Chang Jun-ha and Park Chung-hee

Ki-jo went to DBC and met Chang Jun-ha. Over tea in the president's office, in the ease of ordinary talk, he was able to take the measure of how Chang saw the state of the nation.

"Since April 19, I have the feeling reform has been dragging. The longer this goes on, the weaker the momentum will grow. It worries me."

The interim government, Chang said, was not so much laying a foundation for the reform of the state as fretting that the country might collapse, and shoving the work of reform off onto the next administration.

"Two days ago the Minister of the Interior warned he would crush any impure demonstrations. They never look for the cause—only at the symptom. I can't see how that differs from the last regime."

Listening, Ki-jo could roughly gauge what Chang meant to say once they sat down for the interview.

From him he also drew out a view of the Conlon Report, which had set the whole country buzzing at the start of the year.

"When we ran the Conlon Report in Sasanggye in January, it caused an uproar. I hear the young officers read it and took a hard blow to their pride."

The Conlon Report was a set of recommendations on American policy toward Korea. Submitted in November 1959 to a subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, its contents were more than enough to inflame Koreans. In sum, it said this:

That was the heart of the report, and it cut painfully into the reality of Korea.

Ki-jo wondered whether Chang had known what waves the document would raise, and had published it all the same.

"Does the reaction of the young officers not trouble you?" he asked.

"If those young officers think they were slighted," Chang said, "then I believe they felt the thing as it truly is."

Ki-jo did not believe he had carried that report in Sasanggye for no reason. So there had been a purpose after all. In the last days of the Syngman Rhee regime, with the presidential and vice-presidential elections drawing near, hadn't he wanted to strike even a small spark of change?

"Mr. Chang—if a coup were to break out now, would you be able to accept it?"

"If the men behind the coup held to nothing but a righteous spirit, I would not oppose them."

"Will you say as much on the broadcast?"

In those days the broadcast went out live. If he said such a thing, there would be no stopping it.

At Ki-jo's question, Chang asked one of his own.

"You told me at the start there would be no editing—that I should say whatever I wished. Are you worried?"

Ki-jo shook his head.

"Not at all. Say everything you wish to say, sir. It was simple curiosity."

"I see. These days it's a fine thing, being able to say all one wants to say. How long has it been since we enjoyed a freedom like this? If you have something to say, you ought to say it to the full. Ha ha ha."

Ki-jo laughed with him. His own heart, though, was nothing but bitter. A freedom like that was unlikely to last out the year.

Even so, as things stood, Chang Jun-ha would sooner help Park Chung-hee carry out May 16 than stand in its way.

"That man, Major General Park Chung-hee..."

Chang brought him up without warning.

"The truth is, I met him once, in September of '45, in Xi'an."

"Did you?"

"My impression of him then was not a good one. He wasn't even ashamed of having come out of the Japanese officer corps, and I was angry that he had stayed with the Japanese army right up to the defeat. I gave him a dressing-down."

So the bad blood between Chang Jun-ha and Park Chung-hee had begun even then.

"But recently, at the joint memorial service for April 19, I saw Major General Park. The man had changed a great deal."

"In what way?"

"The reporters asked him—he had come in uniform—whether he had anything to say to the spirits of the dead. He answered like this."

Chang repeated Park Chung-hee's wording exactly as it had been spoken.

It was a remark that could all too easily look dangerous. For the army to declare that it would fulfill the unfulfilled wishes of the dead could sound like a coup.

"One of the reporters asked whether it would be all right to run the remark just as he had spoken it, and Park told him to do as he pleased."

Ki-jo was startled that the words so closely resembled what, in the history he remembered, Park Chung-hee had said at the joint memorial for those killed in the April 19 demonstrations in the Busan area.

He had attended in his capacity as chief of the Busan martial-law office, and while reading the eulogy he had said that he would, without fail, fulfill the wishes left unfinished. The address had astonished everyone around him.

Ki-jo studied Chang's face. The man did not seem to have caught what lay inside those words.

