The speech was a great success. Even the military police units sent out to arrest the mutineers ended up joining the coup. The military’s distrust of the Chang Myôn government was by then irreversible, enabling Park to win the support of many of the officer corps with his example of courage. Once he got control of the Sixth District Army, he left it to Colonel Kim Chae-ch’un to use it to organize the vanguard forces to occupy Seoul.
Subsequently Park went to the Special Forces Command and the Marine Corps to order them personally to cross the Han River and seize the Blue House, the seat of presidential power. Before his departure for the Special Forces Command, Park also sent a letter to army chief of staff Chang To-yông, making it clear that Chang would not be free of responsibility should the military coup fail. This was a politically calculated move to implicate the army chief of staff in the coup so that he would not go further in mobilizing a countercoup coalition. In spite of the earlier pledge of support, the actual mobilization of the Special Forces on D-day also ran into difficulty and was delayed for an hour, making the marine corps under Kim Yun-g¤n the first military unit to cross the Han River at dawn on May 16.
The May Sixteenth Military Coup 51
The marines’ crossing of the river was facilitated by the fact that the artillery brigade of the Sixth Corps had taken over army headquarters an hour earlier and was in control of the downtown north of the Han. The marine corps and paratroopers of the Special Forces Command could therefore cross the river from the south with few casualties. There was some exchange of fire with the military police units guarding the bridge to the downtown area, but by 4:15 AM the coup coalition succeeded in seizing the buildings that housed the three branches of the government. The coalition also occupied the Korean Broadcasting Company and from there issued the revolutionary manifesto to the nation: The military authorities, thus far avoiding conflict, can no longer restrain themselves, and have taken a concerted operation at the dawn of this day to completely take over the three branches of the Government . . . and to form the Military Revolutionary Committee . . . The armed services have staged this uprising because:
1. We believe that the fate of the nation and the people cannot be entrusted to the corrupt and incompetent [Chang Myôn] regime and its politicians.
2. We believe that the time has come [for the armed forces] to give direction to our nation, which has gone dangerously astray.21
The Military Revolutionary Committee then issued a six-point political platform:
1. Oppose Communism and reorganize and strengthen antiCommunist readiness, which has been so far asserted only rhetori-cally.
2. Respect the United Nations Charter, faithfully carry out international obligations, and strengthen ties with the United States and other free-world allies.
3. Root out corruption and the accumulated evils in this nation and its society, instill moral principles and national spirit among the people, and encourage a new and fresh outlook.
4. Speedily solve the misery of the masses, who are reduced to despair, and concentrate on the construction of an independent national economy.
5. Increase the national capacity to achieve national unification, the unanimous goal of all Korean people, and to oppose Communism.
6. Transfer power to new [generations of] conscientious politicians as soon as our mission has been completed, and return to our original
[military] duties.
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The communiqué was issued in the name of Lieutenant General Chang To-yông, now presented as the chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee, but without his prior approval.22
The coup leaders succeeded in occupying Seoul on May 16, 1961. The consolidation of the power and the stabilization of the ruling junta, however, were far from guaranteed. The Revolutionary Army had four more hurdles to overcome before it could claim success. First, President Yun Po-sôn had to accept the military coup as a fait accompli and entrust the task of governance to the Military Revolutionary Committee. His resignation in protest against the coup could cause a diplomatic crisis, given the role of the president as head of state. Second, General Carter B. Magruder, serving as the commander of the United States Forces in Korea (USFK) and of the United Nations Command (UNC), with operational control of the South Korean armed forces, had to accept the irreversibility of the coup.
Otherwise, latent rivals to Park in the military establishment could be lured into resisting Park’s claim to power. Third, after the occupation of Seoul on May 16, Lieutenant General Yi Han-lim, who had been a classmate of Park at the Manchurian Xinjing Officers School and the Japanese Imperial Military Academy and who was now commander of the First Army, stationed at the front lines, threatened to organize a countercoup despite the twenty heavily armed combat divisions who were on the side of the coalition. Fourth, Park had to defeat potential rivals and challengers from within the military junta, especially Chang To-yông, in order to transform the junta into an organization loyal only to himself.
Under the parliamentary system of government established after the April 19 Student Revolution, Chang Myôn was the commander in chief of the South Korean armed forces. Rather than standing up against the coup makers on the crucial day of May 16, Chang Myôn fled to a Catholic convent at the news of the coup, depriving the government of the opportunity to strike Park at his most vulnerable moment. President Yun Po-sôn, a leader of the Old Faction and a longtime rival of Chang Myôn, of the New Faction, accepted the coup and decided to stay on as head of state. By remaining as the president, Yun Po-sôn not only legitimized the military coup but countered his old enemy. There is no evidence that the junta launched the coup with the expectation that the deep rivalry between Yun Po-sôn and Chang Myôn would enable it to fragment the civilian opposition, but it was this split in the civilian political leadership that swiftly shifted the balance of power toward the coup makers.
