The Tungsten Scandal
February 28, 1961. Lee Ki-jo went with Park Hee-jun to the National Assembly and sat before the Special Investigation Committee on the Illegal Disposal of Korea Tungsten.
In the history he remembered, the affair known as the Tungsten Scandal had blown open over a revelation: Korea Tungsten had signed a one-year consignment contract with a Japanese trading house and taken a commission of a million dollars for it.
The spark had been strife among the Democrats. The Old Faction had split off of its own accord, and for a time the party's infighting seemed to subside—but conflict was already breaking out inside the New Faction itself, the senior men against the juniors. Ham Jong-chan, a junior assemblyman, charged that O Wi-yeong, leader of the seniors, was mixed up in the Tungsten Scandal. A special committee was stood up in the Assembly, and the people involved were called in to be questioned.
That was how it had erupted in the original history. This time, it wore a slightly different face.
In 1954, Korea Tungsten and Hee-jun's AMKO Tungsten had signed an exclusive contract for the sale of tungsten ore. Ki-jo had fought to close that deal. AMKO Tungsten would hold the sole right to sell abroad, through 1974, every ton Korea Tungsten mined—on the condition that a chemical-processing plant be built and given over to the state.
Korean tungsten had not been fetching what it was worth, and the government valued AMKO's promise to refine the ore into a higher-purity concentrate and sell it above the international price. The license was granted. Seven years changed the arithmetic. China began dumping tungsten across the world, and even good Korean ore caught the frost.
In this history, once sales through AMKO stalled, Korea Tungsten broke the exclusive contract and quietly signed another with Mitsui & Co. of Japan.
Ki-jo went over the problem with Park Hee-jun in careful detail. Hee-jun was incensed that a state enterprise had violated its word; Ki-jo soothed him and urged that they settle the matter as amicably as they could. At first Hee-jun wanted none of it. A double contract was a double contract, and he was ready to take it all the way to court. When he moved to hit back hard, Ki-jo stopped him.
"President Park. Please don't. Do that, and you'll only make yourself hated—and doing business in Korea will get very hard."
Park Hee-jun was badly unsettled. Ki-jo kept at him all the same. Korea these days was raw on the subject of economic sovereignty, he pressed; if an American firm like AMKO spoke too strongly about Korean resources, it could catch a hard frost of its own. Hee-jun heard him out, then said:
"I forgot I'm an American."
"But when they call you before the Assembly, you'll have to stress that you're Korean to the bone."
Ki-jo proposed that, in the chamber, they do nothing but register a calm regret. On that they agreed, and the two of them took the witnesses' seats before the special committee.
Kim Young-sam sat at the center of the ten investigators. On February 27, 1961, he had submitted a resolution on the corruption allegations against Korea Tungsten that had just come to light, seen the special committee established, and taken charge of the inquiry himself. Whether he thought the disclosure a perfect chance for the New Democratic Party to strike at the Democrats, his face was composed from the start. He gave Ki-jo a nod so slight it might have been nothing, and wore a grim expression the rest of the time.
Kim Young-sam opened the questioning.
"President Park of AMKO Tungsten. Sales in America aren't going so well these days, are they?"
Park Hee-jun answered with careful courtesy.
"That's right, Assemblyman."
"Why is that?"
"Because Communist China is selling tungsten all over the world at prices that are far too low."
"I see. Then have you lately heard any demand from Korea Tungsten to increase the volume, or to raise the unit price?"
"No, Assemblyman."
"And when you learned that Korea Tungsten had contracted with a Japanese firm without a word of consultation with you—how did that feel?"
"I still don't know whether it's true or not, so I have nothing I can say."
Hee-jun kept his composure.
"If Korea Tungsten had come to you first to talk about increasing tungsten exports, you'd have met them halfway and put your heads together, wouldn't you?"
"I believe we would have."
Kim Young-sam was well disposed toward him. Hee-jun was the injured party in a case that allegedly implicated a senior Democrat, and so Young-sam handled him gently. But the Democratic side objected to the line of questioning.
"Assemblyman Kim! You're talking as if it's already settled that Korea Tungsten signed a second contract! Has anything actually been confirmed?"
Kim Young-sam hit back without giving ground.
