Publisher's Synopsis
General Chang saved South Korea from Communism. Twice.
May 16, 1961. General Chang made a decisive contribution to General Chung-hee Park's bloodless coup. The move saved his country from a collapse engineered by Communist sympathizers after President Syngman Rhee's resignation in 1960.
From 1963 through 1972, General Chang was Vice Speaker of the Korean National Assembly, under General Chung-hee Park, who became the President of South Korea in 1963. In that time, General Chang single-handedly saved his country from mortal danger by thwarting US National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger's covert operation to withdraw US troops from South Korea. Chang was the first person to detect the plan. It would have handed over South Korea to Communist China.
Accompanied only by his assistant, General Chang flew to America and crushed the attempt by informing and persuading, one by one, the US Congressional leadership against Kissinger.
Serving as Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, General Chang pioneered Korea's world-famous reforestation effort. As Minister of Agriculture and Forestry under General Park, General Chang initiated the wildly successful reforestation effort that eventually earned Korea the distinction of being "the only developing country in the world that has succeeded in reforestation since the Second World War," according to the 1982 report of FAO (UN Food and Agriculture Organization).
Learn about one of the most interesting periods in South Korea's history from the perspective of one its most interesting men.
