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By Root 1708 0

early elections under a new constitution and "greater personal freedom" to enhance stability. Holding the new regime at arm's length, Washington banned cabinet-level visits to Seoul and postponed the annual U.S.-Korea security conference. Chun's main bid for popularity was his "purification" drive, in which close to ten thousand people were dismissed from government or arrested on corruption charges. The embassy learned to its dismay, however, that the new president and his aides were handing out cash to their followers on an even bigger scale than their predecessors had. "We had to deal with these guys. We had no choice," explained Gleysteen, who recommended the "cool and aloof"' policy. "At the same time, we couldn't go along and get in bed with them."

THE FIGHT TO SAVE KIM DAE JUNG

Chun's trump card with the United States was the nemesis of the ROK military, Kim Dae Jung. Formally accused of plotting the insurrection in Kwangju that was touched off by his arrest on May 18, Kim was put on trial by court-martial, found guilty, and sentenced to death on September 17. The U.S. Embassy had protested every step of the way, beginning with a strong demarche the day after Kim's arrest. Under heavy pressure from the embassy, the Martial Law Command permitted an American diplomat to attend the trial. When it was over, the State Department publicly described the charges against Kim as "far-fetched."

Several senior military figures insisted, in talks with me in 1980, that Kim, whom most of them had never met despite his national prominence, was or had been a communist working for North Korea. I had had numerous interviews with Kim over the years and never believed the accusations. While he was a man of immense ambition, he was also the political figure with more innovative ideas about his country's present and future than anyone else on the scene. Later in the decade, U.S. ambassador James Lilley, who had been a career CIA official, made a detailed study of Kim's record, including confidential reports and police files, and concluded that there was no evidence for the allegations of communist affiliation.

In a midsummer meeting presided over by Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher, the Carter administration decided to make a high-priority effort to free Kim and later to save his life. This decision, taken on humanitarian grounds, played into the hands of Chun, whose pride and political position were suffering from the undisguised U.S. disapproval of his regime. As the year wore on, the Chun government linked Kim's fate to normalization of the chilly relations between Washington and Seoul. In the final months of the Carter administration, the fate of Kim Dae Jung dominated AmericanSouth Korean relations, despite the wide variety of other issues at stake. It was also a major issue between South Korea and Japan, largely due to the residue of Japanese anger over Kim's abduction from Tokyo in 1973.

In mid-December, in an exception to its ban on cabinet-level visits to Seoul, the outgoing Carter administration sent Defense Secretary Brown to see Chun with an appeal for clemency toward Kim Dae Jung. According to Donald Gregg, who accompanied the defense secretary, Chun told him, "I am under terrific pressure from the military to execute him." Chun insisted that despite the intense feelings abroad, "I can't possibly succumb to foreign pressure."

After the American election on November 4, 1980, the defeated Carter team rapidly lost its clout with Chun, who eagerly awaited the new, more conservative Reagan administration. Reagan had made it clear from the start that he wanted no part of withdrawing U.S. troops, an initiative that was thoroughly associated with Carter and, by now, thoroughly discredited. However, his views on the Kim Dae Jung case were unknown. Carter administration officials were alarmed to learn of a pre-election remark to a Korean official in Washington by Alexander Haig, soon to become Reagan's first secretary of state, that the Seoul government should consider itself free to make any decision it chose