The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [47]
In Seoul, President Park was privately furious at the killings, writing in his diary that "I cannot tolerate this barbaric act by crazy Kim II Sung's gangs.... You stupid, cruel, violent gangs-you should know there is a limit to our patience. Mad dogs deserve clubs." In an initial meeting to discuss the military response, however, Park impressed General Stilwell as "calm, deliberate and positive throughout." Park advocated (1) "the strongest possible protest" to Pyongyang, including demands for an apology, reparations, and guarantees against repetition, all of which he admitted were not likely to be forthcoming; and (2) "appropriate counteraction" by military force to teach North Korea a lesson, but without the use of firearms. Stilwell believed Park did not wish to break the long-standing ban on using firearms in the Joint Security Area.
To improve the balance of forces there without introducing heavy arms barred by agreement from the DMZ, Park offered-and Stilwell accepted-the services of battle-ready ROK special forces troops with multiple black-belt honors in tae kwon do as reinforcements in case of trouble. (As it turned out, U.S. commanders learned later, the "unarmed" ROK troops were carrying grenades and had M16 rifles, antitank weapons, grenade launchers, and light machine guns hidden in their truck as they stood by waiting for action.) In a second meeting to go over Stilwell's plans, Park expressed a firm belief that the military response should be limited to removal of the poplar tree, and that "escalation should only evolve if the North escalates." Otherwise, he added, "the matter drops."
At seven A.M. August 21, three days after the killings, a convoy of twenty-three American and South Korean vehicles rolled into the JSA without warning to the North Koreans to begin what was named Operation Paul Bunyan. Aboard was a sixteen-member U.S. engineering team with chain saws and axes, who immediately began working on the massive trunk of the poplar and also removing two unauthorized barriers that had been erected in the JSA by North Korea. They were accompanied by a thirty-man security platoon armed with pistols and ax handles, and sixty-four ROK special forces tae kwon do experts.
This little band of troops, with its narrowly limited mission, was backed up by a mighty array of forces appropriate to the initiation of World War III. Hovering overhead with a noisy whirl of rotors was a U.S. infantry company in twenty utility helicopters, accompanied by seven Cobra attack helicopters. Behind them on the horizon were the B-52 bombers, escorted by the U.S. F-4 fighters and ROK F-5 fighters. Waiting on the runway at Osan Air Base, armed and fueled, were the F-111 fighter-bombers. The Midway aircraft-carrier task force was stationed offshore. On the ground at the approaches to the DMZ were heavily armed U.S. and ROK infantry, armor, and artillery backup forces.
Stilwell's battle plan, approved by Washington, called for mortar and artillery fire to cover the withdrawal of the tree-cutting force in case KPA guards resisted the operation with small arms. Under a lastminute White House order, American artillery were to open fire on the North Korean guard barracks in the DMZ in case of armed resistance. In the event of a KPA ground attack, the backup forces were to assist the withdrawal of all UN elements from the JSA while hundreds of rounds of heavy artillery rained down on nearby North Korean targets. That would have been the opening round of a wider war.
Five minutes into the operation, North Korean officials of the Military Armistice Commission were notified that a UN work party would enter the JSA "in order to peacefully finish the work left unfinished" on August 18. If not molested, the notification said, the UN force would take no further action. Within a few