The operation was scheduled to begin at 7:00 a.m. As squadrons of fighter jets circled ominously overhead, a sixty-man security platoon of American and South Korean soldiers equipped with side arms and ax handles advanced into the truce village at P’anmunjŏm. The platoon was accompanied by a sixteen-man tree-cutting detail. B-52 strategic bombers from Guam were circling farther south, while three batteries of American 105mm howitzers were stationed north of the Imjin River. A mile from P’anmunjŏm, an ROK infantry reconnaissance company, armed with M16 rifles, mortars, and machine guns, was deployed just outside the Joint Security Area, ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble. Altogether 813 men were involved in the operation. Forty-five minutes later a message was flashed to higher headquarters that the mission was accomplished without incident: a forty-foot-tall Normandy poplar tree had been cut down.1
The operation was the climax of a week of tension that began on August 18, 1976, when North Korean soldiers attacked with axes a group of American and South Korean soldiers who were in the Joint Security Area at P’anmunjŏm. The Americans and South Koreans were preparing to prune a tree to clear the line of sight from a guard post. Before they began their work they suddenly found themselves confronted by a large group of angry and armed North Koreans. One South Korean later recalled, “Suddenly they swarmed out of nowhere crowding the Americans, beating them with clubs and kicking them.” By the time the attack was over, two American officers, Capt. Arthur Bonifas and Lt. Mark Barrett, were dead of massive head injuries. Four other Americans and five South Koreans were also wounded. The Americans had not fired a shot. “We wanted to avoid escalating any incidents,” an American official explained.2 Within hours, Kissinger was on the phone with the American ambassador in Seoul, Philip Habib: “I want retaliatory action,” he told Habib. “We cannot have Americans killed. I hope that is clear.”3 Cooler heads prevailed once the poplar tree was cut down, its removal being a symbol of American resolve and the mass of military power placed on alert a demonstration of its strength. Nevertheless, it was unclear whether the tree cutting would represent the entirety of the American response to the attack. While Kissinger and other American officials believed that the killings were premeditated, they were equally convinced that North Korea did not want to start another war.
UNC soldiers cut down a poplar tree near the Bridge of No Return, August 21, 1976. (U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION)
Why did the North Koreans commit this heinous attack? The most plausible reason is that it was an act of impulsive passion by North Korean guards who have long been inculcated with hatred for the United States and Americans.4 However, while the actual killing of the American soldiers may not have been planned, the weight of intelligence, “including the number of Korean reinforcements ready prior to the incident,” suggests that it was a calculated political ploy instigated for either domestic or international reasons.5 On the domestic front, a series of crises had befallen North Korea by 1976. It had been unable to pay back its foreign loans from Japan and European nations, amounting to $1.8 billion, and was on the verge of defaulting. P’yŏngyang had asked for a two-year moratorium, but the debt led to a 63 percent decline in foreign exports during the first five months of 1976.6 As the economy went into sharp decline, North Korea eventually defaulted. The ax attack may have been an effort to divert domestic attention away from North Korea’s failing economy. In addition, there was also the matter of Kim Il Sung’s successor. Earlier in the year, Kim had named his son, Kim Jong Il, as his heir apparent. Raising tensions and the threat of renewed war might have been a way for the elder Kim to rally public support for his son during a moment of national crisis. On the international front, the attack could have been staged to draw the world’s attention to the Korean situation, as part of a propaganda campaign to condemn the American presence in South Korea and thus eventually force a withdrawal. Within hours of the attack, Kim Jong Il asked the Conference of Nonaligned Nations, meeting in Sri Lanka, to pass a resolution condemning the American presence in South Korea. Kim’s “ax diplomacy” could have provoked an American reaction that might have been used to rally support for North Korea at the United Nations. The conference did, in fact, pass the resolution.7
As more details of the incident surfaced, however, it became clear that the North Koreans had severely misjudged the situation. No North Koreans had been killed, and the brutal nature of the murders suggested that the North Koreans had been the deliberate instigators of the attack. World opinion swung against North Korea. American reaction had also been swift and strong. The tree-cutting operation unequivocally conveyed the message that Washington was prepared to go to war if necessary. Kim soon issued a statement saying that the killing of the two Americans was “regretful” and that both sides should take steps to ensure that such incidents do not happen again. It was an unprecedented act of contrition for the Great Leader. Washington’s initial reaction to Kim’s “apology” was harsh. “This expression represented a backhanded acknowledgement that they are in the wrong,” Kissinger announced. “However, we do not find this message acceptable because there is no acknowledgement for the brutal, premeditated murder of two Americans.”8 But then Washington abruptly softened its stance. It had concluded that raising further tensions would be counterproductive, and accepted Kim’s “conciliatory” message.
