Kim Jong-pil Explains Details Before the 1961 Park Chung-hee Coup

Former Korean Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil has his second tell-all interview published in the Joong Ang Ilbo which discusses the details before the 1961 military coup led by Park Chung-hee:

 

Former President Park Chung Hee, third from left, then-chairman of the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction, made his first official inspection of the main spy agency, the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, which is now called the National Intelligence Service, on Jan. 20, 1962, accompanied by agency chief Kim Jong-pil, far left. Provided by Kim Jong-pil’s secretary’s office

I asked my wife to bring me military uniforms on the night of May 14, 1961. It was a cocky color uniform that I was stripped of three months earlier for demanding the dismissals of military leaders [for corruption and incompetence]. I was forcibly discharged from the military as a result. The next morning, I was about to embark on a journey wearing this uniform – not knowing whether I would make it back home.

I was overwhelmed by a feeling I couldn’t even describe. On a fine spring day, I was determined to put my life on the line to make the revolution successful. I was so filled with a sense of determination that I was ready to sacrifice my life.

I was only 35 and yet my mind bore a maturity from having experienced Japan’s 36-year-colonial rule on the peninsula, a bitter division of the Korean Peninsula and the subsequent 1950-53 Korean War, which I went through as a military official. And yet, I was heavy-hearted because I could lose everything, including my life.

I spent the two previous nights staying awake writing. It was a composition in which I poured my whole life into. It was a declaration of promises by the revolution to the nation.

It was a set of promises declaring the demise of old rules and the establishment of new ones. I kept repeating a saying to myself: “History is not to be read but to be written.”

I was known as a good writer by many at the time. But it took me two days to finish the fateful declaration.

A year earlier, students took to the streets for the April 19 revolution. But that stopped short of fixing the social ills brought in by the ruling Liberty Party under the Syngman Rhee government [Korea’s first elected government]. The Chang Myon administration, which took power following the collapse of the Rhee administration, was utterly incompetent in managing state affairs.

It did not govern the country in a way that would liberate it from chaos and the damages caused by the Korean War. The military, the cornerstone of national security, was ridden with corruption but showed no sign of shame. A wave of student-led protests filled the streets nationwide and the civilian government just stood by.

A sense of chaos and confusion consumed the country. In June 1960, police officers organized a rally against the government. In March of the following year, citizens in Daegu took to the streets carrying torches demanding the repeal of anti-Communist laws. University students organized a rally at Seoul Stadium calling on the authorities to arrange a meeting of students from Seoul and Pyongyang.

All of this was happening less than 10 years after the Korean War, which left the country in total ruins. I was getting more and more anxious every day. A majority of the public felt the same way and hoped for decisive change. Painful memories of the war had faded into oblivion, putting national security at grave risk. But I was not one of those who forgot the pains of the war. I lost half of my fellow 1,300 military academy schoolmates during the war. I was growing firmer in my belief that I could not let incompetent and corrupt politicians govern the country anymore – that I must bring an end to this.

Before moving into action, I concentrated all of my strength to the tip of a pen. I was reminded of a maxim by Victorian Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who said, “Life is too short to be little,” which impressed me deeply in my late teens.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but it is incredible how much history Kim Jong-pil was part of dating all the way back to the Japanese colonization of Korea to where the country is today.