Introducing Seoul’s Peter Ueberroth : Park Seh Jik Again Is the Man in Charge--This Time It’s the Olympic Games

In September, 1981, a group of South Korean businessmen, government officials and sports administrators went to Baden Baden, West Germany, to bid for the 1988 Summer Olympics for Seoul. Reading about that effort in the newspapers at home in Seoul was Park Seh Jik, who could not have begun to imagine at the time the impact that the developments in Baden Baden would have on his life.

One month before, in August, 1981, Park, a two-star general in command of the Third Infantry Division that protected Seoul, was less than honorably discharged after 30 years of military service. Accused of corruption, he was put under house arrest.

Speculation persists that Park was brought down not by greed but by ambition, a perilous characteristic in those paranoid months after the 1980 military coup that put President Chun Doo Hwan in the Blue House, South Korea’s presidential home.

According to Park, a devout Baptist, he retired to his home and studied the Bible in search of God’s mission for his life.

Seven years later, the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee (SLOOC) is prepared to present South Korea’s crowning achievement of this century to the world, the XXIV Summer Olympics, Sept. 17-Oct. 2, and the man in charge is Park Seh Jik.

He is the president of the SLOOC, which is the same title that Peter Ueberroth held with the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee (LAOOC) for the 1984 Summer Olympics. But the roles played by Ueberroth and Park are as different as the Games that they were engaged to organize.

As its only president, Ueberroth was the dominant figure in the LAOOC’s Olympic preparations from the outset. SLOOC’s third president, Park was appointed by the Chun government in 1986, long after most of the television contracts and sponsorship agreements essential to the Games’ success had been negotiated.

Although Park’s contributions, including staying SLOOC’s course during last year’s political turmoil and student demonstrations, are not minimized by international sports leaders, they recognize that the success of the Seoul Olympics is more dependent on a South Korean-style team effort involving government, political and business leaders.

As opposed to the predominantly private financing of the Los Angeles Olympics, the South Korean government contributed $1.4 billion toward the $3.1 billion cost of the Seoul Games.

“Americans love a hero, and in Peter they found one,” said Richard Pound, an International Olympic Committee vice president from Montreal.

“You won’t find that same kind of cult of personality in South Korea that built up around Peter. That’s not part of the Asian culture. These are not Park Seh Jik’s Games. These are South Korea’s Games.”

Yet, among the country’s ruling elite, Park is considered responsible for the Olympics, and the degree of their success, or lack thereof, will be significant in determining his future as well as South Korea’s.

Park succeeded South Korean President Roh Tae Woo, as the chief executive at SLOOC. Political observers speculate that Park, who will turn 55 on the day after the opening ceremonies, might also follow Roh to the Blue House, although they acknowledge that much can happen before the next election in 1992 or early 1993.

“Park is on the long list to become the ruling party’s next presidential candidate,” a U.S. analyst of South Korean politics said, speaking on the condition that he not be identified. “There is no short list yet.

“If the Games are successful, they will have 1,000 godfathers. But Park will get a lot of credit. He’ll have to watch that politically because he can’t make people too jealous by taking all the credit. Already, some South Koreans consider him a political empire builder.”

Park’s home is hardly palatial. Cozy is more like it. He lives in a modest three-bedroom apartment on Yoido, an island in the Han River that often is compared to Manhattan.

In no more than a glance around the living room, three major influences on his life are apparent. There are military memorabilia, including a picture of him as a fresh-faced Korean Military Academy cadet and a ceremonial sword; a three-foot alabaster statue of Jesus carrying the cross, and several photographs of his family.

He and his wife of 25 years have three children, two sons, including one who has followed his father’s path into the Military Academy, and a daughter, who enrolled last week at Northwestern University.

If Park is overly ambitious, he hides it well. He recently invited a reporter to share parts of three days with him, including interviews in a sauna at a Cheju City hotel, on a cruise ship between Cheju Island and Pusan, and on a flight between Pusan and Seoul.

A portrait emerged of a man who, unlike the stereotypical South Korean military officer of boisterous and bullying behavior, is sincere and gentle; a highly-educated man who speaks four languages fluently and illustrates his points with simple Korean proverbs and Bible verses; and an idealist who wants the Olympics to establish South Korea as a model for other developing nations.

Park was born Sept. 18, 1933, in the poor farm village of Indong, a few miles inland from South Korea’s East Coast and about 90 minutes’ drive northeast of Taegu, South Korea’s third-largest city.

According to Korean tradition, an older brother who has no sons can adopt one from a younger brother who has more than one son. Park was adopted by an uncle, who had no children of his own. Later, when Park’s only brother died, his father adopted a son from a younger brother.