South Koreans were appalled by Washington’s sudden turnaround. With confidence in American security commitments at its lowest point since the fall of South Vietnam in 1975, they had looked for signs that the Americans would get tough with P’yŏngyang. “In order to guard peace we have to show the North Koreans very strong resolve,” Park Chung Hee declared in response to the news that Washington had accepted Kim’s “regrets.”9 O Se-yŏng of the opposition New Democratic Party expressed similar concerns, saying he was “worried that the North Koreans may accept it [the American response] as further evidence of their success in their continuous provocations.”10 Washington’s decision not to pursue further retaliatory action against North Korea simply recon-firmed in most South Koreans’ minds that the American commitment to their security was waning and that they might soon have to face North Korea on their own.
For Americans at home, the brutal killings had, more than any other North Korean provocations since the Pueblo seizure, showed them how quickly they could become involved in another Asian land war. In a speech to the Senate on September 15, 1976, Senator George McGovern (D-South Dakota) stated that “the tree cutting incident proved that U.S. forces sent to Korea a generation ago could trip this generation into another war in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He then called for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces and the “avoidance of further identification with that disreputable tyrant [Park Chung Hee].”11
McGovern’s reaction was shared by the first post–Vietnam War president, Jimmy Carter. Carter too was troubled by the “tripwire” danger created by the U.S. forces. He was also deeply troubled by the human rights abuses of the Park regime. For these reasons he was determined to fulfill a campaign pledge to “withdraw our ground forces from South Korea on a phased basis over a time.”12 But keeping this campaign promise proved to be nearly impossible. By the end of his presidency, Carter was forced to confront the reality that an American withdrawal from Korea could have a dangerous impact on the security and stability of the vital Northeast Asian region. The unending Korean War and its unremitting confrontation sparked by continued American presence, paradoxically, now played a vital role in keeping the peace.
After the trauma of Nixon’s resignation in 1974 and South Vietnam’s fall in 1975, which was still shocking even if anticipated, the political mood in the United States was deeply skeptical of the government and against further American military ventures in Asia. There was a yearning for moral and righteous governance. Jimmy Carter promised to build “a new world order based on a U.S. commitment to moral values rather than an inordinate fear of communism.” The policy, first articulated in May 1977, made human rights a primary issue in how America conducted foreign affairs. Carter based his new approach on his faith in the universality of democracy and American values and principles: “We are confident that democracy’s example will be compelling … We are confident of our own strength … through failure we have now found our way back to our own principles and values, and we have regained our lost confidence.”13 A month later, Carter articulated what this morality-oriented foreign policy might mean for Korea: the withdrawal of U.S. ground forces from South Korea. The mutual defense treaty and commitment of American airpower would remain, but U.S. troops would go home.
