The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (23 page)

Roh, whom I met at his Seoul Security Command headquarters, was so eager to explain himself that a conversation of several hours in length was continued at his request over lunch at his home the following day. I had never met a senior ROK general on active duty before—they had usually stayed away from American correspondents—and was impressed by Roh’s openness, intelligence, and supple mind. I was also surprised that Roh said emphatically that he did not believe any military man was ready to become Korea’s political leader. “We are not expert in economics or politics,” he insisted, and should leave those issues to people who are. The crucial thing for the next leadership is a strong national consensus, Roh told me. “Our intention is very sound: defending the nation and not becoming involved in politics.”

The conversation with Chun was very different. He saw me at the headquarters of the recently formed standing committee of the Special Committee for National Security Measures, of which he was chairman and chief executive. Situated in a small building across from the historic Kyongbok Palace, where North Korean delegates had been welcomed to Seoul in 1972, the standing committee was a shadow government with far more clout than the official one in the nearby Blue House, as it demonstrated nearly every day with arrests, edicts, and press attention. Rather than wearing a uniform like Roh, Chun was dressed in a blue suit with a light-blue shirt and sat in a wicker chair simpler than the others in the room, occasionally smoking a cigarette. He impressed me as a physically powerful man operating for the moment under great restraint. As a symbol of his unlimited ambition, there was a large globe in the office, which was unusual even for civilian officials of the South Korean government.

Chun began by saying, with a grin, that he felt like a schoolboy undergoing examination in being interviewed by me. If so, he had done his lessons well. He proceeded to answer my questions with an impressive directness and self-assurance that contrasted with my memory of interviewing Park Chung Hee and other Koreans of an earlier generation. Chun was coy only about his ambition for the presidency, and then only to preserve the formalities. Asked point-blank if he would seek the office, he said he was unable to foresee the future or answer with confidence but quickly added, “I’ve never run away from problems since the sudden death of the president.” He had not planned or scheduled what had happened to him since October, he said, but attributed it largely to “divine Providence,” which had given him few choices about his course of action. He spoke of the importance of a strong presidency, given the external and internal challenges before the country. As a former political reporter, I had little doubt that he was preparing to move to the Blue House.

On August 7, Chun had himself promoted to four-star general in preparation for retiring from the army. The next day, he received a political boost from an unexpected source: General Wickham told Sam Jameson of the
Los Angeles Times
and Terry Anderson of the Associated Press in an interview that Chun might soon become president and that “lemming-like, the people are kind of lining up behind him in all walks of life.” Speaking with astonishing frankness on background as a “highly placed U.S. military official,” but one whose identity became quickly known, Wickham said the United States would support Chun’s move into the Blue House if he came to power legitimately, demonstrated a broad base of support over time, and did not jeopardize the security situation on the peninsula. Declaring that “national security and internal stability surely come before political liberalization,” the US general declared, “I’m not sure democracy
the way we understand it is ready for Korea, or the Koreans ready for it.” The State Department disavowed Wickham’s remarks, but to little effect.

Shortly thereafter Choi resigned the presidency, publicly claiming he was doing so to set a precedent for the peaceful transfer of power. Privately, he told a military-led committee that he was resigning to take responsibility for the Kwangju events, which he called “a grave mistake” by the armed forces. On August 27, after receiving the endorsement of the ranking commanders of the armed forces, Chun Doo Hwan was elected president without opposition by the rubber-stamp National Conference for Unification. Carter sent him a private message that pointedly did not include congratulations but that urged early elections under a new constitution and “greater personal freedom” to enhance stability. Holding the new regime at arm’s length, Washington banned cabinet-level visits to Seoul and postponed the annual US-Korea security conference. Chun’s main bid for popularity was his “purification” drive, in which close to ten thousand people were dismissed from government or arrested on corruption charges. The embassy learned to its dismay, however, that the new president and his aides were handing out cash to their followers on an even bigger scale than their predecessors had. “We had to deal with these guys. We had no choice,” explained Gleysteen. “At the same time, we couldn’t go along and get in bed with them.”

