Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XXII, Northeast Asia

225. Memorandum by Robert H. Johnson of the National Security Council Staff⁰

Washington, June 6, 1961.

At the Under Secretary of State’s staff meeting on June 5, McConaughy told Bowles that the Task Force Report was complete and ready for the NSC. Bowles had read it and believed it was “an excellent report.” McConaughy reported that General Pak Chung-hui would replace General Chang Do-yong as chairman of the Supreme Committee for National Rehabilitation. McConaughy noted that “the military junta appears to be adopting a more moderate approach and to be moving in a better direction from our viewpoint.” (Department of State, Secretary’s Staff Meetings: Lot 66 D 147)

THE TASK FORCE REPORT ON KOREA

A Note on the Manner in Which the Report was Prepared

Successive drafts of the report were prepared in a drafting group consisting of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Economic Affairs (Peterson), the State and ICA desk officers and me. Discussion in the Task Force was confined to major issues and, except in one case, never got down to specifics of language. The final draft of the Introduction and Recommendations was prepared by the new ambassador (Berger) in the light of the last Task Force discussion and was reviewed by Mr. Peterson and me. The paper is, therefore, primarily a State Department product, though State did, after argument, accept language from DoD and ICA on key paragraphs dealing with ROK military forces and electric power. The acceptance of the ICA language on power occurred following the review of Ambassador Berger’s draft.

Rationale

When the Task Force began its work prior to the coup the U.S. was endeavoring, in the words of the report, “to spur a liberal and well-intentioned, but weak, administration into more resolute action on basic economic and social problems”. Now we are faced by a tough, authoritarian, nationalistic regime which may be capable of overriding the political obstacles to action on Korean problems, but which is inexperienced, likely to be plagued by continued factionalism, and clearly less amenable to U.S. influence.

Yet in its fundamentals the Korean situation has not changed as a result of the coup. Both the overthrow of the Rhee regime and the overthrow of the Chang Myon regime were, at root, expressions of the rising forces of nationalism in Korean society. Both reflected dissatisfaction on the part of a younger generation with the lack of direction and progress and with corruption in Korean society.

The basic economic problems remain: resources are limited, population growth rapid, and unemployment, a major problem; industry is hamstrung by power and water shortages and by inadequate management and financing: farmers are burdened with debt and high interest rates; corruption is endemic. Our own economic assistance programs have lacked a clear economic development purpose and had been inadequately administered.

Our general policy prescription both before and after the coup was to harness the forces of nationalism by giving Korean society a new sense of purpose. This requires a new thrust and developmental purpose in our own programs (adequately dramatized by new U.S. actions) and at the same time demands Korean action to begin serious economic planning and to undertake a whole series of reform measures.

In the case of the old Chang Myon regime we were more confident about its good intentions than about its political capabilities. In the case of the new military regime we are somewhat more confident about capabilities, at least to initiate reform measures, and less confident of intentions. Thus the strategy outlined in the report is one designed to elicit indications of the purposes of the new group and its willingness to act and to give the ambassador considerable discretion in determining when performance merits responsive action on our part. Three stages in the interchange of views are proposed: (a) the ambassador’s initial talks with the ROK Government leadership; (b) a visit by the ROK Chief of State to Washington; and (c) the dispatch of a special envoy and mission to Korea. Initiation of each successive step is contingent upon satisfactory response under the one before.

Major Suggestions with Respect to the Report

1. Power. A U.S. commitment to meet Korean power needs is one of the most effective means we could use to demonstrate quickly the seriousness of our intent with respect to long range development and to get off to a new start in our relations on economic matters. That this is one of the most important bottlenecks is recognized by all; we do not need a five year plan before we move ahead on it. Responsibility for past inaction must be shared by the ROK and U.S. Governments. The ROK has failed to raise rates sufficiently to pay power costs; we have taken much more time than we should to decide whether we will support particular projects, notably the proposed hydro project at Chongju.

The language of present par. f-(3) (p. 6)¹ goes further in the direction of a long term commitment than we have been willing to go in the past according to ICA. It is not nearly as strong language as that contained in the penultimate draft of the report.ICA objected to the stronger language on the grounds that a firm and long range commitment of the kind proposed had to be made strictly conditional upon more specific Korean performance on reform measures. I recommend that present par. f-(3) be deleted and that the following paragraph, based upon the version in the last Task Force draft, be added to “Category 2”, following present subpar. c (p. 7). The revisions I have made, plus the placement in category 2 would recognize the ICA concern (which is to some degree legitimate) without completely watering down the commitment we would make.

