page_title: Assassination of Park Chung-hee
section_title: Jealousy as motive
hierarchical_section_title: Assassination of Park Chung-hee / Theories regarding motive / Jealousy as motive
caption_attribution_description: English: Kim Hyŏng-uk, director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, announced the case of the Unification Revolutionary Party. 한국어: 통일혁명당 사건을 발표하는 김형욱 중앙정보부장.
context_page_description: Park Chung-hee, the third President of South Korea, was assassinated on October 26, 1979, during a dinner at the Korean Central Intelligence Agency safehouse inside the Blue House presidential compound in Jongno District, Seoul, South Korea. Kim Jae-gyu, the director of the KCIA and the president's security chief, was responsible for the assassination. Park was shot in the chest and the head, and died almost immediately. Four bodyguards and a presidential chauffeur were also killed. The incident is often referred to as "10.26" or the "10.26 incident" in South Korea.
  There is a great deal of controversy surrounding Kim's motives, as it remains uncertain whether the act was part of a planned coup d'état or was merely impulsive. The chief investigator Yi Hak-bong famously concluded that the assassination was "too careless for a deliberate act and yet too elaborate for an impulsive act."
context_section_description: Kim assassinated Park out of jealousy toward Cha, when he was losing his status and power as No. 2 in Park's regime.
  Kim had been a loyal henchman of Park throughout his career, which placed him in the innermost sanctum of power. As KCIA Director, he was virtually No.2 in the regime and was responsible for all that KCIA perpetrated as the regime's weapon of repression, including torture, unlawful imprisonment and murders, such as the brutal arrest of female factory workers in September 1979 and the infamous assassination of former KCIA director Kim Hyong-uk in Paris in October 1979. The KCIA's very function was to defend the Yushin Constitution and suppress internal enemies of Park's regime, which included the opposition parties, democracy activists, leftist students, and intellectuals. His role as the KCIA director, whose chief job was to maintain Park's dictatorship, makes it hard to believe that he was indeed a believer in democracy. (However, it is also possible that Kim sought to become a mitigating influence on Park and KCIA, and he pursued moderate measures and preferred compromise over brute force.)
  When Kim shot Park, his rallying cry was not about democracy but rather reflected his resentment of Cha.
  Kim worked tirelessly to sabotage the opposition party's election and prevent Kim Young Sam's chairmanship of it.
  As Kim testified in his trial, his relationship with Park was that of real brothers. They came from the same hometown and were classmates at the South Korean Army Academy.
caption: Kim Hyong-uk in 1968
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