16. Editorial Note

President Pak informed Ambassador Berger on June 7, 1964, that Kim Chong-pil agreed to leave Korea and study in the United States. (Telegram 1621, June 7; National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1964–66, POL 15–1 KOR S) Kim expressed an interest in attending a summer seminar followed by study of economics at a “good university” in the United States. He also suggested he be awarded a Department of State Leader Grant, which would, given the prestige associated with the grant, cloak his sudden departure and exile in respectability. (Telegram 1632 from Seoul, June 10; ibid.) The Embassy and the Department of State agreed that Kim was an unsuitable candidate for a Leader Grant, since it allowed only short-term study and extended an official status to the grantee that the United States did not intend to offer Kim. (Telegram 1635 from Seoul, June 10; ibid.)

The Department of State secured a private sponsor—the Southwestern Research Society in Dallas, Texas—enabling Kim to attend the 6-week International Seminar conducted by Henry Kissinger at Harvard that summer and to undertake academic study in the fall. Kim was scheduled to depart Seoul for Cambridge on June 18. (Telegrams 1133 and 1134 to Seoul, and telegram 1647 from Seoul, all June 11; all ibid; and telegram 1660 from Seoul, June 15; ibid., POL 7 KOR S) Ambassador Berger advocated that Kim’s presence in the United States not be viewed merely a means to “keep him out of way” but the time utilized as an “opportunity to train him and to alter his views.” (Telegram 1632 from Seoul, June 10; ibid., POL 15–1 KOR S)