“d. Subject to action by the Korean Government to rationalize the corporate structure and rates in the power industry, and to other clear evidence of Korean action to undertake fundamental economic reform measures, announce U.S. willingness to provide, subject to Congressional appropriation, the external resources required to carry out an agreed five-or ten-year plan of power development, including prompt implementation of the Chungju hydro-electric project.”

This is the most important change that needs to be made in the report; all other proposed changes below are of less importance.

2. Use of Korean forces for economic development purposes. Under the Defense draft of par. e on p. 8, now incorporated in the report, U.S. action to permit increased use of ROK armed forces for economic development purposes subpars. (3) and (4) must await the study of force goals.² The argument for this approach is that we cannot commit ourselves on the increased use of ROK forces for civilian purposes (particularly for training) until we are clear as to whether we wish to maintain ROK forces at existing levels and with existing missions. We might desire, for example, to reduce ROK forces and to use the savings for economic development rather than to employ some of a larger ROK force in economic development activities.

Since I am not optimistic that our review of force goals is likely to produce a significant change (much as I would like to see one), I am rather reluctant to see any action to plan for increased use of ROK forces for economic development purposes delayed for the force goal review. The U.S. military commander in Korea has, I understand, been reluctant to permit use of ROK forces in the National Construction Service and on other works projects. A clear directive to the U.S. commander to “encourage and support greater participation, etc. (par. (3))” would be desirable even before the review of force goals is completed.

We should not only make an assessment of the implications of a program for using the armed forces for training in civilian skills, but should, if possible, simultaneously develop a proposed program for such use so that, if our assessment of the implications is favorable, we will be ready to move ahead.

3. Category 3: Required Korean actions. I would favor deletion in the final NSC action document of the introduction to “Category 3”, (p. 10) because it weakens the whole section. It is much weaker than the characterization of this category contained in par. 7 of the Introduction.³

4. USOM leadership and organization. The terms of reference for the proposed high-level mission to Korea include (Appendix A, p. 2, par. 5-(e)) reference to review of the administrative structure of the USOM. This was the only reference I was able to obtain to what is a most important problem. There is a good deal of evidence that USOM leadership and organization leaves much to be desired. State has wished to avoid reference to it. It is most important, however, that Mr. Labouisse and Ambassador Berger be impressed with the necessity for early and major action to improve the USOM situation.

Other Problems

Military involvement in civil affairs. Up to the final draft, the report also contained the following language which I drafted:

“Maximum possible effort [should be made by the military regime]⁴ to insulate from direct involvement in military matters those military officers who are engaged in political and civilian administrative functions.”

This was viewed by CIA as reflecting an unrealistic hope; and Ambassador Berger concurred. Admittedly you cannot hope to separate the top military people in the government from command responsibility, but it does seem to me that those engaged in work at lower levels could be so separated. If they are not, we are going to have some difficult problems in Korea because of the peculiar UN Command relationship.

Korean action to improve ROK-Japanese relations. Though par. f on p. 9 calls for U.S. encouragement to the Japanese to improve their relations with Korea, there is no comparable requirement that we put pressure on the Koreans. Such a requirement was included in an earlier draft but it is State’s view that we need to know more about the attitude of the new regime toward Japan before we can decide how far and how fast we should go in applying pressure on the ROK’s to act.⁵

Objectives. There was some complaint in the Task Force that we had failed to state clearly our objectives with respect to Korea. It is true that there is no specific objectives statement. The efforts to produce one seemed to me rather sterile. It seems to me that in par. 2 of the Introduction and elsewhere our general purposes come through clearly enough. And our basic approach is to get the Koreans to define their own objectives with some help and guidance from us.

Relations between Americans and Koreans in Korea. It is generally recognized that the high standard of living and the separateness of the Americans from the Korean population is an important problem. It is difficult to draft a meaningful recommendation on the subject. The Ambassador, I am informed, is very much aware of it and is working out his own plans to deal with it.

Procedural Matters

The NSC action on the report. As the need to include an increasing element of tactics that became evident, the recommendations grew in length so that they are probably no longer brief enough to be included in an NSC action. Though I would like to see the Council and President approve them all, I recognize that they will have to be briefed down for NSC action purposes and plan to begin work immediately on the draft for the Council action.

[2 paragraphs (15 lines of source text) not declassified]

0. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Countries Series, Korea, General, 6/61. Secret. The 85-page long Task Force Report is ibid., 6/5/61, Task Force Report. For a summary and revision of the recommendations of the report as approved by the President and the National Security Council, see Document 230.
1. Summarized in paragraph a-7 of Document 230.
2. Summarized in paragraph a-9 of Document 230.
3. Johnson’s suggestion was accepted.
4. Brackets in the source text.
5. This paragraph was crossed out by Johnson.