The Battalion
Viewpoint
August 5, \{
U.S.-South Korean ties
in ‘best shape ever’
By JOHN NEEDHAM
United Press International
SEOUL, South Korea — The Carter admi
nistration and its human rights policy are
gone from the White House and South Ko
rean officials say relations with the United
States are better than ever.
“I certainly think our relations with the
United States currently are in far more
satisfactory shape than they were earlier,”
said a senior adviser to President Chun Doo
Hwan in an interview.
“Some of the people I have spoken with
on both sides — professionals, academics
— seem to agree U.S.-Korean relations
now are in the best shape ever compared
with any earlier period in our bilateral rela
tions.”
The most spectacular sign of the closer
links occurred when Chun became the first
head of state to meet with President Ronald
Reagan following the Republican’s move
into the White House.
The two presidents’ joint communique
following the February meeting produced a
pledge that U.S. troops, now numbering
39,000, would remain in South Korea. It
said not a word about human rights.
By contrast former President Jimmy
Carter, in his July 1979 visit to Seoul, pub
licly called on President Park Chung-hee,
who was assassinated nearly four months
later, to match his nation’s giant strides in
economic development with progress in
human rights.
Chun came to power after a December
1979 military mutiny and in the months that
followed Washington expressed its displea
sure over political repression, arrests,
silencing of opponents and allegations of
torture in South Korea.
A major problem in U.S.-Korean rela
tions last year was the sedition trial on what
the State Department called “farfetched
charges” of Kim Daejung, the country’s
foremost dissident.
Kim was convicted and condemned to
death. Chun commuted the sentence to life
imprisonment just before receiving his in
vitation to Washington.
The diplomat denied there was a trade
off involved but said, “Everyone knew
Chun would not have been invited if Kim
would have been killed.”
Because of dissatisfaction with South Ko
rean domestic repression, the United
States in 1979 called off meetings about
security, economic matters and policy plan
ning. They have been resumed this year.
In addition, the Reagan administration
held up publication of its report on human
rights in South Korea until after Chun left
Washington so he wouldn’t be embarras
sed. It will also sell the South Koreans F-16
fighter planes and used tanks.
The Reagan administration’s choice as
the next ambassador to Seoul, Richard Wal
ker, said in his July 13 confirmation hear
ings that Reagan has “restored warmth and
personal trust to U.S.-Korean relations.”
The senior adviser to Chun, who played
the same role for Park and who declined to
be further identified, said that historically
in South Korea, “There has been a tenden
cy to assume that the United States would
play the role of messiah and Santa Claus and
any other agency of grace and good gifts you
could think of. Events tended to buttress
this.
“The United States, after all, made it
possible for Korea to win independence
from Japan. The United States made it pos
sible to preserve our independence against
North Korea. The United States made it
possible to launch the process of economic
recovery and growth.”
He said both sides were inevitably dis
illusioned last year, with some South Ko
reans wanting more U.S. pressure on Seoul
“to do what they themselves could not
achieve” in winning more domestic free
dom, and others criticizing Washington for
“meddling too much in our internal af
fairs.”
He said the Carter administration, in
promoting human rights, was “trying for an
authentic expression of its own (American)
values, a reflection of its own history.”
But “how many people can you expect to
be aware of American history” in South
Korea? We perceived this as interference.”
He credits the Reagan administration,
which insists it will still promote human
rights in a quiet way, with a “new maturity
which recognizes the fact that constant and
noisy protestation of one’s ideals and poli
cies is not the most responsible way of
realizing one’s goals.”
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Tax cuts reverse 50-year poli
By DAVID S. BRODER
ATLANTA — Last Wednesday was a his
toric day. The television spectacular was
the magnificent royal wedding, but Amer
ican history books will probably record as
more significant that this was the day that
almost 50 years of Democratic-dominated
economic and social policy came to an end.
The budget and tax victories won by Presi
dent Reagan on both sides of the Capitol
reversed the policies Congress had fol
lowed under every President from Franklin
D. Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter.
By coincidence, at the same time that
the House of Representatives was prepar
ing to give Reagan the tax-bill victory that
sealed his domination of that nominally
Democratic body, a panel at at the National
Conference of State Legislatures here was
discussing the question of the role of party
discipline in legislative bodies.
The only conclusion a person could reach
from that panel is that the conservative poli
cy and political power so spectacularly dis
played in Washington is no surface phe
nomenon, but a pattern that extends across
the country and into the reaches of state
government as well.
There were four speakers on the panel.
The three Democrats all said — in plain and
sometimes almost cynical terms — that if
you wanted to invoke party loyalty in de
fense of Democratic goals, forget it. The
lone Republican, William Polk, the speaker
of the state of Washington house of repre
sentatives, was also the lone exponent of
the view that party discipline can be used
to achieve party objectives.
Despite the fact that Washington state
has no party registration for voters and a
“blanket primary” that encourages ticket
splitting, Polk said, “the Republican Party
has become a very important force, at least
among members of the legislature.” “It’s
become an election machine,” he said, and,
largely as a result of the funds and services
the national and state GOP provides legisla
tive candidates, “we have a strong caucus. ”
The testimony of the threee Democrats
was dramatically opposite. State Rep.
