Kennedy
Once the talks began in earnest, the exchange ran deeper than before.
Kennedy opened by taking up a conversation he had had over lunch with Foreign Minister Choi Duk-shin.
"This morning your foreign minister told me he had drawn up a memorandum on resolving the Vietnam question, and offered to let me have it. I worry, as he does, whether we can keep South Vietnam from collapsing. I regard the commitment of American troops as a last resort. The true solution is for the Vietnamese themselves to solve the problem. What is your view, Chairman Park?"
Kennedy was a gifted talker, and he had a habit of laying out his own thinking before he ever asked for anyone else's. Kijo listened with care, pared the remarks to their core, and gave Chairman Park only that.
"...President Kennedy believes the South Vietnamese must fight North Vietnam themselves. He asks for your view, Mr. Chairman."
Chairman Park, for his part, set out his own thinking slowly and at length. Campen, Kennedy's interpreter, listened just as closely and rendered the chairman's words at speed. Hearing that interpretation from beside him, Kijo could feel how formidable the man's Korean was, and how deep his knowledge of Korea.
The chairman explained that while North Vietnam fielded well-trained guerrilla units, Korea too had a million men who had fought guerrilla war. If the United States approved and backed the effort, Korea could send a counter-guerrilla force; if Washington did not want regular troops, it would recruit volunteers and send those instead. Campen translated quickly and accurately, then added that Park was an officer who had taken part in operations to suppress rebels mingled among civilians. He was supplying the further detail that, during the Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion, Park Chung-hee had served in the command of the suppression force.
Kennedy thanked him for the offer of troops, yet—just as in the original history—told Chairman Park to take the matter up with the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Then he added something more.
"Taking this up with the Filipinos might be one way forward. The lesson the French learned in Vietnam is that there are limits to what Westerners can do."
Kijo translated at once. When it seemed Chairman Park had not grasped why Kennedy had said it, he explained quickly.
"I think he means the Philippines, with a lighter security burden than Korea—locked as we are in a standoff with the North—would have more room to send troops. President Kennedy also visited Vietnam during the Indochina War and saw for himself how hard the French were pressed. I believe he is saying the South Vietnamese are wary of white men, because of what they lived through as a colony."
The Indochina War — the war fought in the 1950s between France and North Vietnam. France was defeated.
When the explanation was done, Chairman Park nodded. Kijo stole a glance at Campen, who seemed just as conscious of Kijo's interpreting, and then turned his attention back to Kennedy.
This time Kennedy shifted the subject to the Buy America policy. Until now the United States had given Korea aid money and steered it toward buying Japanese goods. From here on, instead of paying out those funds—whether as grants or as loans—the American government would purchase the products of American firms and ship them to Korea.
It was a policy that cut against Korea. Even if the aid were set at the same figure, American goods cost more than Japanese ones, and Washington was likely to fix the list of items to suit the circumstances of its own companies. What American firms could not make might simply be struck from the list, or the goods of struggling American companies bought up and sent to Korea in their place.
Kijo felt an uncanny kinship between Kennedy's policy and Donald Trump's. The same deep reluctance to be drawn into conflicts abroad, the same wish to draw down American forces overseas and leave the defense of allies to the allies themselves, the same tight fist on aid, and the same instinct to look after one's own firms.
Chairman Park answered him this way.
"I understand that the United States is pursuing Buy America. We are not asking you to withdraw the policy outright. We ask only that exceptions be granted for certain goods."
It was a roundabout plea that Korea be made an exception. Kennedy said he took the point, and closed the subject. In effect, America would do as it pleased.
Now Chairman Park turned to the achievements of the revolutionary government. He meant to show that, unlike the governments before it, his was driving reform on many fronts, and then to ask that support for Korea be enlarged. When he said he had brought the relevant papers, Kennedy smiled and spoke.
"I've already heard, through the ambassadors of both our countries, a very persuasive account of what the revolutionary government has accomplished. I was deeply impressed. Let me assure you, Chairman Park, that the United States will support you to the fullest. We understand Korea's importance very well. If Korea falls, Japan falls, and the whole Pacific loses its freedom. Korea is where the fate of the free world hangs. Secretary McNamara—explain American military power to the chairman."
