ABSTRACT
Military confrontation continued to dominate relations between the two Koreas. The opening of a sustained, multichannel, North-South dialogue late in 1984 had little apparent effect on espionage and counterespionage activities. The Agency for National Security Planning continued to report the arrest of North Korean spies; one case involved youthful South Koreans who were said to have been recruited in the United States and West Germany. The existence of a North-South dialogue may have helped to affect the release of a South Korean fishing boat seized by a North Korean gunboat, allegedly in North Korean waters, on October 6, 1985. The confrontational aspect of North-South relations intruded on the dialogue. The two Koreas concentrated exclusively on their military confrontation, totally rejected each other's legitimacy as governments, and had no contact whatsoever. Then in the early 1970s they began to talk to each other, less in the expectation of making genuine progress toward unification—their declared goal—than to gain advantage in their rivalry.
