Kim's Sum

A candidate is counted out

Ever since they shouldered their way to power in the wake of President Park Chung Hee's assassination last October, South Korea's military strongmen have pressed a campaign of "purification" against corruption. Last week the Martial Law Command announced the results of a monthlong investigation that followed the sudden arrest often of the country's most prominent citizens. Nine of the ten, it was charged, had chalked up a total of $142.1 million in ill-gotten wealth through "abuse of power."

The chief offender, according to the announcement: Kim Jong Pil, 54, head of the ruling Democratic Republican Party. Kim had amassed $36 million in "unmoral gams" during his years in power, it was claimed, by conniving to acquire some 5,300 acres of government land on which he eventually established lucrative tangerine groves and dairy farms. Runner-up in the corruption sweepstakes was Lee Hu Rak, once head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency and Park's chief of staff. Lee, said his accusers, squeezed $4.6 million out of South Korean business firms, then used the capital to build up $32.3 million worth of jewelry and real estate.

But the biggest catch was Kim, who was thus eliminated from the presidential elections, which the government has pledged to hold in 1981. The field seemed clear for the military to put forward a candidate of its own, perhaps the emerging strongman, Lieut. General Chun Du Hwan. As for the millionaire culprits, the authorities were magnanimous: the nine would "resign from all public offices" --and donate their wealth to the government's public welfare fund.

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