North Korean Spy’s Wife Was the Secretary to a U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel

No information on which Lieutenant Colonel, or which unit (link in Korean).  Her side of the story is that she just kept his appointments, that he wasn’t in a sensitive position, and she couldn’t have stolen any secrets had she wanted to.   Hey, the wives of North Korean spies can have day jobs, can’t they? 

If the South Koreans do what I increasingly think they  will try  to do —  a whitewash  —  then we will have a case of  our “host” nation  failing to pursue a major threat to the security of U.S. forces in Korea.  I really don’t know what else I have to say.  We have evidence that  the North Korean ruling party and the South Korean ruling party were simultaneously  working to  inspire the same  violent anti-American protests (with South Korea’s hapless Defense Minister the odd man out).  I don’t know what kind of alliance circumstances like those permit. 

It reminds me of how  the Chinese imperial court turned  China over to its xenophobic thugs  during the Boxer Rebellion.

10 Responses

  1. Joshua:

    You left out the main “defense” in the first paragraph. The wife also claims (in the Korean text): “I did not realize my husband was a North Korea agent or spy. I feel very betrayed.” There is also a couple of blurbs about “the husband’s money.”

    I am, of course, not suggesting we believe her. But the flavor of the story is a bit different than what you portrayed. Who did the translation for you?

    Lastly, the Boxer Rebellion analogy is not a very good one, in my view. Let’s not forget that the “thuggery” of the Boxers was in large part a reaction to colonial depredations of China.

    I am generally skeptical of “anti-colonial” claims of today’s “anti-imperialists,” but let us not forget that colonialism DID exist in the past in a rather virulent form (as Koreans can attest), and it does our cause, as such, a disservice to compare ourselves, by extension of your analogy, as colonial depredators of the Qing China.

  2. Well, I sort of thought the denial of actual knowledge of espionage would be a given. As for the Boxers, no analogy is perfect, but I wonder what the Wiki page on Hanchongryeon will look like in 100 years.

  3. No real surprise here. Gotta love the SOFA for not letting us hire military dependents for any decent jobs on base. Come to Korea command sponsored and your spouse gets two years (or more) of no job experience for her resume (well…I guess they can bag groceries in the commissary, but that doesn’t look good on the resume of someone qualified to work in a medical facility) while a nK spy’s wife gets to collect intel against your unit.

    All of the advocates for USFK staying in Korea indefinitely are exactly right; a change in government will fix all of the current problems….

  4. Frankly, I believe that it’s a little naive to think that the security risks to our forces in South Korea would be that much different than if USFK were actually stationed in North Korea.

    There are simply so many ‘fellow travellers’ and useful idiots in South Korea (hell, they even have offices on Yoido with their name of the door … Democratic Liberal Party).

    To actually believe that they have not infiltrated the indigenous support staff, effectively and pervasively, at ALL levels is just so much ‘whistling in the wind’.

  5. Correction. Henceforth, it will be referred to as the “Democratic Peoples’ Labor Party.”