Kim Jong Un Is a God in North Korea - by James Clapper
In his new memoir, Clapper recalls his time as a brigadier general serving in South Korea, where he got a good look at the paranoid, trigger-happy Hermit Kingdom.
JAMES R. CLAPPER
06.01.18 4:45 AM ET
That December [1984] the Air Force published the names of those nominated for promotion to brigadier general, and I was on the list. I was shocked. My parents and family were very proud, and Sue and Andy got ready to move again. I anticipated returning to the Pentagon as the deputy to the Air Force assistant chief of staff for intelligence, since that position was vacant, but then we got a second surprise: The Air Force was assigning me to be chief of intelligence for US forces in South Korea. My first thought was an old saying I’d heard from my dad: “There are four things in life you want to avoid: pyorrhea, diarrhea, gonorrhea, and Korea,” but I learned just how little influence brigadier general selects have over their destinies.
I reported to Seoul in June 1985 and quickly discovered the obvious— although the position in South Korea was designated for an Air Force officer, it was a job much better suited to an Army officer. It was a humbling experience as a new brigadier general to ask my team of Army colonels to mentor me on things like how to properly roll up the sleeves on my camouflage battle dress uniform. They also helped with Army slang and terminology used around the post, where initially I was almost as lost as I had been when I first reported to Tan Son Nhut Air Base as a lieutenant. I found that I was not just the senior intelligence officer for US forces, but also the deputy to a Korean Air Force two-star in the US–South Korea Combined Forces Command, someone who knew very little about intelligence and was looking to me for guidance. Fortunately, both of the Republic of Korea (ROK) generals whom I served as deputy were capable, smart, and easy to work with, and we eventually found our way.
My “big boss,” Commander of US Forces Korea, Army four-star general Bill Livsey, had been a lieutenant platoon leader with the 3rd Infantry Division during the Korean War and dug in on the front line when the armistice took effect on July 27, 1953. He knew his business and suffered no fools. He was salty, and in the tradition of General George Patton, excelled at colorful profanity when the occasion called for it. On day one, he made it very clear that the Korean War had never formally ended, the 1953 armistice was just a cease-fire agreement, and North Korea could, and would, invade the South if given the opportunity. From that premise, he gave me his very clear expectations for intelligence. He demanded forty-eight hours of warning ahead of a North Korean attack to give him time to activate the operations plan for the defense of the peninsula and to evacuate all US dependents in South Korea. And because taking those irrevocable actions would have huge diplomatic consequences for the United States and major political implications for the ROK, Livsey required a forty-eight-hour “unambiguous” warning—we had to know for certain that an attack was imminent, and not a bluff or a feint. General Livsey was not one for subtle nuance.
Andy enrolled at the Seoul American High School, whose wonderful principal, Sue Jackson, delivered a classic line at our first parents’ town hall: “I’ll make a deal with all of you. We’ll take with a grain of salt any stories we hear about what happens at home, if you take with a grain of salt any stories you hear about what happens at school.” We found the South Koreans generously warm and hospitable, somehow discovering our preferences and catering to them without our asking, and on our birthdays, sending enough flowers to make our house look and smell like a funeral home. As an eighth-grader, Andy took the subway in Seoul alone without our ever worrying, and we’ve always joked that Sue earned her black belt in shopping in Seoul’s famous Itaewon shopping area, not far from the Yongsan Army garrison where we were stationed in Seoul.
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