The words came in a fluent rush, and Kijo struggled to catch them and set them in order. Kennedy had stopped Chairman Park before he could explain the revolutionary government, laid on a glaze of fine words about how vital Korea was, and then—out of nowhere—told the Secretary of Defense to brief them on American military strength, cutting off any chance to plead for aid. Kijo translated it as it stood, and added a word of his own at the end.
"Hold the request for aid until the next opening. It would be better raised when we bring up the North."
Secretary McNamara launched into a proud recital of America's nuclear forces. The United States, he said, had 1,700 nuclear-armed fighters, 850 of them able to take off within fifteen minutes. In quantity its nuclear strength led the Soviet Union by a factor of three to eight, and in quality it was overwhelming. As for intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines stood ready at all times, able to deliver four hundred nuclear missiles to any point on earth.
When the boast was finished, Kennedy asked a question.
"Are the communists still infiltrating across the 38th parallel?"
"They come by every means they have, but we sweep them up. Every North Korean attempt has failed."
Chairman Park had barely answered before Kennedy asked again.
"And the morale of the North Korean people—their political leanings?"
Kijo was thrown. He could not tell whether the man truly did not know, or was only pretending not to. A doubt stirred. Is he treating this summit as a formality?
When Kijo translated, Chairman Park wore, for a moment, a look that asked what is this supposed to mean?—and then he answered.
"The people of the North are brainwashed, and wholly controlled by the Communist Party. Their food situation and standard of living, as I understand it, are poor. Their basic industry and mineral resources, on the other hand, are superior to the South's. North Korea's power generation stands at 1.1 million kilowatts. Korea, by comparison, will reach only 1.03 million kilowatts around the time the Five-Year Economic Development Plan comes to an end."
"Is that so? Then what about building a nuclear power plant in Korea?"
It was the question they had been waiting for. Calmly, Kijo turned to Chairman Park.
"He says the United States is willing to support a nuclear power plant for Korea. Ask for it in the strongest terms."
Chairman Park caught the deliberate mistranslation. Behind the sunglasses his eyes glinted, and he whispered.
"You know about power plants?"
"Shall I take it, the way I explained the steel mill?"
The chairman nodded.
Kijo looked at Campen, Kennedy's interpreter, and spoke in Korean.
"Chairman Park has asked me to speak on the power plant. The subject is full of technical terms, and we went over it beforehand. Would you ask President Kennedy whether I may address him directly, on the chairman's behalf?"
Thrown by the unusual request, Campen turned to Kennedy a little flustered and explained. Kennedy flicked a glance at Kijo.
"Chairman Park must be very tired, coming all this way to America."
He looked at the chairman and smiled. It had the shape of a joke, but it could land as a slight.
With Kennedy's leave, Kijo began.
"Chairman Park has given a great deal of thought to the gap in economic strength between South and North. The North is industrializing rapidly while the South remains an agricultural country, and he is troubled that history offers no case of an agricultural nation defeating an industrial one in war."
Kennedy nodded, his face conceding the point.
"Before Korea was divided, the northern region had steelworks with a total capacity of five hundred thousand tons. All of it was destroyed in the war, but with Soviet support it is being restored at speed. The North Korean government has publicly pledged to secure a crude-steel capacity of two million tons before the 1960s are out."
Strictly speaking, his words needed no interpreter. Even so, Campen now and then leaned in to murmur something to Kennedy, busily copying what Kijo said into a notebook, as if he meant to verify the facts later. Kennedy, too, glanced at his aides, as though to confirm what he was hearing. Chairman Park was following just as closely, through Foreign Minister Choi Duk-shin at his side. Feeling every eye in the room settle on him, Kijo went on.
"Any rise in the North's crude-steel capacity will lead straight to a rise in its military power. The seven-year economic development plan North Korea announced in early 1961 states outright a policy of heavy industry first, with the munitions sector at its center."
