Also in South Korea, historians say that Carter received the message of a military government that is opposed by human rights.
In May 1980, riots led by students in the city of Gwangju in South Korea were brutally suppressed. In one day, 60 people were killed and hundreds were injured.
Journalist Timothy Shorrock, who has been reporting on US-South Korea relations for years, said the Carter administration was wary of losing an ally in the Cold War and, as a result, lost its power behind the military government.
He also explained that the US supported the South Korean leadership by releasing weapons that allowed the military to quell the insurgency.
“Knowing that (military commander General Chun Doo-hwan's) killed 60 people the day before, he still believed that this attack was a threat to the security of the United States,” Shorrock said of Carter's officials.
He also said that when the US aircraft carrier was sent to the area, some protesters confirmed the US claims on democracy and human rights and believed that the US was coming to intervene on their behalf.
Instead, the carrier was sent to encourage the US military to redeploy South Korean troops stationed at non-North Korean locations to quell the unrest.
Shorrock says the contingency plans included the use of US military power if the unrest in Gwangju spread.
Although there is no official international death toll from the protests, the official figure is that more than 160 people have died. Some experts say that the number of people killed is more than 1,000.
When asked by a reporter if his actions were inconsistent with his stated commitment to human rights, Carter said “there are no inconsistencies”.
He also said that the US is helping South Korea maintain its national security by threatening to “disrupt communism”, echoing the rhetoric of the country's military leaders.
It was the kind of rhetoric that South Korean leaders have used in the past to justify repressive and anti-democratic policies.
When the President of South Korea Yoon Suk-yeol he announced martial law in December 2024 in the name of fighting “antistate forces”, many drew parallels with the tragic events of Gwangju.
“What he was saying at the time was what General Chun Doo-hwan was saying, he was portraying this as a communist uprising, which it wasn't,” Shorrock said. “He never apologized.”