Park inherited his passion for knowledge from his uncle. During the Japanese colonization of Korea from 1910-45, the teaching of Korean history, culture and language in the schools was sharply curtailed. As one of the elders in Indong, it fell upon the uncle to teach children in underground classes about Korean literature and Chinese characters, which at the time were integral to the country’s written language.

Although Japan was Korea’s oppressor, it was considered a model of civilization. When Park was 5, his uncle left the family farm to his brothers and, despite his poverty, moved to Japan so that his adopted son could receive the best possible education.

In 1945, a few months before Japan’s defeat in World War II and Korea’s liberation, Park returned home with his aunt and uncle and eventually enrolled in high school at Pusan, South Korea’s principal port and second-largest city, at the southeast corner of the peninsula.

In Pusan, Park not only completed high school but was introduced to Christianity by Baptist missionaries from Australia. His family practiced Buddhism and Confucianism, but he didn’t consider himself religious until the missionaries inspired him with their messages of love, perseverance and redemption. It was a philosophy that would serve him well later, when his career was in tatters.

Park’s ambition was to become a teacher, but first, there was a war to fight. Although he was not yet 17 when he graduated from high school in 1950, he enlisted in the South Korean students’ army and was sent to the front. He didn’t have far to travel. Under Soviet influence since the peninsula’s division after World War II, North Korea invaded South Korea in June, 1950, and by August had conquered all but the area around Pusan.

Near the end of the war in 1953, when the North Koreans had been driven back to their side of the 38th parallel, Park applied for acceptance to the Military Academy. Even today, it isn’t unusual for intelligent young men who can’t afford to enroll in a university to attend the academy. With Park’s educational background and the reputation he had earned at the front as a soldier, he was welcomed.

“I wanted to continue my studies,” he said. “The only opportunity I had was through the Military Academy. Being educated there, I thought military life was not bad to continue.

“As an officer, I could teach and guide young soldiers. In order to be prepared for the 1 in 100,000 possibility of a war, you have to train them, motivate them and manage them.”

His contacts at the academy proved to be the most important of his life, as is often the case in a country where old-school ties are as useful as family ties. He was in the graduating class of 1956, a year behind Chun and Roh. Chun served as South Korea’s president from 1981 until February of this year, when he was succeeded by Roh.

Of the three, Park was considered the brightest. Neither Chun nor Roh ranked as high in their graduating class as Park did in his. Upon earning a bachelor of science degree, Park was among a select few graduates chosen by the military to continue studies at Seoul National University, the country’s most prestigious university. There, he earned a bachelor of arts degree.

Later, he earned a master’s degree in education from USC’s branch at Yongsan, the U.S. military base in Seoul, and completed two advanced-level courses at Seoul National’s graduate school of business.

“My motivation was to enlighten myself, to learn more,” he said. “To be qualified for challenges, I thought it was a good idea to have a balance of knowledge.”

As Chun and Roh rose through the military ranks, so did Park. He went to Vietnam in 1967 as a major, the chief liaison officer among Korean, Vietnamese and U.S. air forces, and left three years later as a lieutenant colonel. In 1975, he became a brigadier general, and, after serving as an officer in the intelligence unit that discovered a third tunnel that North Korean soldiers were digging into South Korea under the demilitarized zone in 1978, he was promoted to major general.

So he had a long fall in August, 1981, when he was charged by the Chun government with influence-peddling, put under house arrest and discharged from the military.

The details of the case have not been published in the press, Korean or otherwise, and he was clearly uncomfortable talking about it when the subject was broached on the cruise between Cheju and Pusan. He elaborated the next day on the flight between Pusan and Seoul and later called a reporter in his hotel room to make sure that his thoughts on the matter were clearly understood.

According to the government investigation, Park introduced a former Seoul National University classmate, a Korean-American who wanted to expand his New York business into South Korea, to corporate leaders and high-ranking government officials in exchange for 5 million won. Based on the current exchange rate, that would amount to less than $7,000.

Park admitted that he made the introductions and that the businessmen had given his family gifts, but said that there had been no quid pro quo arrangement and that the value of the gifts was exaggerated by investigators. Besides, he said, he was only playing by the rules as he understood them at the time.

“The same crime would have applied to so many people,” he said. “I wasn’t the only one.”

Although Park denied it, several political analysts, Korean and American, who were interviewed recently suggested that political forces were at work in his arrest. After President Park Chung Hee was assassinated in 1979 by the director of the Korean CIA, there was a leadership vacuum in the government until Chun seized control in a 1980 military coup.

