Beyond the Myth: Reassessing the Security Crisis on the Korean Peninsula during the Mid-1960s

Abstract

have been a surprisingly high number of clashes between the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) since the signing of the Armistice Agreement in 1953. While it is well known that the brinkmanship strategy of the DPRK regime was a crucial cause of the clashes between the ROK and the DPRK, the ROK's role in provoking the DPRK has generally been ignored. Most incidents prior to the early 1990s could not have been thoroughly examined because the ROK government maintained a complete control over the domestic mass media, even though a few specialists on the NorthSouth relationship and newspapers in the ROK have begun to analyze the ROK's responsibility in very recent conflicts. More specifically, some scholars argued that the relationship between the ROK and the DPRK deteriorated significantly after the inauguration of President Lee Myung-Bak in February 2008, due to a new policy toward Korea in the Lee government.1 The so-called North Wind (Pukp'ung) incident shortly before the April 1 1 general election in 1996 is another case deserving attention. Since early April of that year, the DPRK's gunboats and heavily armed soldiers had darted in and out of South Korea. In particular, nearly 200 DPRK soldiers armed with machine guns and mortars repeatedly crossed the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). After an investigation conducted by the Kim Dae-Jung government two years later, it became clear that the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) had been the instigator in the DPRK's violation of the Armistice Agreement. This was because the unstable security situation during the election would have benefited the conservative ruling party rather than the