The U.S. Carter Administration and Korea in the 12/12 Incident: Concession of Moral Diplomacy*

08_Park Won Gon_OK.pdf

The U.S. Carter Administration  and Korea in the 12/12 Incident:

Concession of Moral Diplomacy*

Park, Won Gon**

Korean Social Sciences Review | Vol. 2, No. 2, 2012: 253-281

===

The Carter administration knew that the 12/12 incident that occurred in South Korea in 1979 was a coup d’etat that would hamper the country’s process of democratization.

However, it did not take positive action to thwart it. According to the relevant materials, including declassified documents, the Carter administration detected the possibility of a coup d’etat in South Korea and de cursory efforts, including informing the South Korean government of such, 

what it actually implemented on December 12, 1979, and its stance in

the period following the incident, was nothing more than passive adaptation to the altered situation. 

Such an attitude taken by the Carter administration was the result of the domestic

factors that were prevalent in Korea at the time, such as the absence of an optional faction due to the inability of the Choi Gyu-ha administration and the fear of a recurrence of a coup d’etat, combined with the security related concerns pertaining to Northeast Asia in the shape of confusion in South Korea and the North’s miscalculation. Simultaneously, the Iran hostage crisis in the American Embassy in Iran in the same year also served as a factor that impacted the way the Carter administration responded to the 12/12 incident in South Korea.

Keywords: the 12/12 Incident, the Carter Administration, Chun Doo-hwan, Park

Chung-hee, the US hostage crisis in Iran, Korea

===

===