"When he was young he lived in a whirl as a Japanese officer, but passing through the Korean War and April 19, I thought—the man has grown. The help he gave ordinary people during Typhoon Sarah was of a piece with that..."

Chang seemed to have taken the remark in perfect innocence.

When their talk drew to a close, it was roughly the hour for Major General Park to leave his post for the day.

"I'll send ahead the questions the host means to ask on the interview program. If there's anything you'd rather not be asked, just tell me beforehand."

"I understand."

Ki-jo shook his hand and saw him off. Chang's back, as he went, looked full of life. Through the whole of their conversation he had been brimming with hope.

Ki-jo put his work in order, came out of the Cheongsan Building, and made for Shindang-dong.

Riding in the jeep toward Park Chung-hee's house there, he sank into thought. Park was already moving toward a coup. On the nineteenth of May just past, Army Chief of Staff Song Yo-chan had stepped down from his post. As in the history Ki-jo remembered, the letter Park had sent him seemed to have played the decisive part. The date of the resignation was the same.

In ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that history, Park had pointed out Song Yo-chan's fault in cooperating with the fraudulent election of March 15, and had written in the letter, As the army's supreme commander, take responsibility for March 15 and withdraw. Receiving it, Song acknowledged his fault and stepped down without a fight.

After that, the men of the eighth class of the Korea Military Academy—officers who looked to Park as their leader—launched the military purification movement, and five of them, Kim Jong-pil among them, were arrested and then set free. It was Song Yo-chan who released them. Just before resigning, he ordered them let go. He looked after Park and the circle around him to the very end, and Park, who had received so much of his favor, would in the end bring him down. It was modern history, with personal loyalty and righteous cause tangled together in confusion.

In the course of their talk, Chang had also said that Kim Jong-pil, forcibly discharged, had come to the Sasanggye office to see him. Kim had hoped to find work ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠there, but Chang told him to come back in a month and sent him away. He had declined, he said, because the man was too "hot" to work alongside, and he added that their conversation had left him startled at how radical Kim's thinking was. To Chang Jun-ha, pro-American and conservative, Kim Jong-pil must have looked something close to a socialist.

It also occurred to Ki-jo that Kim, forced out of the service in the midst of the purification movement, had gone to Chang with his grievance against the army and the state at its very peak. The warp and weft of these connections were snarled so tightly that he could not begin to feel how the days ahead would turn.

While he was still sorting the tangle in his head, the jeep drew up, almost before he noticed, in front of Park Chung-hee's house in Shindang-dong.

The house on the corner was a culture house built in the 1930s. Western style and Japanese met in it, and its several gabled roofs were its mark; it sat square and tidy on a lot of some thirty-five hundred square feet. Ki-jo knew the place belonged to Yuk Young-soo. On Park's salary it was a house he could not even have dreamed of buying. Men who had served under him in his days as deputy commander of the Sixth Corps had pooled the money, and what was still lacking Yuk Young-soo had borrowed from her relatives. The house itself was proof that, while he remained in the service, Park had shown little interest in the running of his own household.

The Park Chung-hee Ki-jo knew was a man fond of drink and of women, and indifferent to money. Even as deputy commander of the Sixth Corps he had lived alone in the official quarters, and the story went that whenever Yuk Young-soo came to see him they quarreled, and she went back. After the marriage his affairs had gone on, and because a subordinate's wife made a point of carrying word of them to Yuk, the fights were frequent. One of the chief reasons she had accepted his proposal in 1950 was that he did not look like a man who would stray. Reality was otherwise. The game of hide-and-seek between a Park who wanted to wander at every opening and a Yuk who would never tolerate her husband's wandering lasted until 1974.

Ki-jo climbed down from the jeep and knocked at the gate of the Shindang-dong house.

"Is anyone home?"

The door opened, and Park Chung-hee came out. He was in ordinary clothes. A thin smile cut across his face.

"Let's go out. There's a bar I know well. We'll go there."

