FE files, lot 60 D 330, “Korean Internal Political Situation”
The Chargé in Korea (Lightner) to the Director of the Office of Northeast Asian Affairs (Young)
official-informal
Dear Ken: I expect the Ambassador will be back in the morning and I feel I have a few matters I should get off my chest as I relinquish charge of the office to him.
Let me say that we were greatly heartened by the message1 you so kindly sent a day or two ago expressing appreciation for our reporting on the current political crisis. We have of course been pretty steadily on the job, both in and out of the office, from morn to morn but no one has complained and everyone involved, including the boys in the Political Section, the Stenographers, and the boys in the Code Room really rose to the occasion. I intend to send a separate letter of commendation mentioning the names of the people concerned which might be included in their personnel dossiers.
Our reporting has been so voluminous that we have told you just about everything we know that has been going on here, but since the written word can never quite tell the whole story I realize that there are impressions you may have gained which do not accurately reflect our thinking here. For one thing I hope you do not feel that we have been taken in by one crowd or another. It is true that particularly during this crisis key figures in the opposition to Rhee have more frequently come to us than the leaders on the Rhee side. This is only natural under the circumstances. On the other hand, we have given you everything we had on the Government side of the case. The various interviews with Rhee in which I participated and the second-hand accounts of interviews he has had with others (UNCURK, Sulzberger,2 Alec Adams and Plimsoll) have revealed in a very clear way both the intentions and the strategy of Rhee and his cohorts. Rhee of course has accused the Embassy, as well as all other foreigners, as being too prone to listen to the opposition and as lining up with the opposition against him. I would like to say in this connection that neither I nor the boys in the Political Section have any delusions about the character, the integrity and the devotion to democratic methods of the people who are [Page 306] lined up against Rhee in this struggle. We have not been interested in them as individuals nor in their party affiliations. Since we have felt strongly the importance of having this Government conduct itself in accordance with its constitution, and have forcefully expressed ourselves on that point, it is perhaps natural that Rhee feels we have taken sides since he is the one who is obstructing the constitutional process.
In thinking over our reporting during the past two weeks I am not sure we have emphasized enough the conviction that all of us here in the office have reached during the past fortnight that the whole issue comes down to whether or not Rhee will be permitted to remain Chief of State. This view is shared by Plimsoll and several other members of UNCURK. Of course, it is based on the fact which Rhee has himself made perfectly clear, that come Hell or high water he will break the Assembly opposition and by hook or crook get himself re-elected. Hence there is no possibility of “reconciling differences”. It is a fight to the finish. As I tried to tell you ten days ago the issue seemed then crystal clear and it was up to the Government to decide whether to permit Rhee to win or whether to take all action necessary to thwart him and to stand firmly by the principle that constitutional changes must be effected in a constitutional way.