THE FIGHT TO SAVE KIM DAE JUNG

Chun’s trump card with the United States was the nemesis of the ROK military, Kim Dae Jung. Formally accused of plotting the insurrection in Kwangju that was touched off by his arrest on May 18, Kim was put on trial by court-martial, found guilty, and sentenced to death on September 17. The US Embassy protested every step of the way, beginning with a strong démarche the day after Kim’s arrest. Under heavy pressure from the embassy, the Martial Law Command permitted an American diplomat to attend the trial. When it was over, the State Department publicly described the charges against Kim as “far-fetched.”

Several senior military figures insisted, in talks with me in 1980, that Kim, whom most of them had never met, was or had been a communist working for North Korea. I had had numerous interviews with Kim over the years and never believed the accusations. Although he was a man of immense ambition, he was also the political figure with more innovative ideas about his country’s present and future than anyone else on the scene.

In a midsummer meeting presided over by Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher, the Carter administration decided to make a high-priority effort to free Kim and later to save his life. This decision
played into the hands of Chun, whose pride and political position were suffering from the undisguised US disapproval of his regime. As the year wore on, the Chun government linked Kim’s fate to normalization of the chilly relations between Washington and Seoul. In the final months of the Carter administration, the fate of Kim Dae Jung dominated American–South Korean relations, despite the wide variety of other issues at stake. It was also a major issue between South Korea and Japan, largely due to the residue of Japanese anger over Kim’s abduction from Tokyo in 1973.

In mid-December, in an exception to its ban on cabinet-level visits to Seoul, the outgoing Carter administration sent Defense Secretary Harold Brown to see Chun with an appeal for clemency toward Kim Dae Jung. According to Donald Gregg, who accompanied the defense secretary, Chun told him that he was “under terrific pressure from the military” to execute Kim. Chun insisted that despite the intense feelings abroad, “I can’t possibly succumb to foreign pressure.”

After the American election on November 4, 1980, the defeated Carter team rapidly lost even the minimal clout it had with Chun, who eagerly awaited the new, more conservative Reagan administration. Reagan had made it clear from the start that he wanted no part of withdrawing US troops, an initiative thoroughly associated with Carter and, by now, thoroughly discredited. However, his views on the Kim Dae Jung case were unknown. Carter administration officials were alarmed to learn of a preelection remark to a Korean official in Washington by Alexander Haig, soon to become Reagan’s first secretary of state, that the Seoul government should consider itself free to make any decision it chose about Kim Dae Jung. The Carter team feared that the remark and the attitude it conveyed would be an open invitation to execute Kim.

Reagan’s incoming national security adviser, Richard Allen, was more sympathetic and more concerned about the international repercussions of Kim’s fate. At the end of November, Allen met General Lew Byong Hyon, chairman of the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had been sent from Seoul to discuss the case. Without being explicit, Lew spoke of the serious insurrection that had been put down and said that “as long as the source of the trouble remains, we strongly feel that we should deal with it appropriately.” Allen concluded that Lew was telling him that Kim Dae Jung would be executed. Not knowing what to do or say, Allen stalled for time.

There followed a series of confidential meetings between Allen and Korean officials on December 9, December 18, and January 2, orchestrated and led by Sohn Jang Nae, the KCIA minister in the ROK Embassy. The key South Korean participant in the most important meeting was Lieutenant General Chung Ho Yong, a member of Chun Doo Hwan’s inner circle and commander of ROK special forces who had been so abusive in
Kwangju. According to Korean notes of the meeting, Chung bluntly said that Kim Dae Jung was “the most dangerous person” to Korean national security and “must be executed in accordance with law.” Allen responded that the execution of Kim would jeopardize the otherwise excellent chance for a major improvement in American–South Korean relations. In an interview in 1994, the former lieutenant general told me that he personally opposed executing Kim and believed that Chun was using threats about Kim’s fate as “a card” to obtain what he badly wanted—an early official visit to Reagan in the White House.