Park also made rapid progress in purging potential anticoup forces from within the military. After hearing of the coup, Commander Yi Han-lim of the First Army, based in Wônju, ordered the Reserve First Corps of the First Army to prepare for the suppression of the coup. Yi Han-lim eventu-
The May Sixteenth Military Coup 53
ally backed down, because mobilizing the Reserve First Corps would leave the front lines open to possible North Korean attack. With the arrest of Yi Han-lim on May 18, the Revolutionary Army quelled all resistance within the military.
The situation continued to tip quickly in favor of Park. The KMA cadets held a public march in the streets of Seoul in support of the coup, thus strengthening Park’s claim that he had the backing of the armed forces as an institution.23 Prime Minister Chang Myôn reappeared after three days of hiding to announce the resignation of the cabinet. That same day, the coup makers formed the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction (SCNR) as the military junta, with executive, legislative, and judicial powers.24 Lieutenant General Chang To-yông became its chairman, while Park assumed the post of vice chairman. The key generals of the coalition chaired the committees of the SCNR. The colonels and lieutenant colonels who initiated the coup became the heads of subcommittees.
In the evening of May 16, Kim Chong-p’il called on his KMA classmates to help him organize the Korea Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), with the goal of providing policy advice to Park and the SCNR and to collect intelligence on pro-communist and anticoup forces. The colonels and lieutenant colonels he summoned were intelligence officers who had worked with Park before and during the Korean War, including Ch’oe Yông-t’aek, Sôk Chông-sôn, Yi Yông-g¤n, and Ko Che-hun. Kim Chong-p’il also recruited his civilian comrades, including Kim Yong-t’ae, Chang T’ae-hwa, and Sin Chik-su, as bureau chiefs. The KCIA was legally created on June 10, 1961. By getting the young colonels to head the SCNR subcommittees and organize the KCIA, Park came to control the two most powerful sources of political influence. The SCNR announced the appointment of General Kim Chong-o as the new army chief of staff
and former army chief of staff Song Yo-ch’an as the defense minister. These appointments were made by Park and his followers and not by Chang To-yông, who was rapidly reduced to a figurehead. Colonel Mun Chae-jun became the commander of the military police. Likewise, Lieutenant General Pak Im-hang was promoted from his post as Fifth Corps commander to be the commander of the First Army to replace Yi Han-lim. Park now had control of the strategic units stationed near the capital.
Consolidating Military Rule
Once Park stabilized the military situation, his eyes turned to the issues of how to secure U.S. government support (see Chapter 2), remove rival leaders from the junta (see Chapter 3), and purge “corrupt” civilian politicians
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54
with the goal of winning public support as well as preempting civilian-led opposition. The purge started with Chang To-yông on July 3. Park had used Chang as a protective shield during the early days of the junta to buy time, to prevent both South Koreans and the U.S. government from prob-ing into Park’s past leftist activities, and to claim that the entire military establishment was behind the coup. Park, who had survived several difficult moments during his lifetime, knew not only how to win the trust of others but also when to betray them to consolidate his power. With the United States moving to build close ties with him, he knew he could purge Chang To-yông without risking his leadership.
In his relationship with political parties and societal forces, Park developed three strategies. First, he used the public relations apparatus at his disposal to plant in the public’s mind an image of the junta as an able, patriotic force dedicated to rebuilding the nation. Second, he weakened civilian politicians through divide-and-rule tactics. Third, he bet on economic development to win over the hearts of ordinary people.
As part of the first strategy, Park mobilized the intellectuals and the national media to the fullest extent. The media campaign had a common theme, portraying the junta as being the opposite of “corrupt” and “incompetent” civilian politicians. To this end, the SCNR organized civilian demonstrations in support of the coup and pressured college professors to write newspaper articles in its support. Yi Pyông-do, a leading historian of the time, wrote in the Korea Times: “The May Sixteenth Military Revolution saved the nation from the cliffs of national crisis, which could have turned the country over to the hands of the Communists.”25 On May 23, the junta issued a sweeping eight-point decree to put censorship of the press in place, prohibiting the publication of any reports that could “agitate counterrevolutionary sentiment.” In June 1962, Park followed with a new media policy designed to purge antimilitary newspapers. He also forced the entire state bureaucracy and schools to disseminate the revolutionary goals and principles of the SCNR. Anyone who opposed the revolution would be purged as a communist sympathizer and an enemy of national reconstruction.
