Cost Of 50,000 South Koreans

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32166, 9 December 1969, Page 17

Cost Of 50,000 South Koreans

<N.Z. Prett Association—Copyright) NEW YORK, December 8The United States had to pay heavily to get some 50,000 South Korean combat troops to join the United States military effort in South Vietnam —including an “exorbitant shopping list” of jet planes and a telecommunica- . tions system, plus guaranteeing . the favourite food of Korean soldiers, “Newsweek” magazine said yesterday.

The internationally-circu-lated weekly said that it obtained this information from a Government memorandum which indicated that "money was no object” in President Lyndon Johnson's effort to get other forces to join the American cause in Vietnam. The negotiations, according to “Newsweek,” were conducted by the then United States

Ambassador to South Korea, Mr Winthrop Brown, and the South Korean Foreign Minister (Mr Lee Tong Won).

The document recording them became known as the “Brown Memorandum.”. One diplomat called the South Korean “shopping list” exorbitant and another told “Newsweek”: “We must have shocked the Koreans when they found out how much we were willing to pay.” One item of payment was a telecommunications installation linking South Korean troops in the field to Seoul, “Newsweek” said. Another was an American guarantee that South Korean troops serving in Vietnam would get a constant supply of kimchi—a concoction of marinated and fermented cabbage, hot peppers and garlic that Koreans like.