Name of Blue House Secretary Found in N. Korean Spy’s Documents
Just when I thought that the Il Shim Hue story had been successfully buried by a quick switcheroo of NIS chiefs, we have this intriguing report from the Donga Ilbo:
It was confirmed on November 26 that among the documents found at Jang Min-ho’s residence, the name of a Cheong Wa Dae secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Security, was brought up several times. Jang, the key member of the “Ilsimhoe” spy case, was arrested by the National Intelligence Service on charges of involvement with student activists. [OFK links on U.S. citizen and former U.S. soldier Jang Min-Ho here and here, and here]
In accordance to this, the Public Security Department is reviewing ways to summon the presidential secretary as a reference and investigate how his name ended up in reports to the North Korea.
A public security official stated, “Secretary “A” worked as a student activist before with Sohn Jung-mok (42), who was recently placed under the arrest. As matters stand, Jang has sent a lot of information to North Korea based on Son’s statement which he attained through Secretary A.
The Secretary’s exceptional radical pedigree includes an arrest for participation in the “occupation” of the U.S. Cultural Center in 1985, along two other men who are now implicated Il Shim Hue spies: Sohn Jung-Mok and Lee Jung Hun. Lee, formerly a senior member of the Democratic People’s Labor Party, was one of those involved in organizing more recent violent anti-U.S. demonstrations. He’s suspected of receiving the Dear Leader’s instructions from North Korean agents in China.
The report does not tell us who “Secretary A” is, which may be a condition set by the report’s source, but was probably the advice of the Donga’s own lawyers. On the other hand, if you really want to know who the person is, this ought to be enough:
Secretary A previously worked at the National Security Council (NSC) when the current government took office and was nominated as the secretary of Foreign Affairs and National security at the presidential office this February.
(Yes, I considered Ahn Hui-Jung, but I can’t connect Ahn with all of those details.)
As the Donga is fair enough to clarify, this may mean that the secretary in question was a made member of the cell, an unwitting source of information, or simply happened to have his name recorded in multiple suspicious documents.
What is so ironic about all of this is that if the Roh Administration were to fail to pursue evidence that its ranks were riddled with North Korean spies, that would (at least to me) clearly justify Roh’s impeachment. In fact, we don’t know whether Roh’s NIS is really pursuing the matter or not, but the entire debate is academic now because of an earlier impeachment that was so clearly unjustified that it cost the GNP its majority in the National Assembly. Nice going.