On January 26, 1977, six days after his inauguration, Carter ordered a broad review of U.S. policy toward the Korean peninsula, which was set down in Presidential Review Memorandum/NSC 13 (PRM 13).14 Key national security agencies and officials were tasked to “analyze current developments and future trends bearing on our involvement in Korea,” including “possible course of action dealing with … the reduction in U.S. conventional force levels on the peninsula.”15 Despite the seemingly open-ended nature of the review, however, officials in the new administration were shocked when Secretary of State Cyrus Vance told the group that the president’s mind had already been made up: the group was directed to study not whether ground forces should be withdrawn, but how it should be carried out.16 William Gleysteen Jr., Carter’s ambassador to South Korea, recalled his dismay: “Some participants threatened to refuse cooperation; others threatened to publicize the issue, perhaps by way of Congress. The angry, fractious session ended in chaos.”17 By asking for recommendations on implementation rather than an assessment of the soundness of the decision, Carter thwarted any opposition to his plan. They thought that for a candidate who had campaigned on the platform of openness and against the overreaching of presidential power, Carter was doing exactly the opposite. In the end, the review group decided to continue by not only framing the study “consistent with the President’s instructions,” but also allowing the option “to argue for a minimum of withdrawals.”18 Privately, they were concerned that Carter did not understand the risks inherent in a U.S. withdrawal. Doubts would be raised, including by the North Koreans, about whether the U.S. would really fight in the event of another war. This ambiguity could increase the risk of war, as it did in 1949 when the American forces withdrew from the Korean peninsula. Moreover, Carter had announced his plan without any preconditions. There was no incentive for the North Koreans to guarantee that they would not again attempt to use military force against the South by such measures as a nonaggression pact or a reduction in their forces.
Defenders of Carter’s plan argued that troop withdrawal was hardly a novel idea. In 1971, Nixon, over the strong objections of the Park regime, had withdrawn the twenty thousand men in the Seventh Infantry Division, of the approximately sixty thousand U.S. troops then on duty in Korea. There was also talk of reducing the remaining U.S. ground combat unit, the Second Infantry Division, to a single brigade. The difference, of course, was that Nixon did not call for the complete withdrawal of U.S. ground forces. This distinction was critical because without troops on the ground, the United States would have an option to intervene in the event of another war or not. Although the Carter administration publicly declared its commitment to South Korea’s defense since “the President cannot evade the choice of going to war or not because our Air Force will still be there,” privately the president acknowledged that the withdrawal plan would remove the tripwire that would automatically involve the United States in any renewal of fighting. Senator Larry Winn of Kansas stated the concern over the tripwire situation at a House hearing on the ax murder incident: “You don’t usually start a war with an ax.”19 The problem was that in Korea you very well could.
These fears were spelled out in another presidential review, Presidential Review Memorandum/NSC 10 (PRM 10), completed on February 18, 1977, which stated that “once the U.S. land forces are out of Korea, the U.S. has transformed its presence in Asia from a land-based posture to an off-shore posture. This … provides the U.S. flexibility to determine at the time whether it should or should not get involved in a local war.” With the troops gone, “the risk of automatic involvement … is minimized. However, should the U.S. decide to intervene, military forces would be readily available.” Thus unlike PRM 13, which focused on how the withdrawal of U.S. forces should be carried out, PRM 10 provided an acceptable rationale for withdrawing the ground troops. As for deterring North Korea from launching another invasion, “North Korea must take into account powerful U.S. air and naval assets in any decision to attack the South.” Nevertheless, its predictions were grim. The North Koreans could not win “a sustained combat” against the South, the report said, but even with U.S. supply comparable to the “initial air and naval support at D-Day,” it was possible “that they could at least temporarily attain their most likely major objective, the capture of Seoul.”20
Within the State Department, Vance’s deputies were divided about the withdrawal plan. There was general consensus that given its robust economy, South Korea would be able to make up for a U.S. withdrawal by increasing its military budget, but among the foreign and defense policy community, the reaction was universally negative. Carter’s national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, recalled little support for the idea. The Joint Chiefs of Staff adamantly opposed the withdrawal, fearing that its net effect “could be dangerous for deterrence.”21 Meanwhile, Carter sent Vice President Walter Mondale to Japan in February 1977 to inform the Japanese of his determination to withdraw American ground troops. In yet another slap in the face to the Koreans, the South Koreans received no such courtesy visit.
