S. Korea Seen at Crossroads for Democracy

Richard L. Walker, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to South Korea, said Monday that this country has its first chance in 38 years as a republic to elect a government “that has all the hallmarks of legitimacy.”

If it misses that chance, Walker said in an interview, “the country will be set back politically 20 years.”

In the first such comments Walker has made for the record, he underscored a concern widespread among diplomats that if South Korea fails to transform itself from an authoritarian government into a democracy, the result could be a return to martial law or another coup.

Walker, a former college professor, will leave South Korea on Oct. 25 after five years and three months as ambassador. He said he will “watch with great apprehension and concern” how the South Koreans attempt to solve their “constitutional crisis.”

It is a serious problem, but one that the Koreans themselves must solve, he said. He continued:

“It is very important the Koreans understand that we are not regarding this as an American problem. We in the U.S. Embassy have stated again and again that we have no preference, and we are not going to say what sort of political system the Koreans must choose for themselves. . . . But we do support a system that can provide fuller democracy and sustained concern for human rights.”

The “free and generally fair” election for the National Assembly last year provided “an opportunity to arrive at a political settlement, or compromise, which can lend legitimacy to what follows,” Walker said.

Reforms Under Discussion

President Chun Doo Hwan, who had rejected efforts to revise the authoritarian constitution that he imposed in 1980, agreed last April to accept constitutional amendments before he steps down in February, 1988. The opposition and Chun’s Democratic Justice Party are discussing reforms, in the National Assembly, that will be put to a national referendum.

But the constitutional revision committee that was set up in the assembly in July has become deadlocked over procedure and over Chun’s insistence on adopting a parliamentary form of government. The opposition wants a presidential system and direct election of Chun’s successor.

“There is a real injunction placed upon responsible Korean leaders to take this opportunity and not to play a total zero-sum game of politics, but rather to negotiate in faith and to arrive at an acceptable compromise,” Walker said. “This is the first chance, really, that Korea has had in its 38 years as a republic to come up with a solution which has all the hallmarks of legitimacy.”

Not Optimistic

Walker said he is not optimistic about the outcome, which he indicated will be decided sometime next year.

It was the first time that any ranking U.S. official, even indirectly, has publicly sided with Chun’s critics, who have charged consistently that the former general’s government lacks legitimacy. Chun came to power in a coup in May, 1980.

Walker said his replacement by James R. Lilley, now the deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, will produce no change in U.S. policy toward South Korea. He said that he and Secretary of State George P. Shultz agreed in June that he will leave after the Asian Games, which are now taking place here.

‘Time Has Come’

“I agree with the general philosophy that diplomatic tours should be limited, depending upon the situation,” he said. “I have now been here more than one year longer than any of my predecessors. . . .The time has come.”

Walker refused to comment directly on allegations that he helped Michael K. Deaver, President Reagan’s former aide and now a Washington lobbyist, to arrange business deals with Koreans. But he did say that “our embassies abroad should be giving assistance, as much as they can, to representatives of American business, commerce, industry and services. And we try to do that.”

With growing American trade deficits around the globe, including an expected $7-billion deficit this year with South Korea, “we’ve got to become, in our embassies abroad, more commercially minded,” he said.

After returning to South Carolina, Walker said, he plans to write and make speeches to explain problems involving South Korea “that need explication in the United States.”

‘Intense Sensitivity’

He cited “the intensive intrusion of commercial and trade issues into our political relationship” as one example. Another, he said, is “the development of a very intense national self-assertion and sensitivity” that goes beyond traditional Korean nationalism.

Walker said that the Koreans, once unabashedly pro-American, are developing “a self-esteem and pride” that makes them “very sensitive about the United States.”

With America serving as South Korea’s biggest market and its only ally--the United States has 40,000 troops stationed here--”we are the nation with the highest and most visible presence,” he said.

“There is now a feeling, which we can document across the board--in trade, in academic work, in the military, and, indeed, in running an embassy--where the (Korean) desk officers, the middle-level managers who have to negotiate with representatives of the United States government or business, feel compelled to demonstrate to their peers or to their superiors that they have been able to stand up and emerge with dignity and strength in a negotiation with the Americans,” he said.

Although the trend also is seen toward other foreigners, “because we have called so much of the tune . . . it is especially targeted against us,” he went on, adding: “It’s not anti-U.S., but it’s an attitude that ‘we must really prove to ourselves that we are as good as, and can stand up to, the Americans.’ And that’s increasingly an ethos here that a lot of our people don’t understand.”