Word: chungs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Within sight of two tanks hidden discreetly behind the trees, thousands of mourners flocked in front of the capitol in Seoul last week, in a mass wake for South Korea's slain President Park Chung Hee. Day after day, uniformed schoolchildren, silk-clad housewives and bearded village elders disembarked from rickety country buses and surged through a choking cloud of incense past the dozen black-draped altars. There, Buddhist priests murmured their sutras while mourners prostrated themselves in grief. With a shrug, a government worker whispered the prevailing mood of sorrowful but stoical resignation: "Gone is gone...
...nine-day mourning period, nobody could measure the extent of the power struggle that might already be under way behind the scenes. Nor could anyone tell for sure who was actually in charge of the country. Much of the talk centered on the enigmatic figure of General Chung Seung Hwa, 53, the Army Chief of Staff and Martial Law Commander. Last week Chung's deputy, Lieut. General Lee Hee Sung, was named as acting chief of the discredited but still powerful Korean Central Intelligence Agency. Chung immediately ordered a purge of the agency's upper echelons. Most observers...
Last week Seoul government circles quietly leaked a third, more elaborate version of the murder story, this one involving General Chung. According to this widely circulated, "semiofficial" account, Kim tried to persuade Chung to join the conspiracy, declare martial law and mobilize certain military forces, presumably for the purpose of taking over the country. According to these reports, Chung refused and ordered the arrest of Kim and his coconspirators...
...Chung is indeed reputed to be an incorruptible officer who never meddled in politics. But was he as innocent as this story suggested? Last week sources familiar with the events told TIME yet another version. It was that Kim had indeed planned a coup, but that he had developed his plot with "full support and knowledge" of some of the top South Korean army brass, including General Chung. The coup plan, which was incomplete at the time of the assassination, was aimed at removing Park from power but did not envision killing him; in fact, according to a TIME source...
...fateful Friday, TIME's sources allege, Kim invited Chung to dinner for further talks on "basically changing the situation" in Korea. Around 4 p.m., the general turned up at the KCIA building. Park at this point abruptly invited himself to dinner with Kim. The President showed up two hours later at the KCIA building with Cha and his chief of staff, Kim Kae Won, who was known to be a friend of the intelligence chief but whose own role in the events remains mysterious. Thus because of his planned appointment with the KCIA boss, Chung happened...