On Major Tae’s calendar hanging on his Quonset hut office wall, beneath the old black-and-white of him as a young ROK lieutenant in the honor guard for JFK, Major Tae had marked the next day, August 15, in red: Liberation or Independence Day for the South. Apart from Chusok (Thanksgiving), Independence Day was the most important holiday of the year, full of parades, color, and pride as dancers in traditional costumes, exotic dragons, and military march-pasts celebrated not only the republic’s birth in 1945 after thirty-five years of Japanese occupation, but also South Korea’s astonishing progress in the league of industrial nations.
Turning his gaze from his sector of the two-and-a-half-mile-wide demilitarized zone that snaked for 152 miles west to east, the small, slim, immaculately uniformed ROK intelligence officer for Panmunjom pushed the “play” button on his VCR to watch a rerun of the day’s meeting, the 917th between the North Koreans and the UN delegation since the cease-fire way back in 1953. Flipping open his notepad, he prepared to take direct quotes from the North Korean delegation, part of his daily report to ROK-U.S. HQ in Seoul.
The meeting had started badly, the tension from the long-forgotten war in which fifty-four thousand Americans and three million Koreans had died as palpable as the muggy summer heat that hung low and sullenly, smelling of dung, in the valley around Panmunjom. As the first frames flickered on the TV screen, the North Korean delegation was already in the process of accusing the UN commission of the “ninety-eight thousand one hundred and fifty-third ‘violation’ “ of the DMZ. Apparently a child’s kite, its string broken, had been found by the North Koreans on their side of the DMZ twenty-five miles east of Panmunjom, near what on the Americans’ map was called Pork Chop Hill. The aides to the head of the North Korean delegation, Major General Kim, were charging that a microcamera had been found mounted under the kite “to take pictures of ‘militarily sensitive areas’ in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”
“That is ridiculous,” replied the UN head of the commission, U.S. Army Gen. George C. Cahill, who sat in the middle on the south side of the long, emerald-baize-covered truce table, his arms folded, right forefinger hooked about the stem of a briar pipe. Unlike the red and blue circle of the South’s flag, its halves joining, a symbol of harmonious duality between opposites— the um and the yang, male and female, night and day, fire and water — everything in the negotiating room stood in hostile opposition to one another. The uniforms alone were strikingly different: The NKA’s — North Korean Army’s — General Kim and his four-man contingent, sitting rigidly on the northern side of the table, were in stiff, high-necked white summer uniforms with red and yellow collar tabs. Kim was unblinking, his only discernible movement a short, studied ejection of a Sobrainie cigarette butt from a white bone holder before lighting another, acrid bluish smoke rising and curling back off the ceiling. Opposite him, on the southern side, the UN uniforms were of a mix. The American general, Cahill, a tall, thick-set man, appeared more relaxed, smoking his pipe, sitting back in open-necked and short-sleeved summer khaki. His South Korean compatriot on his right, more formal-looking, wore the ROK’s light blue air force uniform with tie, while to Cahill’s immediate left a British brigadier sat resignedly in dark green summer drill. The green-baize-covered table between the two sides was itself marked by division, an inch-wide white ribbon running its full length, the line continuing as a meticulously painted strip up each wall.
Even the beverages were different, the North Koreans’ stony expressions during the long, strained silence broken only when they sipped steaming glasses of hot green tea, the UN delegation taking ice-cold water from a silver decanter carefully placed the same distance away from the ribbon as the North Koreans’ tea. Directly opposite the North’s red-starred flag stood the gold-fringed blue of the UN standard, again both equidistant from the ribbon. The strained silence continued, and Major Tae could see a number of visiting U.S. officers outside the viewing windows of the hut growing restless, pacing on the white cement strip, cameras dangling forlornly.
It was then that General Kim, breaking the silence, leaned forward, crisp white uniform creasing against the edge of the green baize, his malevolent smile, Tae noted, a rare departure from his usual carefully practiced stare.
