Dr. Rostow
The first engagement on the sixteenth was a meeting with Dr. Rostow, the man who had supplied the framework for Korea's strategy of economic development. Dr. Walt Whitman Rostow had a remarkable career behind him. The descendant of Russian immigrants, and a Jew, he had served in the Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War; before he ever met Kennedy, he had been a professor of economics at MIT.
With the election approaching he had joined Kennedy's staff as a foreign-policy adviser and written the candidate's speeches himself. In his address accepting the presidential nomination, Kennedy had stressed the spirit of the New Frontier—and it was Dr. Rostow who had written that speech. Famous both as an economist and as an anti-communist, he argued that if the underdeveloped world was to be kept from going communist, an industrial revolution had to be set off inside it. Lead a poor country into industrialization and on into a society of mass production and mass consumption, he held, and communism would find nowhere to plant its foot.
Dr. Rostow came to the ambassador's residence, and the breakfast meeting began. Bald, and wearing brown horn-rimmed glasses, he had an intensity in his eyes from the first glance. He laid his theory out for Chairman Park with patient clarity.
"If Korea passes through the five stages of the industrial revolution, it can enter the ranks of the advanced nations without being communized."
At the confidence in his voice, Chairman Park, Finance Minister Cheon Byeong-gyu, and Song Jeong-beom, deputy director of the Economic Planning Board, all leaned in to listen.
"First, like an airplane taking off, you have to drive the Korean economy—still built around agriculture—forward fast enough to get it into the air."
He worked from a theory that divided economic growth into five stages. At its heart lay the belief that even an underdeveloped country could succeed, provided only that large-scale capital was properly designed and the public sector stepped in. He was an economist, yet he never reached for difficult terms; he explained himself in plain words, which made the interpreting easy for Ki-jo as well.
"Get the Korean economy off the ground first, Mr. Chairman. In the next stage it will achieve an 'explosive takeoff.'"
At the suggestion that Korea, too, might become an advanced country, they all listened as if under a spell. Chairman Park, who had been following every word, asked a question.
"If we are to get the Korean economy airborne, where should we begin?"
A smile spread over Dr. Rostow's face. Rather than answer, he turned the question back.
"Where do you think you ought to begin, Mr. Chairman?"
Chairman Park replied as if the answer had long been waiting in his mind.
"We should start by building up light industry, shouldn't we?"
Dr. Rostow laughed aloud.
"You are mistaken, Mr. Chairman. Ordinary economists make that suggestion all the time. I looked over Korea's First Five-Year Plan, and it seemed to me you had taken in a great many opinions from timid scholars and cautious bureaucrats. Economies do not work that way. Korea must make finished goods from the very beginning."
"What do you mean by finished goods?"
"Televisions, refrigerators, automobiles, ships. Things of that sort."
It was a remark that turned Korean common sense on its head. Unable even to make a screw, Koreans had assumed they must begin with the simplest parts, work gradually up to more complex ones, and only much later attempt anything so intricate as an automobile.
"Is that possible? We don't have the technology..."
"It is. If you want to make automobiles, begin by making automobiles."
The claim left them all stunned. Dr. Rostow went on to explain how it could be done.
"Wages in Korea are low, are they not? Less than a tenth of American wages—and even set beside Japan, less than a quarter, I believe?"
True to his standing as an authority on the economic development of poor countries, he had Korea's circumstances down cold.
"That's right."
"Make Korea a subcontracting base for the advanced nations. Bring in every part from abroad, assemble them on the strength of Korean low wages, and sell the finished goods."
He said it with perfect clarity. Watching Dr. Rostow speak the very words Ki-jo himself had wanted to say, Ki-jo felt something loosen in his chest. It was the greatest relief he had known since setting foot in the United States.
"While you are assembling finished products, you learn that this is how a factory runs, and that these are the parts that go into a finished product."
"And the next stage?"
Chairman Park asked it with curiosity bright in his eyes.
"You must bring into Korea the companies that make the parts for those finished goods. And as you do, you learn that this is how parts are made."
He was offering a way of thinking that ran directly counter to what Koreans took for granted, and they marveled at a strategy that seemed to proceed backward.
"In the end you must advance until you are a country that produces basic raw materials. That is the terminus of industrialization."
Everyone at the breakfast nodded. Thought of that way, it was the advanced countries—Germany, the United States—that made the basic materials and components of industry best of all. A firm industrial foundation and a developed science and technology were required before a nation could make those materials well, so the doctor's reasoning held. Ki-jo felt a quiet relief as he watched them accept, from the authoritative Dr. Rostow, arguments that would have stirred suspicion had he advanced them himself.
