Koreagate on Capitol Hill?

The buzz words, like "stonewall" and "limited hangout," have not resurfaced--at least not yet. But there is an unmistakable sniff of Watergate wafting over the Hydra-headed investigations of exported South Korean corruption currently under way in Washington. The White House cover-up to protect its guilty is still fresh in everyone's memory. Yet here is the Legislative Branch displaying, at the very least, a marked lack of enthusiasm to get to the bottom of a scandal that could badly tarnish Congress.

New Revelations. So far the scandal has been focused on cash gifts to U.S. politicians who might have clout in decisions involving aid to the Park Chung Hee regime in South Korea. New revelations continue to reinforce the impression that, as one congressional leader admitted, "there's a lot of Korean money around, and a lot of guys are involved." Among the main figures in the federal probes of Korean influence peddling: former Representative Richard Hanna of California, a silent partner in an import-export business run by Tongsun Park, a Washington-based Korean businessman with a yen for winning friends in high places; Louisiana Democrat Otto Passman, a longtime Park crony; and former New Jersey Congressman Cornelius Gallagher. Meanwhile, on another front, there are charges that the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) has been carrying out both open and "black" (undercover) operations in the U.S. on a broad scale.

According to Korean dissidents in the U.S. and Washington officials, the KCIA maintains at least 30 acknowledged agents in the U.S., operating mainly out of embassies and consulates. They can call on the services of 400 or more Korean businessmen, students and professors willing to perform undercover jobs. The operation of such a spy network on U.S. soil by a foreign power --even a friendly one--is illegal, not withstanding the fact that the U.S.'s own CIA has done much the same abroad.

One graphic account of KCIA activity was related last week to TIME Chicago Bureau Chief Benjamin Gate by Jai Hyon Lee, a former South Korean cultural and press attache in Washington. Lee fell out with the Park regime and was granted asylum in the U.S. in 1973. In that year, says Lee, now an associate professor of journalism at Western Illinois University, the KCIA effectively took over the South Korean embassy. KCIA men began to hold daily "orientation" sessions in which diplomats, says Lee, were directed "to organize businessmen" in support of the Park government and to "seduce Congressmen" with influence on U.S.-Korean relations.

Lee insists he once saw then Ambassador Kim Dong Jo stuffing $100 bills into white envelopes. Kim's attache case was "bulging with bundles of $100 bills. There must have been several hundred thousand dollars in that briefcase. It was an astonishing sight." Says Lee:

"I asked him where he was going." Kim, looking as if the question were naive, replied: "To the Capitol." Lee is convinced the money was intended for Congressmen and other officials.

Little Interest. Lee says it was common for the KCIA to hand junketeering Congressmen cash-filled envelopes to compensate them for their own and their wives' personal expenses on trips to South Korea. Thus the Congressmen could properly record and pay for their wives' expenses without being out of pocket at all. Lee, following his defection after 20 years of government service, testified to the FBI in 1973, but his allegations began to arouse interest only last summer, when a House International Relations subcommittee, headed by Minnesota Congressman Donald Fraser, again quizzed Lee. Fraser got the Justice Department to open its investigation of Korean bribery.

For all of its zeal, the KCIA is regarded in Washington as a ham-handed offspring of the U.S. CIA--which has helped finance the KCIA in the past. The KCIA does not bother to gather intelligence from South Korea's closest enemy, North Korea. Aside from its efforts to buy influence in U.S. political circles, its main mission seems to be to suppress criticism of the Park regime at home and abroad, notably in the U.S., which has big Korean populations in Los Angeles, New York City and Washington. The FBI has been probing--so far inconclusively--complaints by Korean dissidents in the U.S. of KCIA harassment through threatening phone calls and other bullyboy tactics.

The Seoul regime's influence-peddling efforts in the U.S. stem from an understandable worry about its American connection. Under constant threat from the North, the South Koreans depend for survival on their U.S. ties--and those have seemed less secure in recent years. The Park government's political activity in the U.S. began in 1970, after the Nixon Administration announced it would cut American forces in Korea from 60,000 to 40,000 troops. Fretful about a Jimmy Carter campaign pledge to pull out more troops and perhaps cut economic aid as well, the Koreans kept up their U.S. political activity this year --until adverse publicity forced them to pull back.

Focal Point. Seoul still denies any connection with Tongsun Park, the partygiving Washington rice broker who remains a focal point of the investigations. But federal probers believe the regime ordered the millionaire mystery man, last reported shuttling between Japan and Great Britain, to stay clear of both the U.S. and South Korea. Should Park decide never to return to the U.S., as seems possible, he would be leaving behind considerable assets--including two homes, a business building and the George Town Club, where he has done much of his Washington entertaining. He also had a $249,000 secret interest in a new Washington bank called the Diplomat National, according to a front man who held some of the Park stock --another facet in the still murky picture of Korean money and political muscle in the U.S.

One reason that picture has been developing so slowly is that influential Congressmen have been trying to thwart investigations of Korean activity by the departments of Justice and Agriculture --both of which depend upon Congress for appropriations. Should a Watergate-style Special Prosecutor be assigned to probe the Korean quagmire, as some observers suggest? So far, there has been little sign of congressional zeal for self-policing. Some months ago, a witness in the FBI investigation tried to tell a House Ethics Committee member what he knew about the Korean case. The Congressman refused to listen. His excuse: whatever he heard might prejudice him if the Ethics Committee should some day decide to take up the Korean matter.

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