WHY KOREANS TRIED TO 'FIX' U.S.CONGRESS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R002000090034-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 4, 2004
• Sequence Number: 34
• Publication Date: March 20, 1978
• Content Type: NSPR

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.ON PAGE,22_-2 _ 20 March 1978
App(jiger Release 2004/10/12: CIA-RDP81 M00980R002000090034-
Why Imloreans Tried to!
"Fix" U.S. Congress
Custom, geography, politics-
James N. Wallace, the maga-'
zine's Asia correspondent,
looks behind attempts to buy
influence on Capitol Hill.
SEOUL
Why would South Korea, a nation
that owes its very existence to Ameri-
can support, set out to bribe members
of the U.S. Congress?
The answer is at once simple and
complex, a combination of Korean tra-
dition and deep-set fears.
Basic to understanding origins of the
Koreagate scandal is recognition that
this is a land whose capital lies only 30
miles from the cannons of an implaca-
ble enemy. There are two things on
which virtually every
South Korean agrees:
Communism must be re-
sisted, and U.S. help is
necessary to do it.
Korean anxiety about
security-even survival-
is the common root that
produces bribery abroad
and political repression at
home. Ironically, all the
outside criticism comes at
a time when the country's
military strength and the
government's attitude to-
ward human rights are
improving markedly.
Northern threat. Be-
cause of governmental
pressures both here and
in Washington on alleged
ing the two nations. Seoul's skyscrap-
ers, symbols of the South's new
prosperity, lie almost within range of
North Korean artillery and are less
than 5 minutes' flying time from Com-
munist air bases.
While many Koreans now are con-
vinced that within three or four years
their country can get by without U.S.
troops or massive military aid, that
wasn't true in the early 1970s. when
Koreagate was spawned and U.S. aid
was rated vital to survival.
The Korean view of the bribery
scandal is that Park, an ambitious Kore-
an rice broker in Washington, started
distributing money and gifts to con-
gressmen who could help his business
interests. Then the Korean Central In-
telligence Agency, which doesn't miss
much that Koreans do at
home or abroad, got in-
volved and broadened
influence buyer Tongsun Park, current
congressional hearings may never re-
veal the exact sequence of how Korea-
gate developed. But well-informed
Koreans and foreigners in Seoul recon-
struct it this way:
Worries that the U.S. would abandon
Korea by unilateral decision go back to
1969, when President Nixon withdrew
an entire Army division. Concern
mounted as American frustration over
Vietnam turned into opposition to mili-
tary involvements anywhere in the
world, including Korea.
Here in Seoul, even President Park
Chung Hee's strongest critics have no
doubts about the threat from North
Korea, which frequently sends troops
tunneling under and infiltrating
through the demilitarized zone divid-
the campaign.
A different view. Un-
like most lobbying, the
Korean goal was to foster
-support and good will
rather than to influence
specific votes. This re-
flected Korean inexperi-
ence in lobbying as well
as a considerably different
view of gifts than Ameri-
cans have. Koreans, for
example, frequently give
presents they cannot af-
ford to friends going on
trips, or simply to cele-
brate holidays. -
"That does not excuse
what happened," says an Asian diplo-
mat in Seoul. "Bribery is bribery. But it
helps explain why many people here
genuinely do not understand all the
fuss in Washington."
To an American-educated Korean
professor, the payoffs were "a gross
misreading of Congress and how to op-
erate in the Washington atmosphere."
He adds, "Very few of our people
know how a Midwest congressman gets
elected, or what his priorities and prin-
ciples are."
Koreans, however, do have first-
hand knowledge of how the American
CIA operates covertly overseas. Their
own KCIA was a copy of the U.S. agen-
cy; their people were trained by
American agents.
The great difference, and one that
Approved For Release 2004/10/12 CIA-RDP81 M00980R002000090034-4
 was a key factor in Korea's congres-
sional blunders: QQver? th~~e,,, j,yq~ r`s
KCIA accrued nevrl?~i~iWil`~Ll!"efl~~
both in domestic and foreign oper-
ations. On occasion, the agency set its
own policies independent of other offi-
cials at home or diplomats abroad.
"Our KCIA became an empire of its
own just like your CIA," one official in
Seoul told an American visitor. "The
excesses are being corrected, though
not in the newspapers." Officials say
that some personnel changes and a
tighter rein by President Park have re-
duced the KCIA's independence.
Also apparently corrected by Korea-
gate was another flaw in the South Ko-
rean government-what observers
view as the proclivity of President
Park's regime to take action simply for
the sake of action. When faced with a
problem, such as the threatened loss of
American military support, there was a
feeling that doing anything-even
bribing congressmen-was better than
doing nothing.
