Word: sams
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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After 39 years as mayor of Smyrna, Tenn. (pop. 12,000), John Sam Ridley could hardly separate his personal business from the town's. He used his city credit card to visit a daughter in Texas, vacation in Florida and attend the Southern Baptist Convention, claiming that as mayor he was on duty 24 hours a day. He and his brother Knox, a former judge, owned Smyrna's Chevrolet dealership, which serviced cars for the city. A conflict-of-interest suit filed against Sam dragged on for seven years, through two of his re-elections. Then, facing an impending decree...
...Smyrna's dynasty survives. The five-member town commission took all of ten minutes to name Brother Knox to fill out the remaining 2 1/2 years of Sam's term. Said Knox: "Sam will be my right arm." Municipal policies will remain unchanged, and voters may not even notice that a new man is in charge: born 20 minutes apart 67 years ago, now with the same type eyeglasses and portly build, Sam and Knox are identical twins...
Chun's critics, who for years have called for the direct election of the President, were outraged. Kim Young Sam, one of two leaders of the principal minority party, pointed out that Chun won the presidency in 1981 with 92% of the vote in an election boycotted by the opposition. Demanded Kim: "How much difference is there between that election and those of ((Communist)) North Korea, whose leader usually receives 98% to 99% of the votes?" In an interview with TIME, Kim declared, "We will certainly boycott the next presidential election if it is held under the old system...
Chun apparently chose to act in April at least in part because the opposition was in disarray. Unwilling to compromise on the issue of direct presidential elections, Kim Young Sam and his primary opposition partner, Kim Dae Jung, broke with the New Korea Democratic Party and formed a new group, the Reunification Democratic Party. Most antigovernment legislators decided to follow suit, quickly making the R.D.P. the primary opposition party, with 67 seats in the 276-member National Assembly. But the regrouping nonetheless served to splinter Chun's critics further...
...home surrounded night and day by dozens of policemen. At least a dozen R.D.P. assemblymen are also under indictment or investigation, many on charges for thinly disguised political reasons. The new party has not even found a landlord willing to rent it space for a headquarters, forcing Kim Young Sam to joke that he "may have to pitch an extra-large tent on the bank of the Han River" for offices...