George Fettinger of New Mexico explained
why he and 10 other conservative Demo
crats had broken party ranks in 1979 and
again this year to form a conservative coali
tion with 26 Republicans that elected a
renegade Democrat as speaker, against the
Democratic caucus choice. “The Demo
cratic Party in New Mexico, Fettinger
said, “is completely out of touch with the
electorate. No Democrat can run for office
in my part of the state on its platform —
and still be elected.”
Assemblyman Willie Brown then de
tailed how he had been elected as the first
coalition speaker of the California assembly
last winter, by exploiting a split in the
Democratic caucus and cutting a deal in
which Republicans supplied 28 of the 51
votes that he received. Brown is a black
legislator who describes himself as “one of
the most liberal Democrats in existence.”
He said he had no trouble dealing with “20
to 25 Republicans who come from districts
where white sheets are regarded as formal
attire...They made certain requests. They
were relatively modest. They wanted ev
erything except speakership. ”
the Democratic Party.”
Richard M. Scammon, the ii
election analyst and political conm
was the third self-indentified Dei-;
the panel. He explained that int-
“parties are big empty shells. lot;
them up with anything. Thebasicf;
any party is mush, mush andmorei
Scammon said that Ronald Red
been elected in 1980 largely on hiij
ality, not his policies, and addedtj
cause of the “flexibility” of politicalj
“it is almost impossible to mainta:[
pline in a party caucus in Congres
Scammon did not explain how,ij
he spoke, Reagan and the Repa
were about to reverse 50 years ofi
policy and put through the biggestuj
history by maintaining almost
party discipline in the House and^
My own reaction to the disema
and the news from Congress is tj
so-called disarray of the Democral!
goes far deeper than most of its^
leaders in Washington will admits
level of government, Democrats*!
as Brown, as conservative as Fettiaj
as smart as Scammon have become!
inventing political and intellect^
lizations for rejecting the cloahj
loyalty.
s ' -
He had no trouble accommodating them,
he said, and his GOP friends had no trouble
with his liberal positions. The reason is sim
ple: “Seldon will you find me using the
office of speaker to enhance the position of
At the same time, they have maaj
obliterate from their consciousness
ognition that Republicans have
vered the utility of a political pi
means, not just for gaining office
remaking policy — in very laigei
sions.
That is an t
one that i
but this era of American politics
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Mr. Sam, Tip — some comparison
By ARNOLD SAWISLAK
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Last week, when the
roof was caving in on Speaker Tip O’Neill
for the third time in this session of Con
gress, someone said, “This never would
have happened to Sam Rayburn.”
Wrong. Sam Rayburn got whipped all
the time when he was Speaker of the
House. The difference between the legen
dary Texan and the battered Massachusetts
speaker is that Mr. Sam’s defeats were not
quite so public as O’Neill’s.
In addition, the only opposition presi
dent Rayburn had to deal with was the mod
erate Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had to
be reminded from time to time that he was a
Republican and who usually was willing to
compromise with Rayburn and a Senate
Democratic leader named Lyndon
Johnson.
O’Neill has to cope with Ronald Reagan,
who seems just as intent on building his
adopted Republican Party as he is in mak
ing a record for his administration. His idea
of compromise is to invite the Democrats to
surrender in the White House.
tees, such as Ways and Means, Budget and
Rules.
When Rayburn was speaker, the com
mittee chairmen could and did simply re
fuse to deal with bills they didn’t like. The
seniority system was absolute and junior
members of the House had practically no
thing to say about its governance.
District of Columbia and Wilbur it
Ways and Means killed them off I
wanted kittens dropped into the ri'f
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Several things have change
the conservative southerners wborul^
House committees generally are gotf
and one-party domination of the So^ 1
ended.
O’Neill’s real problem, however, is that
he hasn’t got the alibi Rayburn had when he
couldn’t deliver Democratic bills. The pre
sent Speaker has control of, or at least
cooperation from the key House commit-
That was especially true of the House
Rules Committee, which was ruled during
the last years of Rayburn’s speakership by
“Judge” Howard Smith of Virginia, a court
ly old gentleman and a rigid right wing
reactionary.
If a liberal bill slipped through one of the
House committees, Judge Smith would
stall it in Rules, or write a special rule for its
consideration that would just about assure
passage of a conservative substitute.
That’s how the LandrumGriffin Act be
came law. It started out as a union-backed
measure — the Senate version originally
was sponsored by Sen. John F. Kennedy —
and ended up as a conservative piece of
legislation organized labor hated almost as
much as Taft-Hartley.
But most of the time, Rayburn couldn’t
get bills liberal Democrats wanted out of
committee even when he wanted to. Com
mittee chairmen like Smith, Graham Bar
den of Education and Labor, Clarence Can
non of Appropriations, John McMillan of
Second, the House breached thesf
ity system by giving rank and filemei 1
a vote on committee chairmanships;
put a leash on the tyranny of Rayburn^
The House also opened the committf'
cess to public scrutiny. No import®
can be killed in a closet.
And third, O’Neill and his lead f
were able to stack the key committee-
enough liberals to assure that the bill
wanted would get to the House floe'
But O’Neill could do nothing to
southern, and some northern, states
sending conservative Democrats k
House. They don’t have the powers''
process that conservatives had in Rot
day, but they still have a vote whe» ;
gets to the House floor.
The result has been public humitoj
O’Neill. His committees send himaf
cratic bill and the House votes for aft
lican bill. It is true that didn’t happen*
to Mr. Sam, but that was becauseb*
feats were occuring behind closed d f
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