Glad Tidings from Japan
On June 14, 1960, Gijo sat with the Kyunghyang Shinmun, the paper the Syngman Rhee regime had shut down in its last days and that had only lately come back into print. The front page belonged to a single story.
The Democratic Party's New Faction took four hundred million hwan from the Ministry of Finance — hush money, to bury the recommendation that Dr. Syngman Rhee step down.
The party's supreme council has called an emergency session and announced a grave resolve: the affair has driven the party to a question of life or death, and only a full investigation will save it.
That the Democrats had accepted money meant to keep Syngman Rhee in power left the public shocked and sour with disgust. For years the party had played the opposition and denounced him; learning that behind the curtain they had tried to preserve him made people click their tongues. Everywhere the same charge broke out — how were the Democrats any different from the Liberal Party? — and some went further, saying a party that had lied to the nation was worse than the Liberals.
The scandal tore the party open all over again. Already it was split between the New Faction gathered around Chang Myon and the Old Faction around Yun Bo-seon, and the illicit money set the two camps snarling at each other once more.
Minister of Justice Kwon Seung-ryeol, who called at the National Assembly over the case and met the Speaker, left a bizarre remark concerning the three Democratic lawmakers who had taken the funds.
"Had the nation's own money not been drawn out and handed over," he added, "there would be no offense in it at all." He let it be understood that he meant to press the matter no further. The performance was enough, by itself, to call the Rhee regime back to mind.
On September 14, 1955, the Maeil Shinmun company in Daegu had been attacked. Thugs directed by Kim Min, deputy director of general affairs at the National Association's North Gyeongsang headquarters, and by Hong Yeong-seop, chief inspector of the Liberal Party's North Gyeongsang chapter, burst into the offices with clubs and sledgehammers, smashed the presses, seized even the papers already printed, and fled. They had been provoked, in their view, by an editorial the day before: Do Not Use Students as Political Tools.
Liberal Party lawmaker Choi Chang-seop had said it without blinking.
"Terror in broad daylight is not terror."
Park Sun-seok, of the same party, took their side.
"It isn't terror. It's a righteous uprising."
In the posture of the government and of the Democrats, people recognized the old Liberal Party — the party that had lived on sophistry and looked down on all the world. Gijo saw it the same way.
From the roster of its lawmakers on down, the Democratic Party was badly short of what reform, or the national interest, would require. Former collaborators with the Japanese and old landlords made up too large a share. They were conservatives heavy with vested interest, men who in practice spent themselves guarding what they already held, and who lived at a remove from ordinary life. There was little hope to be hung on them.
The next day, June 15, the amendment establishing a cabinet system passed the Assembly. Of the 211 members present, 208 voted in favor and three against, and under Article 52 of the Constitution, Kwak Sang-hoon, Speaker of the House of Representatives, was to assume the powers of acting president. The weight of it must have been too much. He refused the charge and resigned the speakership itself, so Prime Minister Heo Jeong carried on as acting head of government.
No one was willing to take the responsibility.
Under the change to a parliamentary cabinet the Assembly dissolved on the twenty-fourth, and in the last hours before dissolution it revised two of the Rhee government's most notorious laws, the National Security Act and the election law.
In the early hours of Sunday, June 26, Gijo went onto the grounds of the U.S. Eighth Army and played golf with Hausman. Somewhere out along the course, Hausman turned to him.
"Lucky you didn't land on that list of illicit fortunes, Gijo. Not that it would have mattered. If your name had been there, we'd have taken it off."
Gijo struck the ball and grinned, all cheek.
"Haven't you already? I was under the impression the only reason I stayed out of a cell was you, Advisor."
Hausman laughed, big and easy.
"You do treat me far too familiarly. Sometimes I think you're the only Korean who does. Careful — get to know me, and I'm a frightening man."
He said it, and he did not look as if he minded. Gijo only smiled back at him.
He knew how sensitive the United States had grown, amid the reforms after April 19, about the settling of illicit fortunes. Washington was already pressing that businessmen be spared any excessive punishment. Ambassador McConaughy had sat down with Heo Jeong, head of the interim government, and warned that if the reckoning with the past slipped outside existing law and order, instability could follow. In August of 1960 the United States sent an open letter to Heo Jeong and to Chang Myon, chief supreme councilor of the Democratic Party. It read as follows.
and Chang Myon, Chief Supreme Councilor of the Democratic Party
August 1960
The interim government's restoration to the national treasury of illicit assets held by those who amassed fortunes through corruption; its vigorous collection of fines and penalty recoveries from tax offenders; and its punishment of monopoly enterprises that imported raw materials on aid funds — these measures threaten to constrict industrial production in Korea and to reignite a sharp inflation.
The Americans took care to stress that April 19 had not been a class revolution, but a democratic revolution to overthrow Syngman Rhee's undemocratic dictatorship. They had their reasons. They feared that if Korea, in the wake of April 19, went on confiscating the property of businessmen, the mood of the country might drift toward socialism. What they meant to protect, as far as they could, was capitalism.
"Say, Gijo. I hear a friend of yours is coming over from Japan."
"Yes. He gets in this afternoon."
The friend Hausman meant was Frank Faubel, the CIA officer in Japan.
"I had the feeling he was bringing you a present."
Hausman let it fall lightly, a man who already knew.
"He said it would touch off a real revolution in Korean electronics."
