(7 of 8)
Stocky, sharp-faced Journalist Paik Chung Muk, 38, is foreign-educated (Japan and Germany) and possessor of a biting intellectual intensity. Said he: "I read every work Harold Laski wrote. I worshiped him for years. Then I realized I was wrong. Now I am back on more solid ground." What had wrought the change? Paik downed the equivalent of half a jigger of Four Roses whisky from a cracked porcelain cup, chased it with a handful of warm pine nuts, and went on: "Many of my former friends are now with the Communists in the north. I almost went with them. Now I know why they—and very nearly myself—were wrong. It is the same reason so many of you, the Americans, are wrong about us. You want, and we wanted, too much too quickly. Now I know and my friends know that our crime was impatience. Some people turn this around and call it a lack of trust. But it was not that. It was impatience, a grinding desire to achieve our hearts' desires overnight."
"Enough to Start With." Paik brushed away a strand of black hair from his forehead. He said: "I have talked with more Americans in the last two years than I thought I would see in my lifetime. Now I know that your greatest crime, in terms of political expectations from us, is impatience. You want too much too quickly.
"Every time I meet a foreigner, the first question I am usually asked is something about freedom of speech, or freedom of the press. At first I used to try and explain that, compared with some of my friends who went north, the answer was definitely yes. Now, when I hear these questions, I would like to slap these people's stupid faces . . . Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of this, freedom of that. Here in Korea, now, such questions are idiotic. Freedom, my friend, is a very relative thing. Now we have a little—more than the Communists, but still not much. But we have enough to start with. Meantime, don't push us too hard, don't ask too much too soon." Paik added: "You will be here for a long time. You will see."
In the Long Run. Forty years of Japanese occupation left Korea with few people trained in government. Thus, the Rhee administration rests upon 80,000 fulltime, government-paid national police and some 120,000 volunteer provincial police who are paid by the towns and villages where they work, i.e., about one cop to every 100 population. In many parts of Korea, particularly in the country, police rule constitutes the government. Thus, Rhee is cautious about who controls the police organization, prefers to have two or three factions contending with one another. In the same way, he has never publicly nominated his successor, and one of the severest criticisms of this proud old man is that he has let no one else around him gain power or prominence. In the election last August, Rhee named 52-year-old Lee Bum Suk to run as Vice President, but suddenly dropped this tough, whisky-drinking ex-Chinese Nationalist general from his ticket, when Lee seemed to be developing a popularity of his own. Syngman Rhee substituted an 83-year-old crony.