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Saving the Flag. At that, pandemonium broke. Secure in the knowledge the army was with them, a million citizens of Seoul swung into a half riot, half parade that lasted all night and far into the next day. The crowd broke into the home of the hated Lee Ki Poong, hauled its contents into the street and vengefully burned them; one of the few things spared was an American flag, which the demonstrators carefully folded and turned over to a U.S. reporter "for safekeeping." Amid the crackle of gunfire from panicky cops, the rioters burned down a police station and the houses of two members of Rhee's graft-ridden Liberal Party. With chaos threatening, U.S. Ambassador Walter McConaughy issued a stiff public statement warning Rhee that "this is no time for temporizing."
Song sent a loudspeaker Jeep into the streets with a suggestion: let student leaders come forward to form a delegation to see Rhee. Fourteen responded. Song chose five and personally escorted them to the presidential mansion. There, as Song stood by beaming paternally, the students told Rhee: "The only way to solve the problem is to hold new elections—and also for you to offer to resign."
Rhee hesitated, then replied: "If the people wish it, I will resign." At that moment, twelve years of Korean history —years when the words "Syngman Rhee" and "South Korea" had been virtually synonymous—came to an end, and the students burst into tears.
Kids at the Controls. The student delegation emerged from the presidential palace shouting, "We have won!" Seoul's streets erupted into a spontaneous expression of joy. Song's tank drivers were all but submerged under swarms of Seoul moppets, good-naturedly let the kids try out the controls. A small regiment of kindergartners marched up to the U.S. embassy chanting: "Thank you, America." A jubilant crowd decorated a statue of General Douglas MacArthur with a scroll that read: "Long life to him who saved us from Communism."
Suddenly finding themselves the victors, Seoul's students showed extraordinary discipline. With virtually all the city's police force in frightened hiding, students ran the police stations, directed traffic, even commandeered city trash trucks and laboriously cleaned up the riot debris. When a group of rowdy schoolboys knocked a statue of Rhee off its pedestal and started to drag it away, older students restored it to place with the reproving reminder: "After all, he is part of our history."
So complete was the students' domination that when the National Assembly finally met in emergency session, Assembly guards were under orders to admit "only students and Assemblymen." Only 105 of Korea's 231 Assemblymen dared to show up. Under the stern eyes of hundreds of youngsters, they unanimously passed a resolution calling for new elections, a new constitution and Rhee's "immediate" resignation.
With Rhee's reply formally accepting the Assembly's demands, control of the government passed to the senior member of his Cabinet: unassuming, incorruptible Huh Chung, 64 (see box), who only two days earlier, had accepted Rhee's invitation to become Foreign Minister.