Correspondents' Correspondence

...to a group of intellectuals and ex-officers whose sole objective is reforming the electoral system...

...Only 20 were actually convicted, but many more, according to dissidents, were tortured by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Command before being released...

...and that the people have become increasingly alienated from their political leaders...

...Donald Kirk...

...The Korean CIA has destroyed the unifying force of the opposition," said another...

...And almost every spring, banding together on the campuses after the cold, dismal winter, they manage to generate enough optimism, energy and courage to convince themselves they are Davids, capable of toppling Goliath...

...If we want to overthrow him by some illegal way, we must clash with him...

...Kim Dae Jung has reason to be frightened...

...Kim is the second most powerful man in the country, one step below President Park...

...Alloni focused her fire on the country's internal failings prior to October 1973, and despite the lack of any organization her Civil Rights party took not one but three seats...

...and Christians in general are better educated than the Buddhist or nonbelieving majority...

...Kidnapped from a room in Tokyo's Grand Palace Hotel last August and spirited back to Korea, presumably at the hands of South Korean security police, he is now under constant surveillance by government agents posted in houses surrounding his...

...There is agreement, however, only about what is wrong: that too many politicians have been in office too long...

...Therefore it is necessary to try to make him change his attitude...

...Should they be able to decide on not only what they are against but what they are for, and turn that into a concrete program, they could develop into a force capable of completely changing the workings of the Israeli body politic-—Eliahu Salpeter Springtime in Korea Seoul—With the beginning of the new school year last month, South Korea's annual season of discontent got underway...

...Kim would like most of all to leave Korea, but the Ministry of Justice keeps postponing a decision on whether or not to give him a passport and exit visa...

...How does one do this...

...Officials don't prevent me from going out," Kim says, "but if I should venture outside and meet someone, he will get in trouble...

...Explaining the reason for the January measures, he maintained that "strict discipline" was necessary because Korea was going through a particularly trying time: "We could not stand dissidents creating problems, especially with the Communists infiltrating the South and the economic difficulties...

...Students here have a long record of dissent —some of it remarkably successful...

...Christian missionaries were at the forefront of the anti-imperialist cause throughout the period of Japanese rule from 1905-45, except during the War, when they were jailed or killed or deported...

...They range from the supporters of Motti Ashkenazi, the reserve captain who has campaigned for the ouster of Moshe Dayan as Defense Minister...

...he also suffers from dizzy spells, which his doctors attribute to "neurosis caused by fear...

...Yet Kim carefully avoids suggesting that a real "clash" will take place this spring...

...Indeed, sitting alone in his home, concerned about getting out of the country, he appears content to leave the "revolution" to Seoul's hot-headed students...

...Meanwhile, there has been some significant maneuvering inside the Labor party itself, as Mrs...

...This year, however, challenging the entrenched, increasingly dictatorial rule of President Park will take considerably more than slingshots...

...This Kim (Korean family names are not easy for foreigners—just about everyone, it seems, is named Kim or Park or Lee) gives the impression of being a beaten man...

...That much is clear from what occurred when maverick Labor party Knesset member Shulamit Alloni was denied a place on the Labor ticket in last year's elections by Mrs...

...Park Chung Hee...

...But it is a reflection of a very healthy desire on the part of many people to get involved in politics and community action for the first time in their lives...

...Nonparty protesters were quick to accuse the participants of wanting to have their cake and eat it too: of trying to ride the wave of the protest movements yet remain part of the Establishment...

...The meeting was ostensibly called to discuss "ways and means of revitalizing the party," but political commentators have speculated that its objective was forming a nucleus to take over Labor's leadership from the veterans...

...They were instrumental, for instance, in the overthrow of Syng-man Rhee 14 years ago and the installation a year later of his successor...

...If President Park wants a solution, he must make a compromise...

...The dissidents showed up at my hotel room without calling for fear that the phones were tapped, then shepherded me out the rear door to a seedy little coffee shop...

...They have atomized the movement, so it is natural that the opposition is weak...

...Thus the minions of President Park, armed with emergency decrees signed on January 8, recently rounded up hundreds of suspected subversives...

...Though the government may resemble Goliath in its size and arrogance, it seems to be much more sensitive to danger than was the Biblical giant...

...No consensus has emerged as yet as to precisely what should be done to cope with these problems, beyond a general demand for "change...

...Meir indicated on April 10, when she announced she was quitting...

...Still, the protesters—the majority of whom want to develop a mass movement for change, but do not want it to become another political party—can be divided into individual groups...

...Actually, they were lying dormant in a rich soil of widespread discontent with the way the system was working...

...to a group headed by Tel Aviv University Law Faculty Dean Amnon Rubinstein, which aims at becoming a political party and providing Knesset representation for those who want change...

...Consequently, one frequently finds "hawks" and "doves" in the same protest camp, although they are of course poles apart on the most crucial question facing Israel: the extent of the territorial concessions to be made to the Arabs...

...Both were American-educated and Christian—characteristics that appear to be common to most of the dissidents...

...He added that the government hoped to lift the decrees "as soon as the unrest settles down...

...In addition, in the era of American influence, beginning with the Korean conflict, thousands of students spent some time at universities in the U.S., where they honed their oppositionist proclivities...

...He lives inside a walled, barbed-wire compound that he is afraid to leave...

...This is seen as being responsible for a slackness that has set in here, and as requiring urgent attention if Israel's resilience and idealism are to be restored...

...In the eyes of the government, of course, the student rebels are nothing more than a small band of troublemakers...

...The protest movements that have emerged since the Yom Kippur War are similarly concerned about a national decline in social, civic and moral values...

...Meir—who despises her intensely—and decided at the last minute to go it alone...

...Clearly, the best way to insure the opposition leader's silence is to have him stay in the country, where he is unable either to muster international support, except through occasional newspaper interviews, or to campaign among his own people...

...Protest in Israel Tel Aviv—Premier Golda Meir's decision to resign, coming as it did in the wake of the heated reaction here to a special judicial commission's report absolving the government of negligence in the Yom Kip-pur War, has understandably given rise to the impression that the seeds of the protest movements now sprouting up all over Israel's political landscape were sown during the fighting last October...

...to a number of ex-paratroopers and ex-tankists who have organized to upgrade the political and social climate...

...While a mere 10 per cent of the population is Christian, either Catholic or Protestant, this group traditionally exercises strong influence over the entire educated community...

...that honesty in public life has declined...

...But I am not hopeful that Park will change his attitude easily...

...There is "always the handful that causes the unrest, that agitates the people," said the Korean premier, Kim Jong-Pil, during a lengthy interview in his office...

...Our leaders are in jail, or else they are watched all the time," one student told me...

...To outsiders, all this ferment at a juncture when Israel faces critical foreign policy decisions may seem perplexing...

...A number of ex-generals, including former Chief of Staff and Ambassador to Washington Yitzhak Rabin, former Intelligence Chief Aharon Yariv and former Chief of Staff Haim Bar Lev —all members of the outgoing Cabinet—participated in a recent meeting initiated by Tel Aviv Mayor and ex-general Yosef Nevo, and held at the office of another former Intelligence Chief, Meir Amit, currently head of Koor, the umbrella company of Histadrut's industrial enterprises...

...One man who sees Korea's problems differently is Kim Dae Jung, a Catholic who polled 46 per cent of the vote in the last Presidential election four years ago...

...The Korean political situation is very serious at present," Kim observes...

...In pain from sciatica, he walks with a limp...