When the U.S. Almost Withdrew From South Korea

When Jimmy Carter entered office in January 1977 and swiftly moved to implement his campaign pledge to remove all U.S. ground combat forces from South Korea, many people were taken aback. Critics quickly voiced concern about the speed and settled nature of the policy and apparent lack of consultation with allies and foes alike on the part of the new administration. Beyond these immediate concerns about the Carter administration’s decision-making process was a deeper, more fundamental disagreement with the policy itself and its potentially negative consequences for local deterrence, regional stability, and overall U.S. credibility.

Nevertheless, before Carter’s arrival there were, in fact, ongoing discussions within the executive branch and foreign policy bureaucracy regarding the reduction, if not withdrawal, of remaining U.S. forces. Indeed, alongside the real shifts that accompanied the new administration there were continuities with previous administrations -- often more notable than short-term punditry allowed. In addition to the pre-existing discussions about U.S. troops in South Korea, there were several larger trends at work that drove Carter’s approach to Korea but that also constrained and undermined his policy. In this sense, we might view Carter’s Korea withdrawal policy as a specific, if precipitous and abortive, attempt within a larger effort by successive administrations in the 1970s to recast U.S. hegemony in a changing international system. Carter’s policy was not so much a break from the past as a reflection of extant forces, yet one that demonstrated the limits and contradictions therein.

Long before Carter announced his candidacy in early 1975, several developments signaled the untethering of the U.S.-led postwar international order and the foreign policy consensus upon which it was based. The Sino-Soviet split and the twin processes of U.S.-Soviet détente and Sino-American rapprochement undid early Cold War certainties about a monolithic communist threat. The breakdown of the Bretton Woods system heralded an era of more unwieldy international economic forces, from rapid and difficult to control capital flows to the exploding price of crude oil, demonstrating not just the reality but also the vulnerabilities borne of growing interdependence. Alongside these economic forces, which did not respect territorial boundaries, was a burgeoning transnational human rights movement whose focus on the inherent rights of the individual was equally at odds with conventional notions of state sovereignty. Lastly, the nightmarish Vietnam War and ignominious U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia refracted domestically, fracturing the U.S. foreign policy establishment’s confidence in the projection of U.S. military power abroad.

These events and trends exposed the limits of American power and exorbitant costs (and futility) of attempting to influence countries over which the United States ultimately had little control. However, they also revealed that seemingly distant international events could have direct spillover effects at home. The consequence was that, as the United States became a net importer of oil and saw its enormous foreign military intervention fail utterly, successive presidents were faced with economizing at home and bringing limited U.S. resources into balance with more realistic foreign policy goals. In short, U.S. policymakers faced a contradictory and troubling reality, namely, as they contemplated the stark limits of their power over external events they simultaneously grappled with the fact that those same events affected the United States more than ever. These various developments and their consequences were evident in Congress as well as the executive branch, and directly bore on U.S. policy toward Korea.

Within Congress, a group known as the new internationalists applied the lessons above in order to redirect U.S. foreign policy. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) in the Senate, and Donald Fraser (D-MN) and a young Tom Harkin (D-IA) in the House were representative members of the group. With Vietnam as a guiding example, they decried the failures of anti-communist rigidity in U.S. foreign policy, arguing that it led to costly and counterproductive involvement in intractable foreign conflicts. Furthermore, it often led the United States to lend immense support to openly repressive regimes. In this context of increased congressional assertiveness, the new internationalists worked diligently to inject their views into concrete legislation and policy. In the winter of 1972-73, Congress threatened to stop funding the Vietnam War, helping force Nixon into a peace settlement. Soon thereafter it passed the 1973 War Powers Resolution, followed in 1975 by the Angola Resolution, both of which limited the president’s ability to commit U.S. forces abroad.

The new internationalists also strove to formally institute human rights considerations into the U.S. foreign policy process. This initially included legislation restricting U.S. developmental aid from going to countries known to abuse human rights (the 1975 Harkin Amendment), and later was expanded to incorporate cancellation of military assistance to human rights abusers (Section 502B of the 1976 Security Assistance Act), except in “extraordinary circumstances” when the national interests of the United States were at stake. In addition, Fraser, from his perch as chairman of the Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, held numerous hearings examining the human rights violation of U.S. allies. He also helped craft legislation requiring the State Department to submit regular reports on the human rights conditions of countries receiving U.S. aid, which led the State Department to create a new position to monitor the process: the coordinator for human rights and humanitarian Affairs.