"Did he? So April 19 is coming for Korean industry now, is that it?"
They traded the joke and played out the eighteen holes. After the round and a shower, Gijo left the Eighth Army base for Gimpo Airport, looking forward to the gift his old friend was bringing from Japan.
Meeting Frank, Gijo let a long-overdue reunion spill out. He brought him back toward Seoul, and they talked as they went.
"Way I hear it, Cheongsan has turned into a proper conglomerate. Loans coming in, a fertilizer plant going up, a tractor plant besides? Feels like yesterday you were asking me to lend you an account and help you haul sand out of the Han. Ha."
Frank said it and grinned.
"Frank, why don't you take a share in Cheongsan yourself? Then we could grow it together."
"Don't even start. I put equity into Cheongsan and the CIA shows me the door before the ink is dry. Private gain out of a public job — that's the finding. And from here on I'm supposed to push Cheongsan Electronics hard. Can't do that if my name is on the shares."
He laughed, bright about it, and then told Gijo what several years of watching Japan's electronics industry had shown him: where they were strong, and where they were not.
"Right now their electronics business is riding a virtuous cycle. Low wages, fast technical development, and the money they pull out of the American market feeding straight back in. Of course that 'development' is mostly copying American technology — just doing it fast. Fast enough that the American firms don't know what hit them."
Gijo nodded.
"Wages are cheaper here. If American technology comes into Korea, we can catch Japan."
"Bingo. That's exactly it. That's why I want Cheongsan Electronics built up. To keep Japan in check."
Gijo wanted to know what the present actually was.
"And how do you mean to support Cheongsan Electronics?"
"Dying to know, aren't you? We'll go to the hotel, have a cup of tea, and I'll tell you. Good to be back in Korea after so long. That wide Han. Low hills everywhere you look."
Frank said it with his eyes on the country sliding past the window. Close to ten years now, he had been tied to Korea. It occurred to Gijo to wonder whether the divorce had been cleanly got through, and whether Frank was raising his child all right in Japan.
"Frank."
"Yeah?"
"Any thought of marrying again?"
At that Frank broke into laughter and dodged the question. When the laughter faded, he answered.
"I'll think about it the day I quit the CIA. I've had my fill of women. And as long as I work for the Agency, I never know when the next divorce is going to land on me."
While they talked, Gijo's jeep drew up at the Bando Hotel.
In the coffee shop, Kim Hae-soo, up from Busan, had already taken a table and was waiting.
"Over here! President!"
He was on his feet, one hand thrown high.
Gijo went to the table and introduced him to Frank.
"President Kim Hae-soo — Korea's Konosuke Matsushita. He runs Cheongsan Radio, and he's the man who will lead Cheongsan Electronics."
"A pleasure. Frank Faubel, of the Faubel Company."
Kim Hae-soo had no idea the man was CIA. He knew him only as an American businessman of long standing with Gijo. The three shook hands and sat, and their eyes went to the Cheongsan CS-58 set out on the table.
"So this is a Cheongsan radio."
"It is."
Frank turned the CS-58 in his hands, studying the workmanship from every side.
"A lot like a Japanese set."
"We made it that way on purpose."
"Smart. Japanese radios are cheap, and they handle easy. Mind if I open the case?"
At his asking, Kim Hae-soo took the radio apart. With the inside laid open, Frank went over the components with care.
"The guts are Japanese too. Looking at the parts alone, I couldn't tell you whether this was made in Japan or in Korea."
Years given over to the electronics trade had left him that eye. He tugged at the internal wiring and checked whether the solder was sound, and when he judged the assembly good he nodded.
"Fine. As a subcontract production base, this is more than enough."
"Subcontracting?"
Kim Hae-soo's eyes lit.
"Japan has no shortage of electronics firms. The ones that count are Matsushita Electric and Sony. Everybody else is killing themselves trying to catch those two, and they can't. They need a way out."
Kim Hae-soo nodded.
"You're thinking of working with the second- and third-tier firms?"
"That's right. Some Japanese companies are in Korea already."
"You mean Sanyo Electric?"
"I do. Sanyo."
At that, Kim Hae-soo spoke.
"The truth is, the CS-58 borrowed a great deal from Sanyo's radios."
"I could see it from across the table. Ha."
Frank was agreeable.
"The Faubel Company placed a large order with Sanyo. Low-priced radios — the kind American companies hand out as promotional giveaways. We hammered the unit price down so far that if they try to build them inside Japan, they won't hit the number."
Gijo thought he saw the shape of the gift. A joint venture with Sanyo, here in Korea, and their technology absorbed through it. Kim Hae-soo seemed to have caught the same thing. He asked with his face full of hope.
"A transistor radio?"
Frank nodded, and at the words Kim Hae-soo came half out of his chair with delight. Gijo smiled as well.
"Frank, we've only just managed a vacuum-tube radio. A transistor set sounds like a dream."
"Hardly. If anything, they're easier to make than tube radios. You know that. Fewer parts, and the inside gets simpler."
"Thank you, Frank."
"For this? Sanyo's other technology is going to find its way into Korea too, before long. Cheongsan just has to do its part. Then the Faubel Company makes money as well."
Gijo nodded. He was hoping the joint venture would also bring them the battery technology Sanyo meant to push from here on.
"Sanyo's president flies into Korea tomorrow. Let's do our best — each of us for his own interest."
The three men talked on, full of hope.