The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (9 page)

“President Park monitored the progress of every single project, both public and private, and closely governed the industrialists by the stick-and-carrot method,” according to Kim Chung Yum, who was a senior economic aide to Park and eventually his chief of staff. Park chose the firms that would be awarded contracts on large government-backed projects and provided or withheld credit through government banks, depending on their performance. The growth sectors of the national economy came to be dominated by a few highly organized, diversified industrial-business conglomerates known as
chaebols
, loosely modeled on the Japanese prewar
zaibatsu
or its postwar
zaikai
. Although this facilitated Korea’s dramatic economic rise in the 1970s and beyond, the intimate relations between government and business also set the mold for the corruption charges that later were to plague the retirement years of Park’s successors.

Although he wielded enormous economic power, Park never became a rich man and was not personally corrupt. He usually had a simple bowl of Korean noodles for lunch and ate rice mixed with barley, to save on rice. He had bricks placed in his Blue House toilet to conserve water. Setting a modest style, he wore open-collar shirts without neckties in the summer months and encouraged civil servants to do the same.

Park’s personal hold over the economy was embodied by his ambitious Heavy and Chemical Industries Promotion Plan, a massive program to build up six strategic industries—iron and steel, shipbuilding, chemicals, electronics, nonferrous metals, and machinery. Initiated in late 1971 and formally announced in January 1973, the plan was designed by Park to enhance his political legitimacy and to respond to what he saw as a perilous security combination: the North Korean military buildup, which became intensive as Pyongyang asserted greater independence from the Soviet Union and China in the mid-1960s, and his decreasing confidence in American security assurances, as the United States disengaged from the Vietnam War and sought to reduce its commitments elsewhere in East Asia.

The Heavy and Chemical Plan, which Park conceived and rammed through despite the misgivings of the Economic Planning Board and
other economists, was the foundation of Korea’s later success in automobiles, shipbuilding, and electronics, but it was also very costly and eventually was scaled back considerably. Cho Soon, a prominent economist and scholar who later became mayor of Seoul, wrote in a retrospective analysis that the scale of Park’s projects “exceeded by far what the country could accommodate” and substituted government decision making for private initiative in the economy. Accordingly, Cho wrote, “The results were waste and distortions in resource use, inflationary pressure, the emergence of immense conglomerates, and widening inequality in the distribution of income and wealth.”

Nevertheless, the overall results of the development program that Park put in place between 1961 and 1979 were spectacular. In broad terms, according to the World Bank, South Korea’s inflation-adjusted GNP tripled in each decade after Park’s first year in office, thereby condensing a century of growth into three decades. At the same time, the country dramatically reduced the incidence of poverty, from more than 40 percent of all households living below the poverty line in 1965 to fewer than 10 percent in 1980. Per capita income shot up from less than one hundred dollars annually when Park took power to more than one thousand dollars at the time of his death and more than ten thousand dollars today. In view of these achievements, it is small wonder that he is viewed by most South Koreans in retrospect as a leader of unparalleled greatness.

WASHINGTON BLINKS AT PARK’S COUP

At 6:00
P.M
. on October 16, 1972, Park’s prime minister, Kim Jong Pil, notified US ambassador Philip Habib of a sweeping change in the country’s political direction, requesting that it be kept secret until made public twenty-five hours later. The surprise announcement by Park, a copy of which was handed to Habib, declared martial law, junked the existing constitution, disbanded the National Assembly, and prepared a plan for indirect election of the president. At the same time, to silence opposition, Park arrested most of the senior political leaders of the country.

Park called his new system
yushin
, which his spokesmen translated as “revitalizing reforms,” and justified his actions on the grounds that the nation must be strong and united to deal with the North and maintain its independence in a changing international environment. The proposed announcement laid heavy stress on perils beyond Korea’s shores, as “the interests of the third or smaller countries might be sacrificed for the relaxation of tension between big powers.”

Despite the emphasis on external threats, Habib had no illusions about the real purpose of Park’s dramatic moves. He cabled Washington within a few hours to say that “the measures proposed are designed to insure
that President Park will stay in office for at least twelve years with even less opposition and dissent and with increased executive powers” and that “if these proposals are carried out Korea will indeed have, for all practical purposes, a completely authoritarian government.” While the ambassador conceded that Park might believe that he must strengthen his domestic position to deal with the North, Habib informed Washington that “there is little doubt that these measures are unnecessary given any objective view of the situation.”

The pressing question was what the United States should do in view of its extensive interests and its historic leverage in South Korean politics. In the aftermath of World War II and the division of the peninsula, Washington had played the central role in anointing Syngman Rhee as the country’s first president, and in 1960, in the face of a student-led popular uprising, it had also played a major role in forcing him to leave power. In 1961 the US Embassy and the US Command had spoken out publicly but ineffectually against General Park’s military coup against the constitutionally elected post-Rhee government, but it had then successfully applied steady and persistent pressure to force Park to reestablish civilian government. Now the United States was confronted with what amounted to a coup in place, a power grab by Park to eliminate all legal opposition and retain power for as long as he wished.

Habib, a tough-talking, politically astute Foreign Service veteran from Brooklyn with extensive previous experience in Korea, was furious that his embassy had obtained no early warning of Park’s surprise from its own sources. As he was well aware, the timing for the move had been chosen with care. Only three weeks earlier, Washington had done nothing when Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, in a very similar maneuver that had been closely watched by Park, declared martial law and jettisoned his country’s existing political institutions. Both Marcos and Park had sprung their power grabs during the campaign period of a US presidential election, when American presidents are more reluctant than usual to make controversial decisions in foreign affairs. The Nixon-Kissinger White House, which prided itself on realpolitik in diplomacy, was fixated on the politically difficult situation in Vietnam, according to then Assistant Secretary of State Marshall Green, at the time the State Department’s senior Asia expert. “They didn’t have time to be bothered” by Korea developments, he recalled.

