South Korea: President Park Chung Hee Dead

Record ID: 2729

  • Title: South Korea: President Park Chung Hee Dead
  • Date: 27th October 1979
  • Summary: The people of Seoul, in South Korea, mourning their dead President, Park Chung Hee. President Park was shot at the dinner table by the chief of his intelligence service. The killing was first described as an accident, but later appeared to have been the result of a power struggle.
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  • Location: KOREA-SOUTH SEOUL
  • Reuters ID: LDL00113EY4GB
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text:Investigations into the death of South Korean President Park Chung hee last Friday (26 October) have provided virtually no evidence to suggest that a plot lay behind the Assassination, Reuters News Agency reports (on Wednesday, 31 October). Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of grieving South Koreans paid their last respect to the late President at the funeral parlour at Chong Wa Dae, the Presidential residence, and at condolence stands set up across the country.

    SYNOPSIS: At the Presidential residence hundreds of foreign diplomats, union leaders businessmen and other community leaders paid homage to the late President. Other South Korean mourners have been paying their last tributes at condolence stands. President Park will be buried with a State funeral on Saturday (3 November). More than twenty countries have so far said they will send officials for the funeral.

    Mr. Park, a tough, chain-smoking Communist was shot dead by the director of the General Intelligence Agency (KICA), Kim Jae-Kyu.

    He was sixty-two years old and had ruled for eighteen years, after seizing power in a bloodless coup d'etat, in 1961. He restrained all opposition, and this month (October) rising discontent boiled over into street riots. Following this, troops moved into the cities of Pusan and Masan and marital law was imposed for the first time since 1972.

    Former Prime Minister now acting President Choi Kyu-Hah joined the mourners. Observers report that there is now a possibility there will be some amendments to South Korea's tough 1972 constitution.
  • Copyright Holder: Reuters Archive
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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