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ROK force levels in [South] Korea are the minimum acceptable for assuring the long-term security of Northeast Asia.”55
In an April 1962 report, by contrast, the U.S. CIA gave a mixed assessment. While agreeing that the communist threat to South Korea was likely to take the form of political warfare and subversion rather than military invasion, the CIA noted the danger of political instability if the South Korean armed forces were significantly reduced. The report stated: “As long as the Communist powers believe that the U.S. will defend South Korea, they will almost certainly not launch an overt military invasion. Accordingly, a reduction of strength of the South Korean armed forces, by anything up to about one-third of present numbers, would probably not in itself increase the likelihood of invasion from the north. It would, however, produce considerable political unrest within the country, which would probably be great enough to endanger any government initiating the measure.”56
Another study, conducted by retired air force general John Cary at the Defense Department’s request, opposed the force reduction from a political perspective similar to the views of the CIA. The Cary report concluded:
“the defense policy of the U.S. for the security of South Korea should not now undergo drastic revision and . . . the armed forces of the Republic of Korea should remain at approximately the level now programmed.”57 The published version of the report did not explain the reasoning behind its policy recommendation, but from Komer’s comments it is possible to infer that Cary’s primary concern was political rather than military. As seen by Komer, “the [Cary] report opposes such a cut at present, primarily because it would upset Park’s regime and secondarily because it would have adverse repercussions on U.S. allies throughout East Asia, who would see in it a reduced U.S. interest in their defense as well.” Komer objected to both rationales. In his view, Park preferred that the United States provide assistance to South Korea’s economic development rather than to the modernization of its armed forces, because Park’s legitimacy depended on his ability to bring about economic growth.58 Moreover, U.S. credibility was not on the line, because much of the force reduction involved the South Korean military. Turning the Cary report on its head, Komer argued that if the cut would not upset the Park regime, many of the arguments in the report justified the reduction of the South Korean force level.59
Ambassador Berger came up with a compromise, proposing to reduce the South Korean armed forces by 30,000–40,000 men annually during the years 1963 and 1964 and to review the possibility of further reductions later. At the same time, Berger proposed to keep the South Korean military
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budget and U.S. Military Assistance Program at their current levels despite the force reduction. The issue came to an impasse and no decision was made under Kennedy. After Johnson took office in 1963, he ordered a further review. In 1964 the State Department came up with a plan to reduce the South Korean armed forces to the level of 500,000 men with force modernization, to which the Defense Department agreed with great reluctance. Ironically, after all this bureaucratic infighting in Washington, the modernization program took place, but the force reduction did not. After South Korean combat troops began participating in the Vietnam War, force reduction was removed from the agenda.
U.S. Power and Park’s Political Choices
The South Korean dependence on the United States for military deterrence and economic survival provided the U.S. ambassador, the USFK-UNC
commanders, and the USOM director with enormous power, prestige, and leverage to influence South Korean societal actors as well as government agencies. The United States wielded its power in at least three ways. First, there existed the myriad of routinized and institutionalized channels of U.S. influence built into budgetary processes and policymaking mechanisms that enabled American aid officials to influence the implementation of South Korean economic policy. At the top of this transnational policy network was the USOM director, who was an economic advisor to the prime minister during the Chang Myôn regime and the U.S. counterpart to the EPB minister in a bilateral coordinating committee during Park’s rule.
The UN Command was always consulted on military appointments, including that of the chief of staff of the South Korean army. A council headed jointly by the USOM and the EPB also oversaw economic development during the military government, because much of the funding came from the counterpart funds.
Second, the United States de facto commanded veto power when it did not approve of particular South Korean policies and political moves. To be sure, Americans were generally reluctant to intervene overtly, particularly in political matters, because they feared a nationalist backlash and needed Park’s cooperation in achieving their objectives. Once Park agreed on the principle of the restoration of civilian rule by mid-1963, the United States was willing to let Park prepare for the elections even when this involved political repression. Conversely, when the fundamental understanding between the two allies was seen to have been breached, as when the KCIA infringed upon market principles with the launching of the KIDC with the
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money “frozen” by an emergency measure in mid-1962, or when Park announced the extension of military rule in early 1963, the United States was explicit in opposing South Korean authorities and pressed for their compliance by threatening to withhold U.S. aid.
