Park Chung Hee Era

by Byung-kook Kim

  Radical student protests briefly subsided in the aftermath of the death of First Lady Yuk Yông-su at the hand of Mun Se-gwang, a Korean-Japanese, on August 15, 1974. But with a massive demonstration staged by Korea University students on the first anniversary of the Declaration of the People, the Nation, and Democracy, Park was forced to declare Emergency Decree no. 7 on April 8, 1975. The new decree empowered the defense minister to restore order on the campuses by temporarily shutting down universities with the support of the armed forces. At the same time, a fully armed company of the CGC’s military police occupied Korea University.

  On May 13, with South Vietnam and Cambodia on the brink of collapse and South Korea under a Red scare, Park issued Emergency Decree no. 9

  to “guard national security and public order.”

  As the political opposition grew and the security crisis worsened, Park pursued even more systematically and extensively his practice of placing praetorian guards and professional officers on two mutually exclusive

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  tracks of promotion. The big game was gone, but this did not end “politics.” On the contrary, given the weakening of checks and balances, Park had to reach deep down personally into the military hierarchy for control more than ever. Nowhere was the heightened use of the two-track career policy more visible than in Park’s recruitment of his generals for political roles. After proclaiming the yushin constitution, Park aggressively recruited generals in the reserves into public service, not only to cultivate his image as a patron of the armed forces’ institutional interests but also to build up his network of loyal supporters in the strategic sectors of society. Among 588 retired generals in 1975, 53 held posts in the executive branch, 13 served as diplomats, 32 sat in the National Assembly, and 43

  managed state-owned enterprises. There were 174 others in private business firms as owners, managers, and advisors. Universities also employed 24 retired generals. Still, there were 135 generals in the reserves (23 percent) without any employment.58 The pool of the unemployed was large enough to make clear to all military officers the importance of cultivating Park’s personal trust and patronage while serving in uniform.

  As the opposition gained force in the 1970s, Park began to give junior officers their share of the political spoils. Under the Special Junior Officer Recruitment system introduced in 1977, the Ministry of National Defense opened up the jobs of Grade-3A—the lowest grade of the higher civil service—to KMA graduates who wanted to be discharged from military service after completing the legally obligatory service of five years and reaching the rank of captain or major. For those seeking careers in the higher levels of the civil service, the MoND only required that they finish a one-year education program at the KMA Administration Training Institute.

  The program was open to KMA graduates, but not to Third Military Academy graduates. The discrimination on the basis of schooling aimed to make the graduates of the four-year KMA identify with Park’s political rule. Including the graduates of the second-tier, two-year Third Military Academy in the program would not only have reduced the number of civil service posts available to the KMA graduates, but also threatened the morale of higher-level civil servants by increasing the competition for promotion. There were simply too many Third Military Academy graduates to include in the program without hurting the balance Park wanted to achieve between professionalization and politicization and between economic growth and regime stability.

  The officers-turned-bureaucrats took on the role of a royal guard for the yushin regime within the state bureaucracy. Not coincidentally, many of the junior officers took up posts in the more political state institutions responsible for control, such as the Ministry of Home Affairs, the

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  Board of Audit and Inspection, and the National Tax Administration.59

  The ministries responsible for economic coordination, including the Economic Planning Board (EPB) and the Ministry of Finance (MoF), were more insulated from the military.

