The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [27]
After a prominent Seoul National University law professor was tortured to death in October 1973, CIA station chief Donald Gregg protested the killing and told the Blue House he found it personally difficult to work further with Lee. A week later, Lee was fired by President Park and replaced with a former justice minister, who initiated reforms in KCIA operations. With Lee out of the picture as chief contact with the North, the prospects seemed better to revive the discussions with Pyongyang. From December 1973 to March 1975, ten North-South vice-chairmen meetings were held under the aegis of the North-South Coordinating Committee, at Panmunjom, but they accomplished little.
Why did the initial attempt at North-South dialogue flower and then wither? How sincere were Park Chung Hee and Kim Il Sung? What did their initial contacts suggest for the future?
From a historical perspective, it seems clear that both Korean leaders had been jarred out of their previous patterns of inflexibility by fast-moving international developments. Whether through hope or fear, each had decided he had more to gain than to lose by dealing directly with the opposing state, something that had never been done before. As it turned out, both benefited in important ways from the experiment in coexistence, even though the practical results were nil.
The dialogue proved extremely useful to Park. It was helpful to his regime internationally, especially in the United States, whose previous ambassador, William J. Porter, had been promoting the case for dialogue for several years. Domestically, the opening to the North was broadly popular with the South Korean public, raising hopes for family reunions, a lowering of tension, and eventual unification, all of which were held out as potential benefits by Park's government. Most importantly, Park used the requirement for national strength and unity in dealing with the North to justify his yushin regime, which gave him the upper hand against the civilian politicians whom he despised and guaranteed him an unlimited tenure in the presidency.
Kim Il Sung also found the dialogue with the South to be beneficial, especially in breaking out of his diplomatic isolation. At the end of 1970, before the move toward talks began, North Korea had diplomatic relations with only thirty-five countries, nearly all of them socialist regimes, while South Korea had diplomatic relations with eighty-one countries. Immediately following the start of North-South dialogue, Pyongyang gained recognition from five Western European nations and many more neutral countries. Within four years, North Korea was recognized by ninety-three countries, on a par with South Korea's relations with ninety-six. The North also gained entry for the first time to the UN's World Health Organization and, as a result, sent its first permanent UN observer missions to New York and Geneva.
Also for the first time, as part of its peace offensive, North Korea communicated directly with the United States, initially by inviting journalists from The New York Times and The Washington Post to Pyongyang for extensive interviews and then by addressing a diplomatic message directly to Washington. In April 1973, North Korea's legislature, the Supreme People's Assembly, sent a telegram to the U.S. Congress referring to the developments on the divided peninsula and asking the American lawmakers for help in removing U.S. troops from South Korea, as they had just been removed from South Vietnam. Congress did not reply, but this letter set the stage for a succession of direct and indirect communications to Washington in the years to come.
Near the end of 1972,