Many in the Carter administration had serious doubts about the withdrawal plan and also thought that the process of implementing the major policy change was flawed. “No real consultations had been held with any Asian ally; no major strategic or national advantage to the United States had been clearly enunciated or postulated; no extraction of advantage of concessions from those who threatened the stability of Northeast Asia and their vital role to U.S. interest had been obtained.” Carter had merely decided that it was “time to go” and seemed to have persuaded himself that it would not result in disaster. Caught between loyalty to the president and a growing perception that the plan carried unnecessary risks to American security, many of the president’s advisors simply hoped that the withdrawal process would drag out sufficiently long “so that if concerns did prove real, there would be time for policy adjustments before the U.S. had gone too far.”22
The public façade of support for Carter’s plan broke wide open when Maj. Gen. John Singlaub, chief of staff of U.S. Forces Korea, told the Washington Post in May 1977 that “if U.S. ground troops are withdrawn on the schedule suggested, it will lead to war.”23 He was relieved of his duties because his statements were “inconsistent with announced national security policy and have made it difficult for him to carry out” his duties.24 Singlaub’s testimony before a House subcommittee soon thereafter that his views were shared by the military and the diplomatic community created a political firestorm on Capitol Hill. The controversy that had been brewing within the administration for months had been blown wide open. What particularly disturbed conservative leaders like Senators Barry Goldwater and Strom Thurmond was that the administration was pushing a major policy move without congressional or national debate. Goldwater stated on the Senate floor, “The official announcement by the Pentagon said that public statements by General Singlaub … were inconsistent with announced national security policy. What I would like to know is where was this official policy defined and announced by the President or by the Pentagon? I can’t find such a policy declaration. It has not been presented to the Armed Services Committee of which I am a member … and so far as I know it has not been presented in the Committee on Foreign Affairs.”25 Republican critics charged Carter with attempting to hastily and carelessly fulfill an ill-considered campaign promise. Carter had underestimated the obstacles he would face in Washington. He had also misjudged the limits of his powers as the president.
Critics of the withdrawal plan loudly voiced their concerns. They pointed to strategic considerations beyond just the risk of a North Korean attack. A precipitous withdrawal of troops from Korea would raise doubts in Japan about America’s commitment to Japan’s security. Senators Hubert Humphrey (D-Minnesota) and John Glenn (D-Ohio) reported to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Japan might expand its military, which could “shatter the fragile balance that now exists in East Asia.”26 The withdrawal might also lead Japan to accommodate Soviet power in the Pacific. China, too, might begin to question American credibility as an Asian-Pacific power willing and able to counterbalance the Soviet Union. Such an uncertainty about America could undermine, as one official put it, the “Chinese interest in normalizing relations with the United States and increase the risk of Sino-Soviet accommodation.” South and North Korea would no doubt react to the American withdrawal with an arms buildup and might embark on developing nuclear weapons. The human rights situation in South Korea was likely to worsen. Without American leverage on the Seoul regime, President Park “will undoubtedly use the phase out as further rationalization to intensify repression of his domestic opponents.” This was the reason why virtually “the entire South Korean opposition is against American withdrawal.”27 Richard Stilwell, a retired Army general and former commander of the UNC in Korea, summed up the majority opinion in the defense and foreign policy community when he said that “disengagement of American troops entails the gravest of risks, not only on the peninsula but also in Northeast Asia and far beyond,” and that the modest investments of men and resources “provide a deterrent that effectively thwarts the North Koreans.”28
