The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [74]
As the standoff continued, the lull in the crisis provided the opportunity for a negotiated settlement, which Washington strongly favored. On May 22 the State Department and the U.S. Embassy issued a statement calling for maximum restraint on both sides and a peaceful settlement, and also warning North Korea against attempting to exploit the situation. As a precaution, the U.S. military had moved AWACS surveillance planes to the area again and prepared to shift an aircraft-carrier task force. The South Korean news media, now under heavy censorship, did not report the statement. Seoul's military authorities agreed to air-drop leaflets containing the statement into Kwangju, but in fact they never did so. On the contrary, the government-controlled radio station heard in Kwangju reported that the United States had approved the dispatch of the hated special forces troops into Kwangju. Gleysteen protested and demanded a retraction. It was never given.
At the White House on May 22, a National Security Council meeting involving the top U.S. government officials except for Carter and Vice President Mondale considered the Korea crisis. According to the highly classified report on the meeting, "There was general agreement that the first priority is the restoration of order in Kwangju by the Korean authorities with the minimum use of force necessary without laying the seeds for wide disorders later. Once order is restored, it was agreed that we must press the Korean Government, and the military in particular, to allow a greater degree of political freedom to evolve." Regarding the immediate next steps, "We have counselled moderation, but have not ruled out the use of force, should the Koreans need to employ it to restore order," the meeting agreed. National Security Adviser Brzezinski summed up the American approach: "in the short term support, in the longer term pressure for political evolution."
The final military assault on Kwangju, using the ROK Twentieth Division and some special forces troops wearing regular army uniforms to disguise their identity, began at three A.M. on May 27. Compared with the early brutal and bloody encounters, the military action was relatively swift and effective. By the time the city was retaken, 170 people had been killed, by official government estimate, most of them in the first few days. The official death toll was raised to 240 in 1995 as a result of a reinvestigation, but Kwangju people claim that the real number of casualties was far higher than either official number. The outcome fueled a long-lasting and intense opposition to Chun, Roh, and the other generals and fervent anti-Americanism among citizens of the Cholla provinces and many Korean students.
Charges of American acquiescence or even approval of the Kwangju events reverberated in Korea. On May 16, before martial law was declared, the Korean military made the required notification to remove two elements of the ROK Twentieth Infantry Division from operational control of the Combined Forces Command, which directed the U.S.-ROK defense against North Korea. Before the Twentieth Division was sent to Kwangju to retake the city in the second week of conflict there, Wickham was asked to approve its redeployment to Kwangju, even though such an approval was not required once the division was out from U.S. operational control. After checking with Washington, Wickham and Gleysteen agreed it would be preferable to deploy the Twentieth Division rather than the hated special forces units, which had never been under U.S. command. These facts were used by Chun's propaganda organs to suggest U.S. sponsorship of the crackdown in Kwangju.