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By Root 1753 0

unchecked powers. As in the Kim regime in the North, this was in part a legacy of the leadership style of the Japanese colonial rulers, validated and justified by the national security requirements of the life-or-death struggle on the divided peninsula. During General Park Chung Hee's lengthy reign and the successor rule of General Chun Doo Hwan, the South experienced dramatic economic gains, but its political arrangements seemed frozen in time. This discrepancy gave rise to growing public discontent, expressed passionately by potent antigovernment political and social forces that even the strongest rulers had never been able to stifle. As the end of Chun's regime approached, the sense of imminent danger from North Korea diminished and South Koreans demanded an end to military rule enforced by the heavy-handed activities of secret police agencies and other repressive organs.

"The June Resistance," as the political crisis of mid-1987 is sometimes known, was the turning point for South Korea in its shift from authoritarianism toward democratic practice, from strong-arm politics to civil society and the rule of law. Although many trials and controversies still lay ahead, by the end of 1987 South Korea had taken a new road from which there was no turning back. At a crucial moment, the United States played an important supporting role.

CHUN'S SUCCESSION STRUGGLE

The opportunity for peaceful transition emerged in the first instance from Chun's pledge, soon after taking office, to serve only a single presidential term, after which he would retire. Chun made his pledge, according to a close associate, because he drew a profound lesson from watching the regime of his mentor, President Park, decline, decay, and collapse in a hail of gunfire when its leader stayed on too long. In June 1980, while dominating the political scene as the top-ranking general before assuming the presidency, Chun told Richard Walker, a conservative professor with extensive Asian experience who later would become U.S. ambassador to Korea, "If I were to become president, I would like the history books to say that I was the first one in Korea to turn over power in a legitimate and constitutional manner."

The fears and wishes of his family also had a major impact on Chun. In 1981, Lee Soon Ja (Mrs. Chun) told me that their children had asked Chun not to become president, because they were happy with their lives and did not wish to change them so drastically. Furthermore, she said, when her husband was inaugurated on September 1, 1980, they asked him to finish his presidency properly and hand over the office to his successor. On Chun's first day in office, in a small meeting with her husband and his top aides, the First Lady repeated this advice, according to a participant. She added that George Washington was eternally revered in the United States because he refused to be installed permanently in office but insisted on leaving the presidency. "Please help my husband act like that," she implored the officials present. Two days later, while presenting letters of appointment to the members of his initial cabinet, Chun publicly declared, "More than anything else, I am fully determined to establish a tradition of peaceful transfer of power." Subsequently he announced at a press conference that he would serve a single termwhich was set by his new constitution at seven years-and then return to private life.

Chun's declarations were greeted with great skepticism in political circles. Having seized power through military means and cemented his power in the Kwangju bloodbath-and having subsequently been elected president by a rubber-stamp college of electorsChun lacked legitimacy and stature in the eyes of his people. Initially it seemed unlikely that this stern, aloof, and unpopular general would be the person to inaugurate a democratic tradition. Chun, however, took his one-term pledge seriously. He made plans to center his postpresidential life in a one-story marble office building constructed for this purpose in a parklike setting, replete with fruit trees,