Blowback, Second Edition: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire

In the cables released to Tim Shorrock, there is ample evidence that the American embassy knew about the transfer of the special forces to Kwangju and what was likely to happen when they applied their well-known skills to civilians. In cables dated May 7 and May 8, Ambassador Gleysteen had gone into detail on the numbers of special forces brigades brought into Seoul and around Kimpo Airport “to cope with possible student demonstrations.” On May 8, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency had sent a cable to the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon saying that all Korean special forces brigades “are on alert.” “Only the 7th Brigade remained away from the Seoul area,” and “was probably targeted against unrest at Chonju and Kwangju universities.”

Under the Combined Forces Command (CFC) structure, Korean special forces (as distinct from all regular army units) were outside joint U.S.-Korean control and did not need U.S. approval to be moved. However, it was routine for the Koreans to inform the CFC of any troop movements. In Gleysteen’s May 7 cable, he speculates that the Koreans might ask for approval to move the ROK 1st Marine Division. “There has been no request for such approval yet, but CINCUNC [Commander in Chief of the United Nations Command] would agree if asked.” In a May 22 cable, Gleysteen describes “the extent to which we were facilitating ROK army efforts to restore order in Kwangju and deter trouble elsewhere.” However, he told the South Korean foreign minister, “We had not and did not intend to publicize our actions because we feared we would be charged with colluding with the martial law authorities and risk fanning anti-American sentiment in the Kwangju area.”

In Washington, D.C., on May 22, the newly created Policy Review Committee on Korea met at the White House to consider what the United States should do. Its members included newly appointed secretary of state Edmund Muskie, President Carter’s national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, the director of central intelligence Admiral Stansfield Turner, and the secretary of defense Harold Brown, plus Christopher, Holbrooke, and Gregg. Brzezinski, himself a Polish-American and an authority on the Soviet Union’s satellites in Eastern Europe, summarized the consensus of the meeting: “In the short-term support, in the longer term pressure for political evolution.” According to the minutes transmitted to Gleysteen, “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.”

On May 23 Gleysteen met with the acting prime minister and told him that “firm anti-riot measures were necessary.” He agreed to release “CFC [Combined Forces Command] forces to Korean command for use in Kwangju.” General Wickham withdrew the Korean 20th Division from its duties on the DMZ and turned it over to the martial law authorities. General Chun broadcast news of the American decision to release the troops throughout South Korea, thus cleverly bolstering the view that the United States backed Chun. At 3:00 A.M. on the morning of May 27 the 20th Division entered Kwangju, killing anyone who did not lay down his or her weapons. This was a highly disciplined unit, and the city was quickly secured, much as Budapest had been in 1956.

The endgame of the Kwangju uprising dragged on for another two years. In the summer of 1982, two special forces brigades were moved from the border with North Korea to the cities of Kwangju and Chongju in order to hunt down rebels who had fled into the hills when the 20th Division entered the city. The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency has acknowledged that these remnants were not Communist-inspired but were reacting against the brutality of their own country’s army.

Back in Seoul, General Chun arrested dissident leader Kim Dae-jung on trumped-up charges of favoring North Korea—Kim had spoken of a federal system for the future of a unified Korea—and on May 22 charged him with instigating the protests in Kwangju even though he was in jail when they occurred. The martial law authority sentenced him to death. Richard Allen, Ronald Reagan’s first national security adviser, takes credit for saving Kim’s life. He claims that he traded a presidential invitation to Chun Doo-hwan to visit the White House—in February 1981 Chun was the first head of state to be received by the new president—in return for a life sentence. (Allen actually ended the article in which he described this achievement with the sentence “Chalk up one for the Gipper!”)¹⁶ In 1982 Chun allowed Kim Dae-jung to go into exile in the United States.