As doubts and opposition to the withdrawal plan became more vocal, Carter responded by sending Secretary of Defense Harold Brown to Seoul to revise the withdrawal schedule. To compensate for the loss of American troops he also promised $1.9 billion in military aid that would be “provided in advance of or parallel to the withdrawals.”29 The military aid package was an essential component of the withdrawal plan. By providing the Park regime with assistance to develop the capacity to defend itself, Carter hoped to assuage fears that South Korea was being abandoned. In December 1977, the State Department published a report that South Korean security would not be harmed by the American withdrawal if it were accompanied by military aid.30 The aid package, however, required congressional approval, and Korea in the year 1977 was a very unpopular country. Angered and frightened by the abrupt manner in which Carter had announced his withdrawal plan without prior consultation, Park turned to bribing American officials in an effort to buy congressional votes in its favor. The “Korea-gate” scandal, as it came to be known, was a desperate attempt at influence peddling by a regime that was certain it was being abandoned. By the end of 1977, four full-scale congressional investigations of the bribery scandal were under way. Support for South Korea in Congress plummeted so drastically that Carter’s proposal to leave weapons behind as insurance when U.S. troops pull out “could not now pass the House.” The Korea-gate investigation had paralyzed all legislative actions on Korea. Representative Clement Zablocki, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, announced that “it would be futile to begin hearing this year because of the fall-out from the Korean influence peddling.”31 Robert Rich, the State Department country director for Korea, summed up the feeling on Capitol Hill: “Congress probably could not have passed a bill stating that Korea was a peninsula in North East Asia.”32
Another obstacle that Carter ran into was self-inflicted. By publicly and relentlessly chastising the Park regime for its human rights abuses, Carter had undercut American popular support for South Korea. It was difficult for him to argue that with the withdrawal of U.S. troops the repressive regime should be provided with a large compensatory military package. Moreover, Carter’s emphasis on human rights had emboldened Park’s domestic critics. “It’s a contest of nerves to see how far we can go,” said one opponent of the regime. “With Carter talking human rights, Park doesn’t dare arrest all of us. It would mean another whole year of embarrassing sham trials.”33 Questions were raised as to whether the withdrawal should proceed during a period of such political turmoil, as many now believed that North Korea might take advantage of the situation. “We do not face just a frontal, all-out invasion from the North, but a general strategy of revolution in the South,” said Kim Kyŏng-wŏn, Park’s special assistant for foreign affairs. “The appearance of instability as well as the actual fact would make us run the risk of misleading North Korea to believe that their theories are confirmed. This is a real enough danger.”34 Many in Washington agreed.
While criticism of the withdrawal plan mounted and it became clear that Congress was not going to approve enhanced military aid to South Korea, Senators John Glenn and Hubert Humphrey, two staunch allies of the president, returned from an extensive trip in Asia. The purpose of the trip was to study the withdrawal question as it related to the whole strategic and diplomatic equation in Northeast Asia. Their report, issued on January 8, 1978, created a stir in Congress. It concluded that “the President’s decision to withdraw troops from Korea will have a critical impact on the peace and stability of East Asia.” With regard to the tripwire effect, “the United States will gain the option not to become involved in another ground war in Asia; but the United States maintaining its commitment, U.S. naval and Air Force personnel would undoubtedly be involved if war broke out.”35 In other words, the best way to ensure that the United States avoided a new Korean War was to prevent such a war from happening in the first place.
But the most devastating, and compelling, finding was the strong opposition to the withdrawal by both China and the Soviet Union.36 The late 1970s was a period of intense regional change and realignments within the communist world, including China’s new relationship with the United States, continuing hostility between China and the Soviet Union, and increasing tensions between China and Vietnam. Instability on the Korean peninsula was the last thing any of the regional powers wanted. Although neither China nor the Soviet Union publicly opposed the withdrawal plan for fear of alienating North Korea, owing to their political rivalry with each other, the report concluded that “both value relations with the United States and Japan above Korean ambitions for reunification.” It also found that both countries “seek to disassociate themselves from Kim Il Sung’s more rash actions and view the U.S. security commitment to Seoul as a useful ingredient in keeping peace on the peninsula and restraining Japanese rearmament.” In particular, the Chinese, paranoid about the Soviet threat, feared that the removal of American forces from the Korean peninsula might tempt the Soviets to reassert their long-standing Russian interests over the peninsula. Humphrey and Glenn observed that “U.S. force reduction, in and of itself, will not lead China to abandon its basic foreign policy strategy of developing a U.S. connection. But it will raise some troublesome implications in Peking [Beijing]. It is widely believed that the Chinese tacitly support a U.S. military presence in South Korea as an element of the strategic counterweight to the threat of Soviet ‘encirclement’ of China.” As for the Soviet Union, “Soviet national interest is best served by a divided, not a unified