Any government, political or military official who was perceived as a threat to Chun’s Fifth Republic was removed from a position of influence. Considered reliable, Park was put in command of the Third Infantry Division, an extremely sensitive position because that division’s responsibility was to secure Seoul, including the capitol.

Chun had power, but Park had direct command of the soldiers outside the Blue House. Suddenly, there were questions about his loyalty. Every move he made was scrutinized by Chun’s intelligence personnel. Park’s academic credentials, war records and ambition, which had been considered attributes earlier in his career, now made him a marked man.

“Chun was afraid of Park because of his education,” said one Korean journalist, who didn’t want to be identified. “Park was the only general in the inner circle who spoke English well enough to tell jokes to Americans. He also was considered arrogant. There was a rumor that he told some foreign journalists that he would be the next president.”

Park said that he believes Chun was sincere in his efforts to cleanse the government of corruption, although there have been investigations since the former president left office in February into the conduct of some members of his family. A younger brother was recently sentenced to seven years in prison for bribery, embezzlement and tax evasion.

“President Chun wanted to make the nation free from any taint of corruption,” Park said. “So he made me an example in that regard. Even though the decision was wrong, I accepted the result.

“Part of the Gospel says that by sacrificing one seed, we will have it returned to us 100 times in the harvest. Soldiers are supposed to sacrifice themselves to save the country. This was a moral war.”

In his farewell address to the division that he commanded, Park said that he told his men: “I am the most unhappy soldier. Don’t make a mistake like me.”

“And I left,” he said. “So many of my comrades were gone, I was lucky to have lived until then.”

In fact, Park said that he believes there was more than luck involved, that God spared his life through two wars. He recalled one particularly turbulent flight from the front to Saigon one Sunday night, when the pilot had to make an emergency landing about 2 1/2 hours into the 4-hour trip because of a thunderstorm.

Park said that they weren’t sure until they were safe on the ground whether they actually were safe on the ground. Only when they were met on the Tarmac by a Korean taekwondo instructor that he recognized were they certain they hadn’t landed at a North Vietnamese airstrip.

“Later, when I contacted the pilot, he was pale,” Park said. “He said the engine oil (pressure) had dropped, and that if we had been in the air for 30 more minutes, the plane would have exploded. God saved us with the clouds. It was a miracle.”

Convinced that God had a plan for him, Park used the three months that he was under house arrest to read the Bible from start to finish.

“I kept reading and praying, mind building and body building,” he said. “It was a very calm time, very serene.”

In November, less than 90 days after Park’s arrest, the government did an about-face, abruptly ending the house arrest and beginning the rehabilitation process. He was appointed a policy adviser to the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources.

“There were good people around Chun, who told him, ‘If you fire him, you have to fire hundreds of others,’ ” Park said. “They realized the decision had been too harsh and too hastily made.”

From there, Park became vice president of the Korea Electric Power Corp. But it was his next position, deputy director of the National Security Planning Agency, that put him on the fast track in the South Korean government.

In 1983, he led a 13-member South Korean team that joined with authorities in Burma to investigate the murder of 17 high-ranking South Korean government officials at a conference in Rangoon. They found evidence implicating North Korea in the terrorist act.

Two years later, the government sent him on another mission against the North Koreans. Dispatched as a special envoy to Peru, he convinced that government that it should not establish diplomatic relations with North Korea.

Little could he have known that a few years later, after a lifetime of battling the North Koreans, he would be assuring them that their athletes would be welcome in Seoul for the Olympics. Despite efforts by South Korean government and sports officials, however, North Korea will boycott.

“It is ironic,” he said of his conciliatory gestures toward the North Koreans. “They were so militaristic and so aggressive. They caused problems. But this is the second phase. There was a dark period. Now this is a brighter period. We want them to join the fold, to make peace.”

Park’s involvement with SLOOC began in 1985, when he was named Minister of Government Administration, a position comparable to director of the Government Services Administration in the United States. In South Korea, the minister is referred to as the housekeeper of the government. With the appointment, Park became a member of the organizing committee.

In March, 1986, Roh, heavily involved in politics as chairman of the Democratic Justice Party, began looking for a successor as SLOOC president. He turned to Park, who had been named Minister of Sports in January.

Park’s emergence as president wasn’t applauded by everyone at SLOOC. Among his rivals was Dr. Lee Ha Woo, who, as secretary general, oversaw SLOOC’s day- to-day activities while Roh was otherwise occupied.

Like Park, Lee had strong connections to Chun. Lee had formerly served as the president’s secretary for public affairs, and his wife had tutored Chun’s wife in English.

After the successful staging of the Asian Games in September, 1986, a dress rehearsal for the Olympics, Park ousted Lee’s men and replaced them with his own. He also moved to replace Lee.

