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The Departures. In his first 24 hours in office, Huh commanded less public attention in Korea than the final, tragic act of Rhee's fall from power. Early in the week, fearful of the mob fury that kept their Seoul home under constant siege, Lee Ki Poong and his family had taken refuge in the heavily guarded presidential compound. There, crammed into a single room with his wife and two sons, Lee sought vainly for a way of escaping the net that was closing in on him. To a close friend Lee confided: "Rhee has ordered me to resign my post. If I do so, my enemies will crush me to earth, and my family will find themselves living on rice crumbs and water." His younger son, Lee Kong Wook, 18, urged that the men of the family meet their enemies in the streets and die fighting. To his elder son, Army Lieut. Lee Kang Suk, 23, who had become Rhee's adopted heir three years before, Lee talked in classic Oriental fashion of the shame of "being looked down on by people." Suk savagely reminded him: "I told you that if you and your gang won the elections, the country would be ruined, and if by some chance you lost, the family would be ruined."
On the day of his resignation, Syngman Rhee himself came to the Lees' room for a private chat with his old friend. When it was over, Lee sent away all but one of his bodyguards. Lee Kang Suk told the guard: "Be around when I do what has to be done, and in case of need, finish me." At 5:40 the next morning, the guard heard shots from Lee's room. When police broke in, they found Lee, his wife and younger son sitting hand in hand on a couch, their heads thrown back by the shock of death. Lying across their bodies was that of Lee Kang Suk, his Army .45 still in his hand.
The Private Citizen. That afternoon Syngman Rhee left the presidential palace for Pear Blossom House, his private residence in Seoul. As his bulletproof Cadillac moved along the two-mile route—at first he had insisted that he wanted to walk, "so as not to use government transportation''—his countrymen once again recalled that, for all his political sins. Syngman Rhee. 85, was nonetheless the father of South Korea's independence. The crowds that two days earlier had been calling for his death began to applaud him. And when he reached Pear Blossom House, where he placidly settled down to trimming his hedges under the eyes of a respectful throng, he was greeted by a hastily improvised sign: "Grandfather, be at peace in the sunshine and live a long time."
While Rhee did his belated pruning, Huh Chung energetically set about repairing the wrecked machinery of Korean government. Former Home Minister Choi In Kyu was arrested for his flagrant falsifying of the March 15 election, confessed that in accordance with a Cabinet decision, he had collected the written resignations of all Korea's mayors and police chiefs before the elections, and told them their resignations would be accepted unless "they secured victory for Rhee and Lee Ki Poong." But he credited the national police director with the plan for "stuffing ballot boxes beforehand with 40% Liberal votes." Then he burst into tears as he told his interrogators: "I never thought the world would change so quickly."