Korea’s 2 Kims: Rivals Headed for Showdown

SEOUL, South Korea —  In a quarter century of authoritarian rule, two men named Kim have become the mainstays of South Korea’s political opposition.

News photos in the foreign press have shown them in victory and defeat--two men in dark suits raising their arms in unity, banging their fists in anger, being taken off to jail or house arrest. Until recently, the local press ignored their activities altogether.

Now, in a situation unthinkable two months ago, Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung hold the cards that could bring the opposition to power here. The hand has still to be played, and the key question is whether either Kim will give way to the other in a run for the presidency.

“We think the presidential election may be held in December,” Kim Dae Jung said not long ago over breakfast at his home in Seoul. “So we have enough time, more than four months. It is too early for us to discuss that problem.”

Rivalry ‘Very Natural’

Rivalry within a democratic party, he said, is “natural, very natural.” He said he meets with Kim Young Sam once or twice a week, discussing opposition principles and leaving partisan decisions to their staffs.

Both Kims insist that the opposition will put forward a single presidential candidate. But which one, and when?

“It’s generally acknowledged that Kim Dae Jung is in favor of pushing back the political timetable,” a Western diplomat observed. “He’s been playing catch-up ball. Kim Young Sam has a decided advantage in terms of intra-party organization.”

The diplomat and other political analysts discount the possibility of a two-Kim ticket. Representatives of the ruling Democratic Justice Party and the opposition Reunification Democratic Party have yet to begin negotiating the form of a new government under promised constitutional revisions. When they finish, there may not be a vice presidency.

The contest is for the top spot.

Yielded to Demand

The ruling party is set. Its nominee is Roh Tae Woo, the 54-year-old former general groomed by President Chun Doo Hwan as his successor under an electoral system sure to deliver victory. But Roh, in a June 29 announcement in the midst of widespread anti-government demonstrations, threw open the race by yielding to the opposition’s demand for direct elections, a decision Chun grudgingly accepted two days later.

Kim Dae Jung, 63, whose political and civil rights were restored only last month, is obviously itching to run, but has not committed himself.

“I have been secluded from our people for 15 years,” he said, referring to those years in which he was jailed, banned from politics and kept under house arrest. He also spent almost two years of self-exile in the United States. “I need to hear their voices. Then I will decide.”

Kim Dae Jung dismissed a pledge he made last November to abandon his pursuit of the presidency if Chun agreed to direct elections.

“I made that offer to Chun Doo Hwan,” he explained, “and he rejected it.” The president’s concession this summer, Kim said, “was a victory of the people,” divorced from his offer to Chun eight months earlier.

Wants Unified Party

Kim Young Sam, the 58-year-old president of his party, has never indicated that he is waiting to hear voices to place his hat in the ring. But publicly he says only that the opposition will present a single candidate.

“I strongly believe,” he said recently, “that we will not have a split in our party . . . (that we will) never repeat the folly of 1980.” In 1980, he and Kim Dae Jung led opposing factions for a presidential election that was never held; Chun carried out a coup d’etat in May of that year.

Another split, with both Kims seeking the presidency, would give Roh his best chance of victory. But a unified opposition candidate would be hard to beat, even though Roh polished his prospects considerably with his June 29 address.

For now, the ruling party nominee must wait as the struggle begins within the opposition.

The membership of the Reunification Democratic Party (there are two other, minor opposition parties), is reportedly split, with the majority favoring Kim Young Sam, according to South Korean press reports and Western diplomats.

“The party is more or less behind him, sort of looking over its shoulder at the people,” the Western diplomat said.

Factors in Decision

Many factors beyond popularity will go into the decision, among them:

--The matter of which candidate would be most successful against Roh, who should carry the conservative vote but faces a middle class demanding change. Kim Dae Jung rejects the image, but the long years of being branded a leftist or worse by Chun’s government and its predecessor, that of Park Chung Hee, have had a political effect. Kim Young Sam is believed to have a broader base.

A related problem for Kim Dae Jung is the reported antipathy between him and the military. “There is no way they will let him become president,” more than one diplomat said during the tumult of June. Kim admits he has problems with the “political generals” stationed near Seoul, but insists he has support among lower-ranking officers.

What the military might do when faced with an open election for president is an unanswerable question but one that worries the opposition.

Kim Dae Jung also appears to be the favorite of South Korea’s million or so university students, and the opposition is seeking to lower the voting age from 20 to 18, which would enfranchise more of them. Student leaders consider Kim Young Sam “too soft.”

