Buy America
It was time, now, for something that had never happened in the original history.
Gijo, who had laid the groundwork for the appeal on nuclear power, watched Chairman Park with his nerves drawn tight. The chairman had to bring the request for a nuclear plant to a clean close. The day before, left alone at the embassy, Gijo had told him a great deal about power stations, and he hoped it would help.
Chairman Park looked at Kennedy and began.
"This past July, the revolutionary government merged the three private power companies in Korea into a single utility."
He had folded Joseon Electric, Gyeongseong Electric, and Namseon Electric together and launched the Korea Electric Power Corporation.
"I consolidated the three electric companies in order to make the supply of power more efficient."
There was a hard ceiling on the plants' total output, he explained, so they had instituted a system of announced blackouts, rotating electricity from city to city and region to region. Even the capital, Seoul, was under rolling outages without exception, and he confessed that they could not keep the current on at all times even for the nation's vital facilities—factories, of course, but military bases, general hospitals, and financial institutions as well.
When he added that army units and hospitals were themselves subject to the cuts, one of Kennedy's eyebrows rose. His face asked whether such a thing could possibly be true.
"On paper, Korea's total generating capacity is on the order of 280,000 kilowatts. That assumes every plant is free of breakdowns, and that hydro and thermal alike are running flat out. Average daily output is 190,000 kilowatts."
Having made the case that Korea's wretched power situation had left them no choice but to establish the corporation, Chairman Park moved to the next step.
"Korea's demand for electricity always outruns supply. For that reason Korea Electric Power, the monopoly supplier, is a company that simply cannot run a deficit."
"You're saying the Korean government owns that company?"
Kennedy put his finger on the point the chairman was driving toward.
"That's right. Build a nuclear plant in Korea, and it is structured to turn a profit no matter what."
Listening, Gijo felt a quiet satisfaction. The day before he had advised the chairman that pleading Korea's hardships and appealing to American sympathy would not end well. When you asked Americans for aid or a loan, he had told him, you had to speak in the language of capitalist logic—make it plain that if they lent the money, it would be paid back. Chairman Park was putting that advice into practice now.
Kennedy, who until this moment had changed the subject the instant anyone asked for support for Korea, was listening in earnest, and the chairman seemed to draw strength from it.
"President Kennedy, a little while ago you explained your Buy America policy to me."
"I did."
"And when you had the Secretary of Defense brief me on America's nuclear forces, I took you to be telling me that Korea's defense was not in question."
"That's correct. Korea's defense is secure, so I hope you won't worry too much if military aid is reduced."
"Then I can practice Buy America with an easy mind. Please build a nuclear power plant in Korea. I'm not asking you to build it for free. If the United States government pays American firms to construct a plant in Korea, the Korean government will take responsibility for selling the electricity and repaying the debt."
When Chairman Park laid out the loan plan for a nuclear plant with such clarity, Kennedy nodded.
"Thermal plants cost a great deal. The United States once built one for us near Seoul. A coal plant is cheap to construct, but the operating costs are enormous. The Korean government had no money and could not afford to buy bituminous coal overseas, so we had to shut the thermal plants down more than once. We have no technology to process the uranium generation requires, so we will buy it from American companies and use that."
The chairman's logic was excellent. Run an electric business in Korea and you could not go bankrupt, and the Korean government owned the power monopoly. Lend that government money and there was no danger of being left unpaid. And Korea would buy American. Set out in so orderly a chain, it seemed to leave Kennedy with no real objection to raise. He had already boasted of America's nuclear arsenal and told them not to worry over Korea's defense, so he could hardly refuse a nuclear plant on security grounds either.
Seated in his rocking chair, Kennedy propped his chin on one hand, seemed to turn it over for a moment, and then asked,
"Is there any chance Korea's demand for electricity will fall?"
It sounded like a question fishing for a pretext to refuse.
That was when Gijo whispered to the chairman.
"Tell him about television and radio."
The moment the advice was offered, Chairman Park caught it.
"President Kennedy, there are two projects the revolutionary government is pursuing that I'd like to explain."
"Please do."
He told Kennedy about the drive to spread television and radio.
"The state television broadcaster means to begin regular programming on the thirty-first of December this year, four hours a day. We've already ordered the broadcast equipment from RCA in the United States. We intend to put televisions into homes across the country."
"And we'll also push a program to send radios to the countryside. We plan to distribute two hundred thousand sets through rural Korea. From here, demand for electricity will grow. It will not shrink."
He paused, then went on.
"We're also moving ahead with a steel mill on the scale of a million tons a year. Once that mill is built, I worry that even the output of a single reactor may not be enough."
Television, radio, and now a steel mill—Kennedy smiled and asked,
"Who's going to push all of that? Do you have a businessman capable of it?"
Chairman Park pointed at Gijo.
"This friend is doing all three. He's my interpreter, and my friend."
Gijo startled at the hand on his shoulder, and at being called a friend. Kennedy looked at him as well.
"A remarkable man. So Korea's Carnegie has been sitting right beside me?"
Everyone laughed at the joke, and Gijo's face went scarlet. But the president who had tossed it off had not been entirely won over. Kennedy asked another question.
"You said the Korean government is short of money. Radios I can grant you—but what money are you using for television?"
He pressed the point as if a plan for an underdeveloped country to stand up a state broadcaster and spread sets nationwide struck him as unrealistic. Chairman Park grinned and told him the inside story of how KBS Television had been founded.
"We bought the equipment with money Kim Il-sung sent us."
At that name, Kennedy's expression shifted into one that asked what on earth he meant.