By the end of the third meeting, Allen, with encouragement from the outgoing administration, had arranged a deal to save the condemned dissident in return for a Chun visit to the White House and normalization of Chun’s relationship with Washington. On January 21, 1981, the day after Reagan’s inauguration, the White House announced Chun’s impending visit. Three days later, Chun announced the lifting of martial law and commutation of Kim’s death sentence to life imprisonment.
*

On February 2, less than two weeks after taking the oath of office, Reagan welcomed a broadly smiling Chun and his party at the diplomatic entrance of the White House with a trumpet fanfare. The controversial Korean was received at the White House even before the leaders of such important American allies as Britain or France. In a cable from Seoul in preparation for the visit, Gleysteen reported that “to a considerable extent Chun will see the visit as made possible by his decision in the Kim Dae Jung case, but he will not wish to have it characterized as a crude tradeoff.”

Discarding the restrained remarks drafted for him by the State Department, Reagan delivered a wholehearted embrace of the leader whom the previous administration had held at arm’s length. In his toast at a glittering East Room luncheon, Reagan reminisced about General Douglas MacArthur’s handing back the battered city of Seoul to President Syngman Rhee after liberating the capital from North Korean occupation in 1950. With his accustomed oratorical skill, Reagan declared, “We share your commitment to freedom. If there’s one message that I have for the Korean people today, it is this: Our special bond of freedom and friendship is as strong today as it was in that meeting thirty years ago.”

The Americans had no misconceptions about what the reversal of the chilly Carter-era relationship meant for Chun. A memorandum from Haig to Reagan in advance of the meeting pointed out that the first visit by a Korean president to the United States in twelve years would “symbolize the normalization of US-ROK relations after a period of prolonged strain”
and “consolidate [Chun’s] position within South Korea and legitimatize his new government in the eyes of the world.” Haig pointed out in that although Chun “has preserved democratic forms, like his predecessor, his style is Confucian and authoritarian,” backed by the army. “Chun expects us to be concerned with Korean internal developments and is prepared to consider our advice when it is offered privately and in the context of basic cooperation. His ability and willingness to accommodate foreign concerns over the Kim Dae Jung issue is a measure of how much he has matured.”

In a complete reversal of what was viewed as Carter’s wimpish attitude toward Korea, Reagan assured Chun that the new administration had no plans to withdraw American troops—in fact, Reagan eventually increased the forces to forty-three thousand Americans, the largest number on duty in Korea since 1972 and three thousand more than when Carter had begun his withdrawal program. The two presidents announced they would immediately resume previously postponed military and economic consultations. Not publicly announced was that Reagan informed Chun that the United States was prepared to sell Korea F-16 warplanes, the most modern in the US inventory, an arrangement that had been agreed to in principle during the Carter administration, but which Carter had personally prevented from coming to fruition.

Reagan’s warm White House reception was a major turning point for Chun, convincing most South Koreans that his takeover was a fait accompli. By his actions, Reagan built a store of obligation and goodwill with Chun that he drew upon later in connection with other issues. He also left a store of bitter antagonism and a sense of betrayal among Koreans who had previously admired the United States but now held it responsible for Chun’s military coup, the bloody suppression of opposition in Kwangju, and the high-profile endorsement of Chun’s rule.

How much Reagan understood—or cared—about the political situation in Seoul is doubtful. At the November 20 meeting of the outgoing and incoming American presidents, their only meeting during the post-election transition period, Carter thanked Reagan for sending a message to Chun urging that Kim Dae Jung’s life be spared. Up to that point in the briefing, the newly elected US president had had nothing to say, even as Carter discussed such issues as control of nuclear weapons in times of crisis and a long list of foreign-policy challenges from the Soviet Union and the Middle East to China. However, when Carter touched on Korea and the Kim case, Reagan suddenly exclaimed, “Mr. President, I’d like to have the power that Korean presidents have to draft dissenters.” The outgoing chief executive, who had championed human rights in quarrels with South Korean presidents, was startled.