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Permission for reprinting granted on request. Please address inquiries to InforJM. tion Services, AlOOrican Friends Service Committee, 160 N. 15th St., Philadelphia, Fa. 19102 I. - CONTENTSTHE AMERICAN UTILIZATION OF SOUTH KOREAN TROOPS IN VIETNAM Frank Baldwin 1 II. ALLIES CALLED KOREANS - A REPORT FROM VIETNAM 17 his PhD at Columbia University and taught Korean history, language and politics there from 1968 to 1972. He is currently a free lance writer and translator in Tokyo. 01 AN E & M I CHAE L JON ES are graduates of Reed College and served with the Peace Corps in Southeast Asia. They worked as Saigon Representatives for the American Friends Service Committee from 1970¡¤72 and again in 1973¡¤74 . THE AMERICAN UTILIZATION OF SOUTH KOREAIJ TROOPS 11 VIETNAM By Frank Baldwin •THE AMERICAN UTILIZATION OF SOUTH KOREAN TROOPS IN VIETNAM by Frank Baldwin South Korea's role in the Indochina War - providing an expeditionary force of over three hundred thousand combat troops and unremitting hawkish support for U. S. actions - illustrates two features of the war. The first was the benighted American attempt to inter¡¤ nationalize the war as a cover for U. S. intervention. The second was the American utilization of Third Country Military Forces (TCMF), generally completely and secretly financed and equ ipped by the United States, to supplement U. S. ground forces. 1 Both aspects of U. S. strategy related to a principal objective of the Johnson and Nixon administrations in American domestic politics: to delay or prevent public perception of the real nature of the war and the acts of the U. S. government. The employment of Republic of Korea (R.O.K.) forces in Vietnam was an important element of the U. S. intervention. The South Korean forces have been called mercenaries, not only by anti-war critics but even by the American officials who sponsored the South Korean role in the war.2 While the R.O.K. expeditionary force was the result of diverse factors, including the security requirements and anti-communism of South Korea and American pressure, the appellation of mercenary cannot be avoided. However, what word or words suffice to describe the employers of mercenaries? If mercenaries are to be shunned and loathed as hired killers, how should we regard the men who hire the guns? This question should plague Americans because the R.O.K. expeditionary force and other TCMFs were recruited by the cream of the liberal Establishment from 1964 to 1968 and were retained in Vietnam for over four years more by the successor conservative elite. The American and South Korean governments constantly concealed, censored, and lied about the U. S. utilization of R.O.K. forces in Vietnam. The Johnson administration deceived the Congress and the American people to put the South Korean troops there from 1965 to 1967. The Nixon administration covered up information on South Korean atrocities. The R.O.K. government told its people hardly anything about the role of its forces in Vietnam, not even the number of casualties they were suffering, until the statistics were revealed by the U. S. Congress in 1970. Through terror and propaganda the R.O.K. government kept its people ignorant of the atrocities committed by Korean forces and the opprobrium heaped on South Korea for its role in the war. The U. S. began supporting foreign troops in Vietnam in 1950. By March 31,1954, the U. S. had allocated $785 million for "budgetary support" to help with the "pay, food, and allowances" for the French Expeditionary Force (FE F). Another $440 million in military equipment had been provided.3 Actually, the FEF had "relatively few Frenchmen" and was composed mainly of the Foreign Legion, Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians and Senegalese.4 The U. S. also paid for Chinese Nationalist pilots to fly U. S. C-119s on combat missions in Vietnam5 and sought to recruit Germans for Foreign Legion service in Indochina. 6 U. S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles tried to internationalize the war in April, 1954, by forming a coalition of the United States, England, France, the Associated States (Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam), Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines to intervene in Vietnaml This effort failed 8 but after the Vietnamese victory at Dien Bien 3 Phu, Dulles succeeded in establishing the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization SEATO) as an arrangement for internationalizing the war and sanctioning U. S. military intervention if necessary.9 In 1964 massive, direct intervention became necessary. SEATO was ineffective, however, and could provide only a weak legal rationalization for U. S. actions; the organization never took important military or political collective action. Therefore, in November 1964 the Johnson administration developed a hasty strategy with military/diplomatic elements: a "More Flags" campaign to involve additional countries in South Vietnam on an ad hoc basis. "More Flags" was intended to establish a pragmatic justification for U. S. intervention - the visible, committed presence of allies who would associate themselves with U. S. actions in Vietnam, militarily, if only in a token way, and diplomatically. Allies would be the functional equivalent of collective action by SEATO or the United Nations. Their major political value to the Johnson administration was to make it appear that U. S. intervention had broad international support. The U. S. tried in 1964 and 1965 by appeals, threats, aid and monetary inducements to involve European and other governments in Vietnam. The diplomatic blitzkreig failed. lO The strategy to internationalize the war resulted in troop commitments by only a few governments: Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, and the Republic of Korea. The South Korean Expeditionary Force in Vietnam South Korea was receptive to the 1964 U. S. appeal and made one of the few "meaningful commitments." South Korean troop deployments to Vietnam were made in four major increments as shown in Table 1. Each was secretly arranged by the United States, although American and South Korean officials conspired to maintain the public appearance that the original requests came from South Vietnam. In February 1965, carefully maintaining the ruse that the request had initiated from the R.V.N., the R.O.K. sent two thousand non-combat medical and engineer troops to Vietnam. These forces, coyly designated the "Dove Unit," were to be a preparatory and humane cosmetic for the subsequent introduction of thousands of South Korean combat troops. President Johnson "noted with deep appreciation the contribution of the Republic of Korea towards the defense of Viet-Nam."ll The U. S. effort to introduce South Korean and other foreign troops into Vietnam in April 1965 met unexpected resistance, not from the "allies" but from the Vietnamese themselves. Chester Cooper has written that "one of the more exasperating aspects" of the U. S. attempt to involve other countries in Vietnam was "the lassitude, even disinterest of the Saigon government." Saigon saw the program as "a public relations campaign directed at the American people.',12 For once Saigon was correct. On April 15, 1965, Washington instructed Ambassador Taylor in Saigon to "discuss with GVN introduction of R.O.K. regimental combat teams and suggest GVN request such a force ASAP.,,13 Taylor, somewhat startled by the rapidity of Washington's buildup and introduction of foreign troops, reported that South Vietnam would not welcome R.O.K. troops. Taylor cabled the State Department on April 17 that "it is not QoinQ to be easv to 1964³âºÎÅÍ70³âµµ±î Áö±â·Ï´ë¿©ÀÖ½À´Ï´Ù. ÀαÝÀλóºÐÀ» ÅÍÇØ¾ß ¸Â¾Æµé¾î°©´Ï´Ù. ±âº»±ÝÀÔ´Ï´Ù. ¹ø¿ª ÀßÇϽŠ¾ßÀÎÀü¿ì´Ô ¹ø¿ªÇѹøÇÏ¿© º¸½ÃÁö¿ä? |
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