Panel V The Two Koreas and the United Nations Chair: Sun Jounyung Provocateurs: James Hershberg, Hong Seukryule SUN: I present to you a chronology of some of the events which had taken place during the designated period, which are interrelated in one way or another. Th e Nixon Doctrine in 1969, which was followed by the withdrawal of 20,000 U.S. troops from South Korea, and then the PRC’s—China’s—return to the United Nations in October 1971 and the assumption of the position as one of the fi ve permanent members of the Security Council. In February 1973, the South Korean government formally announced its abandonment of the Hallstein Doctrine. And then in June 1973, President Park Chung Hee announced the so-called June 23 Declaration, whereby South Korea proclaimed that it would seek diplomatic rela- tionship with states having diff erent political ideologies and/or social orientations, and also a willingness to have both Koreas enter the United Nations as separate entities. And of course, the next day Kim Il Sung rejected South Korea’s off er to enter the United Nations as separate entities, because that would, from North Korea’s perspective, perpetuate the division of the Korean Peninsula. And there’s one event which is very meaningful: the off ensive made by North Korea on multilateral fronts rather than on bilateral fronts. Th at is to say, late in 1973, North Korea applied for membership in the UN specialized agency, the WHO [World Health Organization], but the South Korean government was not prepared for such a sudden off ensive coming from North Korea, so the South Korean government was convinced that the monopoly of South Korea’s mem- bership in specialized agencies would continue even though the challenges from North Korea came. But without knowing the rules of procedure at the time, at the 105 PANEL V: THE TWO KOREAS AND THE UNITED NATIONS fi nal stage, the USSR proposed a secret vote, so South Korea was caught off -guard, and then the admission of North Korea to the WHO was realized. Th at was really a serious blow and a shock to the South Korean government, which did not know that North Korea would come forward on the multilateral organization front. Furthermore, if I am to be brief, in 1975 so many things happened at the same time or consecutively: the U.S. was pulling out from Vietnam, the collapse of South Vietnam took place in the Spring of 1975, then North Korea was admit- ted to the Non-Aligned Movement at the Coordinating Committee of the Non- Aligned Movement in the wake of the fall of South Vietnam, and then North Korea moved forward and became a full member of the Non-Aligned Movement, while South Korea was defeated in at the Lima, Peru meeting. And for the fi rst time in the history of the United Nations, two resolutions, respectively, represent- ing South Korea’s position and North Korea’s position, two resolutions were ad- opted at the United Nations. Of course this was an anomaly and at the same time represented the change of the situation in favor of North Korea in the wake of the fall of South Vietnam and the admission of North Korea to the Non-Aligned Movement. So I will stop here and I would like to invite Professor Hershberg to be the fi r s t p r o v o c a t e u r. HERSHBERG: My assignment is to be a provocateur on issues relating to the United Nations and the Korean question. I also want to use the United Nations issue as sort of a stand-in for the international system and the international con- text in which this Korean story takes place and to raise also a couple of broader is- sues for the participants who were focused very much on the Korean subject. Th is is a very emblematic representative example of something that pops up repeatedly throughout the Cold War, and now in teaching and writing of Cold War history, of a regional dispute or crisis that takes place in the context of broader Cold War issues. And it’s obviously a mistake to simply attribute what happens in a regional context to the East-West relationship, or in this case, to triangular relationships, but also it is myopic simply to focus on regional dynamics while not examining its interrelationship with the Cold War and broader international aff airs dynamics. Yet it is a sort of vacuous truism to say they’re both important. Th e challenge is to 106 THE RISE AND FALL OF DÉTENTE ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA, 1970-1974 understand the relative weight and the interaction between these diff erent levels of understanding, these diff erent narratives of history. And so moving to the United Nations, as a sort of a stand-in for the broader Cold War and triangular relation- ship context of this story, I would be very interested if some of those who were deeply involved in the Korean story would comment on how much weight Cold War historians should give to the Korean dynamic as compared to the broader international aff airs context. Is this a development in terms of the Korean-Korean dialogue and some of the other shifts in that relationship that would have taken place anyway regardless of some of the more dramatic breakthroughs in terms of the Sino-American opening and the emergence of the more full-blown U.S.-Soviet détente? Or did these take place more or less solely in the context and as a result of the Sino-American shock in the summer of 1971, and closely related to develop- ments on that broader sphere? Also, I think the most fascinating story or moment in this United Nations story is President Park’s new approach of June 23, 1973, reversing decades of policy and supporting the idea of joint membership for North and South Korea. Th ere’s another source that I just want to point out to you, anyone who was in Washington or in the United States would remember that the entire country was obsessed with something very diff erent which probably accounts for how little general attention was played to this. Th is was the same week that John Dean began testifying before the Irving Committee on the Watergate Aff air and the country was entirely riveted. However, Alexander Butterfi eld did not reveal the existence of the White House tapes until two weeks later, July 14, 1973, to be specifi c. So it would be very easy to check the very detailed outlines of the White House tapes to see to what extent there was any discussion in the White House of President Park’s very dramatic policy shift. Th ose tapes should exist. Whether they penetrated Richard Nixon or Henry Kissinger’s consciousness if they were discussed would be very interesting. Now, of course, this brings to a broader issue the question of the Park initiative and why it failed. When I teach Cold War History classes I tell my students who weren’t lucky enough to have lived through the Cold War like many of us were that if they wanted to feel what the Cold War felt like there are only two places left to do really it; one is Korea and one is Cuba. Th ose confrontations, of course, were 107 PANEL V: THE TWO KOREAS AND THE UNITED NATIONS not resolved during the détente period, but both have fascinating stories largely hidden of attempts to normalize those disputes or at least U.S. relations, both with Cuba and North Korea. And of course that would have been the eff ect to some extent of North Korea accepting that initiative. And one thing that would be fascinating to explore further is to get more Soviet and Chinese sources to see, did they automatically back Kim Il Sung’s rejection of Park’s initiative? I mean within ten hours the documents show Kim rejected that, talked only about North Korea joining the United Nations as part of a united Korea. Implicitly he confessed error because eighteen years later of course the two Koreas did join the United Nations at the end of the Cold War. Was this a matter of disagreement? Was this a matter of discussion? Of course it’s hard to tell what was going on inside the black box of Pyongyang, but there is a record of the Soviets and to some extent the Chinese not being thrilled with everything that Kim Il Sung was pushing. It would be fascinating to see if that was the case. And there’s another interesting context to raise, which is the story of divided nations during the Cold War and UN membership. Now of course Park’s initiative takes place in the context of the German-German agreement for the two Germanys to enter the UN and that is fascinating to compare. But also sort of a footnote to the Vietnam War is that in 1957 the Soviet Union proposed simul- taneous entry into the UN for both South and North Vietnam, and Hanoi was absolutely furious at this and the Soviets had to back pedal and drop the proposal. Did they learn a lesson? Did they not even question this? In other words should this be regarded in the Soviet bloc as a missed opportunity for North Korea to gain the international legitimacy, in some respects, that it craves to this day, and has said as indicated is its main objective? Th at brings another provocation to all of the participants, especially the Koreans; what did the United Nations mean at this point? When the story starts, the U.S.