With the plans drawn up and already in motion, Habib reported to Washington that “only the most drastic, positive and immediate actions by the U.S. might turn Park from the course on which he has embarked.” In a pivotal judgment that established the limits of American engagement, Habib declared that “it is not incumbent upon the U.S. to take on the responsibility of getting Park to reverse his course within the next few
hours. Nevertheless, we believe that in the long run, Park is creating major problems for himself and for his relationship with us and with others.” Habib recommended that “we should be extremely circumspect in our public comments while making it clear that we are not in any way associated with the government’s internal actions.”

Washington accepted the advice of its ambassador and decided not to oppose Park’s actions. The State Department cabled Habib, “We agree that [Park’s] contemplated measures are unnecessary, and have grave reservations about the course he has embarked upon.” Habib was instructed to tell Park that taking such a far-reaching decision without a serious exchange of views with the United States was “incomprehensible in light of the past sacrifices and present support which we have given to the Republic of Korea and specifically to the present government.” Nevertheless, no action was recommended to change Park’s mind. If he were asked whether the United States would recommend against imposing martial law, Habib was instructed to answer that “this is an internal matter. . . . It is up to him to decide.”

Washington’s main concern seemed to be the proposed public statement accompanying the announcement, citing the American rapprochement with China and the resulting international fluidity as among the new perils to the Republic of Korea that justified drastic action. Habib was instructed to protest these statements, and in Washington Secretary of State William Rogers took them up personally with Korean ambassador Kim Dong Jo—all before the bombshell declaration was made public in Seoul. The references to US policy in the prepared announcement were dropped, although to Washington’s displeasure some references to maneuvering by “big powers” were retained. The Korean foreign minister solemnly told Habib that the phrase “big powers” was not intended to include the United States.

After Park’s announcement had been made and tanks and troops had been put into the streets to implement martial law, after political figures had been arrested or silenced and the sometimes-feisty Korean press had been placed under heavy censorship, Habib took a more careful look at the implications of what was being done. In an October 23 cable to Washington, the ambassador reported:

It is clear that Park has turned away from the political philosophy which we have been advocating and supporting in Korea for 27 years. The characteristics of the discarded system which he regarded as weaknesses—the limitations on executive powers, the dissent and inherent uncertainties which arise in direct presidential elections—we regard as strengths. Because of our historic relationship with Korea, our security commitments, and the presence
of a substantial number of American troops, we are confronted with the problem of our reaction to these developments.

Habib reported that attempting to dissuade Park from the course of action he had chosen would be “impractical,” but that seeking to soften the repressive aspects of new policies would be seen as giving tacit US endorsement to the
yushin
plan as a whole. What remained, Habib concluded, was “a policy of disassociation,” in which the United States would say it had not been consulted or involved in Park’s actions and would stay clear of involvement in the reorganization of the Korean political system. In his cable, the ambassador faced squarely the consequences of the hands-off policy he recommended:

In following such a course we would be accepting the fact that the U.S. cannot and should no longer try to determine the course of internal political development in Korea. We have already begun a process of progressively lower levels of U.S. engagement with Korea. The process of disengagement should be accelerated. The policy we propose would be consistent with the disengagement trend, and Park’s actions will contribute to the process.

Three days later Washington responded: “We agree with the Embassy’s preference for a posture of disassociation. . . . In furtherance of this policy, we intend to refrain from arguing with the ROK in public, and seek to advance our counsel privately only where necessary and appropriate.” When Prime Minister Kim Jong Pil visited the US capital three months later, President Nixon told him privately that “unlike other presidents, it is not my intention to interfere in the internal affairs of your country.” With these decisions, most of which were never announced, the United States acquiesced in a diminished role in South Korea’s political future.

North Korea did not seem to mind Park’s shift to a more authoritarian system that was more like its own arrangements, possibly believing that this would make it easier to negotiate accords with him. On October 21, in the immediate aftermath of martial law, the two Koreas jointly announced that KCIA chief Lee Hu Rak would travel to Pyongyang on November 2 for another meeting with Kim Il Sung and that North Korea would send a top-level negotiator to Seoul shortly thereafter. The joint announcement was taken as a sign that the North-South dialogue remained on track.

THE IMPACT OF
YUSHIN

Within the South Korean body politic, the imposition of Park’s
yushin
system provoked intense opposition from many quarters. Acting through
the KCIA, the Army Security Command, and his increasingly powerful personal bodyguards, Park sought to silence all those who interfered or disagreed with his policies by temporary detention, arrest, or imprisonment. In a brutal procedure known as the Korean barbecue, some opponents were strung up by their wrists and ankles and spread-eagled over a flame in KCIA torture chambers; others were subjected to water torture by repeated dunking or the forcing of water down their throats.

Chang Chun Ha, a distinguished Korean nationalist, told me how he had been seized on his way downtown and taken to a KCIA jail for a week of nearly continuous interrogation, in an unsuccessful effort to persuade him to endorse Park’s martial-law “reforms.” Meanwhile, his distraught family, as his captors repeatedly pointed out to him, did not know what had happened to him or if he would ever return. Three years later, Chang, an independent-minded man who had fought for Korean independence while Park was in the Japanese army, was killed under mysterious circumstances that the government attributed to a mountain-climbing mishap but that his family and friends believed was political assassination. A doctor who examined Chang’s body was beaten and intimidated by the secret police, but he broke his silence many years later to declare that Chang’s wounds were inconsistent with a fall from a cliff and to suggest that he had been murdered. (The case was back in the news again in 2012, an old wound reopened, when the body was exhumed and his remains relocated.)