April, 2003: Cover Story

By Greg Rushford

Published in the Rushford Report

The emotionally strained Korean president had been drinking heavily. He didn’t trust the Americans. He constantly worried some of his generals with orders to strike across the border that — if they had been implemented the next morning after the president sobered up — could have sparked a broader war. And some risky provocations actually were undertaken. Turns out that the defense minister had been sending secret unconventional-warfare teams across the DMZ into enemy territory, where they engaged in sabotage. The American president knew that he had to do something quickly to defuse tensions on the Korean peninsula — the most dangerous place on the planet. But what?

            Sound familiar?

            Actually, the previously unreported events happened 35 years ago, when the U.S. president was Lyndon Johnson. But a trove of formerly highly classified presidential documents that illuminate secret intelligence wars and high-level behind-the-scenes diplomacy on the Korean peninsula in 1968 is fresh reading today. The top-secret files — declassified by the State Department more than two years ago, but never before subjected to journalistic scrutiny, to the best of my knowledge — offer valuable insights into steps that President George W. Bush could take to prevent a catastrophic war with communist North Korea . If it isn’t already too late.

            Some experienced Korea watchers are fearful that Bush — his head full of visions of a cakewalk in Iraq and his heart full of animosity for North Korea’s loathsome communist dictator, Kim Jong Il — may have already set in motion events that, unless checked, will end in a bloody war on the Korean peninsula.       Bush has openly displayed his emotional revulsion for the cruel Kim, whom he has said he “loathes” as a “pygmy” who starves his own people and is a charter member of the “axis of evil” that must be brought down. “I thought he [Bush] might jump up he became so emotional as he spoke about the North Korean leader,” Bob Woodward tellingly noted in his book Bush at War.

            Bush has repeatedly stated that he believes that the crisis sparked by North Korea ’s nuclear weapons program can be solved by regional diplomacy involving the U.S. , South Korea , Japan , China , and Russia . But the president hasn’t given Kim Jong Il much reason to believe that. Kim — himself a highly volatile if not clinically paranoid character — is acting like a man who has been driven into a corner. And considering the Bush White House’s 31-page National Security Strategy of the United States of America with its doctrine of pre-emption, it is not irrational for Kim to believe that America plans to come after him after first disposing of Saddam.

            If Bush doesn’t get his Korea policy right, especially if he launches a pre-emptive attack on North Korea ’s nuclear facilities without the consent of South Korea and Japan , the possible consequences are horrific: a nuclear exchange that could result in tragic loss of human life in Korea and perhaps Japan as well. Even a conventional war could destroy Seoul .

            Or what if Bush’s refusal to talk to the North Koreans so infuriates Kim Jong Il that the communist dictator does something provocative enough to spark a war by an accidental miscalculation? As last month’s North Korean interception of a U.S. Air Force spy plane indicated, the possibilities for miscalculation on either side —leading to a war that nobody wants — are clear and present. And what if such an accidental war devastated, say, Osaka , Tokyo , or Seoul ? America could end up being blamed.

            If so, that would in turn wreck — wreck — America ’s political and diplomatic influence in the Far East for a long, long time. Beyond that, try to imagine the immediate global effects of the economic meltdown of South Korea and Japan , two of the global trading system’s most important members.

            Alternatively, what if Bush would decide to live with a nuclear North Korea , as some news reports (that have been denied by the White House) suggest? Japan would surely conclude that it would not be wise to continue relying on the U.S. nuclear umbrella, and instead rearm. The key U.S. security relationship that has kept the peace in the Pacific for a half century would be seriously eroded, along with American influence in the region.

            In either gloomy scenario, China — which controls some 80 percent of North Korea ’s fuel requirements but has been reluctant to pull the plug on Kim Jong Il — would be positioned to fill the vacuum left by America ’s diminished influence in the Pacific. No wonder that officials in Beijing have been so coy recently.           

            Meanwhile, George W. Bush — a man who is uncomfortable with ambiguities and sees himself on a mission against evil —  presses ahead with his customary supreme confidence that he is certain that he has the answers on how to bring down Axis-of-Evil countries.

            Not all veteran Korea watchers are so gloomy. “We firmly believe there will be no war on the peninsula,” says Tami Overby, the executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Seoul . “Ultimately, a united front between South Korea , Japan , China , Russia and the U.S. will bring this to a halt.”

            But others are not as sanguine.

            “The end game seems to have begun,” says an obviously worried Gordon Flake, the executive director of the Mansfield Center . “It may be too late for either Bush or Kim to back down,” adds Flake, who is one of the most experienced Korea watchers in Washington and a man not normally given to overstatement.

            Until any war actually begins, of course, it is never too late.

