No War, No Peace

Sprawling beneath the new two-story observation tower atop North Mountain, the South Korean capital of Seoul throbs in the midst of a boom that can be seen as well as heard. Skeletons of new office buildings and hotels crosshatch the horizons, schools are going up, black factory smoke fouls the air and a new four-lane expressway slashes through the heart of the city. Restaurants and bars are jammed with cheerful, garlic-reeking patrons. Mini-skirts and bell-bottoms are part of the scene at O.B.'s Cabin, where Seoul's students listen to guitar-plucking folk singers.

The view from North Mountain is optimistic--until the visitor spots the signs warning: "Photography Prohibited." The reason? The mountain's northern slopes, facing the Demilitarized Zone 25 miles away, are pockmarked with carefully camouflaged bunkers and lookout posts. Should the North Koreans break through at the border once more as they did in 1950, North Mountain would be part of Seoul's last line of defense.

Missiles in the Hills. North to the DMZ, the roads are dotted by a series of heavily guarded military checkpoints. In the surrounding hills, thousands of troops are emplaced to block the traditional north-south invasion route. Along the 151-mile-long DMZ itself, more than 300,000 U.S., South Korean and allied troops stand guard, backed by a layer of Hawk and Nike Hercules antiaircraft missiles.

The 18-mile-long sector held by troops of the U.S. 2nd (Indianhead) Division lies athwart the probable path of any infantry thrust at Seoul. "There they are, right in the way if the bastards decide to come on over," says an American colonel at the headquarters of the U.S.-U.N. military mission. "Once something starts, we are at war. We will have no time to ask whether we want to be in this war at this time, because American troops are going to be fighting for their lives." It has been argued that the G.I.s should be replaced by South Korean troops, but Colonel Wallace Magathan, deputy commander of the 2nd Division, says that the presence of American troops on the DMZ underscores the American commitment to South Korean security. "We're still not in a state of peace," he adds.

Guerrilla Threat. South Koreans are just as aware of that unhappy fact. North Korea's armed forces of 345,000 men are well trained and well armed. Constant attempts to infiltrate are made through the DMZ and along the coastline, both to terrorize the populace and to try to set off a guerrilla war in the south. In reply, South Korea maintains an armed force of 600,000, the world's fifth largest. Despite Seoul's complaints that its U.S.-supplied weapons are becoming increasingly outmoded, there is no doubt about the army's fighting spirit: the two ROK divisions in Viet Nam have compiled an impressive record. The army is backed up by the 2,500,000-man Homeland Reserve Force, formed last year and composed of army veterans who undergo intensive drills at least twice a week at their factories or offices. With the national police, the reserves share primary responsibility for the defense of villages, towns and cities. Because rifles and carbines are in short supply, however, more than half the reserves drill with wooden guns.

Despite military pressures, South Korea is booming. The gross national product spurted ahead by 13.1% last year. Exports totaled $455 million, compared with $33 million in 1960, and the 1971 target is $1 billion.

The Real Targets. Strong, prospering and politically stable under the government of President Chung Hee Park, South Koreans nonetheless worry about national morale. North Korea's downing of the U.S. EC-121 electronic intelligence plane two weeks ago set off cries for quick retaliation. Kim Chai Soon, spokesman for the ruling Democratic Republican Party, says that "the U.S. should have at least bombed the North Korean air base from which the MIGs took off to attack the plane."

That is a sentiment most South Koreans share. They know that what really animates North Korea's hatred of the U.S. is the American defense of South Korea, and that they are the real targets of Pyongyang's aggression. Any military humiliation of the U.S. is a humiliation of South Korea as well--and could, if repeated often enough, eventually undermine the government's credibility with South Korea's peasants.

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