Wild Plot

After lunch last week in the room of a friend in Tokyo's Grand Palace Hotel, Dae Jung Kim, an exiled former leader of the opposition New Democratic Party in South Korea, was accosted in the hallway by five men, pulled into an adjoining room--and has not been seen again. When the room was opened 25 minutes later, the only unusual contents were the cartridge of a .32-cal. German revolver, a half-empty bottle of a chloroform-like anaesthetic, and three knapsacks, one of them large enough to hold an adult. So smooth was Kim's kidnaping--or possibly his murder--that Japanese authorities speculated that it was the work of the ever-efficient Korean CIA, acting perhaps on the orders of President Chung Hee Park, whom Kim had called "an Asian version of Hitler." Exiled since last year, Kim, 48, who had astounded Park by gaining 46% of the vote in the relatively free presidential election of 1971, was a constant critic of Park's subsequent takeover of all government powers. He seemed to regard himself as his country's edition of Charles de Gaulle-inexile, saying he was "the sole South Korean voice speaking against dictatorship and for freedom." Adding to the speculation of Park's involvement was the memory of a previous incident in 1967 when the Korean CIA abducted 22 Korean dissenters in Europe and brought them home to face trial for treason.

Still, there were many loose ends, and what made Kim's disappearance puzzling was its total lack of logic, even from Park's viewing stand. Despite his showing in the 1971 elections, Kim has never been a serious threat to Park, and any injury to him by Park's agents can only tarnish the dictator's already smudgy image abroad. So illogical did the whole affair seem, indeed, that some thought the snatch might be the work of North Korea, out to damage the reputation of Park. Whatever the motives, 100 Japanese policemen were assigned the job of finding out what had happened to Kim.

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