Importantly, these efforts to restrain executive authority, pull back from or at least reduce excessive commitments, and avoid outright support for repressive anti-communist dictatorships had direct application to South Korea. In 1974 and 1975, Fraser held hearings specifically focused on human rights conditions within the country, inviting officials from Amnesty International to provide their critical assessment of the repressive Park Chung-hee regime. As Park’s Yushin system further tightened following the May 1975 issuance of Emergency Measures (EM-9), congressional denunciations only increased. On April 2, 1976, Kennedy and Fraser sponsored a letter signed by 119 senators and representatives alleging widespread suppression in South Korea, which made the United States “an accomplice to repression.” It continued: “The policies of President Park toward political dissidents not only violate internationally recognized standards of human rights but also raise serious questions about the supportive role of the United States in its relations with the Republic of Korea.” The letter was one of many public criticisms.

With the shadow of Vietnam ever present, human rights critiques fused with concerns regarding U.S. overcommitment to and possible entrapment in a renewed Korean conflict. In fact, the House Foreign Affairs Committee managed to insert a provision within the aforementioned 1976 Security Assistance Act that required the president to submit a regular report detailing South Korean efforts at defense modernization and self-sufficiency, the role of the U.S. therein, and the prospects for a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces.

In particular, the fallout from the axe murder incident at Panmunjom on August 18, 1976 crystallized these various criticisms. Reflecting on the incident, Senator George McGovern remarked: “the incident and its aftermath proved the forces that were sent to Korea a generation ago as a trip wire could trip this generation into another wrong war in another wrong place at another wrong time.” Referring to Park, he argued the United States should avoid further identification with that “disreputable tyrant.” The main effect of the U.S. troop presence, McGovern claimed, “is to encourage an adventurous attitude by President Park, and to stand as irrefutable physical evidence of our involvement with his repressive regime…We should begin a phased withdrawal of our force from South Korea as quickly as that can be accomplished without raising needless fears and dislocations in Japan.” McGovern’s statement was a forceful summation of the new internationalists’ position, yet, importantly, it also hinted at a key difficulty with disengagement from Korea, namely, the wider effect it might have on Japan and beyond.

Just as changes in the international system altered congressional attitudes and coalitions, the same developments influenced the White House and foreign policy bureaucracy. Indeed, the Nixon and Ford administrations had to contend with forceful critiques at home while at the same time crafting policy in response to ongoing events abroad; again, with direct implications for U.S. Korea policy. These pressures were evident in the policy itself but also in the public and private discourse surrounding it.

The Vietnam debacle, among other considerations, forced Nixon and his National Security Advisor (NSA) Henry Kissinger to, as the latter put it, “gear American commitments to American capabilities and necessities.” The Nixon (or Guam) Doctrine reflected this imperative. It would allow the United States to wind down and ultimately withdrawal entirely from Vietnam and lessen the American burden elsewhere. The objective was not to dissolve all U.S. alliances and abdicate treaty commitments, but, rather, to make them more flexible; to bolster allies’ capabilities so that they could take on greater responsibility for their own defense, thus allowing the United States to reduce its own. The driving purpose was to maintain U.S. preponderance and preserve international stability, but without the same unsustainable commitments.

Though Vietnam was surely the catalyst for Nixon’s doctrine, it was directly applied to South Korea. Tellingly, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird’s Vietnamization process in Southeast Asia actually followed his earlier Koreanization program in South Korea. The 1971 removal of the Seventh Infantry Division (7ID) from South Korea, reducing the U.S. force presence from 62,000 to 42,000, was an overt manifestation of the doctrine. Later, in 1976, Laird told the Washington Post that at he had “started a withdrawal program that would have had all American troops out of South Korea by now” had it not been for the opposition from Kissinger and the White House National Security Council, who opposed further withdrawals “on the grounds ‘it would be destabilizing.’”

Laird became Nixon’s domestic policy advisor in 1973, while Kissinger was appointed secretary of state, simultaneously retaining the role of NSA. He thus solidified his already significant control over U.S. foreign policy.

Kissinger’s preference to slow down disengagement from South Korea was quickly evident. On December 31, 1973, Kissinger issued National Security Study Memorandum 190 (NSSM 190), which instructed the NSC to explore diplomatic initiatives in Korea, including possible termination of the United Nations Command (UNC) and alternative institutional command arrangements between the U.S. and ROK military, but also “assumed that there will be no substantial changes in the US military presence or levels of aid to South Korea.” In late March 1974, Kissinger followed up with National Security Decision Memorandum 251, which outlined a strategy for terminating the UNC, transferring operational control (OPCON) of the ROK military from U.S. to South Korean officials, and for eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces “as the security situation on the Peninsula is stabilized.” However, due to bigger concerns, such as mounting domestic uncertainty due to Watergate and Nixon’s resignation, the difficulties attending Ford’s presidential transition, dealing with the final drawdown of American forces from Vietnam following the Paris Peace Accords, and conducting U.S.-Soviet Summitry and strategic negotiations, Korea was pushed to the backburner.

