Tag: Kim Jong-pil

The last of Korea’s old guard has passed away:

Former Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil died Saturday at age 92. Kim died at 8:15 a.m., an aide said.

Kim was taken to Soonchunhyang University Hospital in Seoul from his home in Shindang-dong, and he was already dead on arrival, hospital officials said.

He is believed to have died of old age.

Born in 1926, Kim graduated from the Korea Military Academy and played a key role in the 1961 military coup led by Park Chung-hee, who rose to president and ruled South Korea for 18 years.

Kim served as prime minister twice, first from 1971-1975 and then from 1998-2000.

He also served nine terms as a lawmaker and was considered one of South Korea’s most influential politicians in the 1980s-90s. He was known as one of the “three Kims,” together with former Presidents Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung.  [Korea Times]

The modern Korean history that Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil was part of is simply incredible. He was even responsible for an agricultural first by creating Jeju’s first tangerine orchard in 1968.

https://www.rokdrop.net/2015/11/kim-jong-pil-describes-how-started-jejus-first-tangerine-orchard/

You can read more about Kim Jong-pil’s historical significance at this ROK Drop link.

Hong Joon-pyo (R), leader of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, shakes hands with Kim Jong-pil, a former prime minister and retired conservative icon, at a hospital in Seoul on July 18, 2017. Kim, 91, has been hospitalized to undergo a medical checkup. (Yonhap)

Here is another interesting read from the former Prime Minister of South Korea Kim Jong-pil.  This time he discusses his views on the Sunshine Policy and why it was never going to work.  History has shown he was correct:

After his return to Seoul, Kim invited me and my wife Young-ok for a dinner at the Blue House on June 20, which was my first encounter with him in five months. Welcoming me, Kim said with a smile, “I felt pretty lonely without you.”

I replied, “You pulled off a major feat this time.”

Kim told me in greater detail of the progress he had made with Kim Jong-il during his stay in Pyongyang.

I told him, “I hope that agreement could lay down a path for the two sides toward an era of reconciliation.”

But in fact, I disagreed with the second clause of the agreement. If the two Koreas are reunified with different political systems, the problems in such a dual system would be enormous. I was firm in my belief that reunification would be complete only under one form of government as Italy had done in the 19th century.

The pursuit of reunification is a matter that calls for thorough contemplation and a long view. It should not be tackled with simple optimism or the illusion that the North could simply open up to the South and the outside world after a prolonged period of engagement. We need to be patient in waiting for change within the Pyongyang regime over the long run. Suppose we have a day of reunification suddenly and have to live with 20 million fellow citizens in the North. It wouldn’t be stretch to say half of our national income would be spent on assisting the North in a reunified Korea. I wonder how people would react to a government decision to take away half of their incomes just to nurture the North’s basket case of an economy.

A president should not be in a hurry to complete his or her North Korea policy during a single five-year term. We should wait and see what changes occur in the North as time goes by. For a considerable period of time, Seoul must spend its energy on strengthening our national power. West Germany achieved a peaceful reunification because it had the capacity to embrace East Germany. And West Germans were not hesitant to pour their money into reinvigorating the moribund economy of the East and elevating the standard of living of East Germans.

Former President Kim Dae-jung prided himself on moving the country a step closer to reunification. In fact, nothing has changed much since his summit 16 years ago. But Kim had the honor of winning the Nobel Peace Prize in December 2000. That was the real fruit of his tireless efforts to engage North Korea.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the whole thing at the link.

Here is another interesting interview with the 89 year old former Korean Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil who discusses what he learned from meeting famous world leaders.  What he had to say about Charles de Gaulle and Winston Churchill was interesting, but here is what he had to say he learned from President Harry Truman:

Kim Jong-pil, far right, poses for a photo with former U.S. President Henry Truman in September 1964, at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri. [KIM JONG-PIL]

In June 1964, I embarked on my second overseas journey to ease growing protests against diplomatic efforts to restore ties with Japan.

I visited the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri, in September that year and met with the former president, who had courageously decided to form the U.S.-led UN coalition forces to defend South Korea at the outset of the (1950-53) Korean War.

During our hour-long meeting, President Truman told me that one of the most regrettable things he had done in his presidency was failing to unify the Korean Peninsula despite the huge loss of life during the conflict.

He couldn’t push for the unification at the time, he said, because of daunting international opposition to that effort.

I then asked what advice he had for a young political man from Korea.

He told me a story of a tiger. “You may think a tiger is tame, and even feel grateful for the zoo keeper as he feeds him and looks after him every day. But to think so is nonsense. If a zoo keeper steps on the tiger’s foot by mistake, the tiger will jump him and try to bite. If a politician thinks of his people as the tiger and forms his politics accordingly, he will inevitably succeed in his political career.”

