Table Of ContentE Y E O N K O R E A
Joseph G. Dawson III, General Editor
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Brian Linn
Craig Symonds
Robert Wooster
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James V. Young
Edited and with an Introduction by William Stueck
Eye on Korea
AN INSIDER ACCOUNT OF KOREAN-AMERICAN RELATIONS
T E X A S A & M U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S
•
C O L L E G E S T A T I O N
Copyright © by James V. Young
Manufactured in the United States of America
All rights reserved
First edition
The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements
of the American National Standard for Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, .-.
Binding materials have been chosen for durability.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Young, James V., –
Eye on Korea : an insider account of Korean-American relations/
James V. Young ; edited and with an introduction by William Stueck.
p. cm.—(Texas A&M University military history series ; )
Includes index.
--- (cloth : alk. paper)
. Korea (South)—History.
. Korea (South)—Military relations—
United States.
. United States—Military relations—Korea (South)
. Young, James V., –
I. Stueck, William Whitney, –
II. Title.
III. Series.
..
.''—dc
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Author’s Preface
Editor’s Introduction
Preparation
Into the Fray
The Rise of the Troop-Withdrawal Issue
To Korea Again
The Park Assassination and Its Aftermath
The / Incident
Aftermath of /
Prelude to Kwangju
Kwangju and Its Aftermath
Return to the United States
My Fourth Tour in Korea Begins
Duty with Ambassador Gregg
Journey to North Korea
Doing Business with North Korea
Final Reflections
Notes
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
James Young as second lieutenant in South Korea,
Young in South Vietnam,
American and South Vietnamese officers,
Young’s official embassy photograph,
U.S. presidential motorcade, Seoul,
Presidents Jimmy Carter and Park Chung Hee
South Korean soldier at the Demilitarized Zone,
General John Wickham and Ambassador William Gleysteen
Colonel Ahiro Hagino, Japanese military attaché in Seoul, –
ROK soldiers and tank on campus,
Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Armitage,
Ambassador Richard L. “Dixie” Walker,
Major General Kim Jin Young,
Kim Jin Young and James Young at military attaché’s residence,
Yongsan
At a formal function in Seoul
Ambassador James Lilley and South Korean National Assembly
members,
Aboard USS Kitty Hawk with Ambassador James Lilley,
Third North Korean Tunnel
With ROK Minister of Defense Lee Sang Hoon in the United
States,
Dining with Lt. Gen. Yong Young Il,
Colonel Young’s retirement and award ceremony,
North Korean Hall of Deputies,
Enjoying retirement in Virginia,
Maps
Map . Korea
Map . Central Seoul, December ,
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
This story almost was never written. Following my retirement from the U.S.
Army in , I began a second career as an international business devel-
opment consultant and had intended to work equally hard at improving my
golf game. Business often took me back to Korea, however, and invariably
into frequent contact with old friends in the army and U.S. State Department,
and especially with my many Korean friends and associates from days gone
by. Inevitably the talk would turn to our previous experiences in Korea, our
affection for and interest in the country and the Korean people, and my own
somewhat unique career and perspective as the U.S. Army’s first fully trained
and experienced Korea specialist. Friends often urged me to write a short
review of my thirty years of experience in Korea, including the historic
events in which I personally participated. After some thought and consid-
erable procrastination, in I agreed to undertake this project for the
Korean magazine Wolgan Chosen.
I wrote primarily out of a sense of history. Much had been written and
published in Korea about such incidents as the assassination of Pres. Park
Chung Hee in October, , Chun Doo Hwan’s seizure of control of the
army the following December and the subsequent imposition of martial law,
and the tragic events at Kwangju of May, , but almost all of the pub-
lished record was from the Korean perspective. In fact, when this memoir
was published in Korea during , there was no accurate account by any
responsible American officer or individual who actually participated in these
events.
Since then, Ambassador William H. Gleysteen Jr. and Gen. John A.
Wickham have published in the United States their recollections of experi-
ences in Korea during the late s and early s.1 Yet these men served
at the very top of the U.S. country team in Korea, and they did so over a short
period of time. Neither was a Korea specialist. The recounting for an Ameri-
can audience of my lengthy experiences at the lower and middle levels—in
Korea and in the United States—still seems useful for two reasons: first, my
perspective on the events of – are sometimes different than those
of Gleysteen and Wickham; second, the transitional nature of the current
viii
•
’
Korean-American relationship and the linkage of that process to events of
the last two generations merits reflection and comment by one who was in-
volved over the long haul.
With the assistance of William Stueck, a historian at the University of
Georgia, I have adapted my story into this English-language edition. The
adaptation has involved some additions to and subtractions from the origi-
nal as well as some reordering of materials and some updating of analysis
to take into account events of the last several years. Professor Stueck also
has added an editor’s introduction and citations to place my narrative in
the context of what others have written and the archival documentation
now available. Yet the basic story remains the same. Because this is a re-
cent history, many of the participants are still living. Some have been con-
tacted and interviewed for this book, but most have not. It is based primarily
on my own memory—I did not keep a diary or take more than rudimen-
tary notes, for it was previously never my intention to write of my experi-
ences. Also, unless the individuals have given specific permission or are so
well known as to be “public” people, I have not used their names in order to
protect their identity. This is particularly appropriate when discussing the
activities of certain Koreans who were cooperating and providing informa-
tion on the activities of the Korean military during the period between the
assassination of President Park and the rise to power of Chun Doo Hwan.
Often these brave and patriotic individuals were cooperating at risk to their
careers and personal safety, and their efforts to help Americans understand
the true situation as it developed were invaluable. Few are still on active duty
in the Korean military; most are engaged in business activities or living quiet
lives in retirement. Regardless of their present circumstances, they are de-
serving of privacy.
’
•
ix
E D I T O R ’ S I N T R O D U C T I O N
Historians are ever on the lookout for new sources. Most of them come in
the form of written documents from the period of events described and are
tucked away in government archives, private libraries, or even people’s at-
tics. For the historian of the recent past, the sources are sometimes oral or,
if written, exist in the form of memoirs covering the experiences of an indi-
vidual going years, even decades, into the past.
In the case of the document presented between these covers, I was fortu-
nate enough to meet the author in at the annual conference on Korea
sponsored by the Richard L. Walker Institute for International Studies at the
University of South Carolina. I was beginning research for a history of U.S.-
Korean relations and was particularly interested in the American role in
South Korea’s democratization. Colonel Young, I discovered, had been sta-
tioned in Seoul in – and again in , both key periods in the Re-
public of Korea’s circuitous path toward an open political system. I came to
look forward to our yearly meetings, where I could pick his brain both for
knowledge and wisdom about America’s relationship with Korea.
Eventually I discovered that Young had published an account of his ex-
periences in serialized form in a Korean magazine. Although encouraged
by Ambassador Walker and others to adapt his story for an American audi-
ence, Young procrastinated, uncertain that he wanted to put the time and
effort into the project. It became my goal to bring that procrastination to an
end. Finally in May, , while once more enjoying Ambassador Walker’s
hospitality and listening to Young reminisce about his Korean experiences,
I worked up the courage to ask him if I could assist in preparing for publica-
tion an English-language edition. He agreed and provided a manuscript for
my examination.
The manuscript did not disappoint. Written in a direct, unpretentious
style, it offered frequent displays of the sharp wit and intellect that I had come
to enjoy in him through personal contact. It also told the fascinating story
of Young’s Korean odyssey, from his first assignment on the peninsula as a
junior officer in the early s through his retirement from the U.S. Army
in and his trip a year later to North Korea as a member of an unofficial