Secret intelligence wars and diplomacy

            Thirty-five years ago when Lyndon Johnson was president, events on the Korean peninsula also threatened to spin out of control. On January 21, 1968, a 30-man North Korean commando team infiltrated Seoul and got within 300 yards of the Blue House (South Korea’s White House), where they had hoped to assassinate President Park Chung Hee. Two days later, the North Koreans seized the USS Pueblo and towed the spy ship (and its crew) into the port of Wonsan . Like today, the smell of war was in the air, as was the possibility of a fatal miscalculation in ongoing secret intelligence wars.

            These days, North Korea ’s Kim Jong Il’s provocations clearly are aimed at taking advantage of Washington ’s  preoccupation with Iraq . In 1967-68, Kim’s father, Kim Il Sung, saw an opportunity for playing dirty tricks while Lyndon Johnson had his hands full in Vietnam , as CIA director Richard Helms then noted.

            In 1968, the North Koreans apparently had some 2,400 highly-trained commandos who were organized into teams that had been conducting regular raids across the DMZ in the previous year. After his raid on the Blue House, Kim Il Sung’s propaganda team was warning that  “war can be touched off by US imperialists any moment” — the same kind of hot rhetoric that is now being used by Kim Jong Il.

            And if provocations from the northern tiger — there were no hawks and doves on either side of the 38th parallel, only the same ethnically identical tigers, the Johnson administration believed — were not dangerous enough, it looked like South Korea might also attack the North. General Charles Bonesteel, the commander of U.S. (and United Nations) forces in Korea , was worried about an “orgy of emotionalism” and a “Mad Hatter’s tea party atmosphere” in Seoul that could result in a unilateral military attack on Pyongyang . The South Koreans were also furious at the Johnson administration, which was cautioning restraint and also talking privately to the North Koreans.

            This was the most dangerous moment since 1954, when U.S. officials had dissuaded then South Korean strongman Syngman Rhee not to “go north,” as U.S. Ambassador to South Korea William Porter noted in a Secret-Flash dispatch to the State Department in Washington on February 8, 1968. Secretary of State Dean Rusk sent a “Personal and Eyes Only” cable to Porter acknowledging that he, too, was “deeply disturbed” that officials in Seoul were accusing the Johnson administration of weakness in the face of provocations from North Korea . “I know that we are dealing with an especially sensitive people, sometimes called the ‘Irish of the Far east ,”” Rusk observed.

            President Park Chung Hee was the man whose temper was flaring the most, railing against both the North Koreans and the Americans. “I have been deeply disturbed over last several days at growing irrationality in certain areas ROKG [South Korean government] most especially in President Park himself,” reported General Bonesteel in a February 9, 1968 Top Secret, Eyes Only report to CINCPAC [the US Pacific command] in Honolulu. “Inputs in last day have confirmed that Park is almost irrationally obsessed with need to strike now at North Koreans, with sort of  ‘apres moi le deluge’ philosophy accentuated by our secret talks with NK at Panmunjom .”

U.S. diplomacy tries to cool down tensions

            That same day, Lyndon Johnson dispatched special envoy Cyrus Vance to Seoul to try to calm things down. Events were indeed moving quickly. Only the day before, on Feb. 8, Prime Minister Chong Il-kwon — one of the cooler heads in Seoul — had suggested to Ambassador Porter that a “distinguished special envoy coming directly from President Johnson” would be the best way to “really turn heat off.”

            Vance arrived in Seoul on Feb. 11 and returned to Washington on the 15th. He immediately went to the White House, where he met with Johnson and other high-level national security officials in the Cabinet Room.

            Vance related that the situation in the Blue House was indeed tense. Park, he related “wanted to react violently against North Korea ,” but had been dissuaded by Ambassador Porter. “Nobody will tell him what he does not want to hear,” Vance said of the South Korean president. “He is moody, volatile and has been drinking heavily. He is a danger and rather unsafe.”

            “Is Park’s drinking irrationally something new?” Johnson asked.

            “No this has been going on for some time,” replied Vance. “He hit his wife with an ash tray. He has thrown ash trays at several of his assistants and I was fully prepared for that.” Park “will issue all sorts of orders when he begins drinking,” Vance added. “ His generals will delay any action on them until the next morning,” hoping that the volatile president would not remember what he had said the night before.

Provocations from Seoul         

            Park wasn’t the only problem that Vance discovered. “One of their guys, the Defense Minister, is an absolute menace,” Vance told Johnson. “He has organized a very elite anti-infiltration unit under his command which has been conducting raids across the border against north Korea . So there is blame on all sides.” [Vance was apparently referring to South Korean Minister of National Defense Kim Song-un, whose name is also translated into English as Kim Sung-eun.]

            Vance laid out for Johnson what he had learned: The South Koreans had been operating “two a month raids recently,” he noted. “The anti-infiltration units are under the command of the Defense Minister. They took out a division headquarters in recent attacks. An attack no later than March is planned across the DMZ again. There is much talk in military circles about this.”

            The South Korean provocations remained out of public view. It seems that the North Koreans sometimes complained a bit over the radio and at armistice meetings at Panmunjom , but had not wanted to advertise their own vulnerabilities with widespread publicity.