Korea. Unpredictable Kim could draw the Soviet Union into a conflict with the United States,” which is why the Soviet leaders want American troops to remain in the South despite their public utterances to the contrary. The report noted that “Soviet media still refers to ‘two Korean states’ and the USSR has yet to endorse North Korea’s claim to be the ‘sole sovereign state’ on the Korean peninsula.” As for Japan, “it views East Asia strategic politics as tripolar, with the United States, the Soviets and the PRC determining its future … the situation in Korea is the vortex of these relationships and thus Japan views its own fate inextricably linked to that of Korea.” This is why the Japanese government “was disheartened by Carter’s campaign pledges and confidence in the US is at a low point.” A withdrawal from Korea would damage Japan’s “confidence in the U.S. determination to defend Japan.” Under these circumstances, “the rearmament of Japan might develop a situation that would shatter the fragile balance that now exists in Asia.” Similar sentiments were voiced by Taiwan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Australia. Singapore’s President Lee Kuan Yew was particularly critical: “The withdrawal from Korea is part of President Carter’s plan for a decreased U.S. presence in Asia.”37
In South Korea, as expected, the reaction was universally negative. Even staunch domestic opponents of the Park regime were against the withdrawal. The report noted that “every dissident interviewed opposed U.S. troop withdrawal. The Korean National Council of Churches in a recent position paper stated bluntly ‘we would like to make clear our belief that the plan to withdraw American troops will deal a death blow to our people’s churches in their struggle for freedom, justice and human rights.’ They fear that without strong American presence there will be no restraining the government.”38 The regional powers agreed that a sudden American retreat would send the world a political message that the United States was disengaging from an area of potential conflict and abandoning allies.
While these alarming findings were being absorbed by Congress and the administration, behind-the-scene developments would eventually kill the withdrawal plan altogether. A main assumption of the plan was that even after the withdrawal, the military balance of power still favored South Korea. Its larger population, twice that of the North, was seen as a distinct advantage in its long-run economic and military competition with the North.39 In late 1975, however, John Armstrong, a young army intelligence analyst at Ft. Meade, Maryland, made a startling discovery. Working with imagery of North Korean forces taken by aircraft and satellites, Armstrong determined that North Korean tank forces were nearly double the amount of previous estimates. His initial findings led to a larger effort to completely reassess North Korea’s military strength. After two years, the team of three-dozen analysts under Armstrong confirmed a huge increase in North Korean military capability over the previous decade. Ground forces increased by 40 percent, from 485,000 to 680,000, the first time the NKPA had fielded a force larger than the ROK Army. The North Koreans possessed more than a two-to-one advantage in tanks and artillery, and the bulk of this larger force was positioned closer to the DMZ than previously thought and “in such a configuration to suggest offensive intent.” The findings electrified the intelligence community, and senior officials recognized the stark implications of the study for Carter’s pullout plan. In January 1979, the results of the study became front-page news in the New York Times and the Washington Post.40
Carter questioned the validity of the new assessment (and would continue to do so well after the end of his presidency) and still pressed for withdrawal. The normalization of relations with China on January 1, 1979, raised the possibility of a Sino-American initiative to finalize a settlement between North and South Korea that would permit the withdrawal. During his visit to the United States in late January, Deng Xiaoping, who had succeeded Mao in 1978, two years after the latter’s death, agreed to help arrange North-South talks, but when North Korea refused to compromise on the terms of those talks, Deng said that he would not put pressure on North Korea. Carter’s scheduled trip to Tokyo in June for the G7 summit provided an opportunity for a visit to Seoul to discuss the situation with Park. Carter’s aides proposed such a visit, hoping the outcome would convince Carter that the withdrawal plan was premature. Carter was reluctant to meet Park, whom he despised for his human rights record, much less to discuss the withdrawal plan. Nevertheless, he agreed to make the visit but tied it to an unexpected proposal: a three-way summit with Kim Il Sung and Park in the DMZ. It was an idea born from the Camp David Accords, which had concluded the previous September between Israel and Egypt. Carter would attempt to end the Korean War through diplomacy. A North-South settlement would allow him to keep his campaign promise, since the long-term presence of American troops after North-South rapprochement would be unnecessary.