"It was the Democratic Party that raised the charge! Not the New Democratic Party! If the leak came from inside your own house, doesn't that make it credible enough?"
Shouts flew between the New Democratic Party, which Kim Young-sam led, and the Democratic assemblymen. While they went at it, Ki-jo leaned toward Hee-jun and whispered.
"You're doing well. President Park—don't take either side."
Hee-jun nodded.
The shouting went on for a while. When the committee found its footing again, a Democratic assemblyman took up the questions.
"President of AMKO Tungsten. State your name."
"Park Hee-jun."
"Not the old name. I'm asking for the name written in your passport now."
"Patrick Park."
The Democratic assemblyman pushed his glasses up and asked:
"Mr. Patrick. You're an American now, aren't you?"
"Legally, yes."
"If you're legally an American, you're an American. What other nationality is there?"
Hee-jun did not rise to it. He answered evenly.
"I often forget that I became an American. I was born in Korea, and I have never once thought of myself as anything but a Korean—"
"Answer what you're asked! Keep the useless talk to yourself!"
The Democrat's bellow made Kim Young-sam flare.
"You're treating a man you called as a witness like a criminal. What is this?"
"Asking an American whether he's an American is treating him like a criminal? Are you picking a fight, Assemblyman Kim?"
The hearing room grew loud again. To shield the Democrat tangled in the scandal, the questioner had dragged in Park Hee-jun's citizenship and muddied the point.
"What's wrong with Koreans selling Korean tungsten abroad? Isn't the real problem that the American Patrick Park's company can't sell the ore properly?"
Democratic assemblymen murmured their agreement. The arrow had swung suddenly back at him, and Hee-jun bowed his head, plainly at a loss. To Ki-jo, he looked like a man holding himself in. Carefully, Ki-jo addressed the Democratic assemblyman.
"Honorable Assemblyman, forgive me—might I say a word about President Park?"
He asked for the floor, and Kim Young-sam gave it.
"Go ahead."
The moment Young-sam granted it, the Democrats protested. A New Democratic assemblyman, they said, was disposing of time that belonged to them. Kim Young-sam answered:
"I'll give you my own time later. Let's hear the man!"
Ki-jo waited until some agreement had settled among them, then spoke.
"May I say a word?"
"First tell us who is speaking, and what he does! That's manners!"
"Yes, Honorable Assemblyman. I am Lee Ki-jo, and I head Cheongsan Group. President Park and I are partners in the tungsten business. My company ships Korean tungsten to the United States, and that is how we are connected."
"All right. Talk."
Ki-jo had attached an Honorable Assemblyman to every breath and spoken with unfailing deference, and the man's temper eased a little.
"In '54, President Park emigrated to the United States when his younger sister married an American soldier. He was born in Pyongan Province, originally—"
"Keep it short!"
The bark came flying. Ki-jo apologized, then went to the heart of it.
"The profits President Park earns from tungsten, he invests back into Korea. He has put money into facilities at a cement plant in Yeongwol and a coal mine in Samcheok. He is helping the Korean economy."
When Ki-jo spoke up for him in his frustration, Hee-jun reached beneath the table, briefly took the hand of the man beside him, and let it go. It was thanks. The Democrats who had been baiting him over his citizenship lost a little of their steam.
Then the arrow came for Ki-jo. Another assemblyman put a question to him.
"President Lee Ki-jo of Cheongsan Group. I know a bit about you. You're making your money off the U.S. Army, aren't you?"
"Yes. We transport logistics for the U.S. military."
"Must be a pleasant time for you."
"I'm not sure what you mean."
"Under the Korea–U.S. economic agreement the dollar rose sharply, so I thought a man who earns dollars might find his wallet a good deal fatter. That's all."
"And what does that have to do with the Tungsten Scandal, that you ask him a thing like that?"
Kim Young-sam rebuked the Democrat. They had been blocked going after Park Hee-jun, Ki-jo thought, and so they had turned on him. He decided to take it.
"I have nothing to offer on the Korea–U.S. economic agreement. I can say that a stronger dollar helps exports. Take the power tillers Cheongsan ships to India, for example—"
"That's enough. Answer what you're asked."
"Yes, Assemblyman."
