Chairman Park's Resolve

August 13, 1962.

The main chamber of the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction.

Before an audience of more than a hundred reporters from home and abroad, Chairman Park announced his plan for bringing the crisis to an end. Ki-jo was in the room as publisher of the Hankook Ilbo.

Immaculate in his dress uniform, the Chairman mounted the dais and set out a nine-point settlement. Its heart was this: the military would hold to political neutrality, and it would support a civilian government. He reminded them once again that the immediate motive of the May 16 Revolution had been political corruption and chaos.

Of the nine demands he laid before the political leaders, the one that caught the eye was the call to forbid political reprisals.

"Once the military has completed the revolutionary task and returned to the barracks, there is to be no political retaliation. The positions of the civil servants who served in the revolutionary government must be guaranteed."

He added that the election could be postponed, if that was what they wished. The crowning stroke was the declaration that followed. If the political leaders accepted his nine points completely and without reservation, he himself would not enter civilian politics.

As he read the nine points, he now and then pressed a handkerchief to the corners of his eyes. He had the look of a man who would not have shed a tear if you pricked him with a needle. When that rigid figure finished the settlement upright through his tears, applause broke over the chamber.

That day every newspaper rushed out an evening edition at once to report Chairman Park's declaration that he would stay out of civilian government.

Back at the Hankook Ilbo, watching the evening edition go to press, Ki-jo found himself listening to the political reporters talk among themselves.

"I'm starting to think we've been too hard on Chairman Park. He kept dabbing at his eyes while he spoke. It was pitiful to see."

"I know. Hearing him refuse civilian politics that flatly, he looks like a different man. And he used to seem so determined to try something. If you ask ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me, it would have been fine if he did go into civilian politics."

"Right? He isn't like the old politicians. Those men will never give up a seat. They fight and they smear each other because every one of them wants a place. Chairman Park threw his private ambition away. He says he'll step down clean so long as no one takes revenge on the people who worked with him. That was a man's way of doing it."

"Kim Jong-pil is the problem. Kim Jong-pil. If that man hadn't played his games, Chairman Park wouldn't have had to give up the presidency like that."

They were all sympathy and praise for the Chairman. Ki-jo alone was unmoved. He had seen the same performance twice.

Chairman Park had headed off the near-collapse of the revolutionary government by the very method used in the original history. Given the mood until then, if students and ordinary citizens had poured into the streets to denounce the military government, the revolutionary regime would have come down past anyone's power to stop it. The officer corps was already furious at Kim Jong-pil's excesses, and plenty of officers looked coldly on the Chairman's own entry into civilian politics.

Ki-jo knew that the settlement had moved even Chang Jun-ha. In the original history, Chang had published lines like these in Sasanggye, praising the Chairman without stint.

The very next day the principal leaders of the government and opposition parties gathered in one place and held a pledge ceremony, vowing to accept the Chairman's proposal in full. The miracle of the original history had played itself out again.

Two days later Kim Jong-pil resigned every public office he held, accepting responsibility for the Four Major Cases of Suspicion. The day after that, his rival Kim Jae-chun was named Director of the KCIA.

And on August 25, Kim Jong-pil—the root of the trouble—left Korea.

The stated reason for his departure was a tour of Japan, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe in the capacity of roving ambassador plenipotentiary. He would study the countries that had carried out military revolutions, and those that had succeeded in economic revival, Denmark and West Germany among them, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bring back the ideas and materials needed to complete the revolutionary task. It sounded well enough: a progress through Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. In fact it was hardly different from a pleasure trip abroad.

Leaving Korea, Kim Jong-pil left behind a line for the ages. When reporters asked why he was going on a foreign jaunt, he answered:

"Do you mean to return to the Democratic Republican Party?"

"I have no such intention," he said, cutting it short.

Asked about the four cases, he replied that the investigation was underway and that he had no thought of offering an explanation.

The moment Kim Jong-pil left the country, the boiling public opinion went quiet as if a ghost had passed through it. Word took hold that Kim Jong-pil had been driven out and that Chairman Park had cleanly renounced the presidency, so there was no longer any need to speak of the KCIA's abuses. Even the saying that the new evil outdoes the old vanished without a trace.

Ki-jo was dazed that the world could turn over in a single day.

A few days later Hausman called and suggested golf.

At dawn on the last day of August they met on the Eighth Army course. Hausman swung a club up onto his shoulder, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.

"Well? Didn't I tell you?"

"You really are something. How did you read the way the world would turn, down to the last detail?"

Ki-jo laid the praise on thick for the man who had prophesied Kim Jong-pil's fall.

"Ha! Who am I? I watched the whole thing—liberation, the founding of the republic, the Korean War, April 19, May 16. Korean politics sits right here in the palm of my hand."

Ki-jo nearly laughed. This was the same man who had been thrown into a panic for failing to foresee May 16, now claiming he had known everything.

Hausman sent off a handsome drive and went on.

"What do you say to running a piece on Kim Jong-pil even now? I've got accurate material. I'll give it to you if you want it. A problem child ought to be stepped on hard while you still can."

Certain that Kim Jong-pil would be back, Ki-jo smiled.

"A little late for that, isn't it? Nobody's paying Kim Jong-pil any mind anymore."

He sent off a drive of his own, just as free. They watched the ball sail, and Hausman said:

"This isn't because you're afraid the problem child might come back, and that's why you won't write it?"

"No, Advisor. People don't keep their attention on politics for very long. Think about it too long and it only gives you a headache."

"They've already forgotten what the KCIA director did?"

"Yes. People like Marilyn Monroe better than Kim Jong-pil."

Hausman nodded.

"True enough. A fine woman, and gone from the world..."

