The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [37]
North Korea did not have to learn about Hollingsworth's new strategy from spies or other clandestine sources. In a press conference widely reported in Seoul, the colorful general announced his "violent, short war concept" before the plan had the approval of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or other military elements in Washington. There were unpublicized objections from the staff of the White House National Security Council on grounds that the nine-day war plan involved "almost immediate U.S. air interdiction, and possible use of nuclear weapons" for which there was no prior authorization. Hollingsworth got away with it because of the strong backing of the South Koreans and Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger.
North Korea responded in kind to the augmentation and repositioning of U.S. and ROK forces and Hollingsworth's aggressive plans to use them in case of war. Just as the growth spurt in North Korean forces stimulated the United States and South Korea to increased efforts, so the changes in firepower and strategy south of the DMZ helped stimulate large increases in North Korean forces and their repositioning closer to the dividing line with the South. With the failure of the initial efforts at productive North-South dialogue, the arms race could not be restrained by the two regimes themselves; nor did the outside powers have sufficient will or consensus to call a halt. The buildups, therefore, continued strongly.
The crucial military question in the mid-1970s was whether North Korea's allies in Beijing and Moscow would give military backing to a new attempt to unite the peninsula by force. The U.S. Command's 1974 intelligence estimate pointed out that while Pyongyang was "capable of initiating offensive action," it was unlikely to do so in the short run without Chinese and Soviet assistance. In the view of the U.S. Command, "these countries would not likely support adventurism on the part of NK's leader, Kim II Sung. They probably would, however, assist NK against any invasion mounted by the ROK."
These assumptions were tested in the spring of 1975 as the massive U.S. effort in Indochina was collapsing in the face of communist guns. On April 18, the day after the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge took over the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, and as the final battle for Saigon was getting under way, Kim Il Sung was received in Beijing with elaborate ceremony at the start of an eight--day state visit. In a famous speech at a welcoming banquet, the North Korean leader celebrated the communist victories in Indochina and forecast the collapse of the U.S.-backed regime in Seoul and the worldwide victory of Marxism-Leninism.
"If revolution takes place in South Korea we, as one and the same nation, will not just look at it with folded arms but will strongly support the South Korean people," Kim declared. Then, in a takeoff on Karl Marx's famous dictum that in revolution, the working class has nothing to lose but its chains, Kim added, "If the enemy ignites war recklessly, we shall resolutely answer it with war and completely destroy the aggressors. In this war we will only lose the Military Demarcation Line and will gain the country's unification."
According to a Chinese source with intimate knowledge of Korean affairs, Kim told Chinese leaders it would be "no problem" to liberate South Korea, but Premier Chou Enlai and his colleagues opposed any such idea. Without addressing Kim's ideas specifically, according to this source, Chinese leaders stressed the need for stability on the Korean peninsula, and