  On the other hand, Park did not construct multiple layers of checks and balances as he had done in the 1961–1973 period. Rather, Park let Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl—a non-KMA retired army lieutenant colonel60 and Park bodyguard in the days of the coup—dominate military and political affairs from his newly appointed post of PSS chief (1974–1979). In December 1974, Park made Kim Chae-gyu, a retired four-star general and a KMA graduate, his new KCIA director, but Kim Chae-gyu failed to keep Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl in line. On the contrary, once in a position of influence, Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl showed his ambition to become a de facto “vice president,” to quote his critics. To strengthen his institutional base and secure military legitimacy, Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl strengthened the Presidential Security Service, newly establishing the offices of the vice chief, the deputy for operations, and the deputy for administration and filled these posts with elite KMA graduates. The expanded PSS enabled him to cultivate close ties with the rising Hanahoe officers. Brigadier generals Chun Doo-hwan, Roh Tae-woo, and Kim Pok-tong from the eleventh KMA graduating class and leaders of the Hanahoe faction took turns as the deputy for operations during the 1976–1978 period. Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl also expanded the Presidential Security Guard Units 30 and 33 from the status of a battalion to a regiment. In addition, he had a presidential decree enacted to give the PSS

  chief the command of the CGC in the event of a national emergency.61 He even began to distribute informal “bonuses” and “grants” in the name of Park for the purpose of winning the support of the military.62 More critically, Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl intervened in the personnel policy of army headquarters and used his influence to promote loyal military officers to key command posts.63

  The military establishment grew increasingly unhappy with Ch’a Chich’ôl’s abuse of Park’s trust. To most KMA graduates, it was outrageous that a retired officer with only an Officer Candidate School background exercised such influence over military matters. In particular, they were angered by the fact that the PSS chief, formally outside the chain of military command, would command the CGC during a national emergency.64 Nevertheless, they kept their discontent to themselves, because they thought Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl had Park’s confidence. To be sure, Park’s trust in Ch’a Chich’ôl was based not only on the PSS chief’s unswerving loyalty but also on his ability to deliver a steady stream of high-quality intelligence reports on

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  domestic political situations. The private intelligence team Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl organized with Yi Kyu-gwang, uncle-in-law of Brigadier General Chun Doo-hwan, in charge of the Hanahoe after the purge of potential rivals in the Yun P’il-yong incident of 1973, proved to be very effective in gathering sensitive information on the daily activities of key military generals, DRP

  legislators, and opposition leaders. Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl also owed his rise to Park’s loss of confidence in the KCIA in the wake of the defection of some KCIA agents to the United States during the Koreagate scandal that rocked the U.S.–South Korean relationship. Equally critical, Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl was able to increase his influence over the Army Security Command after the 1973 court martial of ASC commander Yun P’il-yong. After the transitional years of ASC commander Kim Chong-hwan (1973–1977), the post of ASC commander passed on to Major General Chin Chong-ch’ae (1977–

  1979) to bring better coordination of security intelligence policy among the different branches of the military in tandem with the launching of a Five-Year Plan for the Modernization of the Korean Armed Forces. The goal was to build an integrated security apparatus fit for the self-reliant armed forces Park envisioned for South Korea in the era of détente and U.S. military disengagement. As part of this effort, Chin Chong-ch’ae reorganized the ASC into the Defense Security Command (DSC) on September 26, 1977, in conformity with Presidential Decree no. 8704.65 That tilted the balance of power even further away from KCIA director Kim Chae-gyu toward PSS chief Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl.

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bsp; Kim Chae-gyu tried to reverse the tide, and his attempt had partial success. When the DSC incorrectly reported the defection of a high-ranking South Korean military officer in October 1977, Kim Chae-gyu put pressure on the DSC to dissolve its Department of Intelligence and succeeded in prohibiting the DSC from sending its agents to government agencies and societal organizations for surveillance.66 Such surveillance was to be the exclusive domain of his KCIA. Beyond this, however, Kim Chae-gyu had difficulty in keeping Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl in check. On the contrary, he found himself on the defensive when Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl outmaneuvered him in persuading Park to appoint Major General Chun Doo-hwan to head the DSC

  in March 1979. Whereas Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl had cultivated close ties with the next-generation leader of the supposedly dismantled Hanahoe by appointing Chun Doo-hwan to the PSS post of deputy for operations before he moved to command the First Infantry Division in January 1978, Kim Chae-gyu’s relationship with Chun Doo-hwan had been strained ever since Kim had sided against Yun P’il-yong when Yun had been appointed as the ASC commander (1967–1971). Moreover, in spite of his own South

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  Kyôngsang origins, Kim Chae-gyu never hid his antipathy toward the eleventh KMA graduating class of Chun Doo-hwan, which he found to be too politicized and too arrogant.

