Before seeking to acquire nuclear military capability, however, Park did try to strengthen South Korea’s security environment through both diplomacy and conventional military measures. It was their failure that made Park turn to the nuclear option. When the United States withdrew its Seventh Infantry Division from South Korea in 1971, Park tried to counterbalance the U.S. military retrenchment by establishing a 2.5-million-strong army reserve. The Agency for Defense Development (ADD), established in August 1970, was intended to pursue modernization programs for South Korea’s armed forces. With declining military aid from the United States,
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Park also introduced in 1974 a national defense income tax surcharge of 10 percent to finance the Forces Improvement Plan (1974–1981), with the goal of surpassing North Korea on defense expenditures by 1976.5 To do so, South Korea raised defense expenditures from 5 percent of its gross national product to nearly 7.5 percent.6 The gap began to narrow considerably when South Korea increased its defense expenditures from $719 million in 1975 to $1.5 billion in 1976, and again to $1.8 billion dollars in 1977. During the same period, North Korean defense expenditure grew at a much lower rate, rising from $770 million in 1975 to $1 billion in 1977.7
In spite of these impressive efforts to catch up militarily, the South still lagged behind the North in armed forces, air force, and naval military capabilities by a considerable margin in the late 1970s. It was only the U.S.
military troops stationed in the South that kept the North deterred from waging war, but it was precisely this U.S. role in deterrence that was questioned after the end of the Vietnam conflict. Given the continued military superiority of North Korea and the uncertainty of U.S. intentions, Park seems to have concluded that a conventional military buildup was not enough to deter North Korean military attacks. JoongAng Ilbo sets the date of Park’s decision to develop nuclear programs as March 1971.8
Pak K¤n-hye, his daughter, also recollects that Park launched a nuclear (weapons) development program when the United States unilaterally implemented its decision to pull out the Seventh Infantry Division in July 1971 despite his repeated pleas to the White House to reconsider the decision.9
Upon Park’s request to draw up a plan to develop strategic weapons in November 1971, O Wôn-ch’ôl met with science and technology minister Ch’oe Hyông-sôp and KAERI director Yun Yong-gu to pursue nuclear weapons in a clandestine program.10 Given the adverse impact the news of nuclear weapons development would have had on already difficult U.S.–
South Korean relations, as well as the U.S. ability to track down any military program of this scale through its massive intelligence network in South Korea, Park pursued it with utmost secrecy.11 He could do so because with power centralized around him since the 1969 constitutional amendment to clear the way for his third bid for presidential power in 1971, Park did not need the endorsement of others on what he thought was of paramount importance. Nor was he the kind of man who would put such an important issue to open debate.12
What made Park’s intentions ambiguous even to his Blue House confidants and ADD researchers was the difficulty in separating military from economic intentions in any nuclear development program. Much of what was needed for the development of nuclear weapons was also required for
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the peaceful use of nuclear energy. And South Korea had ample need to develop nuclear energy in order to reduce its dependence on oil. A twelve-year plan (1969–1981) for nuclear research, prepared by KAERI in 1968
and approved by the cabinet as a blueprint for national energy autonomy in 1969, envisaged the construction of the means for nuclear fuel fabrication, a uranium refinement factory, and a reprocessing facility by 1981. To implement the plan, KAERI began negotiating with foreign nuclear suppliers for joint research programs on nuclear fuel fabrication and reprocessing as early as 1972. The same year Yôngnam Chemical Co. began to negotiate with Nuclear Fuel Services, Skelly Oil Co., and Mitsubishi Petroleum in order to import a facility with the capacity of reprocessing one ton of spent fuel per day. The construction site for the reprocessing facility was to be in Onsan, South Kyôngsang Province. Yôngnam Chemical Co. partnered with KAERI for the project, but due to the Nuclear Fuel Service’s failure to secure the U.S. government’s approval of the sale, the project was dropped prematurely.
