Edwin O. Reischauer, associate professor of Far Eastern Languages and former State Department aide on Korean affairs, declared last night that the Syngman Rhee government is a "police state" representing wealthy landowners and often addicted to brutal suppression of domestic opposition." Reischauer spoke before 150 members of the Cambridge League of Women Voters in Phillips Brooks House.

Election last spring of opposition candidates to the South Korean Parliament, Reischauer added, shows that the regime is not a complete dictatorship. Illiteracy in both North and South Korea, however, is too great to expect representative governments in either area.

Incompetent Commander

The absence of any united States policy and the incompetence of General Hodges as an occupation commander, Reischauer said, left post war initiative to Russia and North Korean Communists. Hodges evacuated all Japanese residents in South Korea, including technicians, leaving the southern area without the technical know-how necessary for postwar reconstruction. Russia, on the other hand, sent Soviet technicians north of the 28th parallel; and the Russian sponsored Pyongyang government enacted immediate land reform.