persuading France to revoke its offers of nuclear cooperation. US ambassador Sneider cautioned the French ambassador in Seoul, Pierre Landy, that “the United States has no doubts that the Koreans have in mind putting to ulterior military ends what they can make use of such as plutonium.” The French refused to give up potential sales to Seoul, saying they would cancel their plans only if the Koreans asked them to do so.

South Korean officials denied they were embarked on a nuclear weapons program. Many of those who denied it probably didn’t know the carefully hidden truth. “We have the capability,” Park told columnist Robert Novak in early June 1975, but he denied that his government was using it. He added, in a plea for continuing US support, “If the U.S. nuclear umbrella were to be removed, we have to start developing our nuclear capability to save ourselves.”

US officials decided at the outset not to reveal to South Korea their certain knowledge of its clandestine program, but instead centered their attack on its openly acknowledged plans to import a reprocessing plant. In July 1975, Ambassador Sneider was authorized to begin taking the American objections about reprocessing directly to ROK officials. A National Security Council memorandum recognized that the campaign to persuade Seoul to forgo the planned reprocessing plant would approach the limit of what the South Korean government would accept from the United States. In order not to confront Park and to allow him to save face, Sneider took the case against the reprocessing plant methodically up the chain of command, first to the minister of science and technology, then to the foreign minister, and eventually to the secretary general of the Blue House. The US ambassador never made direct allegations that Seoul was embarked on a weapons program, recalled Cleveland, who accompanied him on the visits, but emphasized “how important it was that Korea not buy this because of the appearances of things and the kinds of suggestions this would make back in the United States and the difficulties that it would cause.”

Sneider’s efforts were closely coordinated with those in Washington. On his morale-boosting visit to South Korea in August 1975, Secretary of Defense Schlesinger personally told Park that a South Korean nuclear weapons program was the one thing that could endanger US-ROK relations. In what he later called “an elliptical conversation,” Schlesinger did
not refer to the US intelligence findings, and Park did not admit to a secret weapons program. The US defense secretary got the feeling, though, that “he knew that I knew.”

In Washington that fall and winter, Assistant Secretary of State Philip Habib held increasingly intense conversations with South Korean ambassador Hahm Pyong Choon. By this time, the French contract had been signed; Habib demanded the Koreans cancel it. Through his ambassador, Park refused, declaring that this could not be done “as a matter of honor.”

Washington concocted a number of incentives in return for cancellation of the French plant, including guaranteed access to reprocessing under US auspices when it was needed by the ROK civilian nuclear industry and access to additional American technology under a formal science and technology agreement. On the disincentive side, the administration, with congressional help, threatened to block Export-Import Bank financing of the next steps in Seoul’s ambitious civil nuclear power program if the proliferation concerns were not resolved. Finally, both Sneider and Habib were authorized to employ the heaviest threat ever wielded by the United States against South Korea: that the entire US security relationship would be put in doubt if Seoul went through with the plan.

At the height of the campaign in December 1975, Sneider pointedly informed a senior ROK official that the “real consideration” for Koreans was “whether Korea [is] prepared [to] jeopardize availability of best technology and largest financing capacity which only U.S. could offer, as well as vital partnership with U.S., not only in nuclear and scientific areas but in broad political and security areas.” In deciding what to do, said Sneider, the ROK government “had to weigh the advantages of this kind of support and cooperation which USG [US government] could provide against the French option.” According to an ROK participant, Donald Rumsfeld, who succeeded Schlesinger as secretary of defense, bluntly told his ROK counterpart in May 1976 that the United States “will review the entire spectrum of its relations with the ROK,” including security and economic arrangements, if Seoul insisted on developing nuclear weapons.

Faced with such adamant US opposition—all done in secret—Park reluctantly canceled the contract. The episode demonstrated that when the United States was determined—and when it believed its security interests on the peninsula were at stake—it retained the clout in the mid-1970s to overwhelm even the most determined intentions of the Seoul government.

In the aftermath, Sneider worried that this was not the end of the affair. What concerned him most about Korea’s future, he told National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft in a White House meeting, was “Park’s emotionally charged drive to seek self-sufficiency and self-reliance through a program of nuclear weapons and missile development.” He recommended that after a decent interval, the United States
begin confronting Park anew on the issue, lest the program be revived, resulting in the temptation for North Korea “to go the same route.” Sneider observed that “Park was guilty of sloppy thinking in believing he could somehow obtain greater security by these policies; yet, given U.S. attitudes, one had to admit that South Koreans had some reason for their concern over their future security.”

Although Park was forced to give up the French reprocessing plant and later to forgo purchasing a new Canadian heavy-water reactor, the program refused to die. Rather than disband his clandestine nuclear team, Park gave it a new organizational parent, the Korean Nuclear Fuels Development Corporation, and a new objective, the manufacture of nuclear fuel rods for the country’s reactors. In 1978 South Korea once again began discussions with France about reprocessing facilities. Again Washington blocked the deal, this time with the personal intervention of President Carter with French prime minister Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.

