The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [60]
By late January 1979, Carter himself was just about the only person in the administration who favored continuing with the troop withdrawal, and even he was aware that support for his views on Korea-and nearly everything else-was eroding drastically. He was being battered from every side following the forced departure of the shah from Iran and the triumph of the Iranian revolution earlier in the month, which led to a redoubling of world oil prices, intensified inflation, and other economic dislocations worldwide.
On January 22 he was persuaded to authorize a new review of Korea policy, chaired by the State Department, "in the light of recent developments affecting the Korean peninsula," including the "new judgments on North Korean order of battle." This artful piece of bureaucratic prose never explicitly mentioned the U.S. withdrawal as a matter for review, but everyone except Carter knew that that was its central topic. Unlike most other such studies, which aimed at bringing the bureaucracy into line behind new presidential policies, Presidential Review Memorandum/NSC-45 was aimed by the bureaucracy at persuading the president to abandon an old policy he continued to cherish.
In order to avoid disclosing their real intent or backing Carter into a corner, his senior lieutenants conducted the "review" in extraordinary secrecy worthy of the most sensitive covert operation. The usual interagency channels of communication for the exchange of classified information were bypassed in favor of hand-carried memoranda between the offices of the top national security officials of government. For once, news of a major policy-making enterprise did not leak.
In the spring, aides recommended an idea that had been under discussion for many months: Carter should make a visit to Korea, following his trip to Tokyo for the June summit meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized nations. The advisers saw the trip as an integral part of a scenario to lead inexorably to further adjustment of the withdrawal plans: first absorb the new intelligence, then discuss it with leaders in Tokyo and Seoul, then report back to the U.S. congressional leadership on changes required by the altered circumstances. Carter reluctantly agreed to the visit, realizing it would probably be the occasion for reconsideration of his plan. He made it clear, however, that he did not wish to discuss the withdrawal issue with President Park, whom he had never met but whose record and regime were distasteful to him.
As the trip preparations were under way, Carter arrived at the Oval Office one morning with a novel-and startling-idea of how to ease the North-South confrontation on the Korean peninsula. Following the precedent of the Camp David accords the previous September between the leaders of Egypt and Israel, Carter proposed to invite Park and North Korean president Kim Il Sung to meet him in the demilitarized zone during his forthcoming trip, to establish a path toward peace. The Asia experts among the aides were horrified because they believed Park and Kim would not agree to meet, and that the proposal would be seen as a "flaky" stunt. The plan also met massive resistance from the U.S. ambassador in Seoul, William Gleysteen. A career Foreign Service expert on Asia who had grown up in China, the son of missionary parents, Gleysteen "just fell out of my chair" when informed of it. The experts persuaded Brzezinski and, through him, Carter to abandon the scheme. The idea was quietly dropped, without the South Korean leadership or anyone else getting wind of it.
As this incident suggests, Carter had been turning over in his mind the possibility that U.S. diplomacy could encourage a NorthSouth settlement that would make the long-term presence of the American troops unnecessary. The four-power talks involving China as well as the