Lyndon Baines Johnson
Library Oral History Collection
Dean Rusk, Secretary of
State -- Interview III, Tape 1 -- 19
Indonesian policy.
I think the most concern we had
over Indonesia had to do with the confrontation with Malaya.
They got into a situation where they were sending guerrillas not only into the
offshore parts of Malaysia over in Borneo, but also in Malay proper, and we
were concerned because Australia and New Zealand had security commitments to
Malaysia and had forces there. Under the Anzus Treaty,
if New Zealand or Australian forces were attacked in the treaty area, and
Malaysia was in the treaty area, that could very likely bring up the obligation
of Anzus and involve the United States and
our commitment to Australia and New Zealand. We tried to point that out to
Sukarno in an effort to cause him to pause. Fortunately with the change in
government in Indonesia, the confrontation came to a close; and that was a
major step forward in the general political security situation in Southeast
Asia.
I’m not one of those who claims that what we
were doing in South Viet Nam made it possible
for Indonesia to turn its policy around. There are some Indonesians
who have commented that the very fact that the United States was present in Viet
Nam and that the Seventh Fleet was there between Indonesia and mainland China
gave them courage to move strongly against the Chinese Communists who were
heavily involved in Indonesia and were participants in that attempted
coup d’etat which led to the turnover in
government, but I think it would be unfortunate for the United States to claim
that what we were doing in Viet Nam was the thing which produced the change in
attitude in Indonesia. I think those changes came about for Indonesian reasons
and not directly because of what we were doing in Viet Nam.
M: I was smiling a minute ago not at your answer,
but at the fact that you seemed to read my mind on these questions. I was just about to open my mouth to ask
the question that you began to answer. Maybe we’ve been at this long enough
that I can just turn the machine on and let you go on. What about Korea?
I gather that this is one of the instances where there was a real personal
rapport between President Johnson and President Park that
contributed a great deal to the success of our relations in Korea. Is that
accurate?
R: Yes. President Johnson had a great respect
for President
Park and for good
reason. President Park,
under great difficulties, had brought Korea along in remarkable
progress, economically and socially and politically. He was tough in defense of
the interests of South Korea but was reasonable and balanced and was
not provocative or militant in his general attitude toward North Korea. He
took a responsible attitude toward such questions as Southeast Asia. He
seemed to be willing to play a role that reflected Korea’s gratitude for
the assistance it had had from the United States back in
1950. His willingness to put two divisions of South Korean troops
into Southeast Asia was welcomed by President Johnson. South Korea had
no treaty obligation to do so. It was not a member of SEATO, and when he made
it clear that he was prepared to take part in that struggle down there, this of
course touched President Johnson very deeply. And the Koreans turned out to be
very good fighters in South Viet Nam, as they turned out to be by the end
of the Korean War in their own country. But there was a personal
rapport between President Johnson and President Park.
M: When did the renewed tensions along the
armistice line in Korea become serious again?
R: I think that we began to be freshly concerned
in 1967 when the rate of infiltration seemed to increase
significantly. And when the North Korean leaders began making
militant speeches about unifying the country by 1970 and making very bellicose
statements about their own policy and attitude, we became very much concerned
because we had fifty thousand American troops in Korea.
We had a very flat and direct security treaty
with Korea. A renewal of the Korean War would be something that
we would look upon with the greatest dismay because we had enough of a struggle
going on in Southeast Asia, We didn’t want a
second struggle up in Korea. It was rather courageous on the part of
President Park to put two divisions of his own troops into South Viet Nam at a
time when he was having infiltration problems with the North Koreans, and when
the North Koreans were talking in a very belligerent mood, but he went ahead
and did it. But throughout ‘67 and ‘68 we were very much concerned
about North Korea.
M: Was the Pueblo incident a
calculated part of this, do you think, or was that just an aberration that was
unrelated to their troubles with South Korea?
R: I will never fully understand just why the
North Koreans seized the Pueblo. It’s one of those situations where a
small belligerent country can act with a lack of responsibility simply because
other countries don’t want war. The Pueblo was in international waters. It was
there to do some listening on communications in North Korea. We had an
interest in picking up as much intelligence as could out of North Korea because
of the belligerency of North Korea towards South Korea and the increase of
infiltration into South Korea, but we were relying upon the high seas, the
freedom of the seas—
M: There was never a doubt about its
location? R: Oh, no, never a doubt about its location. As a matter
of fact, in the communications which the North Koreans themselves flashed back
from the scene, they even put the position further out on the high seas than we
did so they knew they were on the high seas. And when I say high seas, I mean
beyond their own twelve-mile limit. M: Yes, their definition of high
seas.
R: And not just beyond our three-mile limit. But
that was a very unhappy episode from beginning to end. M: That’s Presidential
from the beginning, I expect. What was Mr. Johnson’s reaction to that?
R: He was, of course, furious with the North
Koreans, and like me [he] failed to understand just why they went out of their
way to be so disagreeable about it. Nevertheless President Johnson did not want
a war with North Korea. He made a prompt decision to try to get the ship
and its men back by diplomatic means rather than by military means. We were
faced with the fact that if you tried to use military force to rescue the men
you might pick up dead bodies, but you wouldn’t pick up live men and that you
might well start a war at a time when we didn’t want a war between North and
South Korea involving American forces. So we decided to swallow hard
and try to get these men back by diplomatic means, and that took a great deal
of doing. We had meeting after meeting that made no progress; and we finally
released the men by a device which I described at the time as being without
precedent in international affairs. We signed a statement which the North
Koreans insisted we sign, but at the very time we signed it we made a statement
saying that we denounced the signature and the statement itself was false.
M: They knew you were going to make this
statement? R: They knew in advance that we were going to make that
statement. This had been worked out in advance. It’s as though a kidnapper
kidnaps your child and asks for fifty thousand dollars ransom. You give him a
check for fifty thousand dollars and you tell him at the time that you’ve stopped
payment on the check, and then he delivers your child to you. I think probably
what happened was that the North Koreans came to the conclusion that they had
milked the Pueblo affair for all that was in it, and that there was no
particular point in holding on to these men any further. M: The
Russians didn’t play any constructive role--? R: I think it’s
possible that the Russians played a mediating role in that situation. We have
no way of knowing. We asked the Russians on several occasions to use their
influence with North Korea to free these men and the ship, but we
never knew just what they did by way of follow-up on it.
M: Did we have to act to restrain the South
Koreans in that atmosphere [when] under renewed infiltration, the attack on the
Blue House, and the seizure of the Pueblo all sort of came together?
R: The South Koreans were interested in what
might be called close-in retaliation, but I never got the impression that the
South Koreans wanted to go into full-scale war. So to the extent that it was
necessary to restrain them, it wasn’t a very difficult job because they were
not itching for war, either. They did get very incensed about the Blue House
raid and about other types of infiltration that were coming across. There were
times when they would carry out retaliation against North Korea by counterraids without our permission, and so we had a
little job at times of cooling them down a bit and restraining them from these
retaliations which they were inclined to pull off.
M: Mr. Johnson talked about the concept of
regionalism in Asia. Was there any basis in Asia for
the development of that regionalism, or was that something that we pretty well
had to impose ourselves upon them?
R: No, one of the very
encouraging developments in Asia during
this period of the South Vietnamese conflict
was that the
nations in Asia during this period of
the South Vietnamese
conflict was that the nations
in Asia themselves began to