Recalling Park Chung-hee Era Confrontations
Retired American Journalist Talks About Experiences of 1960-70s in Korea
The days were long in 1960s and '70s Korea as hardline dictator Park Chung-hee dragged his countrymen by the boot cuffs in the ultimately successful quest for rapid economic growth.
Watching it unfold was journalist and foreigner John Stickler, 72, first as The Korea Times night editor, then as a CBS News radio correspondent.
In addition to the repressive practices wrought by the ruthless Park dictatorship, there was also the prospect of the then far graver and much more potent threat posed by the communist North, led at that time by Kim Il-sung.
So when the latest flashpoint between the two Koreas involving the clash between the countries' respective navies reached Stickler, currently working on a book project related to Korea, in the comforts of his Murrieta, Calif., home last week, he could perhaps have been forgiven if memories of his time here started to flood back.
But in an interview on Tuesday, he told how he initially lived almost oblivious to the brutality of the Park regime ― until he started to work for CBS.
During that period, the skirmishes with the North were a little closer to the bone.
"The two big stories during my tenure were the capture of the 'Pueblo' by North Korea ... and the skyjacking of the JAL (Japan Airlines) flight by Red Guard fanatics," said Stickler, who was in Korea from the early 1960s until 1976.
"A foreigner living in Seoul during the Park Chung-hee years never found his life impacted by (Park's) repressive policies. They were reserved for Koreans who objected to his heavy hand.
"Unless one happened to be in the vicinity of a university when a student protest was scheduled, there was nothing to see, except what one read in the paper."
As a journalist with The Korea Times from 1964 to 65, he said that rather than perceiving the over-arching hand of censorship inside the newsroom, it was more the international English-language publications that felt the brunt.
This more virulent approach was in line with the era, when hostilities toward the North were much more elevated than they are today.
"Subscribers to TIME and Newsweek notice that occasionally some articles were blacked out with smears of ink," he said.
"Park's anti-communist censors would require the local distributor to paint them out before putting them on (few and far between) newsstands. Mail subscriptions were not censored.
"As I said, the average foreigner didn't have to worry about Park's repressive policies, but as a CBS reporter I was aware of the government role. It was pretty certain that my radio feeds over the phone were tapped. My counterpart at ABC had a morning visit from some plain-clothes men after saying something objectionable in one of his phone reports."
Stickler says there were other close scrapes, one of which that could have placed him in a precarious predicament.
He explained, "The most memorable event was once when I got in a spat with a reporter at The Korea Herald. I'd gotten him a free flight to Australia in return for a mention in a subsequent article, but the article ― he'd attended some conference there and all we wanted was a mention of the airline, one of my clients ― never appeared.
"I called him to remind him after several weeks went by and the next thing I knew there was a tough 'expose' of me in the Herald. It said I was cheating the Korean government by registering as a newsman and then running a business ― my ad agency ― on the side and not paying any taxes.
"This was scary as I knew that the government had total control over me, my family and my stay in Korea.
"There were some nervous days as I figured out how to defend myself against this phony slander. The truth came out: I'd always paid my taxes, and the dust settled down. I was exonerated."
The incident, however, didn't end there ― though the trouble this time shifted on to the individual who he said had tried to frame him.
"Shortly after I was visited by a Korean man with an army haircut, woolen pants and a black bomber jacket ― the uniform of Park's strongmen," said Stickler. "He came to my office and, speaking good English, he apologized for the reporter's malfeasance. Then he casually asked me if I would like to have his knees broken! 'Oh no, really not necessary,' I said. And the conversation was over.
"This was early on, when foreign newsmen were respected. A few years later, when news people were writing about Park and his repression, they were no longer welcome ― a 180-degree swing."
His swan song closely followed the trial of recently diseased former President Kim Dae-jung, who was variously persecuted, kidnapped and nearly assassinated during the Park dictatorship.
"When I sat in on Kim's trial and reported on it for the U.S. audience, I was no longer so welcome," he added. "In fact, my last residence permit was for one day, enough to allow me time to board the plane when I left for good."
Korea Times intern JR Breen contributed reporting to this article.