The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [31]
All this was in the background when the gunshots rang out in the National Theater. In view of the intensity of the internal struggle, there had been a growing sense that Seoul's crisis was reaching an explosive point. A sudden act of violence was not so surprising. But from what direction had the gunshots come? Political dissidents? A rival military group? And what would happen next, now that Park had survived the attack?
THE STRUGGLE WITH JAPAN
The man who tried to change Korean history with a .38 caliber pistol was a 22-year-old Korean resident of Osaka, Japan, who confessed to being instructed and assisted by an official of a North Korea-oriented residents association in Japan. The identity of the would-be assassin and the fact that his attack had been launched from Japan led to a serious crisis between the two U.S. allies in Northeast Asia, which were closely intertwined economically but had never come to terms politically with their unhappy history.
Mun Se Kwang had flown from Japan to South Korea on August 6, bringing a handgun-which had been stolen from a Japanese police station-concealed in a radio. He checked in to Korea's best hotel and on the morning of the Independence Day ceremony hired a limousine and driver from the hotel, paying him extra to perform obsequious bows at the entrance to the National Theater. Mun then strode inside past dozens of security officers as if he were an important guest.
The assassin had planned to shoot Park in the lobby of the theater, but failed to get an unobstructed view. As the ceremony began, he was swept inside and was only able to find a seat close to the back of the large hall. Near the middle of Park's address, he rose from his seat, intending to stride quickly down the center aisle, pause, and take careful aim with his gun, as he had been trained to do. But as Mun sought to move into position, his finger accidentally squeezed the trigger of his pistol, and the gun went off, grazing his left thigh. At that point, the unplanned shot having alerted security guards, the gunman made a run for it down the aisle, firing rapidly but not accurately-as he ran.
Taken to KCIA headquarters and treated for his superficial wound, the gunman initially insisted he was "a revolutionary warrior" who should be treated as a prisoner of war. For a full day, he refused to say anything more than his name, Mun Se Kwang, and his address in Osaka. On the second day, one of the Korean prosecutors said to Mun, "You are a jackal, aren't you?" With this reference to the Frederick Forsythe novel, The Day of the Jackal, about a plot to assassinate French president Charles De Gaulle, Mun for the first time looked startled and showed emotion. He answered, "Yes." Assured that he would be treated not as a common criminal but as a man who was "looking for something big," Mun began to confess.
Korea and Japan, which are separated only by a narrow body of water, have a complex and tangled history, with more periods of conflict than friendly relations. Continental Asian culture originally made its way to Japan via the Korean peninsula. The two countries share an overlapping cultural heritage, yet in many ways the tension between them is more impressive. For all their recorded history, Japan has been more populous and militarily stronger. In modern times, imperial Japan's occupation of Korea from 1905 until its downfall in 1945 left bitter resentment on the part of Koreans. The Japanese, for their part, mixed feelings of superiority with trepidation about the Koreans in their midst and abroad.
During the Japanese occupation and especially during World War II, more than 2 million Koreans were forcibly brought to Japan, mainly as laborers. While most of them were repatriated after Japan's defeat, about 600,000 remained, mostly in the lowest-paying and least-skilled jobs. By 1974, they comprised the main exception