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Authors: Don Oberdorfer, Robert Carlin
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assessment by the US military command in Korea in 1975 noted, “From the time he led the 1961 coup, it has been evident that President Park had little admiration for or interest in the craft of politics. His approach to his stewardship as ROK head of state has remained that of a general who desires that his orders be carried out without being subjected to the process of political debate.”
South Korea under Park was dependent militarily and to a large degree economically on the United States. This dependence grated on Park, who worked steadfastly to increase his independence from Washington, much as Kim Il Sung struggled to gain independence from his Soviet and Chinese sponsors. Park’s relationship with his principal foreign backer was fundamentally lacking in trust. The extent of American confidence in Park in the 1960s is suggested by the later disclosure of former ambassador William J. Porter that US intelligence had installed listening devices in Park’s Blue House office, though he said they had been removed by the time of his arrival in 1967. Following disclosure of the bugging, Park had the Blue House swept by his own surveillance experts and installed special multilayered glass windows with static between the panes to foil electronic eavesdropping from outside, activated by a switch near his desk. “Whenever he’d call me to his office, he’d turn on the switch and lower his voice,” one of Park’s ministers recalled.
Fifteen years after his death, however, Park was remembered less for his conflicts with Washington and successive waves of political repression than as the father of his country’s remarkable economic progress. More than two-thirds of South Koreans polled by a Seoul daily in March 1995 said Park was the country’s greatest president, more than five times the number that gave that honor to any other chief executive. The overwhelming reasons cited were the economic progress and development under his regime and its relative stability. (Park’s standing went down again during liberal President Roh Moo-hyun’s rule [2003–2008], when focus was again put on his repression.)
South Korea’s economic rise under Park started from a low point. Looking back after a decade in power, Park wrote that when he took over the country as leader of the 1961 coup, “I honestly felt as if I had been given a pilfered household or a bankrupt firm to manage. Around me I could find little hope. . . . I had to destroy, once and for all, the vicious circle of poverty and economic stagnation. Only by reforming the economic structure could we lay a foundation for decent living standards.” For Park, rapid economic growth was essential not only as the source of prosperity but also for two other goals, which he held even higher: enhancing national security, in an era when US willingness to protect the country against the North was waning, and winning political legitimacy for hisregime, which had taken power by force of arms against a legitimately elected government.
Only a month after seizing power, Park established the Economic Planning Council, which later became the Economic Planning Board, to provide central governmental direction for the economy. The first five-year development plan, produced shortly thereafter, declared that “the economic system will be a form of ‘guided capitalism,’ in which the principle of free enterprise and respect for freedom and initiative of free enterprise will be observed, but in which the government will either directly participate in or indirectly render guidance to the basic industries and other important fields.”
As that passage suggests, Park’s model for economic development was the highly successful postwar Japanese system. In 1965, in a very unpopular personal decision that nonetheless gave a powerful boost to the Korean economy, Park normalized relations with Japan. Despite fierce domestic opposition based on antipathy to the former colonial masters, the
South Korea under Park was dependent militarily and to a large degree economically on the United States. This dependence grated on Park, who worked steadfastly to increase his independence from Washington, much as Kim Il Sung struggled to gain independence from his Soviet and Chinese sponsors. Park’s relationship with his principal foreign backer was fundamentally lacking in trust. The extent of American confidence in Park in the 1960s is suggested by the later disclosure of former ambassador William J. Porter that US intelligence had installed listening devices in Park’s Blue House office, though he said they had been removed by the time of his arrival in 1967. Following disclosure of the bugging, Park had the Blue House swept by his own surveillance experts and installed special multilayered glass windows with static between the panes to foil electronic eavesdropping from outside, activated by a switch near his desk. “Whenever he’d call me to his office, he’d turn on the switch and lower his voice,” one of Park’s ministers recalled.
Fifteen years after his death, however, Park was remembered less for his conflicts with Washington and successive waves of political repression than as the father of his country’s remarkable economic progress. More than two-thirds of South Koreans polled by a Seoul daily in March 1995 said Park was the country’s greatest president, more than five times the number that gave that honor to any other chief executive. The overwhelming reasons cited were the economic progress and development under his regime and its relative stability. (Park’s standing went down again during liberal President Roh Moo-hyun’s rule [2003–2008], when focus was again put on his repression.)
South Korea’s economic rise under Park started from a low point. Looking back after a decade in power, Park wrote that when he took over the country as leader of the 1961 coup, “I honestly felt as if I had been given a pilfered household or a bankrupt firm to manage. Around me I could find little hope. . . . I had to destroy, once and for all, the vicious circle of poverty and economic stagnation. Only by reforming the economic structure could we lay a foundation for decent living standards.” For Park, rapid economic growth was essential not only as the source of prosperity but also for two other goals, which he held even higher: enhancing national security, in an era when US willingness to protect the country against the North was waning, and winning political legitimacy for hisregime, which had taken power by force of arms against a legitimately elected government.
Only a month after seizing power, Park established the Economic Planning Council, which later became the Economic Planning Board, to provide central governmental direction for the economy. The first five-year development plan, produced shortly thereafter, declared that “the economic system will be a form of ‘guided capitalism,’ in which the principle of free enterprise and respect for freedom and initiative of free enterprise will be observed, but in which the government will either directly participate in or indirectly render guidance to the basic industries and other important fields.”
As that passage suggests, Park’s model for economic development was the highly successful postwar Japanese system. In 1965, in a very unpopular personal decision that nonetheless gave a powerful boost to the Korean economy, Park normalized relations with Japan. Despite fierce domestic opposition based on antipathy to the former colonial masters, the
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