22 July, 2024
Nakrang club is high class entertainment prostitution and espionage social club targeted to US military government in South Korea in late 40s.
From the Nakrang Club’s prostitute
espionage scandal in the late '40s during US military government in South Korea
to the infamous Korea Gate scandal in the mid-'70s, South Korea's dictator
regimes have always tried to curry favor with the U.S. government through
bribery and prostitution. This sordid tradition dates back to the inception of
the Joseon dynasty, where public officials routinely entertained their
superiors with state-sponsored prostitutes. Remarkably, this relic from the
Joseon era has survived into modern capitalist South Korea, where business
entertainment, often including prostitution, remains an indispensable part of
conducting both private and public business.
This archaic practice has even seeped into South Korea's international diplomacy, oblivious to its potential violation of local laws. The recent allegations against a Korean-American accused of working as a foreign agent for South Korea, receiving bribes from this corrupt and amateurish intelligence agency, are a testament to this enduring relic. We will continue to watch how this case unfolds.
The main player of Korea Gate, Tongsun Park speaks to reporters with his attorney Plato Cacheris (l.) at his side. Park paid $850,000 in possibly illegal contributions to 31 members of Congress to influence legislation. Photo/ Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images
Last week, U.S. federal prosecutors unveiled a scandal that can only be described as a cheap spy novel gone wrong. Korean-American Sumi Terry, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), was indicted on charges of engaging in illegal activities on behalf of the South Korean government. The details of the indictment are nothing short of shocking. It's one thing that a so-called expert on Korean Peninsula affairs in Washington accepted bribes and lavish entertainment from the South Korean government, but the real jaw-dropper is the National Intelligence Service’s laughable excuse for intelligence work and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ sleazy public diplomacy tactics. Equally chilling is the FBI’s relentless decade-long pursuit in tracking and monitoring this farcical charade.
This entire debacle reads like a third-rate espionage movie. However, it’s far from entertaining. The political bickering and blame-shifting that has followed is pathetic and empty. This is not just some political sideshow—this fiasco epitomizes the "politicization of diplomacy," where a nation's intelligence and diplomatic resources, meant to protect national interests, are shamelessly hijacked to serve the whims of a corrupt regime.
Terry’s indictment centers on a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). This law doesn’t ban working for foreign governments outright, but it does demand transparency through official registration as lobbyists, ensuring that everyone knows who they are really working for.
The indictment couldn't be clearer about the law’s intent. When Terry testified before Congress in 2016, 2017, and 2022 about Korean affairs, he blatantly lied, denying any foreign government ties. "By failing to disclose his status as an agent of the South Korean government, Terry misled the American people and Congress into believing he was an unbiased, independent expert," the prosecutors charged. If Terry had registered under FARA, the American public and Congress would have known his testimony was nothing more than South Korean propaganda. Instead, he secretly influenced policy, committing a crime in the process.
Terry’s actions didn’t just mislead Americans; they also deceived South Koreans. For the past decade, he published numerous articles and analyses on Korean Peninsula issues and South Korean policies in leading journals and media outlets worldwide. He gave countless interviews, all the while being a covert mouthpiece for the South Korean government, as the indictment lays bare.
South Korean readers, researchers, politicians, and media outlets viewed Terry’s work as independent, objective analysis from an expert with U.S. intelligence and White House experience. By concealing that he was paid off by the government, Terry prevented domestic audiences from fairly evaluating his work. His articles and speeches, dictated by the National Intelligence Service and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, shamelessly parroted the South Korean government’s line, contaminating domestic discourse on foreign policy and security, and leading public opinion astray.
Diplomatic and intelligence activities are supposed to serve the national interest, which generally encompasses national security, the safety of citizens, and substantial economic values. What the National Intelligence Service and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did with Terry had absolutely nothing to do with these. They hijacked diplomacy and intelligence to puff up the regime’s achievements and stifle dissent, privatizing and politicizing state resources in the process.
This isn’t an isolated incident confined to the last decade. I experienced a similar farce 40 years ago while working part-time at the Korean Embassy in the U.S. A senior embassy official treated me to a fancy steak dinner and asked me to write an op-ed for the Washington Post praising Chun Doo-hwan’s administration. “I’ve already written it; I just need you to lend your name,” he told me.
Such crude methods have likely been the South Korean government’s modus operandi for handling foreign and security affairs for years. Terry is not alone; many experts, journalists, and former officials have likely engaged in similar activities. Terry's abstention from writing op-eds during the Moon administration was not because progressive governments avoid such tactics, but because his ideological leanings didn’t align with Moon’s. In my 20 years covering foreign affairs, I’ve witnessed countless instances of government-solicited articles, interviews, and speeches praising administrations, regardless of their political alignment.
In response to Terry’s indictment, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs brushed it off as “routine work” and promised to look into the details. But the indictment makes it clear that soliciting Terry’s contributions was far from routine; it was a criminal act aimed at manipulating public opinion through bribery.
For a nation to have a sophisticated foreign and security strategy, it needs clear national goals supported by a public consensus on the nation’s values. This requires a rational judgment grounded in an objective view of reality. Unfortunately, in South Korea, this is a distant dream. The government’s manipulation of intelligence and diplomacy to skew public opinion in its favor obstructs the development of healthy societal discourse. The indictment of Terry by U.S. federal prosecutors starkly illustrates why South Korea, despite its economic prowess, remains woefully backward in diplomatic matters. It’s a disgraceful episode, but one that everyone should read and learn from.