This time, unlike their first meeting in Busan, Ki-jo ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠held his ground. If he went out with Park now, he would leave a poor impression on Yuk Young-soo. He could see her coming up behind her husband.

He greeted her at once.

"How do you do? My name is Lee Ki-jo."

"Hello. I've heard a great deal about you."

Seeing him bow to her, Yuk Young-soo inclined her own head and smiled, bright and open.

"We've said hello. Let's go."

Park kept trying to lead him out. Ki-jo ignored him and turned to Yuk.

"Ma'am, is there an elder in the house?"

At the question her face lit up.

"Yes. My mother is here."

Ki-jo already knew. Park was living with his mother-in-law under his roof.

"It's my first visit to your home. I ought to pay my respects to her."

With that he took up the bundle he had brought and stepped boldly in through the gate. To Yuk Young-soo he said,

"I've brought a great many sweets the children will like."

"Oh my, have you? Thank you. Please, come in."

Pleased, it seemed, that he had no intention of taking her husband outside, she broke into a radiant smile.

Ki-jo set Park aside and followed her. Park stared after him, utterly at a loss, then came along behind, unwilling.

Seated on the wooden veranda was Lee Kyung-ryeong—Park's mother-in-law, and Yuk Young-soo's mother. Shown in by Yuk, Ki-jo stepped inside and dropped into a deep bow before her.

"How do you do? My name is Lee Ki-jo. I run a business. Forgive me for calling unannounced."

"Not at all. A guest has come, and I haven't prepared a thing..."

"I bought a little to eat. I thought the family might share it."

From the bundle he drew sweets from Cheongsan Confectionery, hamburgers and french fries from Mac O, jeon and bindaetteok—savory pancakes and mung-bean pancakes—from the market, and fruit. At the sight of it Park's face tightened into a scowl, but Yuk Young-soo and Lee Kyung-ryeong started in surprise, and then almost at once they smiled.

"Goodness—what is all this..."

"I was an orphan, so I like eating in a house full of family. General Park called me to his home, and I was glad at the thought that I'd be having dinner with his family, so I bought these on the way."

He carried it off without a blush. If he let himself be caught in Park's pace, went out drinking, and happened to meet a woman, he would be hauled along to gatherings of that sort from then on. He had no wish to be led by the nose from the very first move.

"I'll lay out what you've brought. Just a moment."

Yuk Young-soo, who had sat her husband back down inside the house, spoke with a smile across her whole face. She and her mother set busily to work laying the table.

Ki-jo went over to the children as well—nine-year-old Geun-hye, seven-year-old Geun-ryoung, and three-year-old Ji-man—and greeted them.

"Hello. I'm someone who knows your father. From now on, call me Uncle."

When he handed out pocket money along with the greeting, Park looked at him as if the whole thing were absurd. Ki-jo stroked the head of each of the three in turn, fussing over them, and Park motioned with his hand.

"Step outside a moment."

Ki-jo met his eyes with a bright smile and nodded.

Out in the courtyard, Park took out a cigarette. Ki-jo lit it for him; Park handed him one in return and lit that as well. Blowing a plume of smoke into the empty air, he said,

"From now on, I think I'll see you only outside."

"I'd rather you didn't, General. From now on, please invite me to the house."

When Ki-jo pushed back, Park let out a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠short laugh. Then he spoke to the children, who on the veranda were opening the boxes of cookies and candy Ki-jo had brought.

"Take them into your room."

At their father's word the three siblings answered, "Yes!" and carried the bundles of sweets off into the room.

Ki-jo asked him,

"Where are the hundred broken radios?"

"You know perfectly well there aren't any..."

Park gave that short laugh again.

They smoked together until Yuk Young-soo called that the table was ready, and then they went in to the veranda.

Yuk Young-soo and Lee Kyung-ryeong were glad of Ki-jo, the guest Park himself had invited. He was the first person ever to drag Park—who wanted nothing more than to go out—back into the house, and sit drinking with him there.