The Fifteenth of May

On the morning of May 15, 1961, James Hausman called at the office of Magruder, commander of the United States Eighth Army.

Hausman's official title was political adviser to the Eighth Army commander. He came in, saluted, and stated his business.

"General, I was thinking of taking some leave back in the States."

Magruder looked at him and smiled.

"Go ahead. April passed without a hitch, and the twelfth of May came and went with nothing happening at all. You've earned a rest. You've worked hard."

Magruder had decided that Hausman—a man of enormous influence over Korean politics and the Korean military—had successfully choked off the coup attempt. There had been intelligence that Park Chung-hee would move on May 12, and the day had slipped by without a ripple. Twice now Hausman had blocked that stubborn plotting. It seemed only fair that he should unclench and enjoy a holiday with his family.

Magruder did not believe Park, having failed twice in a row, would find it easy to step forward again. A CIA report suggested there might be another try on the sixteenth, but several of Park's lieutenants had already been picked up, and the whole shape of the plan was known. On top of that, Chang Do-young, the man responsible for the Korean Army, had telephoned Park himself. Surely that was enough for Park to take the hint and give the thing up.

Time was on their side. While Park hesitated, a new round of general-officer appointments would come, and this time even Prime Minister Chang Myon would force him into retirement. Once Park Chung-hee was gone, the risk of a coup in Korea would drop to nothing.

Even so, Magruder asked, "Aside from Park—what about the other coup factions?"

What he meant was the Youth Corps officers gathered around Lee Beom-seok. Hausman said there was no real chance.

"The Lee Beom-seok crowd has no clear center of gravity. And once Park pulled the various plotters into a single bloc, the smaller factions more or less dissolved on their own."

Magruder nodded, satisfied, and then asked, "This Park Chung-hee, though. You're on fairly good terms with him, aren't you?"

"I wouldn't call us close, but we've known each other. We got to know one another putting down the Yeosu-Suncheon Rebellion."

"And yet you're not close?"

"No, sir. Park doesn't much care for the U.S. Army. Even when he meets me, he's standoffish."

"That fellow. I just don't understand him. No faction, no strength, and still he goes around blustering that he's going to pull off a coup..."

Magruder clicked his tongue. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠When word had come in that the plotters had fixed on May 12 as their day, he had summoned Chang Do-young and talked it through. That had been May 10.

"They say Park Chung-hee means to rise in two days. Can you put it down?"

Chang had answered, "So long as I am Chief of Staff of the Army, nothing of the kind can possibly happen."

He had been confident he could prevent a coup. Magruder had asked him then, too, whether he and Park were close, and Chang had said much the same thing Hausman had.

"Park and I aren't especially close, but we go back a long way. His rank is below mine, but he's older, so I've treated him well and kept the relationship smooth."

Chang Do-young and Hausman both—each of them careful to add the qualifier, not that I'm close to Park, but... Magruder thought that told him exactly what sort of man Park was. Someone who could not get along with the people around him, and who had a particular habit of talking back to anyone who outranked him: a born contrarian, a loner. That was Park Chung-hee as Magruder saw him.

For now, though, the man was simply thrashing in his last extremity, with forced retirement staring him in the face. Even the way he plotted a coup in plain sight, advertising it as he went, looked like a gambit aimed at a Korean officer corps soft about personal ties. Magruder knew very well how weak that army was where relationships were concerned. The tangle of region, family origin, and school ties inside the Korean military was nothing new.

Park spreading word of a coup while he plotted one was not, Magruder suspected, an actual intention to rise. It looked more like the crying-child strategy—the shout of I'd rather stage a coup than sit here and be retired. Korean generals were experts at soothing a crying child. The louder Park wailed, the more sympathy he could stir: things must have been desperate, for him ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to think like that. That was the Korean Army.

Still, something about it sat wrong with Magruder, and he checked once more with Hausman.

"While you're out of the country, Korea's CIC and the Central Intelligence Committee can handle Park, can't they?"

"Of course. The CIC—the Army Counterintelligence Corps—has him under close watch."

"And the man from Room 79?"

"Mr. Lee regards Park Chung-hee as an extremely dangerous man, and he hasn't relaxed his guard. He has no personal connection to Park at all."

The assurance that Lee Hu-rak had nothing to do with Park satisfied Magruder. At least Lee would not hesitate out of some old human tie. Magruder decided that was enough. In any case, he held the Korean Army's peacetime operational control; without his permission, that army could not move a single step. It had always been so.

There had been one exception. While he was out of the country, the April 19 uprising had broken, martial law had come down, and the ROK 15th Infantry Division had moved to suppress the demonstrators. Even that had been possible only because the deputy commander, standing in for him, had given leave. Under martial law itself, the Korean Army had waited for American permission before it stirred. Brave as it was, no army on earth followed American direction more readily.