Third, the overwhelming power and presence of the United States had the effect of editing the South Korean political agenda and strategy by setting certain limits on what local actors could and could not do. In contemplating his coup, Park asked Yi Tong-wôn, an Oxford-trained political scientist, how the United States would react. Yi replied with confidence, “The United States must support it so long as you proclaim anti-communism as its goal.”60 Apparently Park followed this advice, declaring anticommunism and adherence to the United Nations Charter and respect for and faithful fulfillment of all international treaties and agreements as the first two principles of his six-point revolutionary manifesto on the day of the military coup. The two points were included not only to ensure the support of the South Korean conservative camp, but also to preempt U.S. resistance. In spite of his nationalist inclinations and deep-rooted distrust of U.S. intentions, Park could not consider nonalignment as an option. In a similar spirit of avoiding conflict with the United States through the accommodation of vital U.S. interests, Park invited two U.S. law professors to help the military junta draft a new constitution in 1962 in order to
“ease American concerns.”61 U.S. officials were well aware of the power they had over the South Korean government, sometimes to the detriment of their ability to adjust flexibly to changes in the country’s politics. In denying the possibility of a military coup in March 1961 because coup makers would be deterred by U.S. opposition, for example, Ambassador McConaughy illustrated the degree to which the United States was thought to influence South Korean politics without actually exercising its power.62
At the same time, it is important not to exaggerate U.S. power. Because South Korea’s important role in U.S. global security strategy remained unchanged as an outpost of the “free world” to contain communist expansion in East Asia, the United States could not impose its will on its client state. This reality became even more evident as the U.S. redefined its containment policy from narrowly military deterrence to the preemption of social and political subversion, because the preemption of subversion required economic development, whose success depended even more on the cooperation of the South Korean political authorities. The agenda of economic growth strengthened South Korean leverage as much as it gave the United States an instrument with which to reshape the preferences of South Korean political authorities.
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Given the leverage of the weak stemming from the enduring cold war geopolitics of East Asia and the shifting U.S. strategy of containment, it w
as ironically not U.S. policy initiatives but volatile South Korean domestic politics that shaped U.S.–South Korean relations. The U.S. long-term policy objectives in South Korea were revised after the April 19 Student Revolution in 1960 and the May 16 military coup in 1961, not the other way around. The pattern of U.S. officials reacting to South Korean political changes rather than leading them was visible even after the worst part of the country’s political instability ended, and it came to characterize U.S.
policy throughout the 1961–1963 period. Even though U.S. power and presence in South Korea were overwhelming, the United States was limited in shaping South Korean history. During the period of military rule, it was the indigenous dynamics of South Korean society that shaped the direction of South Korean political development. The U.S. role was a more limited one that affected the direction and speed of the political evolution unleashed by domestic political forces.
Apart from these general limitations on U.S. power, a careful reading of U.S. diplomatic documents reveals a varying pattern in the way power was wielded by the United States. The superpower used power most directly and overtly in the area of economic policy. The South Korean refusal or failure to consult the United States on the currency conversion and monetary policy predictably drew U.S. threats of aid reduction and delay. The Americans believed that they could effectively intervene in the making of economic policy, given the massive economic aid they provided. Moreover, economic conflict is not the type of issue over which countries fight to the death, thus making U.S. officials more willing to confront Park. Ironically, the U.S. readiness to oppose the junta sometimes led Park to bypass U.S.
officials. When finance minister Ch’ôn Pyông-gyu, upon learning of the currency conversion plan, argued for consultation with the United States, for example, Park opposed the idea because he knew that the United States would oppose the plan.63
By contrast, the United States was much subtler and constrained in its exercise of power when the military junta’s political power was at stake, preferring to counsel or advise rather than to confront its leadership openly. In a reply to Berger’s complaint against Kim Chong-p’il’s recklessness, Rusk took the position that “just as [the United States] should not support any individual qua individual, [it] should not overtly so oppose anyone. However [the United States] can make it clear . . . that a director of espionage and secret police should not at the same time be a principal policy maker and second-ranking leader of [a] modern state.”64 The U.S.
officials in the field were concerned that “undue” American interference in
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South Korean politics could damage long-term U.S. interests by spreading anti-American sentiments among South Koreans. The only exception to the U.S. preference for incremental accommodation and low-profile negotiation on the issues of power occurred in March-April 1963, when U.S.
officials, in a de facto alliance with South Korean civilian opposition politicians, openly opposed Park’s proposal to extend military rule.
Obstacles to effective U.S. intervention in South Korean economic as well as security policies arose more from interagency rivalries in the United States than from the South Korean military junta. The United States was not a unitary actor in its dealings with its client state. Although Berger enjoyed unusually wide discretion as an ambassador, his room to maneuver was often constrained by the U.S. military even in economic realms, because what resources he could secure for developmental purposes depended on his ability to extract resources from the U.S. military.65 His dispute with General Meloy over the distribution of aid between military and economic programs was public knowledge in both Washington and Seoul.
The internal split in the U.S. government sometimes provided the weak with an opportunity to neutralize U.S. attempts at policy change. The South Korean armed forces’ opposition to force reduction is a case in point.
