Kim Choong-bae was surprised to see the results of a survey he conducted while serving as head of Seoul's Korea Military Academy, the equivalent of West Point in the United States.

In a poll of 250 youngsters admitted to the school for future army leaders in early 2004, as many as 34 percent named the United States as their country's biggest enemy. Only 33 percent listed North Korea.

Stunned by these responses, Kim questioned what had shaped the views of these students. He discovered that the left-leaning Korean Teachers Union was the main promoter of these attitudes in the nation's public schools.

Kim quickly arranged training programs for the cadets that focused on history education, while reaching out to conservative scholars to make a textbook on modern Korean history for military personnel.

After several weeks of training courses, Kim again conducted a similar survey. In a dramatic turnaround, all but one of the cadet freshmen said they considered the United States South Korea's "most important security partner."

"At that time, I realized education is very important to youngsters, and that's why I have campaigned to publish balanced school textbooks," Kim, now president of the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said in an interview with United Press International.

"Current school textbooks distort or conceal many important historical facts, such as the role of nurses and miners sent to West Germany and troops dispatched to the Vietnam War in winning much-needed loans and technology aid from the United States and other advanced countries," he said. "There is no doubt that South Korea could not have achieved its miracle of industrialization without their sacrifices."

But Kim could not use the new "facts-based" history textbook outside his military academy during the previous liberal administration led by President Roh Moo-hyun, who stepped down in February.

Roh was elected on a strong wave of anti-American sentiment sparked by the deaths of two girls killed in a road accident by a U.S. military vehicle in 2002. He had pledged not to "kowtow" to the United States. Roh succeeded Kim Dae-jung, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for venturing into North Korea in 2000 for the first inter-Korean summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

During his five-year term, Roh consistently sought to distance South Korea from the United States, while seeking reconciliation with North Korea, rekindling reconciliation and unification fever on the Korean Peninsula, which was divided at the end of World War II.

Buttressed by the authority of the liberal government for the past decade, the influence of the leftist teachers' union had sharply increased in middle and high schools across the country.

Some unionized teachers took the lead in staging anti-American protests, claiming the United States had caused Korea's national division and was still raising tensions on the peninsula by applying pressure on North Korea.

Reflecting the union's ideological teachings, a 2002 Gallup poll suggested that only 30 percent of South Korean youngsters believed North Korea was responsible for the outbreak of the 1950-53 Korean War.

According to another Gallup poll in 2005, 65 percent of South Koreans ages 16 to 25 said they would side with North Korea against the United States if the two engaged in armed conflict.

"It is high time for South Korea to stage a nationwide campaign to correct the distorted view of the United States," Kim said, referring to a recent movement by conservative scholars to publish their own textbooks in which they called mainstream historians "left-leaning."

Kim is one of the South Koreans who has played a role in reducing the anti-U.S. sentiment that has been rampant in the country under the liberal leadership of the past 10 years. Shifting attitudes resulted in the landslide victory of pro-American standard-bearer Lee Myung-bak in December's presidential election.

In an indication of the country's changing ideological standing, a Gallup survey late last year showed 61 percent of South Koreans said the country's anti-communist National Security Law should be maintained to safeguard South Korea's liberal democracy from the North's plans to cause chaos in the South. The figure was up from 56 percent in 2003.

A recent survey conducted by Seoul National University also showed 46.7 percent of South Koreans in their 20s picked the United States as Seoul's "closest country," gaining from 33.5 percent in 2005.

"The way of thinking of youngsters is very pragmatic, and the pragmatic manner is in line with keeping close ties with the world's biggest power, the United States," Kim said.

But Kim expressed concern about a possible revival of anti-American sentiment, citing local media reports that the Bush administration has delivered a long list of demands to the newly inaugurated Lee Myung-bak government in a test of its pledge to strengthen U.S. ties.

The requests include a complete opening of South Korea's market to U.S. beef, a bigger financial burden in maintaining U.S. forces on the peninsula and the redeployment of South Korean troops in war-torn Afghanistan, among others, according to local news reports.

The demands have come ahead of Lee's meeting with President Bush at Camp David April 18-19. Lee is the first South Korean leader to be invited to the presidential retreat in Maryland.

Civic groups have already staged protest rallies against the "U.S. pressure," calling for the president not to make concessions in return for an "empty promise" of strengthening security ties.

Seoul's largest daily newspaper, the conservative Chosun Ilbo, which has long argued for a pro-U.S. stance, warned of a revival of anti-U.S. sentiment in the wake of Washington's requests.

"If the United States piles up its demands on South Korea like overdue homework, it will end up frustrating our side and may result in growing skepticism about the alliance and give anti-American factions an excuse to raise their voices," it said in an editorial.