KOREA: The Suggestion Box

For all its anger at President Syngman Rhee’s maneuvers to block the truce in Korea, the United Nations felt obliged to report last week that the old man’s tactics had helped him tighten his control in South Korea. “The year … has been characterized by the consolidation of the President’s position,” said the U.N.’s Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea.

As if to confirm the commission’s judgment, Rhee took steps to consolidate his position still more. Long experience in the dog-eat-dog game of Korean politics had convinced Rhee that to allow any South Korean but himself to achieve real political stature created a threat to orderly government, i.e., undisputed rule by Rhee. So one day last week the President pared Paik Too Chin down to size by forcing him to resign as head of the powerful Finance Ministry, leaving him only the token job of Premier.

Next day Rhee went to work on forceful General Lee Bum Suk, the ex-boss of Rhee’s police. Three pro-Lee editors were jailed, and Rhee fired Chin Hon Sik, a Lee supporter who, as Home Minister, ran the national police force. At the same time the President dissolved all of South Korea’s paramilitary youth movements, large sections of which were under Lee’s influence, and replaced them with a Rhee-controlled “national militia” to be composed of “youths from 18 to 40.”

These matters attended to, President Rhee found himself short of government officials. Having pretty much exhausted his supply of acquaintances, he ordered a large blue box to be placed in front of the Capitol building in Seoul and on it placed the following inscription: “Box for suggesting able persons for important jobs.”