It was an idealistic, if not hopelessly naive, proposal that failed to take into consideration the long and aggrieved history between the two nations, the regional implications of a withdrawal, and the opposition to withdrawal by China, Japan, and the Soviet Union. White House aides thought it might be seen as a “flaky” stunt. Ambassador Gleysteen, who grew up in China with missionary parents, said he “nearly fell out of my chair” and “exploded with surprise and anger.” A visit meant to symbolize close relations between the United States and South Korea would “be turned into a circus of events featuring Park’s most feared enemy.” Asia experts in the State and Defense Departments were also horrified, realizing that such an event would be seen by the South Koreans as “the first steps toward a Vietnamese solution for Korea.” It would lead to further suspicion in South Korea that the United States was in the process of abandoning an old ally. It would also allow Kim to create a wedge between the Americans and the South Koreans. Park would never agree to such a summit, and the proposal itself would poison the relations between the two allies. Gleysteen said that if Carter went ahead with these plans, he would resign. Through Brzezinski, Carter was convinced to quietly drop the plan without the South Koreans ever knowing about it.41
Like so many of his initiatives, Carter’s policies were not part of an overall strategic design. Each foreign policy initiative, as one observer put it, “was considered a sacred goal.”42 Focused on the human rights issue and the tripwire effect, Carter failed to understand the complex history of Korea’s unending war, and America’s continued involvement in it, and how that situation had paradoxically become the basis for maintaining the peace.
The meeting with Park had initially been proposed as a mechanism to adjust and refine the withdrawal proposal. Ambassador Gleysteen was hopeful: “With fingers crossed, I believed we were over the hump in getting President Carter to suspend his troop withdrawal.” By this time, Carter was about the only person in Washington who favored the withdrawal. Instead of a trilateral summit, Carter accepted a trilateral meeting by lesser diplomats. Gleysteen proposed that “if the president were to tell Park that we would accommodate his concerns by a significant alteration of our troop withdrawal plans, then on that basis of the confidence generated by such a declaration, we could tell him we wished to explore with him the possibility of announcing in Seoul a proposal for a trilateral summit at a later time.”43 Although most of his aides opposed the idea of a trilateral meeting with North Korean diplomats, Park agreed. He saw a possible way to end or reduce the scope of the withdrawal plan, and he was convinced that the North Korean leader would reject the proposal anyway. As it turned out, Park was correct about Kim’s reaction, but he miscalculated President Carter’s.
On the evening of June 29, 1979, Carter arrived in Seoul after having just finished the G7 summit meetings in Tokyo. Ham Su-yŏng, commander of the presidential guard, recalled later that “the treatment Park received from the [American] visitors was insulting.” Because of security concerns, the Secret Service did not notify the Koreans about Carter’s exact time of arrival. This meant that Park was forced to wait for nearly an hour at the airport. Moreover, the accompanying press corps was allowed to debark the plane first. As a result, Park, who was short in stature, “was forced to fight his way through a crowd of reporters before finally greeting the U.S. President.”44 After a brief handshake, Carter abruptly departed. In a remarkable defiance of protocol that amounted to a slap in the face against Park, Carter immediately flew to Camp Casey, the headquarters of the U.S. Army’s Second Infantry Division near the DMZ, for his first night, rather than stay at the state guesthouse in Seoul. It was an inauspicious start for the visit.