Marilyn Monroe had died suddenly on the fifth of August. Two days later, on the seventh, the Korean papers carried the news of her death, and that day the Hankook Ilbo's sales jumped twofold. By comparison, the edition that reported Chairman Park's refusal to enter civilian politics sold about one and eight-tenths of an ordinary day. Theaters showing Monroe's last film were packed, and the magazines kept running pieces on her life and her private affairs.

"Monroe came to Korea during the war, you know. I watched that morale show myself. She was so dazzling it felt as if time had stopped for a while. A remarkable woman."

Hausman was reminiscing. They played four holes on a drift of idle talk, and then, as if it hardly mattered, he slipped something in.

"There's a dinner at the American ambassador's residence in a few days."

"A gathering of Marilyn Monroe's fans?"

Hausman broke into a wide laugh.

"You rascal. We already had that one. Sorry—I meant to call you and forgot."

He took the joke in stride, tapped the ball lightly with an iron, and went on.

"Ambassador Berger is inviting Chairman Park, to pass along a gift from Kennedy."

"A gift?"

"Yes. A gift for the August 18 declaration that he would transfer power to a civilian government."

"What sort of gift?"

"A survey mission for building a nuclear power plant will be dispatched. And thirty million dollars in aid will be disbursed ahead of schedule."

"Truly?"

"Why so surprised? The one who's surprised is Kennedy. Search the whole world and you won't find a precedent for a junta that took power in a coup declaring a handover to civilians this fast. It's fit for the Guinness Book."

Hausman was praising Chairman Park, and in the same breath he slipped in a dig at Kennedy, whom he had never much cared for.

"When you get down to it, Kennedy's only making a show of generosity. He's merely moving up something he had already agreed to give. Am I wrong?"

Ki-jo did not agree.

"No, Advisor. For a starving man, bread today and bread tomorrow ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠are as far apart as heaven and hell."

"Is that so?"

Hausman, who disliked Kennedy, looked faintly sour.

"All the same, I think Chairman Park is a terrible waste. He had the makings of a fine leader, and the problem child set off far too large a bomb."

Fond of the Chairman and contemptuous of Kennedy, he clicked his tongue.

I'm not so sure. He doesn't look finished to me.

Ki-jo answered only in his own mind.

Only the timing had shifted from the original history. The dinner at the ambassador's residence, and Kennedy's gift, matched. In that history there had been no offer of support for a nuclear plant—only the promise to release thirty million dollars early—and the trouble had broken the very same day.

Chairman Park, attending the dinner, asked Ambassador Berger for a quiet conversation, and the two of them spoke privately in the ambassador's bedroom. The Chairman revealed to Berger his plan for a four-year extension of military rule and left the man aghast. The next day he dropped his bomb: the four-year extension would be put to a national referendum. Then he announced again a ban on political activity and the Provisional Measures Act for Resolving the State of Emergency, restricting the press, publishing, and assembly.

Kennedy, enraged, canceled the early disbursement of the thirty million dollars and threatened to cut off food aid as well.

If the same thing happened again, the thirty million could slip away, and the nuclear plant with it. Ki-jo meant to stop that at all costs. It would be too bitter a loss if everything Chairman Park had gained from his visit to the United States came to nothing. Cancel the nuclear plant, and the plan for a steel mill would be shoved back and back. Without electricity, nothing could be done.

He turned to Hausman, who liked the Chairman.

"Advisor, would you care to meet Chairman Park?"

"Chairman Park?"

Hausman looked as if the suggestion had come from nowhere.

"Why?"

"What if you asked him whether he truly means to stay out of civilian politics?"

"Surely he wouldn't go back on his own words? He already made the promise in front of the nation."

He will, Ki-jo said inwardly. He really will.

It was one of the dark chapters of Chairman Park's early years. He would not enter civilian politics. He would extend military rule after all. No—he would not extend it. He would enter civilian politics. Reversing himself again and again, he even earned the nickname Fickle Mr. Park. That he then won both the presidential election and the general election was astonishing enough. In any case, Ki-jo did not intend to lose the nuclear plant or the early release of the aid.

"Have you heard something from Chairman Park? Did you visit the Blue House recently?"

Hausman's interest was up. He was a man with little concern for democracy. What he lived for was making Korea an anticommunist state, and in his judgment no one was better suited to building that state than Chairman Park.

"Nothing like that. But think about what happened not long ago."

Ki-jo brought up the arrest of retired Marine Major General Kim Dong-ha—a revolutionary comrade who had turned against the Chairman—on charges of plotting a coup.

"Advisor, doesn't it strike you as strange? The officers General Kim Dong-ha is supposed to have recruited. Not one of them was a commander in a position to lead a combat unit."

"Is that so...?"

"Yes. What kind of coup do you stage with officers who can't command combat troops? All they share is service in the Manchukuo Army, and birth in Hamgyong Province."

Hausman's eyes widened. He had a hand in the promotion of Korean generals and knew the officer corps inside out, and he recovered at once.

"You're right. Every one of them is Hamgyong faction. Ever since Syngman Rhee's government, the Pyongan faction and the Hamgyong faction have been the two great ridges of the Korean Army. But the Pyongan faction was already cleared out last year, along with Chang Do-young..."

The club in his hand dropped onto the grass. He seemed to have found proof that Chairman Park's will to power was not yet gone. That the Chairman had swept away the factions inside the army that were not well disposed toward him—and had done it after declaring he would stay out of civilian politics—was a thing heavy with meaning.

"Ki-jo. Tell Chairman Park that I am requesting an audience."

"Yes, sir. I'll go see the Chairman myself."

If Chairman Park was nursing a plan to extend military rule, Ki-jo expected he would confide it to Hausman. This was the man who, the last time, had given Ambassador Berger notice before the announcement. It was the habit of a Chairman who could not let go of his longing for the presidency, and who still had to watch the eyes of the United States.