The junta years thus cannot be framed in terms of a dichotomous win-lose or strong-weak framework. Rather, it is more accurate to describe the two countries’ political authorities as being locked in a frustrating game of hide-and-seek and mutual hostage. Knowing that the United States would oppose his scheme to mobilize capital through the currency conversion program and the KIDC money–stock swap arrangement, Park kept U.S.
officials in the dark until the last days of preparation, only to back down at the U.S. threat to withhold aid. Despite McConaughy’s confidence in the deterrence effect of U.S. ideological opposition to military intervention in politics, a military coup took place only two months after his disregard of reports it was brewing, demonstrating that the United States did not necessarily have control over political events in South Korea. Further, in a mirror image of U.S. veto power against Park’s capital mobilization scheme, the South Korean armed forces under Park’s leadership could and did move history in the opposite direction of U.S. policy—albeit in covert ways, given the regime’s weak position. Contradicting realist theories that explain the outcome in terms of relative power capabilities, the military junta found some bargaining leverage in the U.S. interest in normalizing South Korea–Japan relations, in interagency rivalries between the U.S.
State and Defense departments, and in U.S. dependence on South Korea to protect its central ally in Asia, Japan, from communist military threats.
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The military junta often tried to limit Berger’s influence by mobilizing the support of the U.S. military—as when Chang To-yông attempted to arrange a “summit” with Kennedy with the help of General Maxwell Taylor.
In a similar way, Kim Chong-p’il sought help from General James A. Van Fleet in improving his standing in the United States.66 Most critically, as U.S. officials repeatedly found out, the military junta frequently acted on the belief that “the United States would have to go along with anything”
to avoid a communist takeover.67 The Park-Kim axis tried to force its desires on U.S. policymakers by presenting its actions as a fait accompli, forcing the United States to concede because the only alternative seemed to be political instability and military risk. The brinkmanship sometimes worked, as in the case of the May 16 coup. Other times, as in the case of the 1962 currency conversion, it failed dismally. Still other times, as in the case of the 1963 dispute over the extension of military rule, it made both Park and the United States a winner, each achieving its top priority goal while letting the other also realize its top agenda through the zigzags of political events. In evaluating the extent of U.S. influence, one therefore needs to keep in mind the context within which the United States tried to exercise its power and the strategy of local actors in responding to it. It is true that without U.S. pressure, military rule might have been extended for four years in 1963.68 But it is also true that the United States ended up accommodating Park’s conditions regarding transition to civilian rule and accepted his presidency in 1963.
c h a p t e r
t h r e e
State Building: The Military Junta’s
Path to Modernity through
Administrative Reforms
Hyung-A Kim
Developmental state theories explainSouthKorea’ssuccessful transformation into a modern industrial economy primarily in terms of its possession of a professional “Weberian” state imbued with the ethos of “plan rationality,” mobilizing resources top-down in a highly concerted way to minimize costs and maximize benefits, and insulating policy processes from political forces and social interests so that the ethos of plan rationality prevails and drives policymaking. This is a myth. A study of the military junta years (1961–1963), when the South Korean state was recreated as a developmental state, reveals that the role of the state was more complex and uncertain than developmental state theories would have it.
First, the South Korean state was not a static but a dynamic set of institutional arrangements that continuously transformed during the years of the junta. There did not exist in May 1961 a proto
-developmental state waiting for a new political leadership to awaken its technocratic potential and harness its latent institutional capabilities for the modernization of the country. On the contrary, the state Park Chung Hee inherited was a politically demoralized and technically backward institution—albeit with a few isolated pockets of innovation. The developmental state was not a given, but a human artifact that was to emerge out of Park and his inner circle’s political risk-taking, policy experiments, and transnational network-ing with the United States and Japan. The speed with which Park was able to gain control of the instruments of state power and remold them into a
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developmental apparatus after his coup was an important factor in his success.1 In the two and a half years of military rule, Park and his followers swiftly laid the groundwork for the governmental framework that would prove to be so effective in spearheading the nation’s rapid economic development. Scarcely six months after the coup, the initially skeptical U.S. ambassador Samuel D. Berger was impressed enough by Park’s leadership to write in his report to the secretary of state, Dean Rusk, that “this genuine revolution from the top [is] breathlessly implementing across the board the much talked about reforms of the past: banking and credit policy, tax, foreign trade, increased public works for the unemployed, agriculture, education, public administration, and welfare.”2 The multiple administrative reforms were steered by two institutions, the Supreme Council of National Reconstruction (SCNR) and the Korea Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA). In particular, the KCIA was instrumental in establishing the powers and functions of the junta’s key economic institutions—the Economic Planning Board (EPB), the Ministry of Finance (MoF), and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MCI)3—as well as strengthening the political arm of Park’s rule, including the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the police. The architect of the South Korean developmental state was the KCIA, not economic technocrats.
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