--Regionalism, long the bane of democratic politics in South Korea, may also favor Kim Young Sam, the party president. Kim Dae Jung is a native of South Cholla province. The people of the two Cholla provinces in southwestern Korea are outsiders to national power, and are often looked down on by others. “That’s a very controversial issue, very much alive,” the diplomat said. “It’s still us against them with the Chollas.”

Kim Young Sam is from South Kyongsang province. The Kyongsang provinces, in the southeast, have been the birthplace of Korean leaders.

--Style and credibility make up an area where many political observers say Kim Dae Jung holds the edge, though he has been untested since his close but unsuccessful run for the presidency against Park in 1971.

He is a first-rate orator, a populist who can whip up a rally. His manner is sometimes serious, too serious, some observers say. But he is a straight talker who, despite the government propaganda against him--a smear campaign, Kim calls it--delivers a basic message that is far from radical, except perhaps in the Korean context.

Democracy No. 1 Goal

“My first goal is to see the realization of democracy,” he said at the breakfast interview, which Kim, a Roman Catholic, began by saying a silent grace.

His life has been politics, but his hobby is gardening, a hobby developed in prison.

Kim Young Sam, in public, seems more personable, more comfortable with a joke, quicker to smile. He is an early-morning jogger. But he is not the speaker his colleague is, political analysts say. “He’s terrible on television,” the diplomat observed. “He’s not quick on his feet.” Even if the government gives the opposition access to television for the campaign, and this has not been assured, “there’s a chance that Roh could burn him,” the diplomat said.

The small but vocal South Korean left, which wants Chun, Roh and anyone else connected with the military out of government altogether, brands Kim Young Sam a compromiser, a man who would deal with those elements.

While he has earned a reputation as being near the middle of the road, Kim Young Sam began life as a bit of a rebel. Born to a wealthy fishing family on an island off the southern port of Pusan, he became a troublemaker in school. It was the time of the Japanese occupation, and young Kim took it out on his Japanese classmates in grammar school. Only his father’s influence spared him from being expelled for fighting.

Expelled From School

According to Kim Young Sam, the school principal, a Japanese, later was transferred to Pusan, and made his students carry his family belongings to the ship that would transport him. Kim discovered that the goods included large quantities of rice and sugar, both in short supply in Korea at the time. The young student poked holes in the bags and they arrived nearly empty at the ship. For this, he was expelled.

He went to high school in Pusan, his rebellion turning to ambition and politics. More than once, he says, he posted a sign on the wall of his boarding house: “Kim Young Sam, the future president of Korea.”

He went on to study philosophy at Seoul National University and in 1954, after serving in a “student army” in the Korean War, was elected to the National Assembly from Pusan as the country’s youngest lawmaker. He won seven terms, serving both as floor leader and president of the opposition party.

Being in the opposition under Park and Chun had a price. He has been jailed, held for three years under house arrest and was banned from politics from 1980 to 1985.

In that year, the two Kims helped found the opposition New Korea Democratic Party, and earlier this year broke with the party president, Lee Min Woo, to form the present Reunification Democratic Party.

Lost 1971 Election

In 1971, Kim Young Sam lost to Kim Dae Jung in the contest for the opposition nomination to oppose Park, the last open election in South Korea for 16 years.

While Kim Young Sam’s career has been one of dogged resistance to military-dominated rule, Kim Dae Jung’s has been one of near political martyrdom.

In the Korean War, he was seized by the North Koreans near his home in South Cholla province, where members of his family were landowners and small businessmen. He was marked for execution, only to be spared when the allied advance out of the Pusan perimeter drove the Communist forces from the town. In 1971, shortly after he lost to Park, his car was struck by a truck, leaving him with leg injuries that still bother him. He blames agents of the former Korean Central Intelligence Agency.

Kim Dae Jung’s most celebrated ordeal came in 1973, in Japan, where he had gone to organize Koreans into an anti-government movement against Park. According to Kim, South Korean intelligence agents kidnaped him from his Tokyo hotel room, drugged him, beat him and placed him aboard a ship, bound and with weights on his hands and feet.

Escaped Death

Just as he expected to be thrown into the sea, he says, an unidentified plane buzzed the ship, frightening his captors, who delivered him blindfolded to his home in Seoul five days later.

In 1980, he was arrested by Chun’s government and charged with masterminding an insurrection at Kwangju in his home province. He was sentenced to death by a military tribunal. Two years later, under domestic and U.S. pressure, he was freed. He went to the United States for medical treatment and stayed on to lecture at Harvard University, then returned here in 1985 to a series of house arrests under a suspended sentence. His civil rights were restored in early July.

Nick B. Williams Jr., now on assignment in Hanoi, reported recently from Seoul.