If the worst came and a coup did break out, Magruder believed he could still stop it early by urging Chang Do-young to put it down. Failing that, he could seek the cooperation of Defense Minister Hyun Seok-ho, a civilian, or go straight to the prime minister, the commander-in-chief, and recommend action himself.

He watched the Korean Army for coups partly to protect the lawful government of a democracy, and partly for another reason. His own promotion depended on it. Lemnitzer, now Chairman of the Joint Chiefs; Ridgway, who had been Army Chief of Staff; Maxwell Taylor—all of them had come out of command of the Eighth Army. If Korea stayed stable while he was there, he could climb higher still. The Eighth Army command was a springboard to the very top of the United States Army.

That his career should be threatened by Park Chung-hee—a man poorly regarded even inside the Korean Army, and without a faction—was absurd. He could not stand by and watch his ambitions wrecked. And the man across from him was a former officer of the Japanese Army, wasn't he? For an officer who had fought in the Second World War, that was all the more impossible to accept.

"Rest well in the States, and come back."

Magruder smiled and saw Hausman out. Alone in the office, he muttered to himself.

"Korea really is a strange place. I've warned the prime minister again and again that Park Chung-hee is going to stage a coup. Why doesn't he do anything?"

Turning it over, he suddenly thought of Syngman Rhee. Rhee, too, had acted as if the people would never dare rise against him. Chang Myon ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠seemed the same—convinced, apparently, that the army would never dare turn on him.

Magruder picked up the telephone and hesitated. Should he tell Prime Minister Chang that the danger wasn't over—that it would remain until Park Chung-hee was driven out of the army for good? He remembered what Chang had said to the people who warned him, once April had passed uneventfully through the thick of the April coup rumors.

Magruder, who had warned that a coup was likely on May 12 as well, had no wish to hear that from Chang Myon. He set the receiver back in its cradle.

Leave granted, Hausman returned to his office and at once told a subordinate to book his tickets. The man reserved seats for the whole family. The date was May 18. There ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was intelligence of a coup attempt on the sixteenth, so Hausman meant to stay in Korea and watch through the seventeenth. Even so, the sixteenth looked likely to pass without incident. With one of the plotters already under arrest, the odds were high that Park would quit.

Hausman was too buoyed to keep his mind on the work. What would he do first, once he was back in America? After a moment's thought, he telephoned Lee Hu-rak.

Hausman hung up and briefly considered calling Chang Do-young, Chief of Staff of the Army. By the CIA's information, Korea's investigative and intelligence organs were watching Park properly. The problem was Chang. Once a report reached him, it never made it to the prime minister. The power elite of Chang Myon's government were answering Park's coup with a kind of passive drift—ignoring procedure, trading facts and opinions down private lines, shrinking and burying the matter out of regard for personal ties and a superior's mood. Chang Myon himself was no better. He would not make the decision that prevention required.

Hausman wondered whether he ought to call Chang Do-young and tell him to summon Park to Army Headquarters. If Park still had not let go of the dream, a sudden summons might rouse his suspicion, and he might refuse to come. If he refused, Hausman wanted to say, arrest him on the spot.

He lifted the receiver, then set it down again. With leave just ahead of him, he had the sudden sense that he would only be stirring up needless trouble. Whenever he raised Park's plotting, Chang Do-young let a quiet irritation show, as if to say the Korean Army's business should be left to the Korean Army. Warning him once more and asking his cooperation on the eve of a holiday did not seem like a good idea. It could too easily look as though Hausman were slighting the highest officer in the Korean Army and treating him like a subordinate. Out of sheer contrariness, Chang might turn more conciliatory toward Park.

For the moment, Hausman judged the chance of a successful coup to be low. Fifty thousand American troops were stationed in Korea, and operational control rested with them. With General Magruder planted where he was, Park would not dare pick up a rifle and rise. Worry over Park Chung-hee could wait.

From the breathless political upheaval of April 1960 through the middle of May 1961, when the danger of a coup had only grown, he had not properly rested once. Aside from the occasional round of golf with Lee Ki-jo to take the edge off, there had been nothing he could do. Now he wanted to let the tension go, fly home, and breathe the air of his own country. He was sick to death of Korea, where the impossible kept happening—but he also suspected that a few weeks' rest in America would leave him wanting to come back. Over there he was nothing, a middle-aged man of no importance. Here, politicians and soldiers looked up to him.

He finished the morning's work and meant to spend the afternoon at the quarters inside the Eighth Army compound, packing with his family. Faces rose in his mind: friends in his hometown in New Jersey, and his brother. He wanted to see them, unburden himself after so long, and tell them what he had lived through in Korea. His older brother most of all.

The name he used now was his brother's. Too young to enlist, Hausman had borrowed it to get into the army, and he had gone on using it as his own ever since. If he had risen this far in Korea, it was thanks to that brother. He wanted to thank him.

Humming under his breath, Hausman finished the work that remained before he left Korea.