"Geun-hye, if I had taken the bullet and your mother had lived"... Park Chung Hee's Handwritten Letter to His Daughter

[Financial News] "Mother took the bullet meant for Father instead of me and passed away. I have thought again and again how wonderful it would have been if I had been shot and Mother had survived."
Amid controversy over historical distortion surrounding the film 'Assassin(s),' Rep. Yoo Young-ha of the People Power Party released on Oct. 2 a handwritten letter that former President Park Chung Hee wrote shortly after the shooting of Yuk Young-soo. The letter, which Park Chung Hee sent to his daughter, former President Park Geun-hye, conveys his profound grief over the loss of his wife.

Park Chung Hee wrote, "Geun-hye, how could this have happened?" He continued, "Although there is no way to suppress this grief, which feels as though the sky has collapsed and the earth has sunk, shouldn't we all now steel ourselves and seek ways to rebuild our family, now that Mother is no longer with us?"
He added, "Mother took the bullet instead of me and left Father with all responsibility for you children and all responsibility for this country." He urged her, saying, "At first, Father also felt as though the sky had collapsed and could not compose himself at all. But I decided that I must be the first to summon courage and that from now on I would endure and bear everything. You, too, must steel yourself and endure as much as you can."
He also told the 22-year-old former President Park Geun-hye, "Now you will have to stand in for your mother. I will make any sacrifice to become a good father."

According to Yoo, Park Chung Hee wrote the letter at around 10 p.m. on Aug. 17, 1974, two days after Yuk Young-soo's death. The recipient, former President Park Geun-hye, was returning home from France at the time.
Yoo introduced it as "a letter that has never once been made public" and said, "Former President Park Geun-hye saw an article in a French newspaper saying that her mother had been assassinated. She said that because there were no direct flights at the time, she traveled to Korea via Tokyo and cried all the tears she would ever cry in her lifetime before she even reached Tokyo airport."
He also urged the production team behind the film 'Assassin(s)' to "apologize for defaming President Park Chung Hee by distorting history and publicly apologize to the grieving family and the public," adding, "They should also show a responsible attitude, including suspending the film's screening."
He emphasized, "This letter will become a club with which to correct the left's historical distortion, which seeks to spread biased conspiracy theories throughout the world like a plague."


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