"We recently arrested a string of spies sent down from the North, and the operational funds they'd brought from Japan were considerable. We used that money to purchase broadcast equipment in the United States."
Kennedy burst out laughing. The notion of underdeveloped Korea funding a television venture by cleaning out spies' operational cash seemed too absurd not to. Chairman Park laughed with him.
Gijo studied the chairman's face as he laughed. A great deal of the tension seemed to have left him.
Chairman Park indicated the cigar Kennedy was smoking.
"Would you mind if I tried a cigar?"
"Please."
Kennedy took a cutter to one of the Cuban cigars he favored, clipped the end himself, and handed it over. The chairman, who had smoked nothing but filter cigarettes, winced for a moment at how harsh the smoke was, then smiled. A restful interval of smoking settled over them of its own accord.
Savoring the cigar, Chairman Park asked,
"Do you know what animal I've raised more of than any other?"
At the question out of nowhere, Kennedy, smoking beside him, asked,
"What did you raise?"
"Chickens."
"Chickens?"
"Yes. Whenever I was transferred in the army, I bought chickens locally and raised them in the yard in front of the official residence."
"Chickens..."
Born to a wealthy house, Kennedy had kept dogs and horses, but never chickens, and he asked why. The chairman answered.
"I kept hens and a rooster, and when they laid I used the eggs at our table. And if a junior officer looked worn out, the next morning I'd take the egg a hen had laid, carry it to work, and give it to him."
Campen, well versed in Korean conditions, added a gloss so the interpretation would land properly.
"Korean officers are paid so little that even field-grade officers commonly go without a meal."
At that, Kennedy shaped a silent What? with his mouth. A field-grade officer going hungry was something America could not even imagine, and it showed.
Chairman Park went on.
"When I was transferred again, I left the pair I'd been raising with the subordinate who had worked the hardest, and I went. Looking back, I think that was the greatest help I was able to give my men."
Kennedy smoked and listened to the story of a soldier who had staged a coup in a poor country.
"I tried other ways of helping subordinates who were poor. Plenty of officers stole army rice to feed their wives and children. Severe punishment never stamped it out, so I simply began giving the men a set amount of rice every day as they left for home."
"Isn't carrying unit rations off post a violation of military law? And didn't the soldiers go hungry by as much as you took out?"
The chairman smiled.
"In the end, they went hungry less. A hungry man who walks into a rice warehouse gets greedy and scoops out a few extra handfuls on his way out. Once I issued a fixed amount matched to the number of dependents on each man's personnel file, the rice in the warehouse dwindled less than before."
Kennedy and everyone else present laughed. It was less a laugh at something truly funny than a laugh of relief.
"In the Korean countryside, when a son or daughter marries, the parents want to give them a pair of chickens—raise them, the thinking goes, and at least keep something on the table. But very few parents can actually manage it."
The others nodded, as if the custom of a poor country made sense.
"If America builds Korea a power plant and a steel mill, it is the same as giving one's child a pair of chickens. Korea will run its factories on electricity from the plant you build, and make bullets from the steel that comes out of the mill. With those bullets, we will take the lead in defending the free world."
Kennedy listened, then smiled.
"So the power plant is the hen, and the steel mill is the rooster?"
"Something like that."
Chairman Park answered with a laugh of his own. Watching the two of them trade jokes over their cigars, Gijo felt his mind ease.
In the original history, Chairman Park had offered Kennedy nothing but stiff, formal words, pressed without pause.
Nothing but dry requests of that kind, driven home one after another, and Kennedy had knocked each of them aside and refused. His line had been consistent: loans could not be extended to countries already receiving aid.
This time the chairman was telling the story of raising chickens, and the two of them were trading jokes. From the way the talks had gone, there seemed to be hope.
For the rest of the meeting he did not hold out his hand to America again. He mostly listened to Kennedy and kept his own words few, as if he felt that begging any further would only backfire. If he could walk away with the power plant and the steel mill, he appeared to judge that a great success in itself.
As the meeting took on the air of winding down, Chairman Park spoke.
"I think I've taken too much of the President's time. I ought to be saying goodbye—but before I leave, might I hear a pleasant answer on the aid I requested?"
"We ought to make promises we can keep, rather than promises we cannot. The truth is, I had been hoping someone might give me something pleasant as well, and with the dispatch of troops to Vietnam, Mr. Chairman, you have done exactly that."
With that, Kennedy proposed they meet once more the next day.
It was the second round of talks Gijo knew of. But a considerable part of what passed in that second meeting lay behind a veil; what Chairman Park and Kennedy had specifically said to each other was never known in any detail. Gijo thought the second meeting would matter more than the first.
The two leaders rose and shook hands, then exchanged greetings with the others present and came out of the White House. As Kennedy saw him off, Chairman Park, seated in the car, asked Gijo,
"How many years does a nuclear plant last?"
"About fifty."
At the answer, the chairman rolled down the window.
"Mr. President, if you decide to build Korea a nuclear plant, I'll name the one you give us the Kennedy Nuclear Plant."
Kennedy, both hands in the pockets of his suit jacket, smiled. To that smile the chairman said,
"In thirty or forty years, neither you nor I will be in this world. But in Korea, the name Kennedy will remain."
Kennedy drew his hands from his pockets, took the hand of the chairman where he sat in the car, and answered.
"I'm grateful you'd say so. But let's talk once more tomorrow."
"Let's. And thank you again for today's hospitality."
When the exchange ended, the car eased forward.
The words Chairman Park had offered Kennedy turned over in Gijo's mind. The claim that neither man would be in this world in thirty or forty years was wrong. Kennedy died two years later. Chairman Park died eighteen years later. Neither of them was a man who could remain in this world for long.