  Kim Chae-gyu appears to have recognized the danger of his fall sometime in mid-1979. With the opposition NDP garnering more votes than the DRP for the first time in the National Assembly election of December 1978, the ruling elite tried desperately to win back public support. Unable or unwilling to embark on political reform at the risk of disturbing regime stability, Park blamed the defeat on the failure of his economic team to prevent the coming of stagflation. To overcome the widespread legitimacy crisis of the yushin regime, Park turned to the proven strategy of winning public support through an improvement in his country’s socioeconomic performance. In the ensuing reshuffling of the cabinet, presidential chief of staff Kim Chông-ryôm (1969–1978) left the Blue House to become the ambassador to Japan, thus paving the way for the removal of the economic ministers who worked under him. The departure of Kim Chông-ryôm also had an unexpected impact on the power dynamics of the Blue House. Kim, mild tempered but intelligent with a firm grasp of political and economic issues, had been a gentle and steadying influence on Park, as well as the last check on PSS chief Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl within the presidential Secretariat. The new chief of staff, Kim Kye-wôn, had once served as the army chief of staff, but despite a distinguished military career, he was brought in mainly as an old friend of Park who would keep him company in the “lonely” Blue House in his old age.67

  With Paek Tu-jin—a non-elected Yujônghoe member handpicked by Park to become a National Assembly member—leading the National Assembly, Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl joined the hard-liners of the DRP on October 15, 1979, to censure NDP president Kim Young-sam from the National Assembly for his interview with the New York Times critical of Park and for his support of the YH workers’ strike (see Chapter 13). In the face of this unprecedented abuse of power, the people of Pusan and Masan in South Kyôngsang Province—the home region of Kim Young-sam—rose up in massive anti-government protests. Martial law was proclaimed in Pusan on October 18 and a garrison decree invoked in Masan on October 20. In the midst of this political crisis, Kim Chae-gyu, Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl, and Kim Kye-wôn met with Park at one of the “safe houses” (an’ga) operated by the Blue House to hold private banquets. Discussion became heated, with crude but obsequious Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl berating reticent and even shy Kim Chae-gyu in front of Park for his inability or unwillingness to suppress the Pusan-Masan demonstrations and for his failure to instigate a revolt against Kim Young-sam within the opposition NDP. Kim Chae-gyu advo-

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  cated a “political solution” without explaining what that was and how it could be brought about amid mass revolt and political deadlock, while Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl unambiguously took the hard-line position, seeking a military crackdown.68 It is difficult to know exactly what Kim Chae-gyu thought at the dinner, because he was mostly silent, taking the tongue-lashing without protest. Then he suddenly shot Park and Ch’a Chi-ch’ôl, killing them both. The Park era came to an abrupt end on October 26, 1979.

  No one, including Kim Chae-gyu, was prepared for the post-Park era.

  The KCIA director desperately tried to persuade the martial law commander, General Chông S¤ng-hwa, to join him in what he would later call a “Revolution,” only to be arrested for subversion not long after the shootings. The power vacuum was quickly filled by December, but in an unexpected direction. Although the NDP and DRP leaders prepared for a return to electoral politics, the real contest was taking place within the armed forces. Two groups of military officers emerged between October 26 and December 12. The “Old Military,” consisting of generals with diverse school backgrounds from the KMA to the Officer Candidate School, coalesced around the martial law commander. The “New Military,” by contrast, was more homogeneous but also lower in military rank, with its core recruited from the Hanahoe members with a four-year KMA educational background. Chun Doo-hwan’s eleventh KMA graduating class sat at the top of the New Military, while those of the seventeenth KMA class supported the faction at its mid-level.

