Corpus Christi Caller-Times from Corpus Christi, Texas • 17

Corpus Chris ti Caller-Times Sun Aug 22 1965 3B South Korea Tomorrow Is Here Afir Half CVuturv of Wars Anil Occupation Korea Now Is IKcgi lining To Know Projjrcss Prosperity anil Stability By ROBERT KtNSON SEOUL Korea CAP) Tomorrow is almost here in the Land of the Morning Calm After nearly 40 vears of occupation by Japan five years of fighting off a Communist invasion and a decade of scrambling up out of the rubble the Korean people are beginning to live Children play in the streets Pretty girls look up at the sun and smile feel our economy now is in the lake-off stage" says President Chung Hee Park now Is being reborn taking its place in the modern stales US AID Director Joel Bernstein am declares US Ambassador Blnthrop Brown look around you and say Ihis Is Korea May" grinned Deputy Prime Minister Chang Key Young 'This is Korea tomorrow" hang like so many other Korran leaders has seen his country occupied Invaded and bloodied so many limes that he admits to being a little amazed as well as happy about the sudden change In almosphpre economically Indicators of progress over the past ten years are these: The gross national product is up per cent Industrial production up 251 per cent Hydro-electric power up 4(5 per cent thermal up 1341 per cent Kximm'K up 301 per cent Nation's budget up 431 per cent National wholesale price index up 491 per cent In matters directly affecting the man in the street there are now 5241 hospitals compared to 25S5 in up 103 per cent 5929000 students to 33Sfil)()0 in 19fiS-up 75 per and 00S4 schools compared to 5425 in 1953-up 29 per cent Oh yes there are 179574 telephones to answer now or a 454 per cent better chance of getting the wrong numher than built by government to relieve housing shortage CAP NMnMalwM Ptwla) DRESS DOMINATES IN BUSY STREET SCENE IN SEOUL economy has grown in industrial production groan national product export (AP Niwltftiirt PMtl China Is Entering Bid for Control Of Afghanistan By CONRAD KINK KABUL Afchnni'lan 'f Communist China making a long awaited power hid in this isolated mountain land where Washington and Moscow have sparred in a gentlemanly manner for a decade LUDWIG ERHARD WILLY BRANDT West German Campaign Test Of Personalities By CARL 1IARTM ANN BONN (iermany Chancellor Iudwig Erhard In the last month of his campaign for re-election is staking his future on the gamble that he can go on ruling West Germany without any help from Willy Rrandl Rusiness is booming and big foreign Issues are scarce so the test of personalities tends lo dominate the campaign Erhard bulky and professorial looks more than ever like a cherub with a big black cigar He seeks to be Identified with the economic miracle" Brandt 52 yean old to Erhard's would like lo be kaown as the candidate of the new broom that would sweep out the old team and promise a neater Job on everything Both candidates are invincibly bourgeois types The current story about Erhard: ARer reading a biography of himself Erhard's first comment to the author was a plaintive did you have to say my daughter was divorced?" in 1935 And vmi have to dodge 5474 taxis now on the streets of Seoul in-tead of the mere 19S9 they had in 1955 nr 175 per cent more taxi driver zipping past you a rainy night SPEAKING OK RAIN a long period of drought that threatened disaster for farmers ended last month with downpour that In-ought floods to large parts of the country A a result the f-iierast for this year is an rice harvest or aUni' 13 iKr cent lr-s than the original 19fi target President Park's government recently signed a treaty with Japan normalising relations tietween the two neighboring countries fr the first time in Ml years has not onlv recovered from Ihe war damage amounting to about $3 billion" the president said also the Korran economy is showing a remarkable progress in manv a-pects mainiy owing to the generous aid provided hy the United States and other friendly nations" United S'ates aid to Korea in the past 15 years totals aland $45 billion Korea was divided along the Parallel at the end of World War II with the Communists getting ihe north Not much had lieen accomplished toward an economy when nn a June morning in 1930 North Korean divisions sma-hed across the 30th Parallel During the next three vears the country was a battleground between the Chinese and North Korean Communists backed by Russia and the United Nations led hy the l'nited Stales The armislirr was signed 12 years ago bringing an end la the fighting hut not the war President Svngman Rhee's government tried to revitalize the nation's economy with lS help but the major prohlrm was that the far-tnries and electrical power plants along the Ynlu River were all In the hands of the Cnmmusisls Consequently unrest and weariness overcame the populace A student revolution overthrew Rhee in 1969 charging the last elections had been a fraud This was followed a year later hy a roup