Old Hero in a Walk

For the first time in their thousands of years of history, South Koreans last week elected a President by popular and secret ballot. President Syngman Rhee, 77, got 5,238,769 of the 7,000,000 votes cast, without making a speech. On election day, the old man went to the polls with his loyal wife, an Austrian woman 20 years his junior whom he met in Geneva in 1932, when he was fighting his country's battles in the League of Nations.

The only other candidate with any considerable following was Lee Bum Suk, who had served Rhee ruthlessly well as Home Minister, and who was running for Vice President on Rhee's ticket. Surprisingly enough, he lost.

He owed his defeat to President Rhee himself. Lee had been so effective in riding herd on the South Korean Assembly (TIME, June 9 et. seq.), mobbing the Assembly with young hoodlums and arresting some of its members, that he came out of the battle with too much power to suit Rhee. Since Lee posed a threat, Rhee kicked him out of the Home Ministry and had police, block leaders and village elders pass the word to voters that Rhee's favorite for the vice-presidency was not Lee, but a little-known politico of 82 (some say he is 84) named Ham Dae Yung. Half a century ago, Rhee was condemned to death for political activities. Ham, then a young judge, commuted his sentence. Last week Rhee's good friend Ham beat out Lee by 1,000,000 votes.

The true secrecy of the voting and the honesty of the count--attested to by U.N. observers--were encouraging, and to Westerners who still doubted it, the balloting demonstrated Syngman Rhee's strong hold on the South Korean masses. He was strongest in rural areas. In Pusan, where South Koreans could see how Rhee "tyrannized" the National Assembly, the old hero--while beating his nearest opponent by 24,000--got only 45% of the vote.

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