            According to the declassified documents, U.S. intelligence and military officials were extremely leery of suggestions that American soldiers participate with the South Koreans in such commando raids. For one thing, this would be a violation of the armistice agreement that the United States had signed in 1953. Moreover, there were practical problems. Commando raids and other black operations associated with unconventional warfare were considered to run “less risk of exposure” than so-called “pure intelligence” operations that were designed to collect information. But they were still very risky. Even the strictly intelligence-gathering missions that had been undertaken had not proven very successful.

            “In 1963 all US intelligence penetration operations and support to ROK [ Republic of South Korea ] operations were cancelled because

agent loss rates exceeded

50 pct. Resumption of

combined-intelligence operations in late 1964 reduced the loss rate but only one successful deep penetration has been conducted in past three years,” reported a Top Secret, Priority telegram from CINCPAC in Honolulu to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Earle Wheeler on February 9, 1968 . The document recommended “that development of a joint US-ROK unconventional warfare group to conduct operations in and against North Korea be held in abeyance and not approved at this time.”

Lessons for George W.

            Special envoy Vance’s mission succeeded in defusing the tensions. Patient diplomacy prevailed (the North Koreans returned the Pueblo ’s crew about a year later, although the spy ship itself is still in Wonsan ). President Johnson also gave the South Koreans some carrots to encourage the tiger to defend its own territory instead of going north — Vance recommended about $200 million in additional military aid, General Bonesteel suggested giving Seoul some more F-4 jet fighters, and so forth.

            Vance was also tough on Park — at one point threatening that if the South Korean leader pulled his forces out of Vietnam , the U.S. forces would depart Korea . (Note to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who helpfully suggested last month that the U.S. second division — the so-called tripwire — might be pulled far south of the DMZ, out of harm’s way: By contrast with the Bush administration today, threats on allies are more effective if they are not made publicly.)

            Of course, much has changed on the Korean peninsula since 1968. Happily, South Korea has successfully made the transition from being an impoverished U.S. dependency with a notable lack of self-confidence into today’s shining and prosperous democracy. At least President Bush doesn’t have to worry that newly elected South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun will launch a pre-emptive military strike north of the

border.

            But perhaps the most important point is that the essentials of successful diplomacy have not changed over the last three-plus decades: always talk to people. This is one (of many) lessons that George W. Bush has not yet demonstrated that he has mastered. Diplomacy 101 is based on the elementary fact of life that it is very difficult to cool down any overheated situation by refusing to talk to the other guy. But the prideful Bush has been resisting engaging in any direct talks with North Korean officials.

            It’s not just the North Koreans who get this treatment. As I report in the Players column at page three of this issue, before he launched the war against Iraq , Bush was even unwilling to pick up the telephone and call French President Jacques Chirac to try to work out their differences. At least Chirac isn’t going to start shooting real bullets. Bush is apparently unmindful that an increasingly frustrated Kim Jong Il seems determined to take increasingly desperate and dangerous steps to get Washington ’s full attention.

            In November 2002, Don Oberdorfer and Don Gregg visited Pyongyang . These are two of the most experienced Korea watchers around. Oberdorfer is a former Washington Post correspondent and author of the acclaimed book, The Two Koreas; Gregg is a highly knowledgeable  former CIA official, U.S. ambassador to Seoul , and a top national security aide to the first President Bush. When they returned to Washington , the two men urged the Bush administration to move to engage the seething North Koreans — advice that was vehemently rejected. “I’m appalled,” says Oberdorfer of the Bush attitude. “This is more dangerous than Iraq .”

            Ralph Cossa, a former Air Force intelligence officer who now is president of the Pacific Forum CSIS in Honolulu , says that he believes that Bush should be laying the preliminary groundwork to dispatch an envoy to Pyongyang , perhaps family consigliore James Baker III. Cossa commends Bush’s intention to work with the other interested regional powers — South Korea , Japan , Russia , and China . But also opening a bilateral Washington-Pyongyang communications channel “would not reward Pyongyang for past indiscretions,” Cossa believes. “Combining both approaches could provide a way forward.”

            Sound advice, surely. But few believe that Bush  will take it. Bush’s idea of diplomacy seems to turn on ultimatums and repeated “final” warnings. Witness last month’s astonishing American pressures associated with efforts to obtain approval from the UN’s Security Council to take out Saddam Hussein. Surely, American diplomacy has never seen such a month. While the world has naturally been focusing on the immediate issues concerning Iraq , the U.S. diplomatic prestige that will be necessary to prevent a new Korean war has taken a very serious hit.

            As James Goodby and Kenneth Weisbrode noted with commendable understatement in a recent Financial Times column with the headline Time for Jaw-Jaw with North Korea ,” it would help if the Bush White House had “a more open mind at the top.”

            [Note to readers: The documents quoted in this article are included in “Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Volume XXIX, Part 1, Korea,” an 829-page volume that was published by the State Department in August 2000. The papers are available from the Government Printing Office.]

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