A Calamity of the Pen

The first Monday of an April that had turned unmistakably warm, Kijo accepted Frank's invitation to lunch and went to see him at USOM.

Frank had orange juice and sandwiches waiting for him. Tucked inside the bread were slices of orange steeped in sugar, and it occurred to Kijo that Frank must be fond of oranges.

"I'm only just learning you like oranges."

"I do. This is orange marmalade I made myself. It ought to be all right."

Kijo took a bite. Ham, cheese, and orange jam—the combination was not bad at all. When he smiled to show that he liked it, Frank went on.

"Try the orange juice too. I squeezed it myself. It'll be plenty fresh. An orange sandwich with orange juice is like a Korean eating kimchi stew with a side of fresh kimchi."

Frank grinned, bright and easy. The juice was good as well. In the 1960s, American oranges and fresh-squeezed juice were a luxury.

Halfway through the sandwich, Frank spoke.

"Well... General Park is keeping his promises to President Kennedy, more or less. But..."

When he trailed off, Kijo asked,

"You mean it's a little different from what he promised in the United States?"

"Yes. How do I put it. Lifting the censorship and restoring political activity—that's good. It just feels like he's doing it with a twist."

Even as the military government abolished press censorship, it did not lay down the whip ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it held over the papers. Before the national referendum on revising the constitution, the Dong-A Ilbo had run an editorial declaring that a referendum was no cure-all, and arguing that it was unjust for the military government, ahead of any transfer to civilian rule, to remodel the constitution as it pleased and rush the thing into a slapdash popular vote. The paper pointed out that public hearings, and any process of sounding public opinion, had been skipped entirely. In answer, the military government arrested Dong-A Ilbo chief editorial writer Ko Jae-uk and editorial writer Hwang San-deok on suspicion of violating the Anti-Communist Act, then let them go by suspending the indictment and withdrawing the charges.

Frank seemed to have that sort of thing in mind.

"Is the White House complaining?"

"No. Not exactly.... They seem to be watching. Uneasily."

Kijo set down what remained of his sandwich.

"Enough to interfere with support for the nuclear plant, and with KISA?"

"No. Not exactly that. We're moving right along on our side. What worries them is that General Park might go back on his word. Finish the sandwich."

Eating the juice and the sandwich Frank had made, Kijo turned over the question of why he had been summoned. More than anything, Frank seemed to need information. Before a report went back to headquarters, there would be something he wanted to test against Kijo. Kijo decided he would help him with the homework.

Once the sandwiches were gone, Frank came to the point.

"Has JP happened to urge you into politics?"

Ah. So that's what you wanted to know. Kijo put on a face that gave nothing away.

"What is JP doing these days?"

Frank drew out a cigarette.

"Looks to me like he's getting ready to found a party for the general election."

Kijo nodded, then said,

"Even if he founds one, why would he call on me?"

"Why not? Don't Koreans like it when businessmen go into politics?"

"Not necessarily. Opinion of businessmen is poor just now, thanks to the ones who piled up fortunes by illicit means. In that climate, I doubt he'd go out of his way to bring a businessman into the party."

Frank nodded, the cigarette still unlit between his fingers.

The CIA, it seemed, had decided that the balance of left and right in the new party Kim Jong-pil was preparing had already been broken. He was drawing in the nationalists and progressives of the reformist camp, and turning his back on the businessmen who stood for capitalism—the reverse of the Liberal Party, which had favored them. No wonder the Americans were watching with unease. Ever since liberation, the United States had been wary of Korea's nationalists, who preferred an independent line to a pro-American one. The same current had run through every Asian nation freed from colonial rule, but Washington had long feared that Korea's nationalists might join hands with communism, take power, and make an anti-American state of the country.

Vietnam was the example they could not forget. Ho Chi Minh, a nationalist who had not begun as a communist, had clasped hands with communism, and a formidable anti-American state had been born in the North. As the pro-American regime in the South lurched and shook, American alarm had only deepened.

"Is JP a nationalist? What impression have you gotten, meeting him all this time?"

"I couldn't say whether he is."

"Does he seem to lean socialist?"

"I couldn't say that either."

Kim Jong-pil was a hard man to explain to Frank. Koreans carried a socialist inclination even when they were not socialists. A great many of them believed that everyone in the nation ought to live equally well, and that it was simple justice for a man with money to share it with the poor. No one had to be baptized in socialism to think that way; it came naturally. And as for who Kim Jong-pil actually was, Kijo himself could not be sure. The habit summed up in a phrase the man so often used—soibudap, to smile and give no answer—was such that even the scholars who studied him called him a figure no one could pin down.

Whether Kim Jong-pil was nationalist or socialist, Kijo could not say. Of one thing, though, he was certain, and he said so.

"I take Mr. Kim for a practical man. Someone who knows how to compromise."

The three-party merger, the DJP alliance—judging by what Kim Jong-pil had done in history, he was not a man to be bound to any single ideology or camp.

"Practical.... You mean he'll join hands with anyone, if it helps him? Even for a time?"

"Yes. I think you could see it that way."

"Hm."

Frank nodded as if that much he could accept. He seemed already to have guessed that bringing the reformist camp into the work of founding the Democratic Republican Party was a temporary partnership, struck to win the general election.

"If JP happens to urge you to join the founding organization, don't refuse him on the spot. Hear him out, and then tell me what he says."

"That's not hard. I will."

"Thank you, Kijo. You always seem like a man trying to help me."

"I feel the same. You've always tried to help me too, Frank."

