Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XIX, Part 1, Korea, 1969–1972

129. Memorandum From Secretary of Defense Laird to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)¹

Washington, March 27, 1972.

SUBJECT

• Republic of Korea Forces in South Vietnam (ROKFV)

I have reviewed the paper that the Under Secretaries Committee has sent to the President concerning the ROKFV and believe the appendix to the summary memorandum presents a balanced view of the problem.² The Department of Defense participated fully in its preparation. The summary memorandum is a State Department product. Although I support the paper in general, I continue to doubt the efficacy of the ROKFV as I made clear last June when we were considering this question (NSDM–113).³

In any consideration involving the retention of significant ROK military forces in Vietnam, I believe the following points to be of major importance:

• —The GVN and ROK should be the prime members in resolving the question. The US role should be secondary, in support of the GVN’s needs. Such an approach was implicit in NSDM–113, but I sense that we are moving away from it.
• —We should be careful not to link possible US redeployments from Korea with retention of the ROKFV. NSDM–113 prohibited tying together these two separate issues. If the US should make a commitment in these talks to retain the Second Infantry Division beyond FY 73, as State recommends, we will have established such a link. I oppose this commitment since it reduces the flexibility of our forces by precluding the deployment of that division to meet other contingencies. The reduction of our forces, which this Administration has so ably accomplished, has made flexible deployments essential to our national security.
• —A viable alternative to committing the US to retain current US troop levels in Korea is to reassure the ROK on their force modernization program. This could be done effectively by seeking a supplemental appropriation to restore the funds cut by the Congress from this program. Along the same vein, the ROK would welcome and we recommend a change to our cash and credit sales guidelines so that Foreign Military Sales credit purchases which go to meet agreed objectives and move the ROKG toward self-sufficiency would not be deducted from the overall $1.5 billion package.

Melvin R. Laird

1. Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, NSC Institutional Files (H-Files), Box H–232, National Security Decision Memoranda, NSDM 161. Top Secret.
2. See Document 128.
3. See Documents 96 and 97.