The Accidental Assassination

It was a day of celebration in South Korea, the 29th anniversary of its liberation from 3 1/2 decades of Japanese rule. An audience of 2,000 people gathered in Seoul's National Theater to hear President Park Chung Hee deliver a commemorative address. Halfway through his speech, which was being shown on national television, a man jumped up in the audience and sprinted toward the stage firing shots at Park from a .38-cal. revolver.

Pandemonium broke out. As the assassin raced down the center aisle, spectators leaped from their seats and screamed. Security men rushed toward the stage. Park, displaying the cool aplomb of a professional soldier, ducked behind the bulletproof lectern while his bodyguards returned the fire. A 16-year-old high school girl in the audience was killed in the Shootout. Another bullet struck the gunman in the leg; he was wrestled to the floor and carried out of the hall. A third bullet hit Park's charming wife Yook Young Soo, who was seated on the dais directly behind him. Park stoically returned to the lectern and resumed his speech even as his wife was being rushed to a hospital. Mrs. Park died there eight hours later with her husband at her bedside.

Mrs. Park was a handsome woman of 49 given to dressing in traditional Korean costumes. After the announcement of her death, South Koreans went into mourning. Tens of thousands of people went to the "Blue House," the presidential residence in Seoul, to pay their final respects at a Buddhist altar adorned with her picture. In contrast to her stone-faced husband, the former schoolteacher had earned the affection of the Korean masses through her retiring manners and beguiling smile.

Frantic Investigation. The shooting sparked a frantic investigation of how the would-be killer managed to penetrate the tight security that always surrounds Park. Whenever he ventures into public view, Park is accompanied by brigades of bodyguards. Attendance at the Liberation Day ceremony was by invitation only. Yet Moon Se Kwang, 23, a Korean citizen who was a longtime resident of Osaka, Japan, somehow managed to pass himself off as a Japanese diplomat and to get in carrying a snub-nosed revolver. Moon had entered Korea nine days before on a Japanese passport issued in another man's name and had $1,200 in his pocket when captured. Japanese police said that he was unemployed and known as a radical leftist. The fact that Moon had lived in Japan ignited lingering Korean hostility toward the Japanese; resentment became more pronounced when it was learned that a Japanese woman had helped Moon obtain the fraudulent passport. In an attempt to patch up deteriorating Korean-Japanese relations, Japanese Premier Kakuei Tanaka announced that he would attend, Mrs. Park's funeral early this week.

That someone would eventually attempt to kill Park was not a great surprise to many Koreans. He has no shortage of enemies, real or imagined: the repressive measures he has imposed since January to shore up his one-man rule have been widely condemned both at home and abroad. Under Park's stern decrees, nine people have been tried and sentenced to death; 162 others have been given prison sentences ranging from three years to life. Last week alone, Park's military courts sentenced 62 opponents of the regime to stiff prison terms for plotting to overthrow the government. Among them: former President Yun Po Sun, 76, Roman Catholic Bishop Daniel Tji Hak Soun, 53, and the Rev. Park Hyung Kyoo, 51, deeply respected pastor of Seoul's Cheil Presbyterian Church. All accepted the summary sentences with moving dignity. Said Yun: "I ask you one question. Is it a crime to help democracy?"

Ironically, the shooting is likely to bolster Park's domestic support. "It was a sobering experience for Korea," said an intellectual in Seoul. The attack buttressed Park's claims that his government is threatened by violent opposition. Even more, the national mourning over the death of Mrs. Park created a wave of popular sympathy for the President that he has never before enjoyed.

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