“All Americans are taught to lie!” Coming from outside the hut there was the sound of armed soldiers, North and South, heels clacking on the concrete as the guard changed. The NKA officer to Kim’s left was tacking up black-and-white photographs on a map stand, purportedly showing the “violated area” on their side of the DMZ as the North Korean general continued his accusation. “On the southern side,” said Kim, “you have allowed all vegetation to grow wild to camouflage your flagrant acts of aggression against the Democratic People’s—”
“I unequivocally reject these charges,” cut in Cahill, “as do my fellow members of the United Nations Commission.” He indicated them with a wave of his pipe.
“We are not charging the United Nations with violation of the territory of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” Kim spat back. “We are charging the United States of America for its imperialistic warmongering…”
“The United States,” Cahill replied, his tone controlled, un-flustered, “has no intention of—”
Now it happened. Kim leaned forward again, smiling. “Be careful,” he cautioned Cahill, stabbing the air with his cigarette, his eyes like dark glass, “or all you Americans will end up like the Kennedys — shot down like dogs in the street.”
This was a favorite phrase of Kim’s. To Tae’s relief, Cahill, who had only been on the job for two months, refused to take the bait, calmly asking instead what evidence the NKA had for their accusation about the kite.
“I will show you,” replied Kim confidently. With this he rose. Immediately there was a loud scraping of chairs as he was followed by the entire North Korean delegation. A second later the three Chinese PLA — People’s Liberation Army — officers who had been sitting in the rear as observers also rose, the yellow shoulder boards of their new “ranked” uniforms catching the light. Wearily Cahill and his colleagues followed suit; it was part of the ritual, both sides heading outside to the enclosure of hard, mustard-colored earth within the joint security area, where they were to examine the “evidence.” In the background a voice, one of the visiting U.S. officers, was asking, “Why do we have to take that shit? That rotten insult about President Kennedy and…”
For Tae it was the most frequently asked question by Americans who had bothered to come to Panmunjom, and he didn’t even mention it in his report. Before the video jerkily followed the two delegations out of the room, Kim’s parting shot was, “You Americans do not realize the effect of your defeat in Vietnam. Now everyone in the world knows you can be beaten.”
Privately, Tae conceded that Kim had a point. The danger, as Tae saw it, was that the United States had tried so diligently to forget the war, it was apt to forget its lessons as well. What had Santayana said? — those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Most of the Vietnam vets were now dead or too old to pass on, to anyone who even bothered to listen in America, the know-how of fighting a war in Asia.
For the next two minutes Tae advanced the video, as there was not much to see, the North Korean and UN delegations standing for over half an hour in the broiling sun. The North Koreans apparently didn’t mind, or if they did, weren’t showing it, taking what General Cahill later described as a “typically petty satisfaction” in keeping the UN team sweating and waiting in the stifling, fly-infested heat. Kim was the only man Cahill had ever seen who could tolerate swarms of flies crawling all over his face, across his lips, in and out of his nostrils and eyes, without once allowing himself to blink.
“Have you got something to show me or not?” said Cahill. “If not, my colleagues and I propose an adjournment until…”
Some signal that Tae didn’t see must have been given by Kim, because the evidence, or rather a battered-looking, carp-shaped kite, a dirty orange color, about four feet in length, four to five inches across, was carried solemnly into the cordoned-off compound by two NKA soldiers, two lines of North and South Korean guards grimly facing each other.
“Where’s this camera?” Cahill demanded sharply.
“It is being analyzed,” said Kim. “It is made in Japan.”
“May we see it?”
“I said it is being analyzed. The film, which we have now developed, shows it was a blatant act of imperialist aggression upon the sovereign territory of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea by U.S. aggressors and…”
Cahill turned to his aide, a Captain Jordan from the joint U.S.-ROK command. Jordan rolled his eyes skyward. Ignoring Kim, Cahill took a handkerchief from his pocket and proceeded to wipe beads of sweat from his forehead, asking Jordan, “Haven’t I heard this somewhere before?”
