CIA activities in South Korea

Main article: CIA activities in Asia and the Pacific

Republic of Korea (ROK) (South Korea).

ROK 1945

Intelligence collection & analysis (pre-CIA)

With budgets cut after World War II, South Korea was considered an incidental priority for US intelligence. When most US forces left Korea, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur his intelligence officer, Charles A. Willoughby, to establish a secret intelligence office in Seoul. Known as the Korean Liaison Office (KLO), its responsibility was to monitor troop movements in the North and the activities of Communist guerrillas operating in the South. During WWII, MacArthur had objected to working with the OSS, the predecessor of the CIA, and his setting up his own intelligence continued the trend.^[1]

ROK 1948

Intelligence analysis

[KLO] "and other collection capabilities contributed to CIA analytic reports, starting in 1948, regarding the Communist threat on the peninsula. The first report, in a Weekly Summary dated 20 February, identifies the Soviet Union as the controlling hand behind all North Korean political and military planning."^[1] CIA did not have its own HUMINT agents until 1952, and was, at this time, purely an analytic agency.

ROK 1949

Intelligence analysis

"By late 1949, the KLO was reporting that the Communist guerrillas represented a serious threat to the Republic of Korea (ROK)..." ^[1]Willoughby also claimed that the KLO had 16 agents operating in the North. KLO officers in Seoul, however, expressed suspicion regarding the loyalty and reporting of these agents. Separate from Willoughby's command, then-Capt. John Singlaub had established an Army intelligence outpost in Manchuria, just across the border from Korea. Over the course of several years, he trained and dispatched dozens of former Korean POWs, who had been in Japanese Army units, into the North. Their instructions were to join the Communist Korean military and government, and to obtain information on the Communists’ plans and intentions.

See the 1949 intelligence assessment of DPRK decisionmaking.

"...Accusations of McCarthyism silenced any debate regarding the worldwide Communist conspiracy. In addition, the Chinese Communists’ rise to internal power created a domestic political dispute over who had “lost” China. The result was a silencing of American scholars on China who might have persuaded the country’s leadership that China would never accept Soviet control of its national interests.

See SIGINT indications of the Korean War. Korean coverage was incidental to Soviet and Chinese interests in the Korean Peninsula.^[2]

Was there early warning of the Korean War? Perhaps, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. As with the retrospective analysis of SIGINT communications intelligence immediately after Pearl Harbor, certain traffic, if not a smoking gun, would have been suggestive, to an astute analyst trusted by the high command. Before the invasion, targeting was against Chinese and Soviet targets with incidental mention of Korea.

ROK 1950

Intelligence analysis (related non-CIA)

On 10 May, the South Korean Defense Ministry publicly warned at a press conference that DPRK troops were massing at the border and there was danger of an invasion...Throughout June, intelligence reports from South Korea and the CIA provide clear descriptions of DPRK preparations for war. These reports noted the removal of civilians from the border area, the restriction of all transport capabilities for military use only, and the movements of infantry and armor units to the border area. Also, following classic Communist political tactics, the DPRK began an international propaganda campaign against the ROK police state. ^[2]

Intelligence analysis (CIA)

With the invasion of the South on 25 June,CIA intelligence reports during the first month of the conflict continued to echo the theme of Soviet control of the DPRK, but they also began to address the potential for Chinese intervention in the South... the CIA Daily Summary of 26 June reported that the Agency agreed with the US Embassy in Moscow that the North Korean offensive was a “... clear-cut Soviet challenge to the United States…” On 30 June 1950, [as] President Truman authorized the use of US ground forces in Korea, CIA Intelligence Memorandum 301, Estimate of Soviet Intentions and Capabilities for Military Aggression, stated that the Soviets had large numbers of Chinese troops, which could be used in Korea to make US involvement costly and difficult. This warning was followed on 8 July by CIA Intelligence Memorandum 302, which stated that the Soviets were responsible for the invasion, and they could use Chinese forces to intervene if DPRK forces could not stand up to UN forces. ^[1]

When the Korean War broke out in 1950, United States Army Special Forces were not yet operational. Paramilitary functions in Korea suffered from bureaucratic infighting between the Army's G-2 intelligence division, and CIA. A heavily redacted history of CIA operations in Korea ^[3] indicate that the agency used US Far East Air Force resources, eventually designated "Flight B" of the Fifth Air Force. This unit provided air support for both military and CIA special operations. When CIA guerillas were attacked in 1951-1952, the air unit had to adapt frequently changing schedules. According to the CIA history, "The US Air Force-CIA relationship during the war was particularly profitable, close, and cordial." Unconventional warfare, but not HUMINT, worked smoothly with the Army. Korea had been divided into CIA and Army regions, with the CIA in the extreme northeast, and the Army in the West.