Finance Minister Cheon Byeong-gyu and Deputy Director Song Jeong-beom put questions to him and threw themselves into the discussion. The breakfast ran a full two hours. After Dr. Rostow had gone, the new ideas still worked in them, and a fresh force had come into their eyes. He had given them hope that Korea could certainly become an advanced nation, and he had set concrete methods beside that hope; their spirits seemed to swell with it.
But there was no time to linger in so sweet a prospect. The entourage moved at once to the National Press Club, the place where visiting heads of state stood before American reporters, delivered their speeches, and took questions. As the headquarters of the American press, it was a house where freedom of the press was given full rein, and it was famous for the ferocity of its questioning. No one was more tense about it than Won Chung-yeon, director of the Office of Public Information.
On the way, Ki-jo asked him, "You've got the speech with you?"
"Of course."
Won opened his bag and checked once more the manuscript he would place in Chairman Park's hands. Ki-jo glanced over the pages. Just as in the history he remembered, what Won had written out by hand covered both the front of the paper and the back. He had a feeling disaster was about to repeat itself.
At the Press Club, Chairman Park would read straight down the manuscript Won handed him, never realizing it was written on both sides. Only afterward, when the sense of it failed, would he look at the pages again and see the mistake—and by then it would be too late. The Voice of America would already have recorded the speech, and words once spoken could not be gathered back up. Over that blunder Won would lose the chairman's trust, be removed as director of public information, and later lose his life after being caught in a coup plot.
Ki-jo spoke as if the thought had only just occurred to him. "It's written on both sides. Do you usually do it that way?"
"The chairman told me we ought to save paper, so I wrote it like this..."
Won considered a moment, then said, "I should tell him it's a two-sided manuscript before I hand it over."
"That would be best. He's tired. He might not notice it's written on both sides."
"Thank you for saying so. When I get back to Korea, a drink won't be enough—I'll have to buy you a suit. Ha ha ha."
Won said it with a bright laugh.
At the National Press Club, Chairman Park opened by impressing upon the reporters the inevitability of the military revolution. This time the two-sided manuscript raised no trouble. Ki-jo stood at the chairman's side and interpreted. Park spoke of his efforts to shield Korea from communist invasion and to develop the economy, and he did not fail to mention the afforestation drive. Through urgent waterway works, tree planting, and the reclamation of land, he declared, tens of thousands would be given jobs.
When the speech ended, the questions came in a rush. The first was sharp and biting.
"A journalist in Korea has been sentenced to death, I understand. Isn't that the suppression of a free press?"
It seemed aimed at the death sentence passed on Cho Yong-su of the Minjok Ilbo. The same matter had caused trouble during the visit to Japan, where demonstrators had denounced Chairman Park. He answered.
"As to that case, the facts are these. A public trial established that he was a communist spy. The money for operating the paper was sent by North Korea through Chongryon, the pro-North organization in Japan, and he acted on the orders of the northern puppet regime. He received a lawful judgment under the law."
The second question asked whether North Korea was subordinate to the Soviet Union or to China. Chairman Park replied that it was subordinate to both. The third cut just as close: the sensitive matter of whether he himself meant to leave the army and run for the presidency in 1963 as a civilian.
"When the tasks of the revolution are complete, we will return to our proper duties. We hope that conscientious civilians will stand for office."
In one light it was a lie, and in another it was the truth. Chairman Park would leave the service, become a civilian, and challenge for the highest office. The keen questions of the opening passed, and what followed grew gradually duller.
"Do you believe that, as General MacArthur urged during the Korean War, the advance should have continued beyond the Yalu?"
"As a Korean, I agreed at the time with General MacArthur's view. The correct judgment of it, however, history will deliver in due course."
Applause broke out at that. The questions drifted on toward smaller things.
"I understand the use of wooden chopsticks has been banned in Korea, and I'd like to know the reason."
The reporter who asked it laughed once the question was out. Chairman Park answered with a face that held no trace of a smile.
"The ban on wooden chopsticks is no laughing matter for us. The shortage of timber was severe, and the mountains had been stripped of trees. We pushed it through as a matter of urgency."
Taken as a whole, the answers were short and free of excess. When the conference ended, Ki-jo interpreted the thanks Chairman Park offered the reporters.