Nonetheless, Son U Ryun, one of Park’s former press secretaries, later wrote that during a walk on a beach in January 1979, the president confided that “we can complete development of a nuclear bomb by the first half of 1981.” When this happens, Park went on, “Kim Il Sung won’t be able to dare to invade the south.” Son claimed Park said he planned to show the bomb to the world in the Armed Forces Day parade in 1981 and then announce his resignation as president. Son’s account is widely disputed by former officials who were close to Park. However, it is consistent with the testimony of Kang Chang Sung, chief of the powerful Defense Security Command under Park. Kang said Park told him personally in September 1978 that 95 percent of the nuclear weapons development had been completed by the Agency for Defense Development and that atomic bombs would be produced by South Korea in the first half of 1981.

MURDER IN THE DEMILITARIZED ZONE

On the morning of August 18, 1976, five South Korean workmen, accompanied by a ten-man American and South Korean security detail, gathered around a prominent poplar tree near the western edge of the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom. The JSA, roughly circular and about eight hundred yards in diameter, was for decades the only part of the demilitarized zone without fortifications, barbed-wire fences, and land mines marking the division between the North and South. On that day, tension was unusually high due to recent frequent threats, obscenities, and shoving matches.

The purpose of the work detail on that steamy August day was to trim a forty-foot tree that, in its summer foliage, obstructed the view between two guard posts manned by US and ROK forces within the Joint Security Area. As the work got under way, two North Korean officers and nine
enlisted men appeared and asked what was going on. After first seeming to approve, the Korean People’s Army (KPA) commander, Lieutenant Pak Chul, a combative eight-year veteran of the JSA, demanded that the trimming stop, warning that “if you cut more branches, there will be a big problem.” The senior American officer, Captain Arthur Bonifas, a West Point graduate who was within three days of ending his one-year tour in Korea, ignored the protest. Lieutenant Pak then sent for reinforcements, who arrived by truck carrying metal pipes and ax handles, raising the KPA total on the scene to about thirty men. They surrounded the tree trimmers. The North Korean officer again demanded that the work stop, saying to the South Korean officer who served as the interpreter, “The branches that are cut will be of no use, just as you will be after you die.” Captain Bonifas told the interpreter that he believed the North Koreans were bluffing. He ordered the work to proceed.

Bonifas turned away from the North Korean officers, and Pak removed his watch, wrapped it in a handkerchief, and put it in his pocket. The other KPA officer rolled up his sleeves. Pak then shouted, “
Chookyo!
” (Kill!), and smashed Bonifas from behind with a karate chop, knocking him to the ground. This signaled a general KPA attack. Bonifas was beaten to death by five or six North Koreans wielding clubs and with the blunt edge of an ax. Lieutenant Mark Barrett, the other American officer present, was also knocked down and beaten to death. The South Korean interpreter was injured, along with four of the US and ROK enlisted men. A US Quick Reaction Force, stationed nearby as a precaution, arrived after the fight had ended and the North Koreans had regrouped on their side of the lines.

The deaths of the two American officers were the first fatalities in the Joint Security Area since it had been established at the end of the Korean War. Within days the killings would result in the gravest threat of all-out war from the 1953 armistice to the nuclear crisis of the 1990s. As in the nuclear crisis, Kim Il Sung showed his pragmatic side at the crucial moment, narrowly averting a widening clash. But the fact that the United States and North Korea were the principal actors left the leadership of South Korea on the sidelines and far from satisfied with the outcome.

When news of the fatal skirmish reached Washington, President Ford was at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City, where he was competing for his party’s presidential nomination against Ronald Reagan, who accused him of being too conciliatory to communists. In Ford’s absence, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger chaired the meeting of the Washington Special Actions Group (WASAG), the top-level crisis committee of the Ford administration, in the secure basement-level White House Situation Room.

A CIA briefer, making the initial presentation, noted there was no indication of North Korean troop movements or other preparations for a
general attack. But he also expressed the view that the killings were not spontaneous. The agency submitted a written report, saying, “We are virtually certain that this incident was a deliberate provocation. We believe it was intended to support North Korea’s diplomatic offensive against the US and South Korea . . . and also to arouse US public opinion about the American troop presence in Korea during the presidential election campaign.”

The chief of naval operations, Admiral James L. Holloway, representing the uniformed Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that given “a military standoff” on the peninsula, a North Korean attack could be successful only if it was a surprise, and because the killings had put everyone on alert, “we therefore do not believe that the North had a major attack in mind.”

As in many such emergencies, the policy makers had only a dim idea about how the clash had arisen. Neither the CIA nor other agencies at the table seemed to know that this was not the first encounter over the poplar tree, until a cable was handed to Kissinger while the meeting was already under way. It revealed that twelve days earlier, a South Korean work party had approached the big poplar tree with saws and axes, intending to cut it down, but had withdrawn after a North Korean guard ordered them to leave it alone. This incident, however, had not been reported to military headquarters in Seoul. “They told us not to do it,” commented William Hyland, the deputy national security adviser, when the cable was handed around the White House meeting.