This was Cold War and Korea was in the front line of it.

The 1988 Seoul Olympics was a mega big event, the first time when communist countries did not boycott this event–imbuing with political overtones.

Chun was no where the man Park was, but he did stay the course that Park had set. If you could go back to the night when Chun Doo Hwan seized power, would you really want a different president knowing what you know now? Kim Dae Jung? Who would you really want?

But I still strongly disagree that Chun shouldn’t be credited for economic growth during the 1980’s.

“Economic miracle - it was possible by favorable global economic boom not by Chun’s leadership.”

ROK, which has no useful natural resources and no rivers which can tap hydro-electric power—the same ROK which had a very low level technical skills at the end of 1950, and had the same living conditions or worse than much part of Africa–and you say what? Are you really serious? Do you not even take a look at the rest of the world? You must be seriously biased to make the claim that “favorable global economic boom” resulted in 20x growth from Park Chung Hee’s years. Have you ever wondered why if there was such “favorable” global economic conditions, we don’t see this kind of explosive growth in other parts of the world which had a much favorable condition? You are just anti-Park, and no longer able to grapple with simple arithmatics.

You then wrote,

“Strengthen the military - He was the military coup leader who had, needed, strong back up from military.”

If you haven’t forgetten, in the late 60’s early 70’s, DPRK was a stronger militarily than the ROK, not to mention economically. You talk about Park’s infringement of personal rights during his time, and poo poo the idea that the only reason why he strengthened the military was to make himself more powerful. So what? Bottomline is that he did make the military more powerful, one that reached parity with DPRK. Moreover, the amount of personal freedom enjoyed by ROK citizens during this time far far FAR exceeds what was given by Kim Il Sung. Let’s go counter factual and assumed someone else was a leader. Do you seriously think that Kim Dae Jung could have strengthened the military? I think not. He would have increased personal liberty at the expense of economic growth and military strength. You really honestly think that would be the superior outcome? Or do you think that Kim Dae Jung/Kim Yong Sam was some kind of uberman who could have accomplished everything simultaneously?

Then you wrote,
“Strengthen US-ROK ties - One of his tactic to get a recognition from US.”

You write like an anti-american hanchongryun kid, so I will assume that you are. Of course it was a tactic! A damn smart one! One that would strengthen ROK military, ROK economy, and yes, despite what you don’t want to admit, pressure from US is also what lead to the establishment of real democracy in ROK.

You write,

“opted ROK true democracy - ….You must be kidding….”

That statement was meant for CHun Doo Hwan/Roh Tae WOo, not Park Chung Hee. If you look at military dictators around the world, most were lot worse than those two. Those two had the good sense to let the technocrats run the real government. Roh Tae Woo did eventually hand over power to Kim Yong Sam. And the 1988 Seoul Olympics was a very very big event for South Korea at the time. It was a big symbolic event of Korea’s progress. I’m sorry, but I much rather live under a military dictator who knows what his doing, rather than under a mob government where public policy is generated by a bunch of law breaking unions/students who enforce their undemocratic minority ideals on the majority of the population by use of violent actions.

You don’t have to like military dictators. But they did a damn fine job during a very difficult time. Park didn’t even pilfer the ROK treasury during his dictatorship. The fact that he used to be a Imperial Japanese Army officer, communist, and ROK officer, just shows that he was not bound by ideaology and was just a pragmatist.

Objectively speaking, Park’s accomplishments are trully astounding and dwarfs accomplishments made by any Korean leaders in it’s history including King Sae Jong.

After seeing these Commies crawl out from dark places and rewriting history to praise Kim IlSung as the hero, I really see what jerks Koreans are.

If Rho Muheyn were the first president of Korea and had to fight Commies, he would have lost. He doesn’t speak English and doesn’t understand the US. He wouldn’t know how to lead the country. Total country would have become Communists under Kim IlSung.

Rhee is a bad man because he assassinated KimKu? Hey, to keep the country from Commies, I would kill hundreds of KimKus who had no idea about the world where things were going.

Rhee did some bad things like not warning people about the possibility of NK military strength and re-writing constitution for third presidency. But, I buy his anti-Communism effort highly and give him B.

Chun, as well, B. Kim DaeJung and Rho Muheyn, F for being anti-American and pro-North. Are they for SKs or for KJI? I wonder.

Park? B+. He was a brute near the end of his presidency. Yet, he continued anti-Communism fight.