Recently, say diplomats in Seoul, this
compulsion to take precipitate action
has given way to a more relaxed view
of how to handle Korean-American re-
lations. Tongsun Park's testimony in
Washington probably could not have
been obtained without U.S. arm-twist-
ing. But President Carter's planned
pullout of remaining American ground
forces no longer generates panic about
Korea's future.
However inept or dishonest Tongsun
Park's operations may have been, peo-
ple here point out that he had no trou-
ble finding congressmen who would
accept his hospitality and cash. This
disturbs many Koreans, who see their
country being punished as a sinner
while the American bribe takers suffer
few consequences.
Of secondary Importance. For most
Koreans, the Park scandal is neither as
complicated nor as important to their
future as the twin issues of human
rights and political repression. .
This country has a Constitution that
includes many progressive European
principles. But South Korea is not a
Western liberal democracy and prob.
ably,never will be. Political prisoners,
by government count, number slightly
more than 100. Western estimates set
the figure at 150 to 200.
Park Chung Hee runs an increasing-
ly paternalistic but still authoritarian
regime. The right to criticize the gov-
ernment and its officials is limited, but
the restrictions are not always en-
forced. Park shows no signs of relaxing
his grip by stepping down from the
Presidency in the near future.
Officials justify the limitations on lib-
erty as necessary to protect the coun-
-; nearly $750 last year. The new wealth
'
id even-
ea -20041 0/12 CIA R. P814ob 0 2fe widely ar
.; t 4 ' 1y in al-most any other Third
} : . ' J " - z " . . lionaires, but the government discour-
= ? ..` =~;?` `; >'~`' ; a", " wealth. All this fits in neatly with the
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",. work, material advancement and an in-
nate sense of equality. .
Z -- ` "' _C ' -it Y ? rooted here, but there are differences
from the West," asserts a Seoul univer-
sity professor. We emphasize an egah-
South Koreans today see the need for U.S.
troops as slowly lessening. .
try from subversion and to guard
against an attack by Communist North
Korea. They argue that. peace and na-
tional survival are the most fundamen-
tal of all human rights, and that a
country whose existence is threatened
cannot afford the "luxury" of free-for-
all democracy.
What does President Park intend to
do with his near monopoly of political
power? Are the rights and freedoms of
individual Koreans expanding, or are
they contracting?
There is considerable evidence that
Park's main interest in power is what
he can do with it, not what power can
do for him. There are no Park statues
in city squares. There has never been a
hint that the austere ex-soldier has
profited personally from the Presiden-
cy. Some foreign diplomats are con-
vinced that Park does not even
particularly enjoy his position.
Park's most obvious and most suc-
cessful use of power has been to push
economic development by using a
combination of private enterprise and
strong government guidance. Annual
per capita income leaped from $83 in
1961, the year Park and other generals
seized power in a bloodless coup, to
tarian tradition. You may make more
money than I do, but that doesn't make
you any better than I am. Koreans are
very stubborn about this. Here, a gov-
ernment that promotes equality can be
more truly representative of popular
ideas than one that holds elections ev-
ery year."
Even by Western standards, the hu-
man-rights situation in South Korea has
improved since 1975 when the Park
regime, in a panic because of South
Vietnam's collapse, imposed emergen-
cy decrees restricting dissent and ex-
ecuted eight alleged Communist
subversives.
Relaxed restrictions.' Today, student
demonstrations are still broken up,
though not as brutally as before. A -
number of political prisoners have
been freed, and the most famous one,
Kim Dae Jung-who almost defeated
Park in the 1971 presidential race---has
been moved from jail to a hospital. Ko-
rean prisons, like most in Asia, are grim
places, but human-rights specialists re-
port that political prisoners are no.
longer tortured. .
Ordinary Koreans can travel freely
around the country, change jobs or
move without seeking official permits.
There is plenty to buy, and purchasing
power is expanding rapidly. Some
South Koreans argue that even. tighter
government controls might help in
coping with pollution, -overcrowding'
and urban sprawl. 5,
Political argument in Seoul is not
free by the standards of Moscow, I:da
ho. But to a correspondent recently
based in Moscow, U.S.S.R., discussion
of public issues here is surprisingly
open. One Korean teacher, asked if he
would prefer talking about the Park
regime in a more private place than a
hotel bar, responded: "Why?" +4
Viewed from abroad, Korea may ap-
pear to many to be a repressive dicta-
torship whose agents spent millions of
dollars bribing U.S. congressmen. Up
close, the perceptions are somewhat
different. Korea's reality, like its image,
does not depend solely on what one is
looking at-but also the point from
which one is looking. 0
Approved For Release 2004/10/12 : CIA-RDP81 M00980R002000090034-4