that brought a military junta to power (Icn Park emerged as the a title he has since outgrown Two years ago Park ran for office and his party was brought to power legally Though there Ls still an undercurrent of desire for unification with North Korea Park believes his country must succeed alone Along with the normalization of relation with Japan Korea Is being studied by 35 large Ameriran firms who are rnnsidrring taking advantage of Ihe labor market Iast year's exports from Korea totaled $121) million and this year the goal is $170 million Tomorrow who knows? llowrirr if you were a soldier and saw Korea anytime between 1945 and 1955 you'd agree Tomorrow is here Experts here say this means rough tactics ahead for the Afghariv Until ihav they have been the target of nothing wor-e than a -Rii'Min cmitest to supply economic aid Teking appears initially interested in countering influence built hy the neighboring Soviet Union's aid program Intensive fhine-e propaganda is aimed at those of Afghanistan's impnveri'lird 14 millions who have radios njih special atirntion to tribal minorities that never bowed completely to Kirg Mohammed Zahir Shah nr the Infant constitutional government of Prime MtnMer Mohammed Yousuf Westerners tend In laugh at Chinese number of pigs In (hina now Is greater than ever before In her history says one pamphlet unMiphislicated Muff hill it appeals to Afghans (more than 95 per rent cannot read nr write) People here desperately want a patch of land and a few head of livestock to call their own Peking hammers ince-samiy against in Viet Nam AM Peking recently floated a $2 milium interest-free 1'tan aimed at reducing Afghanistan's dependence on Soviet-made goods and machinery Rut mo't important say student of Peking's methods Afghani-tan's doors are being opened to Chines and China's hard line apprtfach is new to the Afghans The great powers were amazingly gentle after World War II when cold war politics dictated that backward Afghanistan introduced to the 2flih Century Moscow with an aid program totaling a round $730 million first was interested in huildmg what strategist rail infrastructure" roads and bridges rapable of carrying Soviet divisions southeast acrn-s Afghanistan to the Indian subcontinent This has hern built and a Soviet armored unit could easily smash from Hie Oxiis River on the Afghan frontier to the Khyher Pass on Pakistan's border in eight hours Formerly the trip took 10 days to this pass that opens the suhrontfnent Soviet pollry has switched however aad aid program now under way make It rlrar AfghanLslaa I to be a showcase for Russian cooperation with tiny neutral nation The so-railed nonallgnrd bine is to be wooed via Afghanistan American policy parallel Moscow's in a sense because Washington hoprs Afghanistan will slay nonaligned Washington has invrsted about $300 million The Afghans quickly caught on and now accept this annual aid layout Soviet Union about $fi0 million in economic aid and large quantities of military assistance United States about $39 million West Germany $10 million United Nations $4 million Britain $1 9 million France several hundred thousand dollar Now the Chinese have Joined the game but It appears they re playing by their own rulps In the last campaign Brandt appealed lo the working man from a white Mercedes with red upholstpry This time the picture has been toned the upholstery is dark blue Polls show the Erhard image to he much more popular hut personality eontests don't tell the whole story Germans won't vote directly for the chancellor Sept 19 They choose members of the Bundestag and the Bundestag elects him NEITHER ERHARD'S Christian Democrats nor Brandt's Social Democrats are expected to win the absolute majority that would enable one party to rule without seeking allies The margin between them probably will be small opening the way to horse trading with minor groups to get a Bundestag majority Erhard banks on keeping his present alliance with Vice Chancellor Erich Mcndc's Free Democratic Party The combination may remain strong enough lo command a safe majority despite some expected losses If not Erhard may be looking for another job He has said he docs not want an alliance with Brandt though the West Berlin mayor would be more than glad to make one There is another possibility If the Socialists make the big gains they predict the Free Democrats or sections of the Christian Democrats may loosen present ties and seek an alliance with Brandt Far campaign purpose the Christian Democrats have rallied around Erhard whom thrv rail their locomotive" Rut other leaders have not gone so far as Erhard in opposing any deal with the Socialists Both Eugrn Gerslen-maier speaker of the Bundestag and Rainer Rarzcl the party's 41-year-old parliamentary leader are in the wings Neither would object too strongly if called to lead a coalition" At S9 Konrad Adenauer seems In be out of the running but he is still party chairman In contrast to