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

164. Memorandum From John H. Holdridge of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger)¹

Washington, October 25, 1972.

SUBJECT

• Ambassador Habib Comments on President Park’s Tightened Controls

Ambassador Habib has commented on President Park’s sweeping reorganization of the South Korean political system,² which is to be announced October 27 in a new constitution and submitted to a popular referendum late next month. The new constitution will establish Park at the head of a much more authoritarian system which will lack the institutional checks and balances of the one it will replace. Habib believes Park and his small leadership group have been motivated by a belief that he is the only man who can lead South Korea in meeting the twin challenges of reunification talks with the North and of big power détente.

Habib lays out three U.S. policy options:

• —Persuade Park to abandon this course and return to the old constitution. This is impractical, he says, since it would require drastic U.S. sanctions in order to succeed, and might result in either destroying Park or making him impossible to work with.
• —Persuade Park to soften the more repressive aspects of his new system, while accepting its basic structure. Habib is also inclined against this, both because the time remaining before October 27 is insufficient and because in so doing we would share the responsibility for it.
• —Disassociate ourselves from Park’s new system. Habib prefers this, and would do so by a public announcement commenting on Park’s new constitution when he makes it public. We would not involve ourselves in any of the reorganization, except to protest any flagrant personal repression. Implicit in this course, Habib notes, is our recognition that we can no longer try to determine the course of South Korea’s internal political development. It would also involve an acceleration of our disengagement from South Korea.

Our own initial comment on Ambassador Habib’s recommendations is to question the extent of disassociation which he advocates. Given our strong strategic interests in the Korean Peninsula, we continue to have a derivative interest in a minimum cohesion within South Korea. While we regret the character of Park’s reorganization and believe it unnecessary, his new system is not inevitably de-stabilizing. Our inclination therefore is to focus on how he administers it to see that he does not in the longer term defeat his own objective of increased internal cohesion, and in the process encourage the North to renew its militancy toward the South.

This basic policy question should be thoroughly explored in NSSM 154, which we are now asking for an update on.³

1. 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; Sensitive. Sent for information. Also initialed by Froebe. A notation on the memorandum indicates Haig saw it.
2. In attached telegram 6119 from Seoul, October 23, Habib concluded that “it is clear that President Park Chung Hee is proceeding with a fundamental reorganization of the government that will give him complete control of all aspects of life in Korea and permit him to retain this control for an indefinite period.”
3. NSSM 154 is Document 133. The SRG considered the Department of State response on August 9; see Documents 152 and 153. An update was received on April 3, 1973.