When the NSC turned back toward the peninsula in 1975 in a context of growing congressional pressure, similar concerns about instability prevailed. In a wide-ranging interview with Barbara Walters in early May 1975, Kissinger was explicit. Citing Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield’s statement that the United States should withdraw from South Korea, Walters’ asked Kissinger what he thought. Kissinger responded pointedly: “In South Korea there can be no ambiguity about our commitment because we have a defense treaty ratified by the Congress. If we abandon this treaty, it would have drastic consequences in Japan and all over Asia because that would be interpreted as out final withdrawal from Asia and our final withdrawal from our whole postwar foreign policy.” Soon thereafter, NSSM 226 (“Review of U.S. Policy Toward the Korean Peninsula”) called for a study of, among other issues, U.S. policy toward: its military force presence; potential response to North Korean aggression; military assistance to Seoul; inter-Korean dialogue; and even the “ROK’s internal political developments.” However, the NSC staff delayed the study in order to focus on the longer-term consequences of the fall of Indochina and the completion of NSSM 235, which provided a broad review of U.S. interests and security objectives in the entire Asia-Pacific area.

Roughly a year later, communication began again about the review of U.S. Korea policy. This time, internal discussion contained overt and repeated reference not only to congressional assertiveness on South Korea but also Jimmy Carter’s own campaign pledge to withdraw U.S. combat forces. In an April 1, 1976 NSC memo from Thomas J. Barnes to Brent Scowcroft, Kissinger’s replacement as NSA, Barnes brought up the need to restart study of the issues raised in NSSM 226, particularly “in light of the amendment to the Security Assistance Bill” that calls for a presidential report on the U.S. security role in South Korea and possible phased reduction of U.S. forces. The new study, Barnes wrote, should review the level of the U.S. troop presence and military assistance, and U.S. policy toward South Korean self-sufficiency, OPCON, and alternatives to the UNC.

Days later, in a meeting with South Korean officials, including the South Korean foreign minister and ambassador to the United States, Kissinger, Scowcroft, and Phil Habib mentioned the pending Security Assistance legislation and persistent activism of lawmakers such as McGovern and Fraser. Moreover, in response to the foreign minister’s surprise at Carter’s success in the Democratic primaries, Kissinger remarked: “Carter appeals to the public as a reaction to Watergate, Vietnam and the rest.” Nevertheless, due to the opposition of Habib, then assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and chairman of the East Asian interdepartmental group tasked with the policy review, and Morton Abramowitz, the deputy assistant secretary for international security affairs in the Defense Department, the study of U.S. force levels was delayed. This was, in part, because U.S. force and military assistance levels were long-term issues that Congress would help determine, but also because, as Abramowitz wrote, “Nobody in the executive branch wants to move our forces out and we can only define in general terms when that might be possible.” As it turned out, Abramowitz was, by his own admission, one of several key individuals within the foreign policy bureaucracy that would later form “a rear-guard action” against further withdrawals under Carter.

From mid-1976 forward, on his way to securing the Democratic nomination and eventual election as president, Carter would repeat his position on South Korea. On June 23, in his first major foreign policy address as a candidate, he concretely adopted the new internationalists’ stance, stating “it is possible to withdraw our ground forces from South Korea on a phased basis,” and “it should be made clear to the South Korean government that its internal oppression is repugnant to our people and undermines the basic support for our commitment there.” Congressional criticism of South Korea continued to build as revelations emerged in October regarding the so-called Koreagate influence-buying scandal, further complicating U.S.-South Korea relations.

Meanwhile, the Ford administration, having navigated the escalatory dangers surrounding the axe murder incident in August and opposed to any changes to the U.S. commitment to South Korea, voiced open opposition to Carter. In the midst of the campaign, Ford decried Carter’s rhetoric, telling the National Guard Association in September: “The voices of retreat talk about phased withdrawal…we cannot retreat from the front lines of freedom if we are to preserve our freedom here at home.” Following Carter’s election, Ford and his defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, reiterated the point, stressing the importance of Korea for the stability of Japan and East Asia as a whole. Importantly, in early January, just before Carter took office, General John W. Vessey, Commander in Chief of United States Forces Korea (CINCUSFK), told the Washington Post that a withdrawal would heighten the risk of war in Korea.

Jimmy Carter entered office intending to maintain U.S. military and economic preponderance in the world. However, he also aimed to move beyond a preoccupation with East-West relations, inject a new morality into U.S. foreign policy, and make more flexible U.S. security commitments in a post-Vietnam-era. Withdrawing U.S. ground forces form South Korea was a direct outgrowth of such thinking. As shown above, Carter’s views were shared by others and rooted in a changing historical and political context, and even extant discussion about U.S. troop reductions. Nonetheless, just as the ideas and processes that drove his South Korea troop withdrawal policy were already in place, so too were the rationales that would check and ultimately obstruct it. From USFK military commanders’ concern regarding local deterrence to State and Defense Department officials’ apprehensions about the wider strategic and political dislocations in the region, many within the U.S. foreign policy establishment were not ready to go as far as Carter desired.