The question of what kind of a Government might emerge if we stood by our principles has an important bearing on a decision of this kind. An embryo state like the ROK no doubt needs a firm hand at the helm. There is no obvious alternative candidate in sight. Therefore there is a certain risk that a future Government without Rhee might be less effective than the Government we are used to. We here in the office (as well as Plimsoll) have felt the principle at stake was sufficiently important to out-weigh this risk. The ROK Government up to now has paid a price for Rhee’s system of one-man Government. Cabinet members, with a few exceptions, have been afraid to make decisions clearly within their province without referring even trivial matters to the President. UNCACK efforts toward decentralization, in order to get on with important business at the Cabinet Minister level, have not been very successful. The situation is even more awkward at the Vice Minister and Bureau Chief level, where most of the officials concerned are afraid of their own shadows under the Rhee system. We do not deny that a non-Rhee Government might be subject to all sorts of divisive influences, particularly if a parliamentary system were adopted. We cannot foresee how it would actually work out. There would no doubt be benefits in terms of decentralization, correcting somewhat the situation described above. A strong Prime Minister with the support of the Assembly might well be able to organize a plausible government. The essence of what I am trying to say comes down to this: that we here have reached the conclusion that for various reasons, which should be well known to you, Rhee is now such a menace that literally any other [Page 307] man would be an improvement. An appraisal of our judgment on this depends largely on importance which is attached to the development of democracy in Korea. We can have Rhee and give up all possibility of continuing to work toward a democratic state here or we can give the democratic principle a tremendous boost and take our chances on the people who must be relied on to run the Government.3
Another thing which our reports may not have stressed enough is the surprising degree of opposition to Rhee that has developed among educated circles during the past two weeks. One has to have lived through this period here to appreciate the change. Many people have gone along with Rhee for one reason or another, even though they disliked many of the things he was up to. More and more these people have come to members of the Embassy staff begging us to do something and expressing the belief that there was no hope for Korea unless the Old Man could be brought to heel. The masses are completely uninformed as to what is going on, owing largely to the almost complete censorship of everything except the official statements of the OPI. The illiterate masses are not the element that we are counting on for developing democracy here anyway and the danger of permitting Rhee to get his way lies in the effect it will have on the educated groups. After the present experience, if it ends with Rhee’s triumph, it will be a long, long time before any of them are courageous enough to take an independent stand. Certainly none of the better elements will want to participate in a rubber-stamp or subservient legislature.
A final point: I was somewhat worried by the plans and suggestions for a possible UNC take-over here. While we envisaged that as a last resort, the disadvantages of such direct and complete intervention were self-evident. Our view has been that a decision to thwart Rhee must envisage taking all steps necessary to do so, even including this last most undesirable one. We felt, however, that the important thing was for the U.S. to take a very strong position throughout. If Rhee were convinced that we meant business and were prepared to go the limit, it might not be necessary to go the limit. The trouble with the situation as of this evening is that, particularly after the visit of Generals Clark and Van Fleet, Rhee does not believe we will go all the way. If it proved necessary to resort to really strong action, we felt serious consideration should be given at least to exploring the practicability of letting the ROKs, through their Chiefs of Staff, take the situation into their own hands. The main point in the foregoing is that we are lost if Rhee remains [Page 308] with the impression that we will let him get away with his designs.
To tell Rhee to settle his differences with the opposition means only one thing: to get the opposition to climb down. Once the opposition is convinced they can’t win (by realizing the US/UN are not prepared to give them full backing on the constitutional issue), they may cave in. Or they may come to a so-called “compromise”, whereby Rhee would be reelected but additional checks placed on his power. I suppose this would be hailed with a sigh of relief in certain quarters as an apparent solution. But you see if one feels about Rhee as we have come to feel, one cannot believe this would be anything but a face-saving device. The present Constitution with all its drawbacks provides some very good checks and balances, but Rhee has found ways to circumvent them. Now he has made it clear he has no regard at all for the Constitution. We simply do not believe he will be restrained from the arbitrary exercise of his authority by any device and that he has now become the symbol for arbitrary misuse of power in the eyes of the intelligentsia and educated circles generally. It is not only Rhee himself who is dangerous; it is the little group that surrounds him, eggs him on and carries out his dictates—above all Lee Bum-suk. In short, if he remains at the head of the state the development toward a one-party, police state with a cowed, docile legislature will be inevitable, and everyone in Korea and throughout the world will soon recognize the situation for what it is.
I am looking forward eagerly to Muccio’s arrival tomorrow but from the way I sense the situation I am almost afraid to hear what his new instructions are.
Sincerely yours,
- The message under reference was telegram 906 to Pusan, June 3, 1952, not printed (123 Lightner, Edwin Allan).↩
- Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times.↩
- The following sentence was handwritten in the margin with the indication that it should conclude this paragraph: “Rhee can’t last many years anyway, and there may be real advantage in having his successor take over now when US/UN influence and personnel are available on the spot to guide him, rather than later when that influence will be less.”↩
- Printed from a copy which bore this typed signature.↩