Park Chung Hee

Politician, military officer

• Born: November 14, 1917
• Place of Birth: Place of birth: Gumi, South Korea
• Died: October 26, 1979
• Place of Death: Place of death: Seoul, South Korea

Significance: Park Chung Hee was a South Korean military general and politician who led the government of South Korea from 1961 until his assassination in 1979. He came to power in a bloodless coup that overthrew South Korea’s civilian government. Over the next eighteen years, Park successfully industrialized and expanded South Korea’s economy but at the cost of human rights and civil liberties. He practiced an authoritarian rule, repressing, imprisoning, and executing political opponents and dissidents. Park was assassinated by one of his own government officials.

Background

Park Chung Hee was born into a poor family on November 14, 1917, in the village of Sonsangun, near the city of Daegu, South Korea. His father worked occasionally as a magistrate during these years of Korea’s occupation by Japan.

Park was admitted to Daegu Normal School only after winning an academic examination competition. He eventually completed his high school education and then taught elementary school for a short time before enrolling in the Japanese military academy. After several years of training in China and Japan, Park began serving with the Japanese army in the final year of World War II.

The war ended with Japan’s surrender in 1945. With the Japanese army dissolved, Park became a second lieutenant in the South Korean army. However, he soon became involved in illegal Communist activities and in 1949 was sentenced to life in prison.

The beginning of the Korean War in 1950 spared Park from this fate. He was released from prison so he could serve in the South Korean army during the war. He eventually rose to the rank of major general. Even with his high standing in the army, Park was not satisfied with his career, and he would soon turn to politics as an outlet for his ambitions.

Life’s Work

South Korea was suffering economically in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Syngman Rhee, the country’s first president, was corrupt, authoritarian, and inefficient as a leader. His tenure in office destroyed the South Korean economy and made the nation one of the poorest in the world.

Believing South Korea would not improve without radical change, Park led a group of military officers to take over the South Korean government in a bloodless coup on May 16, 1961. Rhee’s presidency had been nearly universally deemed a failure; therefore, Park encountered almost no objections to his act from either the South Korean people or the country’s ally the United States. President John F. Kennedy eventually supported Park openly after learning of his plans to reform South Korea’s economy.

Park’s primary task as the new leader of South Korea was to repair the country’s economy. Soon after the coup, Park ordered the arrests of scores of South Korean business executives who had profited from the corruption in Rhee’s government over the last decade. He then nationalized South Korean banks, or placed them under state control, thereby enabling the government to direct the country’s income into economic development initiatives. To this end, Park also created numerous government branches devoted to managing South Korea’s economy. These included the ministry of finance and the economic planning board.

These positive economic reforms were shadowed by controversy, however. Despite his intentions to revitalize South Korea, Park had quickly proven an authoritarian leader. Over the first several years of his rule, he had banned political parties and declared martial law. Anti-government protests in early 1963 finally induced Park to call for actual presidential elections. He was officially elected president later that year.

In 1965, Park normalized diplomatic relations with Japan. This decision angered the South Korean people, who still remembered Japan’s violence against Korea during World War II. At the same time, the new relations meant that Japan and the United States, which welcomed the South Korean–Japanese treaty, would now begin to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the South Korean economy. Park’s economic reforms also led to significant improvements in South Korea’s infrastructure and heavy industry sector.

Through all of this, Park maintained South Korea as a democracy in name only. In reality, he remained a despotic ruler. He employed spies throughout the country, attempting to find and uproot Communists or other types of rebels. Political dissidents and critics were imprisoned, tortured, and executed. Park’s continuing drive for power and his obsession with suppressing anti-government criticism would ultimately cause his downfall.

On October 26, 1979, Park met with government leaders at the headquarters of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) in Seoul. During the meeting, Park criticized KCIA head Kim Jae Kyu for neglecting to stop the protests that had recently broken out in Korea’s Jeolla region. Park wanted Kim to do this, even if it meant the deaths of thirty thousand people. Outraged, Kim took out a gun and shot Park, who died a short time later.

Impact

Park revolutionized South Korea’s economy following the end of the Korean War. The numerous economic reforms he enacted during his tenure fashioned South Korea into a thriving global market that would continue to expand into the next century.

Meanwhile, Park remained a highly polarizing figure to South Koreans in the twenty-first century. Many people praised him as one of the greatest leaders South Korea ever had, saying he built the country up from nothing. Others derided Park as a dictator who violently repressed his own people for power.

Park's life was depicted in a 2021 play entitled Park Chung-hee: The Musical. This was followed by a sequel, Yook Young-soo: Acacia of the Era, which portrayed his wife's role as a social crusader. In 2024, these two plays were loosely combined with additional photographic material from their lives to create the biopic Park Chung-hee: The Man Who Dreamed of an Economic Powerhouse, which had mixed reviews.

Personal Life

An assassination attempt on Park in 1974 accidentally killed his wife. Park’s daughter, Park Geun-hye, then assumed the role of first lady. In 2012, Park Geun-hye was elected president of South Korea.

Bibliography

Kim, Hyung-A and Clark W. Sorensen. Reassessing the Park Chung Hee Era, 1961–1979: Development, Political Thought, Democracy, and Cultural Influence. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011, 24–25. Print.

"The Park Chung Hee Regime in South Korea." San Jose State University Department of Economics. San Jose State University. Web. 2 June 2016.

Shi, Sun-ah. "(Movie Review) 'Park Chung-hee': Superficial Biopic of S. Korea's Architect of Economic Miracle." Yon-Hap News Agency, 4 July 2024, en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20240704002000315. Accessed 30 Sept. 2024.

"27. South Korea (1948–Present)." University of Central Arkansas. University of Central Arkansas. Web. 2 June 2016

Yi, Eugene. "Why Late South Korean Dictator Park Chung-hee Is the Most Popular President Ever." New America Media. New America Media, 13 Mar. 2013. Web. 2 June 2016.