The central person in jump-starting the nuclear project was Yun Yong-gu, appointed to the post of KAERI director in August 1971 with the mandate to develop nuclear fuel fabrication and reprocessing technology as one of the top priorities of the institute.13 KAERI contacted Algon Nuclear Lab, a U.S. research institute, for the provision of manpower training and the supply of necessary technology for reprocessing, only to be turned down. It appears that at that point South Korea was trying to acquire reprocessing technology for peaceful purposes, because KAERI targeted a U.S. institute as its partner. Any effort to develop nuclear weapons would have been easily detected by the United States. Upon the failure of talks with Algon, KAERI turned elsewhere for the technology transfer it needed.
To Yun’s delight, France, Belgium, and Canada showed interest. Consequently, the South Korean project for developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes was already under way when Park decided to develop nuclear weapons sometime in 1971. Reflecting Park’s interest in the nuclear program as a potentially military project, KAERI efforts to license nuclear technology were dramatically accelerated after 1971.
In May 1972, a South Korean delegation of scientists and bureaucrats led by Ch’oe Hyông-sôp made an official visit to France and Great Britain.
Then followed an agreement with France on the sale of nuclear reprocessing and fuel fabrication technology. For France, in addition to its traditional ambition to carve out its own place in the area of global security independent from the United States, commercial interests drove it into becoming a willing supplier of nuclear technologies and facilities. Ch’oe’s initiative constituted a welcome opportunity to penetrate an American-
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dominated burgeoning commercial nuclear market. In October 1972, KAERI actively began negotiating the transfer of reprocessing technology with the French Atomic Energy Commission. A separate negotiation to import test facilities for mixed nuclear fuel fabrication was also under way with Belgonucléaire, a Belgian company.
Reprocessing Technologies
In March 1973, Ch’oe Hyông-sôp recruited Chu Chae-yang as the first vice director of KAERI. Chu became the recruiter of overseas South Korean scientists and engineers for nuclear development. By July of that year, fifteen overseas scholars with expertise in nuclear engineering, chemical engineering, and chemistry joined KAERI. Enjoying relatively high salaries and provided with accommodations, these overseas scientists joined some twenty-five local researchers in a “special project team.” As recollected by one of the returnees, KAERI recruited the overseas scientists and engineers without informing them of its plan to acquire reprocessing technology.
Even within KAERI, information was tightly controlled, with the scientists outside the “special project team” kept in the dark about the team’s activities.14 This secrecy was to raise U.S. suspicions that KAERI was pursuing its nuclear research projects not only for the peaceful use of atomic energy but also for the development of nuclear weapons. The special project team, consisting of some forty members, took charge of research and development as well as commercial negotiations with research institutes, business firms, and state agencies in France, Belgium, Great Britain, and Canada for the licensing of nuclear technologies.
The scale and complexity of the research projects, however, required the organization of an institutional support network outside KAERI. In the Blue House, O Wôn-ch’ôl and Secretary Kim Kwang-mo spearheaded the drive to develop nuclear programs. At the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ch’oe Hyông-sôp mobilized ministerial resources to assist KAERI’s research activities. The Ministry of Nation
al Defense was excluded from the entire project not only because of its lack of expertise but also because of its wholesale institutional integration with the U.S. military establishment, which made the clandestine development of nuclear weapons impossible. Principally, it was KAERI’s special project team headed by Chu Chae-yang that was in charge of acquiring technological capabilities for nuclear fuel fabrication and reprocessing. By contrast, research and development on weapons design, a delivery system, and explosion technology were conducted separately by the ADD. There thus emerged a division of labor,
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with KAERI focused on obtaining weapons-grade fissile materials and the ADD on manufacturing weapons and the delivery system. Because KAERI and the ADD could pursue their respective technological missions independent of each other, the division of labor helped Park’s effort to hide the nuclear weapons program from the United States as long as possible.
