A Lobbyist's Country
At Cologne Airport, Ambassador Sohn Won-yil and his wife saw them off, and Lee Ki-jo and his party boarded the plane for Washington.
In the cabin the four men talked with easy hearts. The commercial loan for the fertilizer plant had come on terms that could not have been better, and on top of that they had Krupp's cooperation guaranteed across four lines of business. Whatever they had set out to win, they had won.
Oh Yang-soo, seated across the aisle, turned to Ki-jo.
"President Lee—if the loan we go after in America for Chu Lai falls through, it won't matter, will it?"
"That's right, Brother."
"Then I can let the tension out a little?"
"Yes. Think of it as traveling with a light heart."
Ki-jo answered him with a smile. He had said as much to Oh Yang-soo, but in his own mind he meant to take from America everything that could be taken.
He turned over, carefully, why Lee Byung-chull had gone to the World Bank in America and failed to come away with a loan.
Together with the IMF—the International Monetary Fund—and the GATT system, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the World Bank was one of the three pillars that steered the international economy. It had been founded to wipe out poverty across the world and to develop the economies of nations still rising. Countries put up capital to that end and extended loans for infrastructure in poor and underdeveloped states, but the terms were strict. The borrowing country must not be communist.
That rule was the breath of the United States, which accounted for something like half the world economy. America, whose economic power overwhelmed every other nation, had contributed the most to the World Bank, and so the question of which country received the money was, for all practical purposes, America's to decide.
France had suffered for it. Before lending a cent, the United States demanded that the French government drive out every man tied to the Communist Party. Proud as France was, the country was desperate for money, and so it dissolved its coalition with the French Communist Party and took the funds.
Korea stood clear of the World Bank's rigid ban on communism. Syngman Rhee had hunted communists so zealously that even an American might have wondered whether it wasn't too much, and there was no political obstacle in the way. Even so, Korea was forever pushed down the Bank's list of priorities. Lee Byung-chull had met the vice president, argued his case, and protested in the sternest terms, and none of it had done any good.
Only afterward did Lee Byung-chull decide that the cause of his failure was India. Through the 1950s, India had been soaking up the money of the free world's advanced nations like a sponge. As the most populous country after China, it needed enormous sums, and the democratic powers, afraid India would go communist, had thrown themselves into the work of holding India fast.
Ki-jo agreed with that reading. Lee Byung-chull had also taken the large number of Indian staff inside the World Bank as one reason its lending leaned so heavily toward India, and Ki-jo seized on that point as the one that mattered. The world's business began with people and ended with people. If the World Bank was full of Indians, then why not move those Indians?
He had already settled how he would go about the work in America. America was a country of lobbyists. Whatever a man wanted done, the fastest road ran through a lobbyist—and so, if he meant to work a World Bank crowded with Indians, the notion was simple. He would use an Indian as his lobbyist.
Ki-jo reached Washington late at night and took a cheap hotel near the airport with the others. The next day he went with Hwang Tae-young to the Korean Embassy and reported the news from West Germany to Ambassador Yang You-chan.
Ambassador Yang brightened at the word that they had secured a loan of thirty million dollars.
"His Excellency the President will be very pleased. Ha ha ha!"
He was Syngman Rhee's disciple, and the closest of the old man's men overseas. Still praising Ki-jo, he asked, a little too lightly, "If there's anything you need to purchase in the United States, do say so."
Coming from Korea's ambassador in Washington, it was a perfectly proper thing to say. Had the wish been a pure one, to help a businessman from home, nothing could have been better. What followed, though, was language enough to make a man doubt.
"I know a great many dealers who can get you good goods cheap. All of them Koreans. Better to put the business in the hands of our own people than to let some American middleman, nothing to do with us, walk off with the margin. Wouldn't you say? Ha ha ha!"
Ki-jo smiled and agreed, and then he had Hwang Tae-young deliver the line they had set between them beforehand.
"DBC is planning to buy new television broadcast equipment, with an eye on the sixties. If you could introduce us to a good dealer, Ambassador, I can't imagine anything better."
Yang You-chan was immensely pleased.
"Last time you came to America and contracted for RCA equipment, didn't you?"
"Yes, that's right."
"I knew you'd be back. The country that makes the finest electronics in the world is America. There's nothing on earth to match American goods. Ha ha ha!"
"You're quite right."
Ki-jo agreed with him. If he wanted Yang You-chan's cooperation, he had no choice. Having let the ambassador glimpse an interest he might later have a hand in, he asked, almost casually, "Ambassador, I'm thinking of applying to the World Bank for a loan. Would you be able to help?"
"Whom do you mean to go through? The State Department, the Commerce Department—I'll open either door for you."
Yang had named the course a man absolutely had to run if he meant to approach the World Bank. He had a ghost's instinct for any channel that led to money.
"If you can connect me with someone senior at the World Bank, I'll be sure to repay the kindness."
As he said it, he set a condition in his own mind.
If you still hold the ambassadorship to the United States after the nineteenth of April, 1960...
"Very good. I don't help a man because I expect something in return, but if you'll show your sincerity, I'll use it to improve conditions for the embassy staff."
