The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [220]
Immediately after the incursion, South Koreans were angered by an off-the-cuff comment by Secretary of State Christopher that "all parties" should avoid further provocative steps, a statement that seemed to put the United States equidistant from both the antagonists. The State Department made corrective statements, but the damage had been done. A senior ROK official telephoned Daryl Plunk, a Korea expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to say that the highest levels of his government found the Clinton administration's response to the incursion "shameful" and its policies to be "appeasement" of the North.
As hard feelings festered and deepened, American civilian officials in Seoul became alarmed by the gap in thinking between themselves and their allies. In a symbol of the new mood, ROK officers were reluctant to permit a U.S. defense attache to inspect the North Korean submarine and then, after relenting, subjected him to a body search when leaving the sub. The U.S. Embassy protested.
More ominously, the Korean-language Joong-ang Daily News reported in mid-October that ROK forces had selected twelve strategic targets in the North for air, naval, and ground retaliation in case of further provocations. The report shocked the U.S. Command, which had theoretical "operational control" of the ROK military in wartime but had heard nothing of these attack plans until publication of the newspaper report. Although ROK defense officials denied that the plans represented serious policy making, the Americans were unable to get what they considered satisfactory assurances that ROK forces would not launch retaliatory military action against the North without U.S. consultation and consent. The issue was quietly taken up by Ambassador Laney and the new U.S. military commander, General John Tilelli; by ROK foreign minister Gong Ro Myung and Defense Minister Kim Dong Jin; by visiting CIA Director John Deutch with foreign minister Gong and others; and by Defense Secretary William Perry with Defense Minister Kim in a Washington conversation, all without clear resolution.
Adding to the American concern, in early November, was Kim Young Sam's abrupt ouster of Foreign Minister Gong, amid reports that he had expressed reservations about the president's hard line against the North. Gong's resignation was officially attributed to health reasons, but Korean and American officials close to him believed that the precipitating factor was a dossier of remarks reportedly provided to Kim by the NSP, the ROK intelligence agency. In these remarks, believed to have been gathered through telephone taps, Gong expressed personal differences with the president's policy in the aftermath of the submarine incursion. (Another former foreign minister told me he had been cautioned by aides when taking his job that he should assume his telephone conversations were tapped.) Gong was replaced as foreign minister by Yoo Chong Ha, Kim's Blue House assistant for national security, who was considered more independent of U.S. policies than any of his recent predecessors.
In mid-November, with these cross-currents flowing just beneath the surface of the nominally close alliance, New York Times correspondent Nicholas Kristof visited Seoul and summarized the consequences of the submarine incursion as "a surge of tension; fears of further military provocations or even war; stalling of the engagement process; a growing number of hungry North Korean peasants who can count on little international help; and a reminder that it is hard to find a place more dangerous and unpredictable than the Korean peninsula." ROK officials did not disagree with that analysis, but they were infuriated by Kristof's