"Yesterday President Kennedy warned me that heads of state from around the world have taken a beating at the Press Club. I am grateful that you treated me gently today."
The applause died, and as if one thing he had left unsaid had just come back to him, the chairman added a word.
"Secretary of Commerce Hodges gave me a cat figurine. He told me that if I stroked it, the reporters would grow tame—and it seems to have worked."
At the joke the American reporters applauded and burst out laughing.
Leaving the Press Club, the entourage returned to the ambassador's residence, where this time they met the accompanying Korean press and the correspondents stationed in Washington. Chairman Park explained that the visit had not brought them a loan for the First Five-Year Economic Development Plan, but that they had secured a special loan for the construction of a nuclear power plant. Lee Young-hee was present as well, yet he seemed satisfied with the support won from the United States and put no sharp question.
At five that evening, Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Samuel Berger, the American ambassador to Korea, came to the residence. In the history Ki-jo remembered, Secretary Rusk had warned Chairman Park not to complain about the size of American aid. This time he lavished praise.
"I believe your decision has won Korea a fine opportunity, Mr. Chairman. I have dealt with the leaders of many foreign countries, and you are the first I have seen go home with so many accomplishments to show for it."
The external schedule thus closed without mishap, and at six they invited compatriots, students studying abroad, and the families of diplomats to the residence for a reception. Many young mothers had brought their children. Chairman Park took the children in his arms and laughed more than he had in days. Seeing them, Ki-jo thought of his own children back in Korea, and something caught in his chest.
The reception had, on the whole, the air of a neighborhood feast. Chairman Park carried none of the authoritarian distance of Syngman Rhee, and the Koreans who had been invited seemed simply amazed to be looking at him in the flesh. They appeared relieved to discover that the leader of the coup, known to them only from the news, was not so frightening a man after all. Worn down by life in a foreign land, the compatriots seemed glad and comforted at the mere sight of someone come from Korea.
When the day's schedule was done, Chairman Park gathered the entourage for a meeting. They were all exhausted, but having let the previous day's meeting go, the feeling in the room was that this one could not be skipped. As they were about to leave for the hotel afterward, Dr. Ji Hong-chang, the chairman's personal physician, drew Ki-jo aside.
"You aren't tired, Interpreter?"
He studied Ki-jo's color, then pressed a few pills into his hand.
"These are the same sleeping tablets prescribed for Chairman Park. You leave for New York tomorrow. Take them, and sleep soundly."
Ki-jo was a little startled to learn that the chairman, even while driving through so punishing a schedule, could not get to sleep.
"I'm all right, Doctor. The moment my head touches the pillow, I'm asleep."
"Then that's a relief. Youth really is a fine thing."
The doctor, ten years Ki-jo's senior, smiled.
Riding toward the Shoreham Hotel with the rest of the entourage, Ki-jo turned over what remained of the schedule. A program still waited that left not a moment free. The Korean delegation meant to meet everyone who might be of help to the country and appeal to them for support. They were forcing their way through a desperate round of engagements for the national interest, scraping together even the last of their souls.
When they reached the hotel, Lieutenant Colonel Han Sang-guk, the interpreter who had originally been assigned, came out into the lobby to meet them.
"Colonel Han—you're all right now?"
Won Chung-yeon was the first to go to him.
"Yes, I'm fully recovered. From tomorrow I think I can take the chairman's interpreting again."
"That so? That's a relief. Have Dr. Ji look you over once tomorrow."
"Yes, sir."
Finished with Won, Han Sang-guk came over to Ki-jo, took his hand in a firm grip, and said, "You've had a hard time on my account. From tomorrow things will be much easier for you."
"I'm glad you've recovered. I can keep interpreting, so please don't push yourself too hard."
Ki-jo went up to his room and lay down on the bed. Lee Young-hee was not there; he must have been in a meeting with the other reporters. Ki-jo thought of his family in Korea. The knowledge that he would see them in nine days swelled in his chest. Picturing the gifts he would buy for Yeongsu, Yeongeun, and Yeongjun, he closed his eyes.
He had been apart from them for nearly half a month, and yet it felt as if months had passed. The children's faces rose before him, vivid as life. He could already see it: he would reach the house, open the gate, and Yeongeun would come running, calling out Dad—and the thought brought a smile to his face of its own accord. Yeongsu and Yeongjun came to him as well, and Sunrye, laughing and crying at the sight of him, stood clear before his eyes. Ki-jo's heart had already arrived home.