The Kuomintang (KMT) -controlled government on Taiwan took on a look in 1968. Comparative was emphasized in the appointment of national government officials and KMT party functionaries and in the local and provincial elections held in January and April. Chiang Kai-shek, the 81-year-old Director-General of the ruling party, initiated the drive to seat younger men in more responsible positions. He was apparently motivated by dire necessity (most of his trusted companions from the mainland are too old to be effective), by the desire to prepare for a smooth turnover of power to his eldest son, Chiang Ching-kuo, and by the need to continue the economic miracle of the past decade on Taiwan-the model province. Generalissimo Chiang had set the stage for the when he gave as the reason for selecting Premier C. K. Yen as his Vice-President in the 1966 election. Yen was chosen over many of the President's longtrusted friends and forced upon the unwilling and aged (frozen in office since 1948) National Assembly.' The decision to accelerate the emphasis on younger men was confirmed at the Fifth Plenary Session of the Ninth Congress of the KMT held in November 1967. The appointment of new ministers of Finance, Justice, and Communications and a new SecretaryGeneral to the Executive Yuan was announced a few days later. The average age of these men was in the fifties, and they replaced men in their sixties. The new appointees are men of wide technical experience and of Chiang Ching-kuo's generation. In 1968 there was a shuffle in the KMT at all levels which continued the emphasis upon younger leadership. Chang Pao-shu, 56, became SecretaryGeneral of the KMT Central Committee. Li Huan, 52, was appointed head of the party apparatus for the province of Taiwan. Lin Ting-sheng, 50, a native Taiwanese and the island's most famous industrialist, was appointed Chairman of the Taipei Municipal Party Headquarters. Reportedly, 500 generals and 2,000 colonels were retired as over-age. The government made it a point to announce that among the 254,931 government employees (including teachers), the average age had been reduced to forty.2 The youth movement was also reflected in the local and provincial elec-