“Word for word, General. On Pyongyang radio. All this week.” When Kim had finished his diatribe, Cahill poked the carp’s ugly, gaping face with the toe of his boot. “This…”
Kim stepped forward menacingly, as did his entire delegation. “Do not touch the evidence!” he shouted.
Suddenly the entire compound was electric, both lines of border guards stiffening at the ready. Hands on holsters. Each man fixing his opposite number. Cahill smiled, having forced Kim to react.
“Evidence?” snorted Cahill. “It’s a child’s kite.”
“Yes!” shouted Kim’s aide, shifting his gaze from Cahill to the ROK officer, General Lee. “And made in the U.S. lackey state of South Korea.”
“A child’s kite,” repeated Cahill contemptuously. “Blown over to your side by the wind. Why, it’s not big enough to hold a camera, and besides…”
“We have the spy machine!” Kim shouted, pointing his finger. “You cannot deny…”
“Spy machine? You’ve got nothing,” said Cahill, turning on his heel, leading the UN delegation out of the compound.
“We have the evidence!” Kim shouted after him. “We have the film showing that…”
“Showing,” said Cahill, still walking away, “the photos you’re busy taking today so you can fabricate a case.”
“You be careful!” Kim shouted after him. “Be careful, you Americans. You will end up like the Kennedys. You—”
“You be careful,” said Cahill, but in a voice he knew neither Kim nor the North Korean delegation could hear. “Go back to Pyongyang, you running dog turd!” Cahill turned to his aide. “Christ! I’m getting too old for this nonsense, Jordan. I’d like to shoot that son of a bitch.”
“Me, too,” put in the South Korean general.
The video over, Tae dragged the day’s SIGINT — Signal Intelligence — and IR — Interrogation Reports — toward him. There were several Blackbird American infrared SR-71 reconnaissance photos taken from eighty-five thousand feet. No change in the NKA’s unit dispositions except for another surface-to-air missile site being built in the Taebaek Mountains that ran like a spine down Korea’s east coast.
Tae made himself a cup of coffee and for a moment sat admiring the desk photo of his children. Mi-ja, eighteen, was resplendent in a watermelon-pink chima, the traditional flowing, high-waisted skirt, with matching chogari, or short jacket. Dyoung, eight, stood proudly in the loose, white, pajamalike uniform of Taekwondo, the ancient Korean hand and foot combat sport of self-defense. It was their future he was most worried about.
He opened the interrogation folder. Another NKA infiltrator caught south of Munsan near the west coast. As usual, he’d refused to talk. The report stated the prisoner had “fallen down stairs.” Even so, he had still not revealed the specific target of his mission — they never did — and so he was put on the train for the prison camp on Koje Island in the Southeast. Tae hoped that these days Koje was more secure than during the Korean War, when the American guards had been so accommodating in assuring prisoners’ rights under the Geneva Charter that the NKA had actually managed to kidnap an American general and stage a massive breakout. Even so, Tae wasn’t naive enough to think the present ROK guards hadn’t been infiltrated by “sleepers,” NKA agents already “in place” in the event of hostilities. For every NKA agent they caught, Tae suspected there were at least four or five who managed to slip across the DMZ undetected. Only one thing of interest had emerged from Tae’s quieter, more democratic interrogation of infiltrators captured in his zone that week, and it wasn’t until after three sessions involving the usual cursory examination of the prisoners’ possessions that he’d even noticed it and decided to add a note to his daily report to Seoul. He had observed that the chopsticks the NKA infiltrators had on them when captured — no Korean would travel without them — were seven inches long instead of the standard nine.
Tae typed his SITREP, situation report, quickly, for he knew that as soon as the general had finished inspecting “nighttime readiness” of the local U.S.-ROK fortifications, he and his aide, Jordan, would leave for the more civilized environs of Seoul HQ.