NORTH KOREA-SOUTH KOREA: OLYMPIC UPDATE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90T00100R000201460001-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 30, 2013
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: July 11, 1988
• Content Type: MEMO

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/07/30: CIA-RDP90T00100R000201460001-0
DATE
DOC NO
OIR
3(g--Xoff
3
P PD
Central Intelligence ,Agenry
Washington, D. C 2050S
DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE
11 July 1988
North Korea-South Korea: Olympic Update
Summary
As the Olympics approach, North Korea has failed in its
seven-year-long effort to change the venue of the Games from Seoul,
build international support for a boycott, or negotiate a role as cohost. All
but seven countries will send teams to the Olympics, and a record number
of athletes will compete. P'yongyang nonetheless appears set on
attempting to ruin the Games. To deal with its own diplomatic failure, it is
portraying South Korea as too dangerous a site for the competition and
encouraging South Korean dissidents to demonstrate to make that point.
P'yongyang is also staging competing international events to distract
domestic attention and force its allies to show their support. None of its
tactics are working well. Assuming the Games go smoothly, South Korea
is certain to use them to expand contacts with the North's Communist
allies. As a result, North Korea could face even greater political and
economic challenges from the South in the post-Olympic period.
This memorpt,mpWas prepared by Office of East Asian Analysis.
Information4VAIAle, as of 08 July 1988 was used in its preparation. Comments and
queries are welcome and may be directed to the Chief, Korea Branch, Northeast Asia
Division, OM
?
EA M 88-20098
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Entering the Home Stretch
Final preparations are under way for the 17 September opening of the Seoul
Olympics, with 161 countries sending teams. Only Cuba, Nicaragua, Ethiopia,
Madagascar, Seychelles, Albania, and North Korea are refusing to attend. The North has
repeatedly called for support from its major allies, but the Soviet Union, China, and the
East Europeans have stood firm since accepting their invitations in January. Soviet
behavior points clearly at Moscow's desire to participate. The visits by Soviet officials
to South Korea to discuss security and logistics contrast sharply with the lack of
communication between Moscow and the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee in
the runup to the 1984 Olympics.
Despite a series of sports talks under the International Olympic Committee's
auspices over the past three years, there appears virtually no chance of a North-South
agreement to share Olympic events. IOC President Samaranch occasionally has
repeated his offer to allow the North to host some archery, table tennis, women's
volleyball, and other contests, but in late May he told reporters it was "too late" to
arrange team events in the North. Samaranch has said he is willing to travel to
P'yongyang for a last negotiating effort on sharing some individual competitions but
only if he is specifically invited.
To date the North has declined to forward the invitation. P'yongyang has
consistently rejected any participation formula short of cohosting and derides events
proposed for the North as a mere subset of the "Seoul" Olympics. South Korea also is
standing pat. President Roh Tae Woo, Park Sae Jik--president of the Seoul Olympic
Organizing Committee--and other spokesmen reject cohosting, although insist they are
willing to accept North Korean participation.
P'yongyang in a Corner but Still Fighting
With the start of the Games looming, North Korea is trying to maximize the
South's headaches and minimize its own loss of face. P'yongyang has stepped up
propaganda that portrays the South as a dangerous venue--rampant with AIDS and
crime--for the Olympics, hpping to persuade participants to back out. Since spring, the
North has tried to make the Olympics an issue that would fuel student protests in the
South. In stressing P'yongyang's interest in cohosting, the North Korean press has
portrayed the South's refusal to agree as an attempt to perpetuate the division of the
peninsula. We do not believe South Korean radicals are guided by the North, but they
have adopted P'yongyang's position, arguing that the Olympics should symbolize Korean
reunification. South Korean students who attempted to organize a meeting at
P'anmunjom on 10 June with their counterparts from the North stressed cohosting. On
28 May, leaders of 67 South Korean dissident organizations signed a statement in favor
of the North's stance.
Several upcoming events suggest P'yongyang hopes to distract its domestic
audience from the Olympics as well as force its allies to show public support:
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? North Korea is trying to attract a stellar international gathering for its 40th
anniversary on 9 September, eight days before the Olympic opening ceremony,
including Chinese Communist Party Chief Zhao Zivanci
also is asking African nations to send high-level delegations.
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? The North hopes to stage a "counter Olympics" when it hosts the 1989 World
Youth Festival, an event held under the auspices of the World Federation of
Democratic Youth, a Soviet front organization. North Korean media have given
great publicity to preparations for this event and to efforts to attract broad
international participation.
P'Yongyang's returns so far have been thin. A recent article in the Soviet press
expressed skepticism about the North's preparations for the Festival, for example, and
reported other countries' reluctance to send delegates "to the other end of the earth."
Even so, the North has had some success in creating a sense of uneasiness in some
quarters about the Olympics?many athletes and governments continue to express
concern that North Korea might attempt to disrupt the Games with terrorism. Athletes
in the United States and elsewhere also have expressed fear for their safety, and the
Australian Government has announced contingency planning for evacuation of
participants and spectators in case of trouble.
Although there is no evidence that any country or national Olympic committee is
contemplating reversing its decision to participate, concern about Olympic security has
spawned close consultations on security, particularly among South Korea, the United
States, and Japan. Even the Soviets and Chinese are promoting the security of the
Games; both reportedly approached P'yongyang about its intentions after the sabotage
by North Korean agents of the Korean airliner k st year.
Outlook
North Korea retains the option of openly attacking the Olympic Games in a
last-ditch attempt to spoil the South's triumph, but the costs of this--or even the
sponsorship of less dramatic terrorist acts--would be high for P'yongyang. Assuming
neither tactic is chosen, a successful Olympics will enable Seoul to serve many goals,
including its push to expand ties to Communist states. The Olympics have already
accelerated that development with the opening of a Hungarian trade office in Seoul.
Poland and Yugoslavia--or at least its Slovene republic--have indicated publicly they
will follow suit. We believe China, the Soviet Union, and East Germany may well
exchange trade offices with South Korea after the Olympics.
North Korea, meanwhile, is certain to face difficult choices. A stance in favor of
dialogue obviously would represent tacit acceptance of an accommodation with a South
Korea that has made important gains in prestige as well as in relations with
P'yongyang's major allies. More belligerent behavior, including efforts to encourage
domestic turbulence, could discomfit Seoul. It could also leave the North isolated,
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however, as its allies move forward with their South Korean contacts. Whatever the
North decides, a successful Olympics will underscore P'yongyang's increasing isolation
and undercut its bedrock resistance to international recognition of two Korean states.
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NORTH KOREA-SOUTH KOREA: OLYMPIC UPDATE
DISTRIBUTION:
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