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Under the test of war, the Rhee government showed surprising strength. Many of Rhee's cabinet members displayed administrative talent of a high order. Outstanding among them was Defense Minister Shin Sung Mo, who likes to be called "Captain," a rank he held in the British merchant marine during World War II. ("It's the title I worked hardest to earn.") It was Shin Sung Mo who masterminded the rapid reorganization of the R.O.K. army after its staggering initial defeats. Outstanding, too, was another Shin. Though not a Rhee supporter, able, eloquent Shin Ikhui, Speaker of the National Assembly, worked closely with the cabinet, helped make the Assembly a wartime asset.
The wartime conduct of the South Korean people as well as of their leaders reflected favorably on Rhee's government. The R.O.K. army, which suffered few desertions, proved itself the most determined and effective of Asia's anti-Communist armies. And, contrary to all expectations, there was little true guerrilla activity in South Korea. There were innumerable attacks by North Korean irregular troops, but few proved instances of South Korean peasants or workers attacking U.N. forces.
To Syngman Rhee the North Korean invasion was both a vindication and an opportunity. In his eyes the war justified the uncompromising anti-Communist stand which had earned him so many enemies. And the war offered a chance to unify Korea. Rhee was determined that when the war was won, North Korea would be absorbed by the Republic. "We have not despaired," Rhee said recently. "We must not be disappointed."
For 55 years, Rhee had been running for the job of "father of his country." Last week, old, tired, crabbed, but still determined and still a symbol of Korean independence, he was closer to it than ever before.
* Rhee's Korean name is Yi Sung-man. Transliterated into English, the Chinese character for Rhee's family name is commonly written "Yi" by Chinese and Koreans, "Ri" by Japanese. Like many Koreans, Rhee Westernized his name for convenience in dealing with Westerners.
* Kim Koo first won the favorable attention of the Korean public in 1899, when he strangled a Japanese captain. Beside the captain's body Kim left a note setting forth his name, address and the reason for the murder. (The captain had engineered the murder of a Korean queen.) The authorities threw Kim into jail, but in 1901 he escaped, disguised as a Buddhist priest. In 1917 Kim decided that periodic prison stretches were interfering with his efficiency as an assassin, transferred his base of operations to Shanghai. There he organized a bombing which killed a Japanese general, mutilated a Japanese admiral and blew a leg off Mamoru Shigemitsu, who later signed Japan's World War II surrender aboard the Missouri. This made Kim a topflight Korean hero, a position which he reinforced by marrying the daughter of An Chung-kuen, another Korean hero who had assassinated Prince Ito, Japan's first constitutional Premier. In 1949 a young Korean army officer, who suspected that Kim had ordered the murder of one of his relatives, assassinated Korea's master terrorist.