Strongman Syngman

More than 50 prominent South Koreans --scholars, businessmen, labor leaders and Assemblymen--gathered in Pusan's International Club restaurant one night last week to talk over their dislike of "power-thirsty" President Syngman Rhee and to consider what to do about it.

The meeting had just begun when 20 hoodlums broke into the banquet room, upset tables, heaved chairs and flower pots, and beat up two elderly scholars. On their heels came Rhee's uniformed police, who made a great show of arresting four of the rioters, but also arrested at least one of the rioters' victims. "We don't know who they are," said Rhee's propaganda directors blandly of the troublemaking goon squad. But an American who saw the show recognized one of the gang's leaders as a member of the rough, tough police force of Rhee's Home Minister Lee Bum Suk.

This week the day came when the Assembly, under the constitution, was supposed to elect a new President for a four-year term beginning next month. But with eleven Assemblymen in jail, others under constant police threat and the capital at Pusan under martial law (in defiance of an Assembly vote), Rhee's opponents boycotted the Assembly. Without a legal quorum, the Assembly voted, 60-to-0 with 37 abstentions, to keep Rhee in office until a new President is elected. Lacking a quorum the move was hardly legal, but it seemed nevertheless to leave Strongman Syngman in the saddle.

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