Analysis : U.S. Reportedly Had Little Influence in South Korean Policy Turnabout

Seven years ago, Lt. Gen. Chun Doo Hwan took power in a coup carried out over U.S. objections. This week, President Chun Doo Hwan embraced everything the United States has been advocating and proclaimed the beginning of an era of democracy in South Korea.

American policy-makers rejoiced at the turnabout but took no credit for it.

At first, there were indications that American influence might have been a factor. Over the past few weeks, as public disturbances mounted across South Korea, there was an accompanying crescendo of U.S. diplomatic activity.

And when Chun declared Wednesday after 18 days of violence in the streets that democracy must function through “dialogue and compromise,” he used the same words Washington had been using. He said South Korea’s political development had been out of step with the level of its economic development, and this too was something the United States had been saying.

But none of this had much bearing on the outcome.

All the signs point to two factors as decisive--the students of South Korea and the Olympic Games scheduled to take place here next year.

Public Applauded Students

South Korea’s students, who received no sign of public support when they took to the streets as Chun moved to seize power in 1980, had it this time. They were applauded from the sidewalks by Koreans who feared that they were about to be deprived once again of a voice in selecting a national leader. The last time they had such a choice was in 1971.

But most of all there was the matter of the 1988 Olympic Games, which could give this nation its finest moment in the world spotlight.

Chun and Roh Tae Woo, chairman of the ruling party, joined South Korean and foreign analysts in citing the Olympics as an important reason for their overnight change of heart. To Roh, loss of the Games would have brought national humiliation to a nation that looks on “saving face” as vital.

Just how little the United States influenced the three-week revolution was underscored by a U.S. diplomat who said two days after it began, “We do not expect any breakthroughs.”

“Nor are we hopeless,” he added. “Nor are we responsible for what happens. We grasp at straws.”

A Bitter Failure

Indeed, U.S. diplomats at the highest level here saw their role as essentially that of sideline cheerleaders. They had been warned by former Ambassador William Gleysteen that there was little they could do. Gleysteen had experienced bitter failure in his effort to encourage South Korea to choose democracy after President Park Chung Hee was assassinated in 1979.

Chun carried out his coup in May the next year, and a dejected Gleysteen said, “It was so, so wrong.”

U.S. diplomats were informed in advance of what Chun planned to say in his speech Wednesday, but there is no sign that they had any inkling of the bombshell Roh exploded Monday, when he accepted all of the opposition’s demands.

Indeed, the American reading of the Chun government on the eve of the announcement, like everyone else’s, pointed in the opposite direction.

A Western diplomat, insisting on anonymity, said then: “They are not going to leave the process (of selecting a leader) absolutely to the citizenry. There’s going to be some role in taking the results of what the citizens do and making that conform to the reality of maintaining power. . . . They have no commitment to the democratic process and feel that any concessions would be seen as a sign of weakness which the opposition would take advantage of to be disruptive and force the government into a repressive reaction.”

But on Wednesday, Chun promised a free, open, direct presidential election, which is expected to take place before the end of the year, and it now appears that the opposition has nothing left to seize on.

Subterfuge Still Possible

Clearly there is still a possibility of subterfuge from a government whose commitment to democratic ideals is only a few days old. But only one word in Chun’s speech suggests such a possibility. That word is if, and he used it to qualify his acceptance of a direct election to choose his successor--”if (the constitution) is expeditiously revised and enacted following agreement between the government party and the opposition.”

Such an agreement is expected, now that Chun has accepted the opposition’s demand for a direct presidential election.

U.S. diplomats here detected in mid-June what they perceived to be growing recognition in the ruling party that Chun had made mistakes. His decree of April 13, ordering an end to talks on revising the constitution until after the Olympic Games, topped the list. But no one had any hint that Roh would embrace democracy completely, as he did Monday.

On the contrary, one Western diplomat said that Chun and his group were firmly committed to a Confucius-like view that ordinary Koreans cannot be trusted with a role in the decision-making process.

“They don’t trust messy, sloppy, disorderly, unpredictable processes,” he said. “They say they believe in liberal democracy, but you say, ‘Why don’t you elect your local mayors?’ and they say, ‘Oh! An opposition man might win. We can’t have that.’ ”

U.S. Diplomats Stunned

U.S. diplomats were clearly stunned by Roh’s declaration.

What it was that turned Chun and Roh around is still not clear. But all the signs point to persuasion by Koreans, not Americans.

