NEWS ANALYSIS : Embattled Ex-President Joins Ranks of South Korea’s Tarnished Leaders

SEOUL — When Roh Tae Woo called in television cameras last week to confess to amassing a $653-million slush fund that he used to “govern” South Korea while he was president, history was repeating itself.

Once again, a former president confirmed that he would leave a tainted record of leadership for history. Roh will be the fourth South Korean leader since 1945 whose honor and glory ended in office.

Seven years ago, Roh’s immediate predecessor, Chun Doo Hwan, also went on television to apologize for what he called the “misrule” of his eight years in power. That misrule led to the arrests of 13 of Chun’s relatives and 34 of his appointees on various charges of corruption.

In his 26-minute televised apology in 1988, Chun also offered to surrender $24 million in cash and property, including what he called $20 million in leftover “political funds.” Chun said nothing, however, about the size of the funds at their peak.

After his apology, Chun and his wife got into a limousine and drove to a remote Buddhist temple northeast of Seoul. There they lived, wearing Buddhist robes as a gesture of penance, for 25 months.

Three days after Chun left in disgrace, Roh asked the South Korean people to show leniency to his mentor. Now Roh may face a much more stringent penalty. Prosecutors have indicated that they intend to summon him for questioning and then arrest him, possibly within the next few days.

If that happens, he would become the first former chief of state ever to be incarcerated.

After Roh’s tearful eight-minute apology Friday, he had come full circle--from villain to hero and back to villain.

While both were still in uniform, Roh helped Chun carry out a successful mutiny within South Korea’s 625,000-strong armed forces and then backed Chun in the coup he staged to seize power. Then, after years of authoritarian rule in which Roh played a major role, Chun proposed rubber-stamping Roh as his successor.

South Koreans exploded in rage, taking to the streets for three weeks of demonstrations that threatened Seoul’s ability to stage the 1988 Olympics. But suddenly one morning, Roh called in television cameras to announce that he would insist on scrapping Chun’s planned rubber-stamp election and would hold a direct election for president and transform South Korea into a democracy. Otherwise, Roh declared, he would quit as Chun’s anointed candidate.

Two days later, Chun accepted Roh’s demands. Immediately, calm returned to the country, and James R. Lilley, the U.S. ambassador at the time, proclaimed with relief, “Roh Tae Woo has saved Korea.”

Roh did implement wide-ranging democratic reforms. But his confession that he needed a slush fund to rule South Korea revealed that he and his backers were not willing to give democracy free rein.

Democracy has not rested easily on South Korea’s shoulders. Syngman Rhee, who was elected the first president of South Korea after the nation was divided in a post-World War II Soviet-American occupation, died in exile in Hawaii. He was ousted in a student rebellion in the wake of his attempt to rig a presidential election in 1960.

Park Chung Hee, who staged a coup as a major general in 1961, ruled for 18 years but was assassinated by his own intelligence chief, who thought Park was becoming too oppressive. He was later executed.

Now the question of what may happen to Roh’s successor, President Kim Young Sam, is beginning to emerge.

Although opposition parties are charging that Kim received some--perhaps even hundreds of millions of dollars--of Roh’s slush fund when he ran as Roh’s ruling party candidate for president, Kim pledged immediately after taking office in 1993 that he would accept no political contributions. After Roh’s disclosure Friday, he declared he had kept that promise and predicted that his own post-election record would contrast dramatically with the unfolding Roh scandal.

Kim does hold a better-than-average track record over his four-decade political career.

In 1980, when Chun, as an unknown major general, purged Kim and two other established political leaders to make room for himself, none of Chun’s henchmen could find any illegalities in Kim’s background to use to vilify him. Chun charged the other two ousted leaders with, in one case, treason and, in the other, corruption, but the only accusation he made against Kim was what he called “womanizing.”

Kim is expected to give his first indication of how he intends to handle the Roh affair after meeting with ruling and opposition party leaders today.

Kim, who is constitutionally forbidden to seek a second term, already has indicated that he hopes to end three decades of acerbic “three Kim” struggles among him and Kim Dae Jung and Kim Jong Pil of the opposition. Recently, he told a group of Japanese reporters that he wants to pass the baton to a younger-generation leader.

Some opposition leaders believe that Kim is trying to carry out the first step of that plan--by forcing Roh to make disclosures that will discredit both rival Kims.

Kim Dae Jung, in fact, admitted Friday that he had accepted a $2.6-million “consolation” gift from Roh. And Kim Jong Pil, who bolted the ruling party to establish his own regionally based opposition group earlier this year, has refused to comment on allegations that he received $13 million from Roh.

Some analysts have warned that the Roh affair could split his ruling party, forcing an across-the-board realignment of political forces at a time of tension in both relations with Communist North Korea and domestic politics.

Twice this month, shooting incidents have broken out between North Korean infiltrators and South Korean troops. And despite Seoul agreeing to give rice aid to Pyongyang, the two sides have barely spoken to each other since North Korean President Kim Il Sung died in July, 1994, after 49 years of hard-line Communist rule.