The Marmot’s Hole

Sperwer

do we think that whatever wickham says will actually be protrayed in the movie? i sense that it will still show the US in a negative light

Of course not. CJ’s gambit was a PR ploy designed to generate some pre-opening buzz about the movie by creating a current news item out of something that’s actually old news (at least as old the publication of Wickham’s book in 2000 and, arguably, as old as 5/18 itself).

The mere fact that CJ determined, correctly as it turned out, that their solicitation of Wickham to reiterate what’s been said by him and others too numerous times to mention would elicit the sort of knee jerk reaction in Korea that it has speaks volumes about the persistence and depth of anti-US sentiment as a central component of Korean socio-cultural-political discourse.

Sperwer

I found my copy of Gleysteen’s “Massive Entanglement, Marginal Influence”. Here’s what he has to say on the topic at hand in a nutshell:

The basic source of controversy about the U.S. role in Kwangju was the widespread public assumption that General Wickham in his capacity as head of the Combined Forces Command must have known about the deployment of Korean army troops in the Kwangju region and approved their role. In fact, none of the Korean forces involved in the mayhem on May 18-21 were under Wickham’s operational control. Nor did he or I have any knowledge of what those forces would be ordered to do.

Sperwer

I also heard repeatedly that Wickham and Chun absolutely did not see eye-to-eye, as Wickham was pissed at Chun for commandeering CP Tango for use in the 12-12 coup. Rumor has it that after that they never met or spoke face-to-face.

The first clause of the first sentence is correct. But while Wickham undoubtedly was angry about the perpetrators of the coup commandeering CP Tango, the roots of his disapproval of Chun and gang run very much deeper in the seam of principle. This is clear from his book, in which he recounts some of his admonitions to Chun about various matters, including Kwangju, in the various face-to-face meetings they had commencing in February 1980 when, with Ambassador Gleysteen’s concurrence, he finally agreed to meet Chun after deliberately cold-shouldering him in the immediate aftermath of the coup. This was the first of many meetings thereafter stemming from what Wickham describes as a mutual desire to have regular contact; (in an unusual display of diplo-speak, Wickham also says his discussion was “frank and cordial” - I guess he means the kind of “cordiality” that accompanies “frank” discusssions with someone with whom you have serious disagreements.) He met with him in March too, and then again on May 13th, just before leaving for the trip to the States that had Wickham out of Korea when 5/18 occured - when according to the prevailing Korean folklore he was actively abetting or neglecting his duty to prevent the use of the Korean military to put down the protestors. In retropect, the most interestingly provocative aspect of Wickham’s report of his meeting with Chun on May 13th was his account of Chun’s Baduk-like rant about the infiltration of the colleges by communists and his claim that the North was orchestrating an incident that would topple ROKGOV and, in Chun’s words, provide “the decisive moment that North Korea has waited patiently for since the armistice in 1953″ - much as the death of a student in 1960 sparked the movement that led to the fall of the Rhee regime. As reported by both Wickham and Gleysteen, because of the absence of any corroborating intelligence generated by US and Japanese sources and, at least in Wickham’s case, a preoccupation with his duties as military commander and preparations for his trip to the US for consultations about the the military situation vis-a-vis the NORKS, neither Wickham or Gleysteen seemed to have given Chun’s remarks any particular credence or significance. I don’t mean to suggest that they are grist for the conspiracy theorists who claim that Chun & Co. themselves deliberately provoked and stoked the demos to justify a crackdown under cover of anti-communism in order to cow the bulk of the Korean population into acquiescing to their rule, knowing they could not otherwise gain legitimacy. But perhaps if their antennae had been a bit more finely-tuned, they later would not have been so shocked at the incipient Chun regime’s later conduct. Hindsight, naturally is 20/20, though, so that’s not meant as a criticism, particularly as (considering the constraints imposed by respect for Korean sovereignity) it’s not likely to have enabled them to take any action other than what they did - except perhaps better to have avoided the Chun regime’s efforts to ensnare the US in its efforts to suggest that its conduct was condoned by the US.