The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [184]
Option number three called for the deployment of additional tens of thousands more army and Marine Corps ground troops and even more combat air power. Even this option did not provide enough U.S. forces to fight a general war on the peninsula-Operations Plan 5027 reportedly called for more than 400,000 reinforcements to do that.
The military concern was that if the flow of additional forces did not start quickly, Pyongyang might block it with an early preemptive strike. On the other hand, once the forces did begin to flow, North Korea might feel compelled to strike quickly to forestall an inexorable American buildup that would frustrate its chances for military success. Such an unstable military situation in an increasingly tense situation with an unpredictable foe was extremely worrisome; however, the U.S. military felt that it had little choice under the circumstances but to begin serious preparations for war.
Perry acknowledged in an interview for this book that it was difficult to calculate how Pyongyang might react. "We saw the deployment on the one hand as being provocative. That was the downside. On the other side, we saw it as demonstrating a seriousness of purpose.... We didn't know enough about the Korean mentality to know how to gauge the negative aspects versus the positive aspects of the signal we were sending. Therefore, I chose in my own thinking to set that signal aside, not knowing how to assess it, and recognizing we could have either of those two possibilities."
Some senior officers in the U.S. Command in Seoul were extremely concerned about the North Korean military reaction when they heard about the plans for these deployments. "I always got this feeling that the North Koreans studied the desert [Operation Desert Storm against Iraq] more than we did almost," said a general with access to all the available intelligence. "And they learned one thing: you don't let the United States build up its forces and then let them go to war against you.... So I always felt that the North Koreans were never going to let us do a large buildup. They would see their window of opportunity closing, and they would come." Adding to this officer's apprehension was a chilling fact not well known outside the U.S. Command: at Panmunjom in May, a North Korean colonel told a U.S. officer: "We are not going to let you do a buildup." He did not say, nor did anyone know, how much of a buildup of American forces might trigger a North Korean preemptive strike.
General Luck had played an integral role in earlier planning for augmentation of his forces under the existing war plan, but he received only a few hours' notice that the Pentagon would ask Clinton to authorize its execution on June 16. He was startled by the timing, concerned that the North Koreans would interpret the reinforcements as a signal of an American decision to destroy their regime, and intensely worried that no serious evacuation plan for 80,000 American dependents and other civilians in Korea had been put in place. Japan, which was the logical place for evacuees to go, had not agreed to receive them. Transportation for the evacuation had not been prepared. Most people had no idea an evacuation was imminent and no information about where to go or what to do. Moreover, an announcement of an evacuation of American civilians, and especially the loading of them onto planes and ships, was likely to panic South Koreans as well as many Americans.
Luck and Ambassador Laney met secretly at the ambassador's residence in Seoul the morning of June 16 (the evening of June 15 in Washington). Both felt there was no choice but to proceed with evacuation planning on an urgent basis. The ambassador did not wait for formal orders. He told his daughter and his three grandchildren, who were visiting at the time, that they should leave Korea by Sunday,