New South Korean PM is former spy chief
New South Korean PM is former spy chief
SEOUL (Reuters): South Korea's new "acting" prime minister Kim Jong-pil, 72, has been at the center of Korean politics and a controversial figure for nearly four decades.
His appointment was blocked in the National Assembly by the opposition Grand National Party -- which still retains a majority despite losing December's election -- because of his checkered career.
Kim Jong-pil played a pivotal role as a young army colonel in the 1961 coup d'etat that brought General Park Chung-hee to power and was Park's right-hand man until the dictator's assassination in 1979.
"J.P.", as he is popularly known, is embarking on his second stint as prime minister, having served in that capacity under Park in the 1970s.
He founded the infamous Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) that over the years jailed, tortured and attempted to murder President Kim Dae-jung for his opposition to autocratic regimes.
Kim Jong-pil used the KCIA to amass money in an attempt to build a one-party state under Park, according to Mark Clifford's "Troubled Tiger", an authoritative history of the period.
A nephew and close associate of Park, he was implicated in several scandals in the 1960s, including stock market manipulation and abuse of foreign exchange privileges, though never convicted, Clifford said.
On May 18, 1980, in the turbulent period following Park's assassination, Kim Jong-pil and other key Park lieutenants were arrested as strongman President Chun Doo-hwan declared martial law following mass street demonstrations.
Also picked up that night was Kim Dae-jung, who would later be charged with treason in connection with a subsequent uprising in the southern city of Kwangju that was brutally put down by the army.
The following month, the martial law commander charged that nine politicians and former government officials, including Kim Jong-pil, had illegally amassed almost $150 million while in office.
Kim Jong-pil was accused of holding almost $36 million in various holdings, including a tangerine orchard, dairy farm and newspaper company.
Kim Jong-pil was also said to have over $7 million in secret bank accounts in Seoul, according to Clifford's book. He was "purged' from the governing party.
Kim Jong-pil began a comeback in the 1987 presidential elections, running against Kim Dae-jung and his predecessor as president, Kim Young-sam, but finishing with just eight percent of the vote.
The "three Kims" as they then became known, split the vote, allowing former general and Chun protege, Roh Tae Woo to win the election.
Kim Jong-pil joined forces with Kim Young-sam after the latter won the 1992 election, but split with him about a year later. The strange alliance between Kim Dae-jung and the man whose KCIA once tried to assassinate him and who hounded him throughout his career in opposition raised eyebrows when it was announced last October.
But Kim Dae-jung knew he could not win unless he broadened his support from his traditional base in the southwest Cholla region and reassure South Korean voters that he was not the radical, leftist rabble-rouser that he was painted as by successive military regimes.
The price of that support was a deal to name J.P as prime minister and endow what has largely been a ceremonial office with new powers while turning the presidential form of government into a parliamentary one.
Kim Jong-pil's support, as it turned out, was crucial in the election, which Kim Dae-jung won by barely a one-percent margin. But it remains to be seen whether Kim Dae-jung will be able to fill his side of the bargain and make his "acting prime minister" a powerful one.