He brought the talk to an easy close and went back to the company. In the president's office he was looking through the evening papers when a story in the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Hankook Ilbo caught his eye. The front-page lead was a scoop: the core of the revolution was pushing to found a party on the model of Britain's Labour Party.

"Ah.... This is..."

A sigh escaped him. He read the piece through.

In the original history, the Hankook Ilbo had not caught the scent of Kim Jong-pil's preparations until November of 1962. The current of events had shifted, he had hurried the work, and the secret seemed to have leaked early. Kijo put a call through to the paper at once. When Chang Key-young answered, he said,

"Hyung-nim, I saw the evening edition. The new party is on the front page. Has that actually been confirmed?"

Kijo bit his lower lip, lightly. He was thinking of the blow this article would bring down on the paper, and on Chang Key-young. In the original history Chang and the other Hankook Ilbo executives were arrested, and the affair ended with Chang stepping back from management and the paper suspending itself for a few days. There was no promise it would end at that pitch this time.

"I called because I was worried."

The old newspapermen had nerve, and he admired it. Even so, the feeling kept returning that it would not stop there.

"Hyung-nim, I think the words Social Labor Party are going to make trouble."

So the leak had come from the reformists after all. Social Labor Party was a name that suited neither Kim Jong-pil nor Chairman Park in the least. The reformist figures who had been sweet-talked into the preparations must have dreamed up a progressive name of that sort and spoken of it as if it were settled. It was a plain misreport. Kim Jong-pil and Park Chung-hee knew very well that the Americans had wondered whether they were communists. They would never adopt a party name that smelled of socialism.

Kijo wanted to tell Chang Key-young to recall the copies already on the street, or, since the story was an unconfirmed error, to print an apology at once as an extra. He had no argument that would move the man, and he had to let it go.

That same day, at two in the afternoon, Lee Hu-rak, spokesman for the Supreme Council, came forward and denied the Hankook Ilbo story in full.

Almost at once a statement of the same temper came from Kang Sang-wook, the Supreme Council member in charge of public information.

Swift, and rough. Kijo telephoned Chang Key-young again and asked whether, with the government this angry, a press conference to explain might be the wiser course. Chang seemed to feel the danger late. He asked, in return,

"Please try, Hyung-nim. It seems better than sitting still."

Half an hour later he called the Hankook Ilbo again. The secretary told him Chang Key-young had gone to the Blue House, and he eased a little.

The next day the paper led its front page with a correction.

But at noon that day word came that Chang Key-young, president and publisher of the Hankook Ilbo, editor-in-chief Hong Yu-seon, political editor Kim Ja-hwan, and reporter Han Nam-hee had been arrested. As with the Dong-A Ilbo, the charge was violation of the Anti-Communist Act. The day after that, the Hankook Ilbo announced it would suspend publication of its own accord for three days.

Kijo watched the thing unfold, uneasy. Chairman Park had his better sides, different from the original history, but the compressed political calendar had made him hasty as well, and hard. There was no telling what he would do with Chang Key-young.

On the fourth of April a call came suddenly from the Blue House. It was spokesman Lee Hu-rak.

Kijo went at once. When he entered the office, Chairman Park was on the sofa with a cigarette. Smoke had already filled the room.

"Sit."

The displeasure was plain. Kijo had barely taken the chair when the chairman asked, without preamble,

"Chang Key-young. What in the world is wrong with that man?"

Kijo had come ready to speak for him—an old friend, and the man with whom he ran DBC.

"Mr. Chairman, President Chang—"

He had hardly started before Chairman Park cut him off.

"He's stepping away from the Hankook Ilbo. From DBC as well."

"Mr. Chairman, if I might—"

He meant to do everything he could to save the man. Chairman Park fixed him with a sharp eye.

"Sir?"

Startled, Kijo stared at him.

"Do as I say. He turns the management of the Hankook Ilbo over to you, and his stake in DBC, and I've agreed to let all four of them go."

"I can't do that."

He said it flatly. Saving Chang Key-young and the Hankook Ilbo staff was one thing. Taking another man's company was another.

"The talk is finished. He agreed, so take it that way."

"I won't. Please find someone else."

When Kijo held out to the end, Chairman Park's brow twisted. Whether he was swallowing the anger or not, he took up a fan too early for the season and worked it without pause. Kijo understood him well enough. A man who had been branded a communist and lived through crisis after crisis could not simply let this pass. Let the word socialism so much as cling to him, and he would feel the threat as a large one.

The chairman had been cooling his temper in silence. At last he spoke, and the voice had softened a great deal. Kijo could hear him working to rein it in.

"Look here. Couldn't you grant me this one request?"

"Mr. Chairman, please let me see President Chang."

Chairman Park looked away.

"You could go find him on that paper pass of yours even if I didn't allow it."

"Yes, Mr. Chairman. I'll speak with him and come back."

Kijo rose, bowed, and left the office. He asked Lee Hu-rak, waiting outside, to take him to President Chang, and Hu-rak put him in a car without a word of objection. Watching the way they turned, Kijo saw it was not the prosecutors' office. They were heading toward Namsan. So Chang Key-young was being held at the KCIA.

Lee Hu-rak, at the wheel, spoke.

"If you can see your way to it, please do as the Chairman says. He said it because he trusts you, President Lee."

"Even so, I ought to hear the man himself, shouldn't I?"

Lee Hu-rak smiled, faintly.

"You can listen. It won't change anything. Chairman Park didn't order him. Mr. Chang himself said he would."

Kijo did not ask again whether that was truly so. He would see the man and confirm it for himself.