The New Strongman

After any military coup d'etat, the danger point comes when the zealous soldiers run out of ideas and into the hard facts of reality. It is then that they begin to quarrel and plot against one another. Last week, after only a month and a half, South Korea's military revolution was already devouring its own offspring. Out went Junta Boss Lieut. General Chang

Do Yung, front man for the new regime. In came Major General Pak Chung Hi, Chang's former "deputy" and the real strongman behind the May coup.

Ostensibly, General Chang quit of his own free will. "The foundations of a revolutionary regime have been to a degree established," the military Premier announced. "I am voluntarily resigning, since I realize the urgent need of a more aggressive leader who will be able to carry out stronger policies." In fact, his retirement had been hastened by a truckload of Pak's troops, who swooped onto General Chang's home in the predawn hours and hustled the startled victim off to Seoul's capitol building. Getting the point, General Chang called an emergency cabinet meeting and made his announcement. Then, with three other members of the junta, the hapless general vanished from sight, presumably to take up residence in sprawling Mapo prison.

The Enigma. At 44, tough, hawk-faced little General Pak is an enigma, little known either to South Koreans or to the U.S. officers who, through the U.N. Korea Command, train, equip and largely control the tough, 600,000-man ROK army. A career officer who was trained in Japanese military schools, Pak was court-martialed for Communist activities as a South Korean officer in 1948, escaped with his life to become an anti-Communist--and the ROK army's chief of operations. He speaks little English, never made the study tour of U.S. military camps that has been the usual path to success for ROK officers.

To reassure the U.S. top brass, Pak named a U.S. favorite as new Premier in General Chang's place. He is retired Lieut. General "Tiger" Song Yo Chan, 43, who as army chief of staff in May, 1960, pressured old President Syngman Rhee into resigning without a blood bath, then held the rioting students at bay until the nation calmed down. Song retired soon thereafter, has been studying politics and economics at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Last month the junta generals called him back to South Korea to serve as the new regime's Defense Minister.

The Other Chang. So far, the junta generals had been devoting themselves mainly to arrests of prostitutes, jaywalkers, hooligans, and harassment of suspected Communists, liberals and corrupt politicians. Pak's first major move after taking over was to set off in full cry after the liberals again. Announcing a new law providing penalties up to death for Communist collaborators, the junta arrested former Premier John Chang and seven of his Democratic Party Cabinet ministers who were in his Cabinet before the May 16 coup, labeling them "proCommunist plotters." Although John Chang is a Catholic and a well-known antiCommunist, Pak accused him of "helping antistate, pro-Communist activity" by contributing the sum of $770 to a South Korean relief society.

Watching warily, U.S. officials hoped that Pak might finally stop the witch hunts, get down to grappling with South Korea's basic problems; scarcely anything had been done to get the stagnant economy going. At week's end, Pak took to a public rostrum to declare that "the revolution has entered the second stage . . . Its objectives are winning' the public mind, and reconstruction of the economy." Everyone would be happy if he followed up his words with a little action.

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