Word: syngman
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There is a widespread impression in the U.S. that South Korea's experiment with democratic government has gone poorly mainly because of the autocratic personality of President Syngman Rhee. Published this week is a vigorous dissent from this view: The Korea Story (Henry Regnery; $3), by John C. Caldwell, a China missionary's son and a veteran of the U.S. foreign service in the Far East. His conclusion: the U.S. State Department, possessed by "some of the same naive notions that . . . lost us China," messed up the chance to promote democracy in Korea...
...first time in their thousands of years of history, South Koreans last week elected a President by popular and secret ballot. President Syngman Rhee, 77, got 5,238,769 of the 7,000,000 votes cast, without making a speech. On election day, the old man went to the polls with his loyal wife, an Austrian woman 20 years his junior whom he met in Geneva in 1932, when he was fighting his country's battles in the League of Nations...
...true secrecy of the voting and the honesty of the count-attested to by U.N. observers-were encouraging, and to Westerners who still doubted it, the balloting demonstrated Syngman Rhee's strong hold on the South Korean masses. He was strongest in rural areas. In Pusan, where South Koreans could see how Rhee "tyrannized" the National Assembly, the old hero-while beating his nearest opponent by 24,000-got only 45% of the vote...
There are still a few moneyed Koreans in Pusan. By decrees and posters, Syngman Rhee's government has tried to discourage the flaunting of luxuries-yet smugglers do a thriving business in watches, cameras, cosmetics, silks, velvets. The new Mijin ("Beautiful Progress") Hotel is thronged with those who can pay as much as $15 for a room, $5 for a meal, 75? for beer, 50? for coffee. The only acceptable money in the Beautiful Progress is U.S. currency or checks...
Everyone seems to disapprove of 77-year-old Syngman Rhee except the voters of South Korea. The U.S., Great Britain and the U.N. clicked their tongues in disapproval at President Rhee's highhanded way of running his nation. A majority of Korea's parliamentarians were violent and vociferous in opposition. Rhee's rejoinder: "Ask the people...