Word: rhees
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Song recognized that he needed a more dramatic argument. His chance came when 300 Seoul National University professors gathered nervously on the steps of Seoul's National Assembly building to orate against the Rhee regime. Most were sure that they would all be dead by nightfall. But Song made no attempt to disturb them. The demonstrators cringed visibly when the first army tank rolled up. But it rumbled by as if nothing untoward were happening...
...vengefully burned them; one of the few things spared was an American flag, which the demonstrators carefully folded and turned over to a U.S. reporter "for safekeeping." Amid the crackle of gunfire from panicky cops, the rioters burned down a police station and the houses of two members of Rhee's graft-ridden Liberal Party. With chaos threatening, U.S. Ambassador Walter McConaughy issued a stiff public statement warning Rhee that "this is no time for temporizing...
Song sent a loudspeaker Jeep into the streets with a suggestion: let student leaders come forward to form a delegation to see Rhee. Fourteen responded. Song chose five and personally escorted them to the presidential mansion. There, as Song stood by beaming paternally, the students told Rhee: "The only way to solve the problem is to hold new elections-and also for you to offer to resign...
...Rhee hesitated, then replied: "If the people wish it, I will resign." At that moment, twelve years of Korean history -years when the words "Syngman Rhee" and "South Korea" had been virtually synonymous-came to an end, and the students burst into tears...
...victors, Seoul's students showed extraordinary discipline. With virtually all the city's police force in frightened hiding, students ran the police stations, directed traffic, even commandeered city trash trucks and laboriously cleaned up the riot debris. When a group of rowdy schoolboys knocked a statue of Rhee off its pedestal and started to drag it away, older students restored it to place with the reproving reminder: "After all, he is part of our history...