From the early days of his administration, president Park Chung-hee pushed the dispatch of Korean troops to Vietnam to get U.S. aid and simultaneously bring economic growth and greater security. The dossier shows Korean authorities anticipating a formal request for combat troops from the U.S. well in advance.

A Cheong Wa Dae report dated Jan. 6, 1965 is particularly revealing of the hairy calculations involved. Political affairs secretary Yang Dal-seung said in the report titled "Issues to be considered about sending troops to Vietnam" that the U.S. request after a visit by president Park to Germany seemed intended as a test of Korea's loyalty to Washington. He said the U.S. was trying to replace its own ground forces with Korean and Filipino troops to get out of a war that was being criticized both in the America and abroad. At the end of the report, president Park scribbled a note that reads, "The dispatch of troops may be unavoidable, but we'll send volunteers and make sure we get sufficient compensation."

The government also hoped to use its troop contribution as leverage in the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) negotiations, which had been fraught with difficulties since their start in 1962. In March 1965, one month after Korea sent its 2,000-man non-combat "Dove Company" to Vietnam, ambassador to the U.S. Kim Hyeon-cheol asked U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Earle G. Wheeler whether Washington would ask Korea to send combat troops as well, and whether it was thinking of building a base for U.S. nuclear submarines in Korea.

Asked in the 1970 Symington hearings about Park's attitude to storage of nuclear weapons in South Korea, U.S. ambassador to Korea William J. Porter testified Park had said he would permit it if Washington said it was necessary to protect the interests of both countries. Korea’s reward in March 1966 was the "Brown Memorandum," which listed U.S. plans for economic and military aid, including materiel and loans to modernize Korea’s military equipment.

Seoul had maintained troops in Vietnam at about 50,000 but started considering a withdrawal following U.S. plans for withdrawals of its own in the wake of president Richard Nixon's "Vietnamization" policy. The Korean Marine Corps' Second Brigade, the "Blue Dragon Company", was the first to pull out by April 1972 after Park announced a phased withdrawal of troops in his New Year's address on Jan. 11, 1971. But initial plans to withdraw all troops by the end of 1972 were delayed due to opposition from the United States and South Vietnam and would have to wait until March 1973.

South Vietnamese foreign minister Tran Van Lam visited Korea on June 15, 1972, carrying a letter from South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu asking Park to delay the withdrawal of Korean troops. The notes from Lam's meeting with Park record that when Lam expressed gratitude to the president for "keeping Korean troops in Vietnam until 1973," Park replied, "Did you say 1973?"

(englishnews@chosun.com )