The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [38]
ECHOES OF SAIGON
Even more than flirtation with China or other American actions he found difficult to accept, Park was shocked and alarmed by the U.S. failure in Vietnam. The prospects and plight of South Vietnam, the U.S.-backed anticommunist half of another divided country, bore an uncomfortable resemblance to the situation in South Korea. At the American behest, Park's government sent two divisions of Korean troops to fight in Vietnam, and they had remained until 1973, when the slow withdrawal of American forces was nearly complete. Although Korea was well paid for its efforts through procurement and construction contracts, to the point that revenues from the Vietnam War made up as much as 40 percent of its foreign exchange earnings, Park considered his troop commitment to be a self-sacrificing contribution to the anticommunist cause and a payback to Washington for saving the South in the Korean War. In Park's view, the American pullout from Vietnam and especially the betrayal of South Vietnam in the Paris negotiations with communist North Vietnam raised agonizing doubts about the reliability of the United States in his own case.
As South Vietnam was collapsing that April, Ambassador Richard Snider in Seoul appealed to Washington for an urgent review of American policies in view of "declining ROK confidence in [the] U.S. commitment," accompanied by a "risk of North Korean provocation to test both U.S. intentions and ROK capabilities." Sneider, a cerebral State Department officer who had studied communist political operations during the Korean War, wrote in a secret cable that "Korea is not repeat not yet in a crisis era" but that this could come. To head it off, he recommended a long list of potential confidencebuilding measures, ranging from more weapons and economic support for the Seoul government, to contingency planning for special U.S. air and naval deployments to Korea in case of a serious threat of a North Korean attack.
The broader and longer-term problem, Sneider wrote, was the need for a fundamental shift in the U.S. relationship with a Korea that, "while still dependent on us, is no longer [a] client state." Sneider recommended immediate initiation of a major review of Korea policy in Washington.
Two months later, in June 1975, Sneider fired off a more extensive rendition of his views to a U.S. capital that was still preoccupied with the aftermath of the failure in Vietnam. Sneider wrote in a remarkable twelve-page secret cable:
Our present policy toward Korea is ill-defined and based on an outdated view of Korea as a client state. It does not provide a long-term conceptual approach to Korea, geared to its prospective middle power status. It leaves the ROKG [ROK government] uncertain what to expect from us and forces us to react to ROKG on an ad hoc basis. We have not for example made clear to the Koreans what the prospects are for a continued, long-term U.S. military presence. Nor have we clarified what the ROKG can expect from us in the way of military technology, although we discourage President Park's efforts to develop his own sophisticated weapons. These uncertainties lead President Park into preparations for what he sees as our eventual withdrawal, preparations which include internal repression and plans for the development of nuclear weapons. They also induce optimism on the part of North Korea about our withdrawal and doubts in Japan about our credibility and about the future of Korea.