Chang Myon
The following year in May ROK General Park Chung Hee and accomplice senior officers staged the 1961 South Korean coup d'état, overthrowing the elected regime of Chang Myon. Yet prior to the coup, the American-inspired political order had been functioning anemically. The discredited police of the Rhee era could not maintain order, while massive student demonstrations often worked to manipulate and debilitate the regime's agenda. An incoherent governance impaired the already weak economy. Consequently, the national purpose was obscured by the ongoing conflict and confusion, which the gentlemanly Chang evidently could not cure.