  The New Military was destined to emerge triumphant for several reasons. First, since March 1979 its factional leader Chun Doo-hwan had led the Defense Security Command, with the power to coordinate the security intelligence agencies of all three branches of the armed forces. The only other security intelligence agency with coordinating powers was the KCIA, but it was delegitimized by its director’s aborted “Revolution.” In addition, Chun Doo-hwan was careful to neutralize the KCIA and purge its manpower immediately after the arrest of Kim Chae-gyu. In fact, the DSC

  literally took over the agency, purging all bureau directors just after arresting Kim Chae-gyu and placing its own people in their place. Chun Doo-hwan became acting KCIA director on April 14, 1980, thus formalizing what had been instituted since the arrest of Kim Chae-gyu. Even when Chun Doo-hwan became the acting KCIA director, he stayed on as the DSC commander, the seat of power.69

  Second, at the time of Park’s assassination, no military group could match the Hanahoe’s sense of camaraderie. Moreover, not only the top echelon but also the mid-level members of the Hanahoe were at the prime

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  of their military careers, in command of key military units around Seoul.

  The top echelon held the rank of major general and were in command of security intelligence agencies and infantry divisions, whereas the mid-level Hanahoe members were colonels in charge of regiments. They directly commanded combat troops, whereas the Old Military, headed by the four-star martial law commander, was much more disadvantaged in troop mobilization. It was this combination of a strong sense of camaraderie and a direct control over key military units that enabled the Hanahoe members’

  speedy and flexible collective action during the extremely uncertain period of regime transition. On December 12, 1979, DSC commander Chun Doo-hwan moved to arrest martial law commander Chông S¤ng-hwa for alleged involvement in the assassination of Park, while Chun’s KMA classmate and Hanahoe comrade, Major General Roh Tae-woo, occupied Seoul with the heavily armed troops of the Ninth Infantry Division, formerly stationed on the front lines, even at the risk of weakening the military deterrence against North Korea.

  Park thought that the military was too important to be left alone, and politicized the armed forces in order to make them the guardians of his regime. Yet he also believed he had to professionalize the South Korean armed forces, turning them into a modern institution capable of defending the country against another military attack from the North. Caught between these two competing requirements, Park compartmentalized the military into two tracks, one for soldiers raised to lead the “professional”

  field command posts and the othe
r for those trained to become the “political” praetorian guard of the regime.

  For most of Park’s eighteen years of political rule, the two-track strategy worked. The South Korean military grew by leaps and bounds under his tutelage, becoming one of the largest standing armies in the world with the fighting skills and the weapons to match. Just as the South Korean economy transformed itself from one of the world’s poorest to one of the most dynamic engines of growth, the South Korean military grew in terms of both quantity and quality. Continued aid and training provided by the United States proved crucial in this institutional transformation.

  The ambitious military modernization program orchestrated by Park, coupled with combat experience in the Vietnam War and military operations against North Korean guerrilla incursions, too, played a critical role in turning the South Korean military into a formidable fighting force by the time of Park’s death.

  Park’s strategy to control the military and mobilize its security intelligence sector to defend his regime also worked remarkably well for most of

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  his political rule. Park used KCIA director Kim Chong-p’il and his eighth KMA graduating class to drive out the rival generals of the Hamgyông and Pyôngan regions during the 1961–1963 military junta years, only to weaken Kim Chong-p’il repeatedly during the 1963–1972 period of “democracy.” For the progressive marginalization of Kim Chong-p’il, Park mobilized a heterogeneous group of military leaders and DRP legislators, whose common goal was to defeat Kim Chong-p’il’s ambition to succeed Park. When these anti-mainstream leaders succeeded in destroying Kim’s fighting spirit by 1969, Park got rid of them as he had done with Kim Chong-p’il. Park played the game of divide and conquer exceptionally well without hurting either the modernization of the South Korean armed forces or the life of his regime—but only until December 1978.