Chun spent all last week calling in leaders from every segment of society, and nearly everyone told him, according to a member of the South Korean Establishment, that the people want direct elections to choose a new leader, and they want a free press and an open society. Roh spent many days at home, making phone calls and meeting people.

Only Gaston J. Sigur, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, met both Chun and Roh during this time. He said he advised Chun and other leaders that the United States favored democratic reform and believed that the use of troops could not be justified.

On Tuesday, in Washington, Sigur gave credit for the outcome to “the Korean people (who) have a just right to be extremely proud of what they accomplished.”

What they accomplished, however, they accomplished without the “dialogue and compromise” the Americans had advocated. There was little dialogue and, as Chun said Wednesday, “not one iota of compromise” from the opposition.

Violence Changed Path

No one believes that without the violence in the streets, Chun or Roh would have veered from the path that previously had not gone beyond stopgap measures. The most optimistic analysts had expected Roh, after winning a rigged indirect election, to accept gradual reforms, and not until after the Olympic Games.

As happy as the outcome has proved to be, the process that led to it bodes ill for the future. As one diplomat said: “It was a sign of the lack of development of the political process. The political process failed. The two sides failed to agree on what the people wanted.”

Other diplomats, among them Tomas Padillo, the Philippine ambassador here, said that the Americans, particularly Ambassador James R. Lilley, were “very active” in the days of crisis. He said he believes that the Americans exerted an influence here, just as they did in the Philippines last year when President Ferdinand E. Marcos was deposed.

The Americans tried. President Reagan sent a letter to Chun. Lilley, delivering it, spent two hours with Chun. In Washington, there was a new Administration pronouncement almost every day.

Statement Unnoticed

Yet one of the most important American declarations, made in testimony to a House subcommittee by William Clark, deputy assistant secretary of state, went unnoticed here. Clark put the Reagan Administration on record as agreeing with the South Korean opposition’s perception that the plan for an indirect election was rigged to favor the government party.

A diplomat who kept in touch with dozens of South Korean leaders through the crisis said that no Korean ever mentioned Clark’s statement.

In the past, U.S. appeals for respect for human rights have succeeded not because they came from the United States but because “that is the consensus of Korean society,” the diplomat said.

Nevertheless, many South Koreans, particularly critics of the government, believe that the United States has decisive influence here, a diplomat said. But American diplomats, he said, do not feel that this is so.

“When things go well,” he said, “Americans get the credit. When they go bad, Americans get the blame.”

Kim Dae Jung, who in 1971 was the opposition candidate in South Korea’s last free and open presidential election, issued a statement Wednesday that seemed to fit this pattern.

Credits People’s ‘Maturity’

“The maturity of our people,” he said, “made the United States stop supporting a dictatorial regime and support democratic forces.”

A year ago, he criticized the United States for insisting on compromise and dialogue, saying: “The United States did not compromise with Hitler and refuses to compromise with communism. How can the United States ask us to make a kind of compromise that it will not make? There can be no compromise between dictatorship and democracy.”

Anti-Americanism emerged here under Chun, in a nation that after the 1950-53 Korean War had been rated as one of America’s closest allies. One diplomat predicts that it will diminish, if not disappear, “as democracy takes form.”

Rising Korean pride and confidence is gradually transforming the U.S.-Korean relationship. In recent years, U.S. diplomats have found themselves forced to use threats to extract the smallest concessions--on trade issues, for example.

“Everything you do is step-by-step trench warfare,” one diplomat said.

U.S. Cannot Use Pullout

But in supporting democracy in South Korea, U.S. officials have only one weapon, and it is too powerful to use. This is the threat of withdrawing the 40,000 U.S. troops here, who stand as a symbol of America’s security guarantee against an attack from Communist North Korea. As it did in 1980, when Chun took power by force, the United States made it clear last month that it would not use this weapon.

In 1980 as in 1987, Chun knew he need not worry about the United States pulling out. But in 1980 South Korea was run by a weak leader, Choi Kyu Hah, who was so ineffectual that Koreans dubbed him “the village chief.” He was considered incapable of mobilizing the nation against a threat from the north.

Chun, whatever his faults, is credited by friend and foe with the ability to rally the nation against an attack.

Thus, the perception of danger from the north was greater in 1980 than it is today. And in 1980 there was no Olympiad to consider.

The one factor that remains unchanged is American policy. It appeared to fail in 1980. It appeared to succeed in 1987.

But the reality was something else.