151. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon1
SUBJECT
- Preliminary Evaluation of North and South Korea’s Joint Communiqué of July 4
The agreement between North and South Korea embodied in their Joint Communiqué of July 42 represents the first major results of the contacts between the two begun last August. As such, the agreement signifies the interest on both sides in continuing and expanding the contacts, and probably will act as something of an additional deterrent against a return to militancy by North Korea. As you will recall, these contacts were stimulated primarily by your China initiative. They first took the form of discussions between their Red Cross representatives concerning the problem of divided families, and since late March have included secret higher-level, official discussions of political issues.
The following are the highlights that emerge from our preliminary analysis of the Communiqué:
- —The document is largely confined to an enunciation of broad principles, which is useful as a demonstration of the two sides’ ability to agree on at least some general language. Wide disagreement in its application to specifics will of course remain, with both sides trying to exploit its propaganda value.
- —The Communiqué’s content shows that the South successfully resisted the North’s attemps to move immediately to discussion of basic political issues. (President Park has insisted that measured progress must first be shown on the smaller, easier issues.) In addition, Seoul parried Pyongyang’s pressures for an early summit meeting between Park and Kim Il-song.
- —As Kim Il-song has no
doubt intended in pursuit of one of his principal objectives,
the surfacing of the secret talks and the agreement will at
least temporarily exacerbate dissension within South Korea. [Page 378]
- • Opposition political leaders already are vociferously objecting that they were not consulted in advance.
- • The Park Government must assure conservative elements, particularly in the military, that it is proceeding with due caution and is not being taken in by a tactical shift from the North.
- • The Government must tamp down any false expectations of prospects for early or rapid movement toward reunification.
- • Park will have to deal with pressures at home and from abroad for a relaxation of his authoritarian political controls. Kim Il-song has always been confident that his tight control in the North will give him a decided advantage on this score.
- —The disclosure of the talks may also result in a considerably less militant international image for North Korea. While South Korea will probably also be seen internationally as coming more in line with the “mood of détente,” the North probably has farther to go on this score. Somewhat paradoxically, Pyongyang’s joining Seoul in these talks may thus, viewed relatively, accrue more to its advantage than to Seoul’s. This same objective undoubtedly motivates Kim’s efforts to have the Korean question debated in next fall’s U.N. General Assembly. In the U.N. case, Kim is interested not only in depriving the South of its preferred international status conferred by the complex of U.N. resolutions on Korea, but also is removing the U.N. cloak from our military presence in South Korea.
- —As regards the Communiqué’s substantive specifics:
- • Pyongyang will undoubtedly use the first of the three principles governing reunification (that reunification is to be achieved through Korean efforts and without “external imposition or interference”) to support its call for the end of the U.N. role in South Korea and for the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Seoul has already denied that the phrase has any such meaning.
- • The two sides agreed to facilitate “various exchanges in many fields,” and to seek the “early success” of the Red Cross talks on divided families.
- • The two sides agreed to establish a Seoul–Pyongyang hot line and a Coordinating Committee chaired by the two principals in the secret political talks. (The Committee’s responsibilities are not defined in the Communiqué, but Seoul has told us it would be used to keep the contacts moving ahead.)
Reaction from Abroad
The PRC and Soviets have reported the Communiqué and the talks factually. The only Asian reaction so far as been first from Japan, where opposition parties have called for Japan to expand ties with North Korea (which has been counter-balanced by the Foreign Office’s call for caution). Taipei’s reaction was expectedly negative, while Saigon urged Hanoi to follow Pyongyang’s example.
- Source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 543, Country Files, Far East, Korea, Vol. V, 1 Jan–31 Dec 1972, Part 2. Secret. Sent for information. A notation on the memorandum indicates that Nixon saw it. Holdridge sent this memorandum to Kissinger on July 7 with a recommendation that he sign it. (Ibid.)↩
- See footnote 3, Document 147 and Document 150.↩