226. Memorandum From Robert W. Komer of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy)0

Relative Priority of Military vs. Reconstruction Focus in Korea

Admittedly, the question of MAP aid for Korea needs further study, but it is discouraging that Korean TF report1 goes no further in flagging this issue.

A real ROK development program will involve staggering costs over the next decade. The ROK has so many handicaps, it is so far from self-sustaining growth, its governmental structure is so feeble that we will be spending billions more there during the 60s. Because of this, I feel a hard new look should be taken at whether we want to spend even the $1.6 billion currently projected for maintaining ROK forces 1962-66.

In my opinion, one of the basic reasons why we have accomplished so little in Korea since 1953 has been our predominantly military focus. We have spent more money on MAP 1953-60 than on the domestic economy. This mal-focus arose largely from the fiction that there was only a truce on the “38th parallel” and that hostilities might reopen at any time. As a result, we did little more than keep the economy afloat, while focussing our main effort on maintaining very substantial ROK forces.

Obviously, there is a risk of renewed local aggression. But I would argue that it is less than almost any place else around the Bloc periphery. Given the consequences of its last miscalculation, would the Bloc leadership really regard it as sensible to reopen the Korean war? Look at the deterrents! There still exist a series of condemnatory resolutions and a UN Command (even though in attenuated form). On top of the direct UN role in Korea, we have far more than a plate glass window, in the form of two divisions of US troops with nuclear capabilities. Add to this ten regular and nine reserve ROK divisions and you have a greater deterrent capability than any place but perhaps the Taiwan Strait. Moreover, the Chinese forces have long since withdrawn from North Korea, although the CPR divisions in Manchuria are still close at hand.

Given all these deterrents, the risk of the ROK being attacked again is far less than that of its being subverted because of internal weakness. The North Koreans are already beginning to play the siren song of reunification, and it may have increasing appeal in a weak and disunited south. If South Korea goes, it will go this route and not that of local war.

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Of course with a hard-nosed military regime now in the saddle, it may be difficult to talk about reducing MAP. I would argue, however, that this might be a good means of forcing the young colonels to face up to the hard realities of domestic reconstruction instead of letting them talk us into continuing to foot huge military as well as civilian bills.

Hence I urge flagging this issue for the President. Korea’s domestic needs are so great that we may have to take risks in other categories to find the resources necessary to do the job. A gradual cut in ROK forces to around 14 and ultimately 12 divisions would still give us quite a deterrent, and free substantial resources to meet the real problems facing us in the ROK.

Bob K.
  1. Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Meetings and Memoranda Series, Staff Memoranda, Komer. Secret. Also sent to Rostow.
  2. See the source note, Document 225.