He spoke the truth. A politician by nature must be willing to serve the people. If he looks to gain from his political activities, it could be the end.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

The Joong Ang Ilbo is continuing its fascinating series of interviews with the 89 year old former Korean Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil.  This next interview describes how Kim Jong-pil started the first tangerine orchard on Jeju Island and started his own cattle ranch which was ultimately seized by the military dictator Chun Doo-hwan:

During my 46-day confinement at the Army Security Command in 1980, only once did I cry. It was after I heard the news that the security command had announced in corruption charges that I had illegally accumulated 21.6 billion won ($18.6 million). A number of my assets were to be confiscated included a tangerine orchard on Jeju Island and a cattle ranch in South Chungcheong that I had donated to the Unjong Scholarship Foundation. I could not keep myself from crying after learning of the Chun Doo Hwan group’s perfidy. During my lifetime, I shed tears just a few times. I cried at the funeral for President Park Chung Hee in 1979. Recently, I cried when my wife Young-ok passed away.I shed tears in the interrogation room 35 years ago because the Chun group took away my dreams and ambition. Though 35 years have passed, I feel compelled to raise the issue in regard to the Unjong Scholarship Foundation. In May 1968, I declared my retirement from politics and relinquished all formal positions. I was determined to contribute to the improvement of the country through other means. I remembered a line from a book on Napoleon that I had read in middle school. The Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon in the battle of Waterloo, was asked how he had beaten the French emperor. He said he had fought in the spirit of Eton College and the victory was possible because of what he had learned on that school’s playing fields. His remark inspired me deeply and led me to nurture ambitions that I would one day set up a school just like Eton.

To set up an educational institution, I needed financial means. So I decided on a pioneering farming venture. In June 1968, I visited a vast track of land in Seogwipo, Jeju Island, and decided to turn it into a tangerine orchard. Agricultural experts told me I would fail and said the land was not suitable to such farming. But I pushed ahead. I bought 430,000 square meters of land for 32.5 million won. The price was very cheap because everyone thought the land was infertile. I deployed a crane and even dynamite to break through rock. I set up a tent nearby and spent the whole winter of 1968 there. I purchased 49,840 tangerine seedlings from Japan and planted them. About three years later, they bore fruit.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link which includes how he started his cattle ranch in Seosan and how Chun Doo-hwan seized these two agricultural properties from him.

Here is another interesting story from the former ROK Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil who served in the Korean government through some of its most interesting times in the country’s modern history.  Here is another interesting story he tells of how a North Korean spy came to South Korea on a mission believed to be from Kim Il-sung to meet with him or Park Chung-hee:

This is the latest in a series of articles on the life and times of Kim Jong-pil, a two-time prime minister, based on extensive interviews with the 89-year-old.It was just past 3 a.m. on Oct. 15, 1961, when I received a phone call from my mother-in-law. Picking up the phone, I had a sense of foreboding. Calls at that time of the morning are rarely good news.

“Something bad has happened,” my mother-in-law, Jo Gui-bun, murmured without elaborating.

I urged her to tell me what was going on.

“I don’t think you know about him. There’s a man named Hwang Tae-song, a friend of your father-in-law’s. He went up to North Korea before the war and now he is back here in the South. He asked me to arrange a meeting with you and Park Chung Hee.” To her, Park, then-Chairman for the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction, was a brother in-law.

I could sense the anxiety in her voice. It was understandable given the high sensitivity of the matter. She was calling from the Gumi Police Precinct using an emergency phone line. The head of the precinct let her use the phone knowing that her son-in-law was the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency.

I tried to calm her down.

I had never heard of Hwang Tae-song before. I had no idea how or why he made his way to her in the South and why he wanted to meet Park and me. There were many questions about him I had to find out right away using all of my resources as the top man at the intelligence agency.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link, but I was curious to whatever happened to Hwang Tae-song and discovered this article from the venerable Andrei Lankov that explains how Kim Il-sung thought that since Park Chung-hee was an authoritarian that he may be more amiable than his predecessors with cooperating with North Korea.  Hwang was sent to arrange a summit between Kim and Park followed by a gradual easing of tensions.  Instead of meeting with Hwang, Park had him arrested, tried, and shot as a spy.  Park wanted to erase any doubts about his own communist past and Hwang simply became the perfect example for him to show his US allies that he was all in against communism.

In the continuing series of interviews that the Joong Ang Ilbo is publishing with former ROK Prime Minister, this next article describes how he first met former Korean strongman Park Chung-hee:

Looking back, there was nothing special in my first meeting with Park Chung Hee. But on the cusp of turning 90, when I recall my first encounter with him, it comes back to me vividly.

I began my military career as a commissioned officer assigned to the Army headquarters’ intelligence bureau after I graduated from the military academy in June 1949. I was assigned to a strategy intelligence unit with seven of my fellow graduates. We reported our appointment to Col. Paik Sun-yup, who was director of the intelligence bureau. He said there was one more person we need to report our appointment to in an operations room.

