Often military coup d'etats require the military to forcibly take control of the government with some large measure of violence. When the officers of the South Korean Army organized a coup d'etat in 1961, they were actually able to take power fairly effortlessly. Largely, this was due to the ineffectiveness of the civilian government of the short-lived Second Korean Republican and a desire to see some new leadership in the country. Also, Park Chung-Hee, a general who was in charge of the defense of Seoul, had unified a wide range of officers inside the Korean Army behind his plans for a coup. Taking action after a warning a mutiny had taken place, when most of Korea had woken up on the morning of May 16, 1961, the military had taken over most government buildings and broadcast a message explaining their actions. Rather peaceably, Park and his associates were able to form a new military government. By 1963, Park Chung-Hee would win an election as President of South Korea, a position he would hold until his assassination in 1979.