Initially, the North Koreans drove South Korean and US troops back, quickly capturing Seoul. The United Nations defending forces were able to consolidate and hold the area around the port of Pusan.

..the perception existed that only the Soviets could order an invasion by a “client state” and that such an act would be a prelude to a world war. Washington was confident that the Soviets were not ready to take such a step..." is clearly stated in a 19 June CIA paper on DPRK military capabilities. The paper said that “The DPRK is a firmly controlled Soviet satellite that exercises no independent initiative and depends entirely on the support of the USSR for existence.”

This assistance would not be forthcoming because the Soviets did not want general war. The Department of State and the military intelligence organizations of the Army, Navy, and Air Force concurred.

"...General MacArthur and his staff refused to believe that any Asians would risk facing certain defeat by threatening American interests. This belief caused them to ignore warnings of the DPRK military buildup and mobilization near the border, clearly the “force protection” intelligence that should have been most alerting to military minds. It was a strong and perhaps arrogantly held belief, which did not weaken even in the face of DPRK military successes against US troops in the summer of 1950.^[1]

On 28 July, the CIA Weekly Summary stated that 40,000 to 50,000 ethnic Korean soldiers from PLA units might soon reinforce DPRK forces." Again, the tactical warning of a Chinese force were rejected based on a strategic assessment of Soviet intentions

On 8 September, the CIA issued Intelligence Memorandum 324, Probability of Direct Chinese Communist Intervention in Korea, which assumed that the Chinese were already providing covert assistance to the DPRK, including some replacements for combat troops. ... The memorandum ... noted that reports of Chinese troop buildups in the Manchurian border area made intervention well within Chinese capabilities. ... but again insisted the Soviets were not willing to risk general war. ^[1]

In September, the UN counterattacked with a surprise amphibious landing in the Battle of Inchon, quickly driving the North Koreans back. "On 12 October, CIA Office of Records and Estimates Paper 58-50, entitled Critical Situations in The Far East—Threat of Full Chinese Communist Intervention in Korea, concluded that, “While full-scale Chinese Communist intervention in Korea must be regarded as a continuing possibility, a consideration of all known factors leads to the conclusion that barring a Soviet decision for global war, such action is not probable in 1950.

"...On 13 and 14 October, the 38th, 39th, and 40th Chinese Field Armies entered Korea. The intelligence leadership in both Washington and Tokyo did not alert either President Truman or MacArthur, who were about to meet on Wake Island to discuss the conduct of the war.U S military and civilian leaders were again caught by surprise, and another costly price was paid in American casualties.

CIA reporting from Tokyo, based on information obtained from a former Chinese Nationalist officer sent into Manchuria to contact former colleagues now in the PLA, stated that the PLA had over 300,000 troops in the border area. And, on 15 October, a CIA-led irregular ROK force operating on the west coast near the Yalu river reported that Chinese troops were moving into Korea.

All this information subsequently turned out to be accurate. At that meeting, on 15 October, MacArthur told Truman there was little chance of a large-scale Chinese intervention. And, he noted, should it occur, his air power would destroy any Chinese forces that appeared.

The next day, the CIA Daily Summary reported that the US Embassy in The Hague had been advised that Chinese troops had moved into Korea. At this point, the analytic perspective of the Agency shifted somewhat... The Agency also abandoned the position that the Chinese had the capability to intervene but would not do so, and began to accept that the Chinese had entered Korea. But it held firm to its view that China had no intention of entering the war in any large-scale fashion.^[1]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Rose, P.K., "Two Strategic Intelligence Mistakes in Korea, 1950: Perceptions and Reality", Studies in Intelligence, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/fall_winter_2001/article06.html, retrieved 2007-12-19 
2. ^ ^{a b} Hatch, David A.; Robert Louis Benson (^{[dead link]} – ^{Scholar search}), The Korean War: The SIGINT Background, National Security Agency, archived from the original on 2007-09-03, http://web.archive.org/web/20070903102515/http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00022.cfm, retrieved 2007-10-07 
3. ^ Central Intelligence Agency (17 July 1968), Clandestine Services History: The Secret War in Korea 1950-1952, http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/korea.pdf, retrieved 2007-12-06