The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [78]
Reagan's incoming national security adviser, Richard Allen, was more sympathetic and more concerned about the international repercussions of Kim's fate. At the end of November, Allen met General Lew Byong Hyon, chairman of the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had been sent from Seoul to discuss the case. The meeting was arranged by General John Vessey, the former U.S. commander in South Korea, who had returned to Washington as vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army. Without being explicit, Lew spoke of the serious insurrection that had been put down and said that "as long as the source of the trouble remains, we strongly feel that we should deal with it appropriately." Allen concluded Lew was telling him that Kim Dae Jung would be executed. Not knowing what to do or say, Allen made no comment but stalled for time.
There followed a series of confidential meetings between Allen and Korean officials on December 9, December 18, and January 2, orchestrated and led by Sohn Jang Nae, the KCIA minister in the ROK Embassy who had arranged my meeting with Chun the previous July. The key South Korean participant in the most important meeting was Lieutenant General Chung Ho Yong, commander of ROK special forces who had been so abusive in Kwangju and who was a member of Chun's inner circle. According to Korean notes of the meeting, Chung bluntly said that Kim Dae Jung was "the most dangerous person" to Korean national security and "must be executed in accordance with law." Allen responded that the execution of Kim would jeopardize the otherwise excellent chance for a major improvement in American-South Korean relations. In an interview in 1994, the former lieutenant general told me he personally opposed executing Kim and did not believe that Chun would carry it out but used the possibility as "a card" to obtain what he badly wanted-an early official visit to Reagan in the White House.
By the end of the third meeting, Allen, with encouragement from the outgoing administration, had arranged a deal to save the condemned dissident in return for a Chun visit to the White House and normalization of Chun's relationship with Washington. On January 21, 1981, the very day after Reagan's inauguration, the White House announced Chun's impending visit. Three days later, Chun announced the lifting of martial law and commutation of Kim's death sentence to life imprisonment.*
On February 2, less than two weeks after taking the oath of office, Reagan welcomed a broadly smiling Chun and his party at the diplomatic entrance of the White House with ruffles and flourishes and a trumpet fanfare. The controversial Korean was received at the White House before the leaders of such important American allies as Britain, France, or the other NATO countries, Japan, or even Canada or Mexico. In a cable from Seoul in preparation for the visit, Gleysteen reported that "to a considerable extent Chun will see the visit as made possible by his decision in the Kim Dae Jung case, but he will not wish to have it characterized as a crude tradeoff."
Tossing aside the restrained remarks drafted for him by the State Department, Reagan delivered a wholehearted embrace of the leader whom the Carter administration had held at arm's length. In his toast at a glittering East Room luncheon for more than fifty guests, Reagan reminisced about General Douglas MacArthur's handing back the battered city of Seoul to President Syngman Rhee after liberating the capital from North Korean occupation in 1950. With his accustomed oratorical skill, Reagan declared, "We share your commitment to freedom. If there's one message that I have for the Korean people today, it is this: Our special bond of freedom and friendship is as strong today as it was in that meeting thirty years ago."
The Americans were under no misconception about what the reversal of the chilly Carter era relationship