Word: assemblymen
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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...
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...
...ultimatum: adopt his proposals for presidential elections by the people (instead of by the Assembly as the constitution provides) or face dissolution. Said Rhee: "I may have to be obedient to the people . . . And the question will be very easily settled." Rhee's police still hold eleven opposition Assemblymen incommunicado...
...Sanctuary. But Rhee had other schemes. He ordered his 52 followers in the 183-member Assembly to boycott sessions to prevent a quorum. His police grabbed eleven anti-Rhee Assemblymen, locked them up in a dilapidated house in a Pusan slum, and tried, unsuccessfully, to get 15 more anti-Rhee parliamentarians to come in for "questioning." Scared opposition Assemblymen huddled in the sanctuary of their barnlike meeting hall, sleeping on bedrolls and benches...
...eleven citizens on a charge of plotting to assassinate him. The actions brought stern rebukes from a U.N. commission in Korea and the U.S. Embassy, and a flying visit from Eighth Army Commander Van Fleet. Said Rhee blandly: "There is no connection between politics and the arrest of the Assemblymen . . . The arrests will continue." Vice President Kim Sung Soo resigned in protest. The National Assembly voted 96 to 3 to lift martial law. But many Assembly members, afraid to go home, slept in the old Shinto shrine which serves as Assembly chamber. The next day Rhee's new Home...