Word: rhees
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Through Seoul's dusty streets, Syngman Rhee hustled from meeting to meeting in his big, blue-black Lincoln. The car was almost the only civilian vehicle moving in South Korea. As the U.S. ban on petroleum supplies took effect (TIME, Nov. 15), buses halted, fishing boats lay idle, politicians bicycled to work. Rice piled up on the farms for lack of trucks, while in town 25,000 factory workers were unemployed and hungry. In Seoul's tearooms the word went round: "The old man is beaten...
...midweek stubborn old Syngman Rhee gave up, asked U.S. Ambassador Ellis Briggs for his terms to restart the flow of U.S. oil and dollars. Said Briggs in effect: "Do what you promised to do four months ago in Washington." Rhee meekly agreed...
Lush Windfall. Rhee chuckled with appreciation-but refused to budge from the, official rate of 180 hwan to $1. Thereafter, the Korean presses went on printing currency, and the value of the hwan dropped (on the black market) to 500 and even 750 to $1. Rhee himself showed what he. thought of the sanctity of the official rate by allowing the Bank of Korea to auction off a hoard of accumulated U.S. greenbacks (mostly to Korean importers). The prices paid were around 500 hwan to $1. Still Syngman Rhee would not change the official rate. His decision cost...
...longer. The U.S. held up wage payments in hwan to Korean employees of the U.N. forces (a more than $1,500,000-a-month payroll). Moreover, the U.S. refused to allot any more oil to South Korea unless it was paid for at 310 to $1. When Rhee balked at this, fishing boats stayed in port, buses ground to a halt, some 300 factories closed down for lack of fuel, and seven desperate Koreans, trying to tap a U.S. pipeline for gasoline, were killed in an explosion. Still stubborn old Syngman Rhee stood fast. A fortnight ago the U.S. Army...
Back Down. Rhee was startled: he did not think the U.S. would dare. Last week he began to back down. Even he could see that every day he held out was causing loss, trouble and discontent; the Korean employees of the U.N. forces were quite audibly grumbling. At last, Rhee's Finance Minister offered the U.S. 500 million hwan "unconditionally." When General John E. Hull, the U.S. commander in the Far East, replied firmly that he now needed 800 million, Rhee's men hastened to offer the additional amount-although they knew the U.S. would not repay...