Born on 27 February 1929 in Gimcheon , Jeong Seung-hwa joined the Korean Army as a conscript in the 17th Regiment and fought at the Battle of Busan Perimeter . He later went to the Korea Military Academy and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the 26th Infantry Regiment in 1950 , where he later commanded in the early 1960s . He then commanded a Mechanized Brigade and an Infantry Division , before being appointed as Commander of II Corps in 1976 . In 1978 , Jeong was appointed Army Chief of Staff , the most dominant role in the South Korean military . On the evening of 26 October 1979 , while Jeong was dining at the Blue House presidential compound , South Korean President Park Chung-hee was assassinated at another facility in the compound . The assassin , Kim Jae-gyu , immediately sought out Jeong with a view to having him take over the presidency . Instead , an emergency cabinet meeting was convened at which Choi Kyu-hah , the prime minister , was declared acting president with Jeong implementing martial law . He plotted to exclude political soldiers such as the Hanahoe , an influential group of South Korean military officers . The group later instigated the Coup d'état of December Twelfth . As a result , key members of the Hanahoe , such as Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo , arrested Jeong on suspicion of involvement in the assassination of Park . As a punishment , Jeong was reduced in rank to private and sentenced to life imprisonment . In 1997 , 17 years after the coup d'état , Jeong was cleared of any involvement in the death of Park by the Seoul District Court . He was restored to his general officer rank and received pay that had been forfeited at the time of his sentencing . He died on 12 June 2002 in Seoul
assassinated
Assassination of Park Chung-hee
Jeong Seung-hwa