In late 1973, the ADD submitted a secret plan to develop nuclear weapons for Park’s review. Proposing to develop a plutonium bomb of 20 kilo-tons, which was similar in size to the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, the ADD plan estimated a total budget of $1.5 to $2 billion, to be disbursed over six to ten years. Initially, the ADD chose the bomber as its delivery vehicle, but it later opted for missiles when South Korea successfully tested the launching of a medium range surface-to-surface missile (Paekkom) in 1978.15 KAERI and its scientists were excluded from the ADD-led planning process, although it was they who worked to acquire reprocessing capabilities. The exclusion of KAERI scientists from the development of nuclear weapons, delivery systems, and explosion technology was intentional; it minimized the danger of information leakage. The KAERI scientists certainly knew that the technological capabilities they developed for peaceful uses of nuclear energy could also be used for the development of nuclear weapons, but whatever they conjectured remained mere conjecture because they were never at any point told about the planned military nature of their work. The key hurdle in developing nuclear weapons was the acquisition of weapons-grade plutonium.
The negotiation with France for technology transfer initially went smoothly, resulting in two interim contracts between KAERI and French companies by April 1975, one with CERCA for nuclear fuel fabrication and another with Saint-Gobain Technique Nouvelle for spent-fuel reprocessing.16 KAERI had also been negotiating a separate deal with Canada since April 1973 for the construction of a heavy-water reactor called CANDU, in order to acquire spent fuel required for the production of plutonium. Although South Korea’s first large-scale nuclear reactor, Kori 1, was under construction with U.S. assistance, KAERI calculated that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for South Korea to reprocess the spent-fuel rods from Kori 1 because of the United States’ participation.
Moreover, with the target date for the completion of construction set for 1978, KAERI thought it needed another source of spent fuel if it was to back up the ongoing research programs on nuclear fuel fabrication and reprocessing technology.17 It was in this context that Saul Eisenberg, an Israeli-Austrian lobbyist representing the Canadian Atomic Energy Commission, approached South Korea with the idea that if South Korea purchased a CANDU reactor, Canada was willing to provide an NRX reactor.
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Because the Canadian NRX was a heavy-water reactor using natural uranium, its purchase would enable South Korea to secure natural uranium with relative ease. Moreover, because it was possible to remove high-quality spent fuel without having to shut down the NRX research reactor, Eisenberg’s proposal had an added advantage of maintaining the secrecy of KAERI’s research and development programs. Canada, for its part, was actively looking for overseas markets where it could sell its heavy-water reactors, making the deal even more likely. By mid-1975, negotiations with Canada had progressed considerably, getting South Korea to choose the Canadian CANDU for its Wôlsông 1 nuclear power plant. As a package deal, Canada agreed to provide a 30,000-kilowatt NRX reactor—but on the condition that South Korea accept the U.S. demand that it ratify the NPT. Canada was under strong U.S. pressure to get South Korea to ratify the NPT prior to the package sale of the CANDU reactor and the NRX research reactor.18 The United States by then understood Park’s seriousness in developing a nuclear option.19
South Korea concurred, quickly ratifying the NPT to show its peaceful intentions. At the same time, both the United States and South Korea knew that the South was coming close to the acquisition of capabilities to develop nuclear weapons with the purchase of the NRX research reactor, which produced spent fuel. With sufficient weapons-grade fissile material, South Korea was expected to construct its own nuclear weapon within four to six years.20
The South Korean access to the French and Canadian nuclear suppliers had important political implications for U.S.–South Korea relations. First, encouraged by the initial success in the import of nuclear technology and facilities, Park thought he had finally escaped from total dependence on the United States for nuclear research and development. This sense of confidence combined with the specter of security crisis encouraged Park to emphasize the doctrine of self-reliance in national defense that he had developed since the early 1970s. Second, by having sources other than the United States for nuclear development, Park was able to pursue his nuclear program with a degree of strategic ambiguity. Because nuclear technology could be put to both economic and military purposes, there was always uncertainty regarding Park’s intentions in developing nuclear programs.
