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

61. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Washington, December 7, 1965.

SUBJECT

• Additional ROK Troops for South Viet-Nam

PARTICIPANTS

• Korean Ambassador Kim
• Mr. William P. Bundy—Assistant Secretary for Far Eastern Affairs

Ambassador Kim asked to see me alone this afternoon. After a preliminary inquiry about subjects that Secretary McNamara had intended to raise if he had been able to carry out his hope of going to Korea after the NATO meeting, the Ambassador came to his point, which was that he had a letter from President Park’s chief secretary, Yi Hu Rak, asking in effect whether the US intended to solicit additional Korean forces now for South Viet-Nam.²

I responded that we did believe that additional forces were required in 1966 and that we were studying the extent of the need urgently. I made clear that no decisions or final evaluations had yet been made, so that I could not now say whether the question of additional Korean forces would be raised. I then went on to stress that, “when and if” we did come to believe that it would be useful to have additional Korean forces, we would take great care to see that the matter was raised personally with President Park before we did anything else.

Ambassador Kim noted that his attaches in the Pentagon were picking up word that additional Korean forces were being envisaged in various plans for 1966. I said that we had contingency plans for a great many situations, but that their existence did not at all mean that the US Government had come to a firm decision. He also noted that there had been a certain amount of newspaper speculation and that he was getting inquiries whether Korea was planning to send “two divisions”. I told him that such speculation was virtually inevitable, although it did not do any good and we would do our best to prevent it. He expressed agreement that press speculation on the subject was not useful.

(Subsequent to my meeting with Ambassador Kim, I received from Deputy Assistant Secretary Friedman in DOD his memorandum of a similar call by Ambassador Kim this morning.³ Mr. Friedman gave the same basic response that I did, except that he did not specifically say that we would take the matter up with President Park in the first instance if we did come to the view that additional Korean troops were needed. Mr. Friedman also elicited Ambassador Kim’s personal view that any request for additional troops would probably be favorably received, but that it would have to be carefully handled to assure that it did not become a “political football” and that the Korean Government would have to be in a position to show its people more clearly the importance of the move to Korea. Ambassador Kim further volunteered that his Government might be thinking of one or two additional divisions, to make up a corps.)

Comment: It was Mr. Friedman’s conclusion from Ambassador Kim’s responses that the Korean Government would be interested in very early discussions on this subject. Pending consultation with Ambassador Brown, prior to his departure for Korea on Saturday, I am less sure of this conclusion. Ambassador Kim has a way of speaking for himself alone, and the message from Yi Hu Rak could be interpreted to mean that we should be very careful how we handle this and particularly careful to deal with President Park himself before the matter seemed to be a wide general assumption in the press or otherwise. However, the absence of any negative element in the Yi Hu Rak message does at least suggest that the Korean Government realizes that the matter is virtually sure to come up, and in this sense the message may argue for the possibility of an early request at least on a discreet basis.

1. Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Korea, Vol. III. Secret; Exdis. Drafted by Bundy and approved in S/S on December 8.
2. Foreign Minister Yi’s discussions about Vietnam during his visit to Washington produced reports in the Korean media about the possibility of an increase in ROK troops in Vietnam. According to the Embassy in Seoul, that possibility had not yet produced much public or political response, but at least one major newspaper, Choson Ilbo, had struck a somewhat critical note on the issue of additional troops being dispatched from Korea. (Airgram A–212 from Seoul, December 9; National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1964–66, POL 27 VIET S) The U.S. Government had denied that the matter of additional troops had been discussed with the Foreign Minister and took the official position that the issue was not currently being discussed between U.S. and Korean officials. (Telegram 605 from Seoul, December 17; ibid.)
3. Memorandum of conversation not found.