The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [119]
On the political side, Moscow was reaching out to Seoul through the activities of its party-dominated think tanks. With each passing month, more exchanges were proposed or consummated, especially with unofficial and opposition leaders in South Korea. In February 1989 the Institute of the U.S.A. and Canada, headed by the influential Georgi Arbatov, hosted Kim Dae Jung, the most internationally prominent opposition leader. The Institute of World Economic and International Relations (IMEMO), headed by the redoubtable Yevgeni Primakov, invited Kim Young Sam, his political rival.
Kim Young Sam's visit in June 1989 coincided with a trip to Moscow by North Korean Politburo member Ho Dam. Soviet authorities arranged a meeting of the two. Acting on the basis of an understanding reached with the Blue House before his trip, Kim Young Sam declined his North Korean interlocutor's invitation to visit Pyongyang, insisting that a North-South summit meeting come first. Had Kim accepted the invitation and traveled to Pyongyang, the contacts and understandings with the North that resulted might have changed Korean history. As it turned out, Kim's careful handling of his initial Moscow visit and the invitation from Pyongyang won acclaim from the government in Seoul and paved the way for Kim's political alliance with Roh Tae Woo in January 1990-an alliance that eventually resulted in Kim becoming Roh's successor as president. Nine months later, after becoming chairman of the ruling party, Kim returned to the Soviet capital and even managed a brief unofficial chat with Gorbachev.
Throughout this period, a struggle over Korea policy was taking place in Moscow. On one side were most Foreign Ministry officials, the Soviet military, and the Korea experts in the Central Committee, who favored caution because of the long-standing ties to North Korea; on the other side were members of the Soviet political and economic leadership, who considered the North Korean tie an anachronism and were eager to move ahead quickly with the South to obtain economic assistance. The central issues were those of pace and procedure rather than direction. "We understood the inevitability of future recognition of South Korea, but we were calling for going to this aim step by step," said a senior Foreign Ministry official. However, he said some departments in the Central Committee and some personal aides to Gorbachev insisted on taking dramatic steps at once, due to their urgent desire for financial aid. Vadim Tkachenko, the veteran Korea expert on the Central Committee staff, who favored a measured approach, said the top decision-makers "from the beginning converted the issue into trade [where] the most important thing was money.... [They were] doing everything on the spot, without thinking."
The moment of truth arrived in May 1990, when Gorbachev met privately in his office with the veteran former Soviet ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin, who had returned to Moscow to become a senior foreign policy adviser to the Soviet leader. Dobrynin had been invited to visit Seoul for a conference of the InterAction Council, an unofficial group of former heads of state and senior diplomats organized by former West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt. In view of the sensitivity of a trip to Seoul by a highranking Soviet official, Dobrynin was required to obtain Gorbachev's permission.
The day they met, Gorbachev