South Korea 1975: A Permanent Emergency

WHAT LOOMED IN THE FOREFRONT Of the psychological milieu of the South Koreans in 1975 were the decisive Communist victories in Indochina and the helter-skelter flight of South Vietnamese refugees. Some of them came to the Republic of Korea, where millions were themselves refugees from North Korea. Although 1975 marked the 25th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, the memories of it are still painfully fresh in the minds of most adult Koreans. The real or imagined changes in power alignments in Asia and the Pacific sometimes seemed to depict South Korea as the next domino to fall. Other prominent features of South Korea's operational milieu included the moves toward Sino-American detente, the resurgence of Japan as an overpowering neighbor, ramifications of the worldwide recession, and the tyranny of the majority in the United Nations and other diplomatic arenas.