Carter traveled back to Seoul the next morning to meet Park at the Blue House. Gleysteen had advised Park not to bring up the withdrawal issue, at least not right away, in order to set a positive tone for the meeting. Park ignored this advice. Leading off the first session, he delivered “a long, school marmish lecture on the North Korean threat.”45 He asked for U.S. withdrawal plans to be halted: “The most honest desire of every Korean is to avoid the recurrence of war. What is the surest guarantee against the recurrence of war? Continuation of the U.S. presence and end to withdrawals.” Park also addressed the president’s human rights concerns: “I have great admiration for your human rights,” he began, but “every country has unique circumstances. You cannot apply the same yardstick to countries whose security is threatened as to countries whose security is not.” He pressed the point on security:
You went to the front line area, Mr. President, and drove back to Seoul. Our capital is only 25 miles from the DMZ. Right across the DMZ hundreds of thousands of soldiers are poised. We have suffered a tragic war … Some time ago several members of Congress came to call on me. I told them that if dozens of Soviet divisions were deployed at Baltimore, the U.S. Government could not permit its people to enjoy the same freedoms they do now. If these Soviets dug tunnels and sent commando units into the District of Columbia, then U.S. freedoms would be more limited. We support human rights policy. Respect for human rights is also our concern. I want as much freedom for our people as possible. But the survival of 37 million people is at stake, and some restraint is required.46
Carter became furious while Park continued talking for nearly an hour. One of Carter’s aides noticed his habit of “working his jaw muscles” to stifle his anger. Passing a note to Vance and Defense Secretary Brown, Carter wrote, “If he goes on like this much longer, I’m going to pull every troop out of the country.”47
After the meeting, Vance, Brown, Gleysteen, and Brzezinski rode together to the ambassador’s residence. Carter vented his anger toward Gleysteen, asking why Park, “in the face of North Korea’s huge buildup, was unwilling to increase his country’s defense expenditure at least to the American level of 6 percent of the GDP and why Park was so resistant to some real measure of political liberalization.” Carter accused his aides of conspiring against him and threatened to continue the withdrawal. Gleysteen tried to defend Park, saying that although his behavior during the session was “ill-advised,” he was obviously “upset by Carter’s refusal to reassure him about the troop issue.” Moreover, the ambassador pointed out that comparing the defense expenditures of the United States with those of South Korea was misleading; South Korea was still a developing nation “and was already carrying a very heavy defense burden.” He reminded Carter that in the past “we deliberately refrained from pushing Korea too hard on military expenditures for fear of strengthening the military and their authoritarian tendencies.” Vance and Brown joined on Gleysteen’s side while Brzezinski remained conspicuously silent. Witnessing the heated exchange through the rear window of the presidential limousine, Nicholas Platt, the National Security Council expert on Asia, turned to a companion and said, “There goes your Korea policy; it’s all being decided right there now!”48
The mood of the next day’s meeting improved considerably after Vance and Gleysteen were able to secure from Park a promise that he would spend more than 6 percent of GDP on defense. Park also said that he “understood” Carter’s views on human rights and would make more efforts at liberalization. Carter agreed to reconsider the withdrawal plan and to deal “satisfactorily” with the military question when he got back to Washington. He then made an unusual effort to reach out to Park, asking the South Korean leader about his religious beliefs. Park replied he had none. Carter said, “I would like you to know about Christ,” and “proposed to send Chang Hwan (Billy) Kim, an American-based Baptist evangelist who fashioned himself as the Korean Billy Graham, ‘to explain our faith’.”49 Despite the initial setback, the summit had been a success. Gleysteen recalled Park’s ebullient reaction after Carter’s departure: “After Air Force One was airborne, Park, normally rather dour and distant in manner, looked at me, laughed in appreciation, and gave me a big bear hug, an act of spontaneity that astounded his attendants.” On July 5, Park sent a message through his Korean CIA chief, Kim Chae-kyu, that he would be releasing 180 political prisoners over the next six months. On July 20, Brzezinski announced that Washington would suspend troop withdrawals from South Korea until 1981, the start of what would have been Carter’s second term, in order to reassess the military balance on the peninsula.50
That chance did not come. In a sweeping reversal of Carter’s policies, his successor, Ronald Reagan, increased the number of American forces in Korea to forty-three thousand, the highest level since 1972. Carter’s futile efforts showed that even a resolute president was unable to sever the link between the United States and the Korean peninsula. His two-and-a-half-year withdrawal program ended with a reduction of only three thousand men. Meanwhile, in Seoul, Carter’s criticism of Park’s human rights record dealt a severe blow to the South Korean president’s standing among his own people. The result would lead to another chapter in the unending Korean War.