This is the 20th in a 60-part series featuring 60 major events in Korea's modern history from 1884 till now. The project is part of the 60th anniversary of The Korea Times, which falls on Nov. 1.

By Michael Breen
Korea Times columnist

At 5 a.m. on the morning of May 16, 1961, a guard who was supposed to be on duty fell asleep in his hut on the northern end of the Han River Bridge and did not notice a convey of tanks crossing from the south.

Soldiers loyal to Gen. Park Chung-hee were making their move at the start of the military coup which would forever change Korean history.

Awakened rudely by mutineers, the guard paused and made an instant assessment of his predicament.

"Inmin-guk Mansei! (Long live the (North) Korean People's Army!)" he shouted, thrusting his arms into the air in welcome.

This story circulated widely at the time and no one quite knew if it had actually happened or whether it was a joke.

But it is telling in two ways: Koreans truly had no idea what lay in store, and, second, Park's rule although nominally anti-communist, was ironically socialist in terms of the centralized control and subordination of resources to the task of nation-building.

The Kennedy administration knew enough about Park to know that before the war he had been arrested as the leader of a communist cell within the Korean military. They worried communists had taken over.

The local press gave him a Russian-sounding nickname, calling him "Parkov," (enjoying a press freedom that was later curtailed).

After taking power, Park did what most new leaders do and launched an anti-corruption campaign. Several wealthy businessmen were arrested, but most were let off provided that they set up companies in certain designated industries, foreshadowing the way in which Park would go on to harness the profit-hunting skills of businessmen to the job of nation-building.

Bankers, however, were not included in this plan. Banks were nationalized. Government control over them became a crucial factor in the centrally planned growth.

In 1962, Park launched his first five-year plan. No-one was impressed. Burma and the Philippines were seen as the promising Asian economies of the day.

The prevailing forecast for Korea was gloom. But during those first five years, annual GNP growth averaged 8.3 percent, exceeding the planners' own forecasts.

Exporting was the priority and would become a patriotic duty. The mantra of growth soon became "export-good, import-bad." Companies were given export targets by bureaucrats.

Firms that fulfilled gained preferential credits, tax benefits, and the grateful support of bureaucrats, who were being held responsible by the all-powerful Blue House for the results.

Firms that failed to meet their targets could get into trouble and even find themselves under orders to be taken over. During the second plan, annual GNP growth averaged 11.4 percent.

In the early 1970s, Park launched a major drive to build up heavy and chemical industries. Around the same time, he also started the Saemaul (New Village) Movement, which through a combination of self-help projects and government funding, sought to modernize agriculture and raise rural living standards.

This program began with a cement surplus in 1970. Park ordered that every village be given 335 free bags. The following year, villages which were deemed to have used them well (about half), were given another five hundred bags and a ton of steel.

Few believed the development would last. North Korea denied it was happening and stopped releasing their own economic statistics in 1965 when it appeared that the South was overtaking them.

Through the 1970s and 1980s, as job opportunities expanded, people poured into the cities. They worked hard and invested in the education of their children. They saved, too.

In contrast to the ideologues in the North, their leaders were more pragmatic than theoretical. Park and the people around him did what they had to do to overcome the obstacles to growth.

Thus the explanation for the course of Korean development is often best made with reference to the hurdles it faced.

A shortage of foreign currency led logically to an emphasis on exports. The absence of natural resources led to a concentration on industrial products.

Changing patterns of competitiveness and the needs of nation-building led to a natural progression of these products from textiles, to ships and iron and steel, to electronics and automobiles.

In this process, Park crushed dissent, ruined businessmen who did not cooperate, and pushed workers to endure long hours.

It is possible that Park's coup interrupted a real opportunity in Korea's history for economic development under parliamentary democracy.

But the impression from many from that time is that Park was doing the country a favor by putting the civilian politicians, who were notoriously fractious, under control.

Like most leaders, even communist ones, Park claimed to favor democracy. But, just as people today claim to favor reunification, he had arguments for postponing it.

Korea, he said, was in the "top-knot and horsehair hat stage of old" and couldn't be changed overnight by the institution of democracy. It would take an industrial revolution.

"The goal of the revolution is to weed out corruption, strengthen the autonomous ability of the people, and establish social justice," he said. "Therefore, democracy should be established by administrative means, not by political means, during the transition period."

The transition period he was referring to was that between his 1961 coup and the next elections, which came in 1963. Park of course ran in those elections and continued to do so, changing the constitution and fiddling the results when it was necessary. The "transition period" lasted for 18 years.

Park earned a lot of respect during his first two terms of office, up till 1971. Had he stepped down at this point, as the constitution required, he would have done democracy the favor of having established a precedent for a peaceful transfer of power.

However, fear of North Korea and other events conspired to convince him that he was indispensable.

As his second term came to an end, Park forced through a constitutional change to allow him to run again in 1971. He almost lost to his opponent, Kim Dae-jung, a surprise compromise candidate between opposition factions.

In 1972, talks began with North Korea, and the two rival sides signed a historic agreement pledging to end their hostility. This process was treated internationally as if there had been a breakthrough.

In fact, it was nothing of the kind as there had been no significant power shift towards one side. The "reconciliation" was a temporary lull. Ironically, their exposure to the North Koreans made Park nervous of his own opposition. Park's response was to suspend the Constitution and declare martial law.

He introduced a new "Yushin" (revitalizing) Constitution and had himself re-elected for a six-year term. His rule degenerated into repression. He even made it illegal to criticize the new Constitution.

In 1974, the popular first lady was shot and killed by a North Korean gunman in an assassination attempt on Park in a crowded theatre.

In October, 1979, opposition leader Kim Young-sam was expelled from the National Assembly and protests erupted in the cities of Busan and Masan, his political home-base.

At a dinner, Park Chung-hee scolded the KCIA director, Kim Jae-kyu, for failing to control the demonstrations. Kim said to do that they would have to kill 3,000 protesters.

Park apparently said that the Shah of Iran, who had recently been ousted, had failed because he was not prepared to kill enough of his own people. If necessary he, Park, would kill 30,000.

Park's bodyguard, Cha Ji-chul, joined in the criticism of the KCIA chief. Kim had been frustrated for some time over his difficulties managing the politics of his job as KCIA chief, and over Park's criticism of his performance and Cha's interference.

He left the room and returned with a pistol, shot Cha and then shot Park. Two women with them were unharmed.

Two million people turned out in the streets of Seoul to watch the journey of his coffin to the national cemetery, and to wonder about the future.

The leader was still not elected fairly and there was still no peaceful method of power transition. Park did not even have a successor.