The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [76]
The conversation with Chun was very different. He saw me at the headquarters of the recently formed standing committee of the Special Committee for National Security Measures, of which he was chairman and chief executive. Situated in a small building across from the historic Kyongbok Palace, the place where North Korean delegates had been welcomed to Seoul in 1972, the standing committee was a shadow government with far more clout than the official one in the nearby Blue House, as it demonstrated nearly every day with arrests, edicts, and press attention. Rather than wearing a uniform like Roh, Chun was dressed in a blue suit with a light blue shirt and sat in a wicker chair simpler than the others in the room, occasionally smoking a cigarette. He impressed me as a physically powerful man operating for the moment under great restraint. As a symbol of his unlimited ambition, there was a large globe in the office, which was unusual even for civilian officials of the South Korean government.
Chun began by saying, with a grin, that he felt like a schoolboy undergoing examination in being interviewed by me. If so, he had done his lessons well. He proceeded to answer my questions with an impressive directness and self-assurance that contrasted with my memory of interviewing Park Chung Hee and other Koreans of an earlier generation. Chun was coy only about his ambition for the presidency, and then only to preserve the formalities. Asked pointblank if he would seek the office, he said he was unable to foresee the future or answer with confidence but quickly added, "I've never run away from problems since the sudden death of the president." He had not planned or scheduled what had happened to him since October, he said, but attributed it largely to "divine providence," which had given him few choices about his course of action. He spoke of the importance of a strong presidency, given the external and internal challenges before the country. As a former political reporter, I had little doubt that he was preparing to move to the Blue House.
On August 7, Chun had himself promoted to four-star general in preparation for retiring from the army. The next day he received a political boost from an unexpected source: the U.S. military commander. General Wickham told Sam Jameson of The Los Angeles Times and Terry Anderson of the Associated Press in an interview that Chun might soon become president and that "lemming-like, the people are kind of lining up behind him in all walks of life." Speaking with astonishing frankness on background as a "highly placed U.S. military official," but one whose identity became quickly known, Wickham said the United States would support Chun's move into the Blue House if he came to power legitimately, demonstrated a broad base of support over time, and did not jeopardize the security situation on the peninsula. Declaring that "national security and internal stability surely come before political liberalization," the U.S. general declared, "I'm not sure democracy the way we understand it is ready for Korea, or the Koreans ready for it." The State Department disavowed Wickham's remarks, but the disavowal had little effect.
Shortly thereafter Choi resigned the presidency, publicly claiming he was doing so to set a precedent for the peaceful transfer of power. Privately he told a military-led committee that he was resigning to take responsibility for the Kwangju events, which he called "a grave mistake" by the armed forces. On August 27, after receiving the endorsement of the ranking commanders of the armed forces, Chun Doo Hwan was elected president without opposition by the rubberstamp National Conference for Unification. Carter sent him a private message that pointedly did not include congratulations but that urged