Wave of Provocation

SOUTH KOREA

Outside the official armistice meeting hall in Panmunjom, a bullet-riddled truck and some bloodstained clothing were put on display last week in mute testimony to North Korea's latest truce violations. A band of ten North Korean soldiers had ambushed the truck 1 mile south of the Demilitarized Zone, killing two American and two South Korean soldiers. Before the week was out, the North Koreans had made two more attacks on allied forces at the DMZ, killing two more South Koreans.

The incidents were part of a growing pattern of provocation and violence by the North -- and as such, a major reason for President Chung Hee Park's trip to Honolulu last week to meet with President Johnson. In private conversations attended only by the two Presidents and their interpreters, Johnson briefed Park on U.S. plans for peace talks on Viet Nam, apparently convinced him that the U.S. intends neither to make reckless concessions to the Communists nor to leave South Korea. Their joint communique noted President Park's "satisfaction with these developments."

Sea & Air. Over the past few months, North Korea has speeded up the recruitment and training of its 1,200,000-man "People's Militia," massed most of its 340,000-man army in the southern part of the country, and organized a special 20,000-man commando force for sabotage and guerrilla warfare missions over the border. It has launched 321 raids in the past year, a 600% increase over the year before. One such mission was designed to assassinate Park, but it failed (TIME, Feb. 2); not long after, the U.S.S. Pueblo was hijacked. The South does not expect a full-scale invasion, but it believes that the current raids are part of a gathering spring offensive that is aimed at undermining South Korean confidence and morale.

To help Park meet the threat, Special U.S. Envoy Cyrus Vance visited Seoul last February and promised to give Park $100 million in additional U.S. military aid this year on top of the normal $160 million. Drawing on this new account, Park is organizing a 2,500,000-man reserve that, on call, will help to patrol the coast, operate ground-surveillance radar stations and perform other such duties. He is also trying to modernize the country's 600,000-man armed forces, replacing World War II rifles with the new M16, buying U.S. helicopters for better troop mobility and adding new tanks.

South Korea will receive its first U.S. destroyer this month, the second by the end of the year. At a special meeting in Washington next month between the U.S. and South Korean defense ministers. South Korea hopes to persuade the U.S. to provide two more destroyers, plus a fleet of speedy (30 to 40 knots) patrol boats that can keep up with the fast Soviet engines that power the North Korean spy boats along the coast. Park is also pressing the U.S. to provide faster planes. Right now, his air force has 300 fighters, mostly F-86 Sabre jets, compared with North Korea's 450 fighters, most of which are MIG-15s and MIG-17s, with a sprinkling of MIG-21s. While South Korea awaits a promised squadron of Phantom F-4Cs, the U.S. has rushed 230 of its own fighter-bombers--mostly Phantoms and F106 Delta Darts--to five South Korean bases, expanded its air force personnel in South Korea from 5,000 to 7,000 and established an advance base of the U.S. Fifth Air Force at Osan. The U.S. still has 50,000 Army troops stationed in South Korea.

United in Hatred. South Korea's second line of defense--and the real thorn in North Korea's side--is the continued strength of its economy. Despite the disruptions of war, the South Korean economy continues to grow at a rate of 12% a year. Foreign investors are flocking into Seoul and the countryside, including Motorola (electronic circuits), IBM (computers), and Fairchild Camera (transistors). Though U.S. aid still braces the Korean budget, the aid figure has dropped from $110 million in 1966 to $70 million last year. Within the next two or three years, South Korea expects to be economically on its own.

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