Erhard he says the coalition problem ran only be settled after the election By German standards the campaign is lively but to Americans it seems a generation or so out of date Radio and television are little used but political ads may be seen on movie screens between shorts and feature THE CANDIDATES do liille riving They barnstorm on special trains The Socialists work hard at the grassroots emphasizing local candidates and what they rail their team" For a generation the Socialists have not had a post in a German national government This time they have high hopes If they get a foot in Erhard'a leadership In Germany may be near an end OPPONENTS in fast month of campaign Willy Brandt (I) Ludwig Erhard build image Sacred Places of the Past Are Engulfed by the Present Now on this spot one has to close his eyes to sec it all again Now the sacred place is swarming with the fat families on vacation the phony bearded folk singers the hawkers of bad paintings the short-haired self-conscious girls and the long-haired self-conscious toys Where the fishing boats rocked at anchor yachts and cabin cruisers nrc moored tightly packed bearing their artful names and their self-important owners from St Mato Nice Nassau and Panama ail seemingly certain that Saint Trope is "in" (it isn't anymore) and that they are living life to the hilt The old cold ashes have been dumped on the trash heap of history The new generation worships today brown skin and hot sun Die old gods in their old temples are wilfully forgotten as an encumhranee on what is No place for the middle-aged Saint Trocz To the swarming brown-skinned young we are as they contemptuously put It Ts croulants" along with our hollow gods our dusty crumbled shrines (Milted 1NJL ky Uw Had tyntecotc Inc All Rihl tage memories a blaring boisterous blasphemy It was a holy place on that evening years ago when it was still the sleepy fishing village it had horn for hundreds of years That day the war ended for Saint Trope lifetimes of safety were sudden'y granted But on that morning two teenage toys with visions of glopy had tried to attack the ancient citadel on the hill where the cypresses break the sky-line and where a few Hitler Jugend held out with similar visions A group had formed on the quay that evening for the burial service The father of one of the French toys stood at rigid attention in his faded blue uniform of 1917 His face haunts me to this strong deeply lined the grief in his eyes so exquisite that I eou'd not look at him twice Tlie aging local editor was there in shiny black alpaca his pockets stuffed with notes about Ihe day's events which he insisted on reading to me And (hero was Marc Rainaut now a famous architect and builder the leader of the local Maquis urbane and romantic in white tennis shorts a pistol on his hip a towel around his neck stained with the blood that still seeped through each cove and ditch and pink stuccoed villa in Ihe line of sight and fire was an existentialist shrine Hut where are they now? The landing cove near SI Maximo I thought I located in a long automobile search for lime lost Hut where the line of German prisoners had formed on the pebbles was a line of Imisterous water skiers The pink villa with the black shell hole between the upstairs windows was somehow gone merged In a cluster of new pink villas The whole field of fire was covered by refreshments stands gas stations camping tents and the masses of semi-nude brown bodies that canopy this stretch of mast each August A lmld shop sign said "German Spoken" and several parked trailers bore the Dcut chin ml insignia Around the bay toward Saint Trope a column of great chestnut trees esrorlcd the highway for a distance and a picture came into focus: The ruddyfaced neatly dressed country girl who had been standing under the tires at a bus stop when no hus would slop until the war moved far nnrih tn the mountains Saint Trope is a blasphemy lo one of my vin Hy KKIG SKYAKKII) SAINT TROPEZ Only in memory dor time stand si ill physical artifacts of mommy' Are engulfed and obliterated by llu tidal wave of thi general nervous mas movements over the face of the only earth we have Of necessity the population explosion makes thi Hie age of youth and for the young the past is not only a bucket of ashes hut cold ashes lo lie dumped Twenty-one year ago this week I was last in this comer of France coming ashore with the Forty-fifth Division which Is of fond remembrance South France had hern two year soiled by the Nazi presence but it smelled of clean pine even from the landing ship and lank That invasion two month after Normandy was a secondary event in Ihe full course but like any climacteric In war it was engraved in bronze on the mind of who took part None forgrls none ceases to re-lell the story and we ail become Imres In the end That was a campaign of sunshine that one of flowers ripened grape grateful girls and rather few deaths In (hose moments of truth each point of rock.