SOUTH KOREA: Quick to Wrath

• Share

(4 of 4)

Time for Repairs. If not the world, at least Korea was changing. Huh fired all nine of Korea's provincial governors, genially announced that, if necessary, he was prepared "to purge every policeman down to the village level" to wipe out police terror. He also made it clear that his own hastily appointed Cabinet of nonpolitical experts would be only a short-lived caretaker government and would have as one of its chief functions the elimination of "inefficiency, waste and corruption" in the use of U.S. aid funds.

For the future, Huh favored constitutional changes that would reduce the presidency to a figurehead job and give the real power to a Premier responsible to the National Assembly. But Democratic Party Leader John Chang, whose dream is to succeed Rhee as a U.S.-style president, demanded that Huh Chung hold new Assembly elections before any revision of the constitution.

With North Korea's Communists poised across the 38th parallel, South Korea could not afford prolonged instability. But instability would be hard to avoid if Rhee's successors were foolish enough to adopt his habit of regarding Korea's government as a personal prize. Asked what would happen if Rhee's promise of fair elections was not scrupulously honored, a Seoul student offhandedly replied: "Why, we shall rise again."