Ambassador Yang's smooth speech rolled on. He felt nothing like Ambassador Sohn Won-yil in West Germany.
"Thank you, Ambassador. By the way, where has Minister-Counselor Han Pyo-wook gone?"
"Why do you ask about Minister Han?"
At the name, Yang You-chan looked at Ki-jo with wary eyes. A man who lived by watching where the interests ran was bound to bristle the moment anyone but himself stepped into the picture.
"He accompanied us from Los Angeles to New York last time, and I wanted to thank him."
"Oh, that? Ha ha ha. Well, that's only what an embassy man does for his country. Don't feel too badly about it. I'll pass your regards along later."
The effort to keep him from making contact with anyone at the embassy but Yang himself only made the ambassador more suspicious. Even so, Ki-jo insisted that, having come all this way, he would greet every member of the staff before he left. Ambassador Yang then declared he would make the introductions himself and led Ki-jo and Hwang Tae-young around.
In the midst of thanking them one by one, Ki-jo caught sight of Minister-Counselor Han Pyo-wook. Minister Han was inside the embassy. Ki-jo thanked him, and while they exchanged greetings he let a single slip of paper drop onto the minister's desk where no one could see.
When the greetings were finished, he said to Ambassador Yang, "Ambassador, I'd like to meet the World Bank's man as soon as I can. I'll be counting on you."
He made the request in a loud voice, on purpose, so Minister Han could hear. And Yang, as if he too wanted Han to hear, answered just as loudly.
"Trust me. There's no one who knows the American officials the way I do."
Ki-jo and Hwang Tae-young left the embassy and went back to the hotel. The ambassador and the minister had not looked particularly close. A suspicion stirred in Ki-jo that there might be friction, even jealousy, between Yang, appointed for politics, and Han, the working diplomat.
On the way back, Hwang Tae-young asked him, "President—Ambassador Yang You-chan. He knew me at a glance and was all warmth. Why didn't he come out to meet us last time?"
It was the same doubt Hwang had raised at the hotel in New York. Ki-jo did not think he had said it merely because the ambassador had failed to show them courtesy. Hwang, too, seemed to have felt in Yang's manner an unease he could not quite name. Still, Ki-jo pretended not to know.
"He must have been busy then. But I did think the ambassador's kindness felt forced."
"You felt it too? So did I. He seemed ready to help, and kind enough, but as if he had some scheme tucked away."
A man, it seemed, could not hide his true heart in words alone. A dark intention always found a seam to leak through. Ki-jo brought the talk to a vague close, and they returned to the hotel.
Once there, he did not leave his room, and he ate neither lunch nor dinner. Unable to watch any longer, Oh Yang-soo bought him a sandwich. Ki-jo ate it and waited by the telephone.
Around eight in the evening, the phone in the hotel room rang. It was Minister-Counselor Han Pyo-wook.
"Is this President Lee Ki-jo?"
"Yes, Minister. This is Lee Ki-jo."
The note he had left for Han Pyo-wook carried the hotel's telephone number and the number of his room. If Han was calling after seeing it, he must have overheard the talk with the ambassador and grown worried enough to telephone.
"What made you leave your contact?"
"Nothing else. I wanted to ask you, Minister Han, to hire a lobbyist for me."
"A lobbyist?"
The minister's voice rose. Wherever he was calling from, it did not seem to be the embassy.
"Yes. I'd like him to be a Harvard man, as you are, and an Indian. Better still if he's close to someone who works at the World Bank."
"How did you know I went to Harvard? No—never mind that. What on earth is this about?"
"I want to get a loan out of the World Bank."
"A loan?"
"Yes, Minister. In Germany we secured a loan to build a fertilizer plant. I want to take a loan out of America as well. Even a single dollar."
"One moment. Give me the hotel's address. I'll come to you. We'll talk in person."
The request had come out of nowhere, but at the word loan, Minister Han seemed to feel the call of duty.
Thirty minutes later Han Pyo-wook arrived in the hotel lobby. Ki-jo went with him into a plain little restaurant near the hotel, ordered a cup of coffee, and they began.
"So—you want to secure a loan from the World Bank and take it back to Korea. And you need a lobbyist."
"That's right."
"Are you aware the World Bank is concentrating its lending on India?"
Minister Han knew it too.
"Yes. That's why I need a Harvard graduate who's Indian and has a line into the World Bank."
"Hmm. There were a good many Indians studying at Harvard. With any luck, I should be able to find someone who fits. But..."
His face grew serious.
"As I said a moment ago, the Bank's priorities are India and Pakistan. How do you mean to beat that competition?"
"I don't mean to beat them."
"What?"
Minister Han stared at him, then set a cigarette between his lips.
"You look as if you've got a scheme. Let's hear it."
Ki-jo met his eyes. Han Pyo-wook was a man with clear eyes. More often than not, Ki-jo trusted a man's eyes above his conduct or his words. It had been so with Shim Hansu, with Jang Ma-ryang, and with Kim Seogwang. He was grateful that, ten thousand miles from home, he had met a man he could trust and ask for help. If he could only bring him around by reason, the support he received would be wholehearted.