This ambiguity yielded Park some leverage over U.S. policy toward South Korea. At the same time, however, it was also true that his attempt to secure leverage out of the strategic ambiguity of his nuclear programs could backfire if it was overplayed, which could cause the United States to conclude that Park was intent on violating IAEA and NPT regulations. Such a conclusion could trigger U.S. sanctions.
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The South Korean purchase of French and Canadian nuclear technology had important economic implications as well. The South Korean nuclear market was no longer a monopoly of U.S. nuclear companies, which prompted the U.S. nuclear industry to seek countermeasures to repel the challenges from nuclear suppliers elsewhere. Ironically, the U.S. industry’s defensive measures could go both ways in strengthening or weakening South Korea’s hand vis-à-vis the United States in the game of securing access to nuclear technology and maintaining the nuclear card as an option.
The U.S. companies could take defensive measures and put pressure on U.S. policymakers to crack down on Park’s pretensions of nuclear self-reliance, or they could aid South Korea by making more concessions in bidding for its purchase of their technology.
In spite of the advances made in the diversification of its nuclear technology suppliers, South Korea of the mid-1970s was far from becoming a nuclear power. It still needed to develop a workable weapons design, obtain weapons-grade fissile material, and build or purchase a delivery system. Furthermore, South Korea needed to acquire technologies in chemical engineering and machinery to deal safely with hazardous plutonium. As a researcher in charge of weapons design at the ADD once testified, the development of a workable weapons design was relatively easy and nearly complete in 1975.21 The acquisition of weapons-grade fissile material was also a relatively easy task, because of the availability of the NRX reactor from which spent fuel was obtained to be reprocessed. Likewise, the acquisition of a delivery system did not pose a major challenge, because the U.S.-manufactured F-4D/E fighter planes, initially supplied to South Korea as a concession for its military intervention in the Vietnam War and later purchased by the South as part of its military modernization program to make up for the loss of firepower brought on by U.S. military disengagement, could deliver nuclear weapons weighing up to 4,000 pounds. South Korea had also been developing its own surface-to-surface ballistic missiles since the early 1970s, which could serve as a delivery system.22 The acquisition of technologies to assemble nuclear weapons needed time, but giv
en the vibrancy of South Korea’s heavy and chemical industries in the 1970s, this too did not constitute an insurmountable problem. Building a reprocessing plant was expected to cost some $51 million over four years, which was not particularly burdensome for an economy of South Korea’s size.23
For the United States, the stakes were high. First, the NPT regime could be weakened. Second, South Korea’s acquisition of nuclear weapons at the time of U.S. military disengagement could mean an erosion of U.S. influence in one of the most volatile regions of the world. The regional nuclear
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arms race that could break out as a result of South Korea’s acquisition of nuclear capabilities was judged to endanger U.S. security interests. By contrast, as Park saw it, he was going to be a winner whether his nuclear weapons program proceeded without U.S. interruption or not. If the program escaped U.S. surveillance, Park would acquire an independent source of nuclear deterrence against North Korea in what seemed to be an irreversible era of U.S. military disengagement. On the other hand, if the program was revealed, he thought he could use the dismantlement of the nuclear weapons program as a bargaining chip with which to extract U.S.
concessions on security issues.
Missile Development
Integral to the nuclear weapons program was the development of missiles as a delivery system. O Wôn-ch’ôl was at the center of Park’s missile initiative. In December 1971, after Park conveyed to O his decision to acquire strategic missile capabilities, O summoned to the Blue House Ku Sang-hoe, later to be known as the father of South Korean missile development.
There he was personally ordered by Park to spearhead the development of ballistic missiles. Park personally wrote down a list of specific characteristics he wanted to see in the missile program, and handed the memo to O
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