We did as told, reporting for duty to a man dressed in a black suit. The man had a small figure and looked tanned. He smiled shyly as he said in a humble manner, “Hello. I am Park Chung Hee. You don’t need to report for your duties. I am not that important here. Please take a seat.”

I shook hands and sat down. He told me he was stripped of his uniform because he got in trouble, without divulging any details. “I heard you guys graduated at the top of the class from the military academy. Welcome to the unit,” Park said.

Park was working as a civilian officer after his dismissal earlier that year. I had heard his name when I was in the military academy. He was a company commander overseeing military academy cadets. I had also heard that sometime in 1948 he was taken somewhere.

It was only later that I found out that he almost landed on death row for being a member of the outlawed communist Workers Party of South Korea tasked with recruiting party members. A military court spared his life in February 1949 by giving him a suspended jail term. Shortly after his release, he had no choice but to leave the Army.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more about Kim Jong-pil’s interactions with Park Chung-hee at the link such as this nugget that is was famed Korean general Paik Sun-yup that worked to get Park Chun-hee’s death sentenced revoked.

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.

For those who have an interest in South Korea’s modern history, I highly recommend taking the time to read this interview in the Joong Ang Ilbo with former Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil.  Just about every event in Korea’s modern history he played a significant role in to include the military coup that brought Park Chung-hee into power and the deal with Japan to normalize relations in return for economic aid:

There was once a time not so long ago when Korean politicians played by rules largely dictated by The Three Kims: Kim Dae-jung, Kim Young-sam and Kim Jong-pil. The Three Kims wielded considerable influence on the Korean political landscape – sometimes as rivals or enemies, sometimes as allies – and two of the Kims went on to become president: Kim Young-sam in 1993 and Kim Dae-jung 1998.

Kim Jong-pil helped each of them clinch those presidential victories.

Though Kim Jong-pil never made it to the Blue House, he was named prime minister twice, by Park Chung Hee in 1971 and Kim Dae-jung in 1998. And few doubt the size of the boots in which he strode the political stage.

Kim retired from active politics a decade ago. At 89, he has offered his view of a tumultuous half century history of Korean politics in a series of interviews with the JoongAng Ilbo.

Beginning last October, the former political titan shared vivid glimpses of events that he either witnessed or made happen himself, many of which changed the flow of Korean history.

Kim was born in 1926 in what is now Buyeo County, South Chungcheong, to a wealthy farmer.

“Because I was born to a rich family, I did not suffer economic hardship when I was young,” Kim recalled. “But after my father’s death, things started getting difficult and I had to change my path.”

Kim dropped out of Seoul National University’s school of education and enrolled in the Korean Military Academy. He graduated a second-lieutenant and worked at the military’s intelligence bureau, where he first met Park Chung Hee.

“Park worked at the intelligence bureau as a government employee after he was discharged from the military,” Kim said. “He had to leave the army after prosecutors sought a death sentence for him on charges of being a socialist in 1949 [when he was 32].” Park was eventually convicted of following leftist ideas and sentenced to life in prison, but his sentence was commuted to a 10-year suspended prison term. Park was discharged shortly after.

Kim recalled it was Park’s meticulousness that appealed to him.

“The most important thing in your life is what kind of people you meet,” he said.

Kim was the architect of the May 16 military coup led by Park. It overthrew a civilian government set up a year earlier after the student-led April 19 Revolution that toppled the government of Syngman Rhee, South Korea’s first president. Park carried out the coup in the name of bringing an end to its ineffectiveness and corruption and getting rid of Communist elements in a country still reeling from the 1950-53 Korean War.

Kim wrote a declaration of promises to the nation after the coup in the name of the new leaders. The first promise he made to the people was to make anti-Communism the state’s No.1 priority.

“It was done to create a new set of rules by discarding old, ineffective rules of the past,” said Kim about the coup, which critics consider a grab for power by ambitious men in uniforms in brazen disregard of the Constitution or any ideals of democratic freedoms.

Supporters of Park Chung Hee, the father of current President Park Geun-hye, say he cut through the rapidly diminishing hopes at the time, changed the way the country was governed, and through intelligence, determination and an iron fist enabled it to grow into an economic powerhouse at a speed no one had foreseen.

When asked about the ongoing debate over how to define the coup on May 16, 1961, Kim brushed the question off as an irrelevance.

“It doesn’t matter at all whether it is defined as a revolution or a coup,” he said. “What’s important is that it brought about profound changes in every sector encompassing politics, economics and the society. And it produced tangible outcomes. And that is the revolution.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest of this interesting interview at the link that has other interesting tidbits such as how he tried to stop Park Chung-hee from changing the Constitution to seek a third presidential term, but Park went ahead with the “Yushin Constitution” changes anyway that gave him dictatorial powers.  I wonder how differently Park Chung-hee would have been viewed by history if he would have taken Kim Yong-pil’s advice at the time?