[KS] Rhee, Park, and the Americans

[Balazs Szalontai]

Dear All,

I would like to ask you whether the permanent existence of a multi-party system in the ROK under Syngman Rhee and Park Chung-hee had anything to do with US interventions in South Korean politics. While neither Rhee nor Park was a democratic ruler, they did not establish a one-party, totalitarian regime comparable to the GMD dictatorship in Taiwan. This difference is quite interesting, since Kim Chong-p'il, the first head of the KCIA, intended to introduce a system patterned upon the Taiwanese model, and of the right-wing politicians who played a major role in South Korean politics under Rhee, some were admirers of the GMD. Why South Korea did not become a one-party state, then? Did the Americans prevent such a development?

Yours sincerely,
Balazs Szalontai