Nation: Help for Korea

With his stony expression, his dark glasses and dark civilian suits, the erect little man who flew into Washington last week sometimes looked like a bad ‘un out of a foreign-intrigue movie. But Chung Hee Park, 44, the South Korean leader who normally wears the olive drab uniform of a four-star general, had little reason to smile, and he was keeping his military trappings out of sight for good purpose. His trip was aimed at winning Administration support for the military dictatorship he set up in South Korea last May with the avowed goal of rooting out the corruption and inefficiency that was smothering his nation.

The Kennedy Administration has little fondness for Park’s military junta, which has dissolved the legislature, curbed freedom of the press, and taken an estimated 40,000 political prisoners (most of whom have been released). But with Communist pressure mounting in Asia, the U.S. badly needs a stable government in South Korea. Without U.S. support, General Park’s government would soon topple—and the alternative might be far worse. Said one U.S. official: “What we don’t want is a never-ending stream of coups and colonels in South Korea.”

Good Impression. As a result, the Kennedy Administration swallowed hard and warmly greeted the tough, austere soldier. Smiling broadly, Vice President Lyndon Johnson pumped General Park’s hand on his arrival at the National Airport. Next morning, Park dutifully fulfilled the ritual of laying a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknowns, then talked with State Secretary Dean Rusk and Fowler Hamilton, head of the Agency for International Development. General Park outlined his five-year $2.4-billion plan for South Korea, indicated hopefully that he would like up to half of that sum to come from the U.S. Although Rusk and Hamilton made no promises and told him to rework his hastily drawn program, Park was assured that South Korea would continue to get considerable U.S. aid.

That day’s lunch was the first chance that President Kennedy got to size up the general. He later invited his visitor into his office to continue their conversation, conducted through interpreters, for 1½ hours. Although the session seldom got down to specifics, General Park promised the President that South Korea would hold elections and a constitutional referendum in 1963, assured him that he was working to improve South Korea’s touchy relations with its old enemy, Japan. Kennedy came away favorably impressed with Park, willingly posed with him for pictures calculated to enhance the general’s prestige back home.

“We Had To.” In talks with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, Park pressed for more military aid for his 600,000-man army, got promises of a review that would consider supplying modern communications equipment, antiaircraft guns, and perhaps jet planes.

Making a final pitch, General Park told the National Press Club: “We Koreans don’t like military governments any more than you Americans. My military colleagues and I didn’t want to make a military revolution. But we had to.”