Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXIX, Part 1, Korea

138. Memorandum From the Director of Defense Research and Engineering (Foster) to Secretary of Defense McNamara¹

Washington, December 7, 1967.

SUBJECT

• Korea

General Bonesteel visited me yesterday and provided a complete rundown on the situation in Korea. There is definite information that Kim Il Sung has embarked on a course of drastically increased conflict along lines proposed by Che Guevara. Based on the theory that the United States cannot support more than one “Vietnam” at a time, he hopes to create a situation that will prevent the ROK from sending more troops to Vietnam, cripple the ROK economy, cause the United States to withdraw, and eventually communize the country. A force of special agents, commandos, and guerrillas specialized for various locations in the ROK, already averaging about 25,000 strong, is being trained and is already operating into ROK. Action has occurred throughout the country, at the DMZ and in mountainous regions in the Northeast and Southwest of ROK. The latter two are supported by sea infiltration, which constitutes over 60 percent of the total. To date there have been vastly increased attempted penetrations, firefight incidents, and UNC casualties, all up about tenfold from last year.

Later plans of Kim Il Sung include severe disruption of our LOC, cowing the population by terror, and placing U.S. installations under siege. He then might open the option of conventional air strike and ground attack a la Israel, assuming we would not use nuclear weapons. This is expected to heat up considerably by next summer.

To counter this threat, General Bonesteel has organized a mixed line and mobile defense in depth along the DMZ and around the coasts. Although his resources are meager, he is strengthening anti-infiltration defenses at sea, along and behind the DMZ,² and throwing the burden of interior defense, with increased training and support by the U.S., on the ROK forces. The United States still retains responsibility for defense of our air bases, depots, [1–1/2 lines of source text not declassified].

He has submitted, through CINCPAC to JCS, a plan for modest inputs of added defensive equipment (cost, $40M) to augment his strength. This is designed not to detract from the Vietnam effort. He is confident he can turn back the attack, but believes he has barely enough resources to do so. We are skeptical that $40 million is enough even as a starter, but he is trying to keep his requirements minimal.

We discussed with him, and are examining, the various ways in which R&D might help. A counterinfiltration system design effort is already underway in ARPA and the Services.

John Foster, Jr.

1. Source: Washington National Records Center RG 330, OSD/OASD/ISA Files: FRC 72 A 2468, Korea 370.64. Secret. The memorandum indicates that McNamara saw it.
2. Additional information concerning the barrier system along the DMZ is in airgram A–297 from Seoul, December 26. (National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1967–69, POL 32 KOR N–KOR S)