of the Committee, but this was without his prior approval. When dawn broke, a marine corps unit under Kim Yun-geun crossed the Han River and took control of the Blue House as instructed. The civilian government rapidly imploded. Prime Minister Chang Myon had fled Seoul on hearing of the coup, and President Yun Posun accepted the coup as a fait accompli. Yun continued to serve as nominal head of state until 1963, though stripped of all effective power. Commander Lee Han-lim of the First Army had prepared to mobilize the reserves to suppress the coup, but backed down to prevent an opportunity for a North Korean attack. He was arrested two days later. Twenty heavily armed divisions now stood in support of the coup in Seoul, preventing any realistic chance of its suppression. After three days of hiding, Chang Myon reappeared to announce the resignation of the entire cabinet, and ceded power to the new junta. Army cadets marched through the streets proclaiming their support for the coup. Chang Do-yong now accepted his appointment as chairman of the Committee, granting it the final stamp of authority that it required. The May 16 coup was now complete. Aftermath Consolidation and power struggle The business of consolidating a new government began soon after the coup had been completed. Martial law was immediately put into force. On May 20, the Military Revolutionary Committee was renamed the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction (SCNR), and the following day a new cabinet was instituted. General Chang, the chairman of the committee, remained Army Chief of Staff, but also took on the additional offices of Prime Minister and Defense Minister, becoming formal head of the administration. The SCNR was formalized as a junta of the thirty highest-ranking military officers initially arranged in fourteen subcommittees, and assumed a wide-ranging responsibility that included the powers to promulgate laws, appoint cabinet posts, and oversee the functioning of the administration as a whole. The constitution of the new cabinet was the subject of an intense internal power struggle, however, and over the course of the next two months Park soon engineered a rapid transfer of power into his own hands. On June 6, the SCNR promulgated the Law Regarding Extraordinary Measures for National Reconstruction, which stripped Chang of his posts of Defense Minister and Army Chief of Staff. Much of this law was drafted by Yi Seok-che, who was operating under