In order to weaken civilian politicians, the coup makers imposed martial law until they were confident that the United States and the South Korean people would support the junta. Martial law, promulgated on the day of the coup, was lifted on May 27, 1961, after General Magruder and the U.S. government announced that they would accept the coup. On May 16, Park had also banned all political activities, dissolved the National Assembly, and arrested most of the civilian politicians on the charge of being proxies of Kim Il Sung and communism. The divide-and-rule strategy to-
The May Sixteenth Military Coup 55
ward civilian politicians was evident when Park and his allies lifted the ban on political activities for those politicians and political groups that either were too weak to challenge the junta or had recently switched sides to support it, while continuing the ban for others that might cause it trouble. In particular, the major party politicians critical of military rule were banned from engaging in political activities until March 1962. Even then, still unsure of the junta’s ability to win the coming elections, Park had the junta promulgate the Political Purification Law of March 1962. The law made President Yun Po-sôn resign in protest, thus bringing the Old Faction of the now-dismantled Democratic Party to join Chang Myôn’s New Faction in the opposition. The “cleanup” law enabled the military junta to indict 1,336 politicians on charges of corruption, so that Park could have an early start in preparing for the coming elections.
With the power to decide who could and could not reenter politics, the junta used the issue of the restoration of electoral competition and civilian rule and the accompanying process of candidate screening as an instrument not only to fuel jealousies and rivalries among the already internally fragmented civilian politicians but also to build a new ruling military-civilian coalition for the coming Third Republic (1963–1972). As part of the junta’s tactics, Chang Myôn and most of his New Faction were prohibited from engaging in political activities, whereas Yun Po-sôn of the Old Faction and Hô Chông of the earlier interim government (April-August 1960) were allowed to organize the Democratic Politics Party, or Minjôngdang, and the People’s Party, or Kungmin¤i-dang, respectively. The three leaders of the civilian camp, partly manipulated by the KCIA and partly driven by their own deeply rooted factional divide going back to the formative years of the Democratic Party, chose to go their separate ways rather than unite their forces to oppose Park in the upcoming elections.
To discredit the civilian politicians as an incompetent force, moreover, the junta moved rapidly on the economic front. Having defined one of its roles to be the rescue of South Koreans from their absolute poverty, the junta thought it imperative that it show visible progress in economic development. On May 19, 1961, the Military Revolutionary Committee changed its name to the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction to underscore its economic commitment. The junta members followed up with the reorganization of government structures and the introduction of modern management ideas and techniques, the topic of later chapters.
Why did the May 16 coup succeed under Park Chung Hee’s leadership?
The first set of variables were those external to the South Korean armed forces that pulled Park and his followers into politics. The “pull factors”
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56
consisted of the failure of the Chang Myôn government to tame the contentious voice of reform in the post-April 19 Student Revolution period and restore order; the pervasive corruption that cost the Chang Myôn government its political credibility among the people; and the factionalism within the Democratic Party that deprived society of the opportunity to develop a force of reform to unite the nation and to develop the South Korean economy. There also existed “push factors” inside the South Korean military that drove Park and his followers to intervene in politics as a way of solving the internal issues of the armed forces. Among these push factors was the transformation of the South Korean military into the country’s most modernized, educated, and administratively experienced elite group, equipped with both a nationalist ethos and a U.S.-based spirit of technocracy that gave it the confidence to intervene in politics. The availability of a strategically minded and ethically uncompromised leader, Park Chung Hee, enabled the forging of a loosely organized cross-regional and cross-generational coalition to awaken in the armed forces a sense of mission to rebuild the nation, the result of which was to get the officer corps interested in politics. Most critically, the chronic corruption and promotion problems plaguing the South Korean military drove discontented young colonels and lieutenant colonels to rise up against their superiors in the military and their patrons in the ruling political party.
This combination of factors explains the military’s entry into politics in May 1961, but it does not explain the success of the revolutionary government in its consolidation of power after the military coup. The military junta had to prove that it was different from civilian politicians, and therefore articulated its goal of achieving economic development as quickly as possible.
The coup also succeeded because Park was a strategic thinker with a keen understanding of po
wer. The formidable KCIA, organized by Kim Chong-p’il, Park’s trusted lieutenant, exercised power frequently outside legal supervision to monitor countercoup activities and to conduct covert political operations to suppress or manipulate civilian politicians. The agency also became a think tank for Park on issues such as inter-Korea relations, foreign affairs, and even economic policy.
Finally, the success of the coup owed much to Park’s ability to quell and control factionalism within the military. There occurred a series of purges in the name of suppressing counterrevolutionary forces during the junta years. The July 1961 purge of Chang To-yông and his followers from the fifth KMA graduating class eliminated the Northwest faction as a rival to Park’s Southeast faction. The last of the purges to occur in March 1963
was to remove Pak Im-hang, Kim Tong-ha, and their followers in the mid-
The May Sixteenth Military Coup 57
dle of a political crisis over the issue of power transfer to a civilian government. And with it, Park weeded out the generals who had a legitimate claim to sharing power, given their active participation in the coup of May 16, 1961, and became the supreme leader within the South Korean armed forces without rivals.
c h a p t e r
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Taming and Tamed by
the United States
Park Chung Hee Era Page 8