Secretary of Defense McNamara leaned close and whispered to Kennedy. Kennedy heard him out, then asked Kijo:
"Are you saying North Korea will overwhelm Korea not only in power generation, but in steel as well?"
"It already does. Korea is pushing a five-year plan to answer it, but even if we meet every target, the gap with the North will only widen."
Sure now that Kennedy meant to listen, Kijo pressed on the worry that sat heaviest on him.
"The situation resembles Vietnam as it stands today. North Vietnam is working to industrialize with Soviet support, while South Vietnam remains an agricultural country. We do not want Vietnam to become the future that awaits Korea."
Kennedy, already sick to death of the Vietnam problem, frowned faintly. The Republican opposition was hammering him as soft for his lukewarm line on intervention, and his predecessor, President Eisenhower, had gone so far as to denounce him as a Red. Kennedy, lounging in his rocking chair with his legs crossed, quietly straightened. Kijo did not let go of the reins.
"Build even a single nuclear plant of five hundred thousand kilowatts in Korea, and our power generation triples. That would give us the industrial strength to answer the North."
That was precisely the capacity of Gori Unit 1, the first nuclear plant ever built in Korea. The United States had been constructing nuclear plants in earnest since the late 1950s, and in those years Americans thought well of them, placing real trust in nuclear power for its economy, its reliability, and its efficiency alike. The country was pushing the technology so hard that it was even drawing up plans for nuclear-powered bombers and nuclear-powered missiles.
The moment Kijo pressed for a plant in earnest, Kennedy—the very man who had asked what they thought of building one in Korea—drew back into caution.
"Does Korea have the ability to operate a nuclear plant?"
It was the question Kijo had been hoping for. He answered at once.
"In 1958 the United States concluded an atomic energy agreement with Korea. In doing so, it provided Korea with an experimental reactor and with nuclear material."
He explained that an experimental reactor had been installed in Yangju, near Seoul, and that Seoul National University, the finest in the country, together with the National Atomic Energy Research Institute, was operating it. At that, Kennedy looked surprised. Kijo spoke into the surprise.
"After the atomic energy agreement was signed, President Syngman Rhee presented the State Department with a hanging scroll."
Kennedy, who had already received a scroll from Park Chung-hee, asked:
"What was written on it?"
"'Justice is the foundation of peace.' President Syngman Rhee inscribed it in his own hand."
Kijo answered without a stumble. Kennedy let out a short, incredulous laugh, as if he could hardly believe it, and then asked:
"If you know the terms of the atomic energy agreement, would you tell me?"
He was putting to Kijo a question that belonged to the Secretary of State. He seemed to have judged that Secretary Rusk would not know an agreement concluded with Korea in 1958.
"The two sides agreed to cooperate on the peaceful use of atomic energy, and the United States promised to provide Korea with set quantities of two types of uranium, and of plutonium. America kept that promise."
Kijo poured out everything he knew. In many respects Syngman Rhee was a leader who left much to regret, but one thing he had driven through was shining now. In those years, when people could barely get enough to eat, he had signed an atomic energy agreement with the United States and founded an atomic research institute on the College of Engineering campus of Seoul National University in Yangju—and that was now the strength behind the case being made to Kennedy.
"Hm..."
At the word that America had already provided both a reactor and nuclear material, Kennedy rubbed the nape of his neck, and the sound escaped him.
"If we concluded an agreement of that kind with Korea, then legally there would be no obstacle to providing a nuclear plant. Is that so?"
He looked to Secretary of State Rusk as he asked. Rusk's face was uncertain, and Kennedy went straight on.
"Confirming that such an agreement existed between our two countries will stand as an important achievement of today's talks. Wouldn't you say?"
With that, he put on his trademark boyish smile. It was a seasoned close. He had seen that not one American official in the room knew the agreement his own country had signed with Korea.
Kijo stopped there, for the moment. For a mere interpreter, he thought, he had already said far too much between the leaders of two countries. Now it was Chairman Park's turn to step forward. Kijo met his eyes with a look that said his own part was done, and Chairman Park opened his mouth.