Ki-jo swallowed a sigh of his own. The Democrats were desperate to shield O Wi-yeong, head of their own elder faction. Even so, he and Hee-jun steadied each other with a look and endured the full hour.
The committee's interview ended with little to show for it. The Democrats meant to brand the Tungsten Scandal a fabrication; the New Democrats meant to tie it to them however they could. Kim Young-sam, who had called Ki-jo and Hee-jun as witnesses, seemed sorry for it. As Ki-jo rose to leave, he offered another small nod. Ki-jo sent Young-sam a look that said it was all right, and walked out of the Assembly.
They had taken a thorough personal beating and little else. Ki-jo and Hee-jun made their way toward Namdaemun Market, sat down in a cheap drinking house that served its liquor in great wide bowls, and passed the drink back and forth.
Hee-jun was the first to let the bitterness out. He had once been well disposed toward the Liberal Party, and now he demanded of Ki-jo what was supposed to be different, now that the world belonged to the Democrats.
"What's the difference between these Democratic assemblymen and the Liberal ones? These are the same people who would have come running into the Liberal Party if it had handed them a nomination back then. They do exactly what the Liberals did, and I can't see what makes them so proud of themselves!"
Ki-jo heard the complaint out in silence. Then he glanced at the great bowl set before him and smiled a small, private smile. Hee-jun, who had been storming for some time, saw it and asked:
"Did I get too angry? Why are you smiling, President Lee?"
Ki-jo waved it off, as if it were nothing.
"Tell me. You were smiling."
At the repeated question, Ki-jo answered.
"Because I was happy."
"Happy?"
Hee-jun stared at him, dumbfounded. Ki-jo said:
"Years ago I went to a cattle market with the man who would become my brother-in-law."
"You mean Manager Jang Ma-ryang?"
"Yes."
Ki-jo nodded.
"At the market I saw a small calf. It was skin and bone from want of milk, but its eyes were so clear and clean that I stood looking at it for a long while."
Hee-jun listened quietly.
"It was cheap, and pitiful, and I was turning over whether to buy it when my brother-in-law came and told me not to. Then he took me to a drinking house and poured for me."
"Liquor?"
"Yes. While he poured, he asked if I knew how to play hwatu—the flower cards."
"Flower cards?"
"I must have told him I knew the game. So he said not to get dead drunk, only drunk enough, and he took me to a crew of gamblers working one side of the cattle market."
"To gamblers?"
"Yes. The money I won at those cards is what built Cheongsan into what it is."
"What?"
Hee-jun burst out laughing, as if the thing were impossible. Ki-jo laughed with him. When the laughter had ebbed a little, Ki-jo said:
"I was drinking these great bowls with you, President Park, and I looked down at mine and remembered that day. I must have smiled before I knew it."
"Truly? The money from a card game built Cheongsan—this Cheongsan?"
"The long version is a longer story. But yes, that's how it went. Remembering those days, what we went through today seems like nothing at all."
As he said it, Ki-jo's eyes were wet. Seeing them, Hee-jun understood that every word was true.
"True enough. I lived well in Pyongyang before liberation, and then the war smashed the family to pieces. When I think of the days my father and I hauled water to sell in Yeoncheon... I've gotten happy too. Ha."
Hee-jun's own eyes reddened as the old days came back.
"So what if those assembly bastards give us a tongue-lashing? We do our work, and we do it properly."
He lifted his bowl as he said it. Ki-jo struck his own against it.
"I'm glad we went to the Assembly today. It brought back something I'd forgotten, and I got happy again."
Ki-jo emptied the bowl, tore a leaf of fresh kimchi with his fingers, and held it out. Hee-jun took the kimchi from his hand as if there were nothing unusual in it, put it in his mouth, chewed, and smiled brightly.
They drank that day until neither of them could stand upright. The owner found a business card in the wallet Ki-jo had dropped and called, and Kim Seogwang and Shim Hansu came and saw them home—Ki-jo to the house in Jongno, Hee-jun to the Bando Hotel.
The next morning Ki-jo got up, sat a long while on the wooden floor nursing his hangover, and washed his face in cold water. March would be full of work as well. So full that he doubted he could do all of it. But he was grateful for the life he had, and content with it. This was an age in which one thing was past doubting: live hard enough, and a better future was waiting.