Given an ultimatum to choose between him and Lee, Chun chose Park.

But, Korean and U.S. political observers say, Chun earlier had attempted to limit Park’s power base. Juan Antonio Samaranch, International Olympic Committee president, suggested to Chun that the titles of SLOOC president and Minister of Sports be assigned to the same person for greater efficiency in preparing for the Olympics. But, after trying it for a few months in 1986, Chun was uncomfortable with the concept and asked Park to resign as Minister of Sports.

It seemed like another check of his power by Chun, but, again, Park denied that there were political overtones.

“I fully agreed it was necessary,” he said. “Two jobs for one man, that was too much.”

If Park is vulnerable in his role as SLOOC president, it is because of his religion. Christians are outnumbered in the country, although not greatly, by Buddhists, some of whom complain that Park is biased against them.

Park was criticized because there was no place designated for Buddhists to worship at the athletes village during the 1986 Asian Games, and this year Buddhists were upset because SLOOC canceled one of their rituals, a lantern procession, that had been scheduled before the Olympics on the Han River.

When Park listed the reasons, including lack of financing, the local Buddhist Assn. raised $1.5 million overnight. The lantern procession has been rescheduled for today.

More serious, Park recently was called before the National Assembly to explain why SLOOC awarded a contract to the Korean Christian Academy to organize the World Academic Conference, Aug. 21-Sept. 8. A Hanyang University professor said that the Christian Academy was believed to have financial problems that were somewhat alleviated by the SLOOC contract.

Park said that he respects all religions. “They all teach love, benevolence and generosity,” he said. “Everyone has the right to choose. If you think harshly of another man’s religion, that creates hatred.”

But he doesn’t hide his own religion, saying that it is the source of his strength. One morning in Pusan, he canceled a breakfast appointment because he was praying in his hotel room with the Baptist minister who had baptized him as a teen-ager. “We prayed together for the peace and success of the Games,” he said.

The day before, a heavy rain had fallen on Cheju Island as about 5,000 spectators, including Park, waited for the Olympic flame to arrive on Korean soil after a flight from Bangkok. As the plane landed, and the torch bearer emerged, the clouds momentarily parted to let the sun shine through, and the rain stopped. In several speeches over the next three days, Park alluded to that moment as a sign from God that the Games would be blessed.

He attends the Baptist church on Yoido twice each weekend, on Saturday at 6 a.m. for a Bible class, which he sometimes teaches, and on Sunday morning with his family. Afterward, the family plays tennis, a sport Park learned when he was 40 and tries to find time to play three times a week.

That has been impossible in recent months, since he has been working 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. He sometimes goes to bed at 9 p.m., gets up to resume work at 2 a.m., returns to bed at 5 a.m., then rises for the day at 9 a.m. For exercise, he runs up and down the stairs at SLOOC’s headquarters in the Olympic Park.

Some SLOOC staff members find that quirky, but not so much as they do his habit of personally inspecting offices at night to make sure the lights are switched off.

Unlike the Los Angeles Olympics, which turned a profit of $232 million, these Games will not make money. That’s understandable, considering that seven years ago, when Seoul was awarded the Games, it had virtually no world-class sports facilities. Now, IOC officials say, it has the best that have ever been constructed for the Olympics.

The cost of the infrastructure, capital improvements and operations was not cheap. Of the $3.1 billion spent on the Olympics, Park said the government contributed $1.4 billion and private enterprise $800 million. The other $900 million came from SLOOC, which he said might show a small profit.

“Making money can be a goal,” he said. “But it’s not the bigger one.”

The teacher in him emerging, Park explained his agenda for the Games by using the acronym CLUE. Actually, there are two Cs, representing culture and compassion. The L stands for legacy, the U for unity and the E for South Korea’s new era.

“This is a new era of prosperity for our country,” Park said. “But we still need to develop to the level of the West. Some aspects of our culture we can introduce to the rest of the world, such as our Confucianist respect for elders and marriage. We need to keep these things but adopt industrialization and modernization.”

As for his own role in South Korea’s future, Park said that he isn’t interested in politics.

“Sometimes the political system is very disappointing,” he said. “It takes too much time to produce anything. Politicians have to spend so much of their time meeting people. That’s not agreeable to me, actually. Maybe I’m tired of meeting people.”

Potential rivals aren’t convinced. At a dinner in Pusan, two national assembly members from an opposition party pressed him about his political ambitions.

“Until the Olympics are completed, I am like a swimmer in the ocean trying to reach an island,” he said. “There are sharks in the water. I am not thinking about what I am going to do when I reach the island. I am only thinking about reaching the island.”