The Interpreter
When his talk with Farley was finished, Ki-jo took a taxi to the Shoreham Hotel.
The Shoreham was the hotel the United States government had set aside for the Korean delegation. It stood near the White House, ten minutes from the Korean Embassy.
On arriving, Ki-jo went looking for Park Tae-joon, and at Tae-joon's suggestion that they speak outside, the two of them walked the wooded path in front of the hotel and talked as they went. Tae-joon was already party to every part of the plan, so no long explanation was required.
"What do you think? Will the Americans accept the proposal?"
"It's only a feeling, but I think they'll let us establish KISA."
"Well, we've put the whole thing in their hands. They haven't much reason to refuse."
Ki-jo said nothing of the promise he had made to Farley. Any talk of Lee Hu-rak would only clutter Park Tae-joon's mind, and Tae-joon was a man who kept his distance from politics. Perhaps that was why Ki-jo felt easy with him. Inside the revolutionary government, he was the one person Ki-jo could trust completely.
"You got the KISA plan approved as a private citizen, and now I'm afraid that we, the government men, won't be able to talk them into aid for a power plant. Without a plant, we can't even run a steel mill properly."
Tae-joon laid his worries out without disguise, and Ki-jo answered him with a small smile.
"Nothing is certain on my side yet either. And the power-plant aid will come through. While you're at it, ask them to build us a nuclear plant."
Tae-joon started.
"A nuclear plant? You really think the United States would build one in Korea? That isn't a matter of pocket change."
"It's expensive to build, but if you persuade them that the operating costs are cheap over the long run, it ought to work. Tell them that if they give us a thermal plant, they'll have to keep supplying the fuel—and that coal will cost more in the end—so they might as well build a nuclear plant from the start."
"Ha! Do you think that would actually work?"
He spoke as if he doubted it, yet the mere thought of a nuclear plant coming to Korea seemed to please him, and he broke into a broad, easy laugh.
Ki-jo was sorry to see the suggestion taken for a joke. Wild as it sounded, a nuclear plant was more possible than it looked. He knew what White House national security adviser Walter W. Rostow had counseled Kennedy ahead of the summit: cut military aid to Korea, increase economic aid, and, above all, see that a power plant was built. Perhaps that was why, when Chairman Park observed during the talks that the North generated five times as much electricity as the South, Kennedy had answered like this.
"What would you say to building a nuclear power plant in Korea?"
It was most likely a slip, born of Kennedy's ignorance of Korean conditions, but Chairman Park's reply had been far too timid.
"The construction cost is so high that we've never even considered it. If the United States were willing to support it, we would look into the idea."
With that, Chairman Park had only smiled. The two of them left the subject of power plants there and turned the talk to the military balance between North and South. Ki-jo hoped that if Kennedy raised a nuclear plant again this time, someone would urge the Chairman to press hard for it. Park Tae-joon, though, would not be allowed anywhere near the conference room.
"Who will be sitting in?"
"Defense Committee Chairman Yu Yang-su, Foreign Minister Choi Deok-sin, Ambassador Chung Il-kwon, Deputy Director Song Jeong-beom of the Economic Planning Board, and interpreter Han Sang-guk."
Ki-jo thought Deputy Director Song was the right man to advise Park Chung-hee to request a nuclear plant, and he resolved that once the walk was over he would go back to the hotel and speak to him without fail. They followed the path out to its end, about a kilometer, and turned back. On the way to the hotel, Tae-joon said,
"I wish I spoke English as well as you do, President Lee. I'd like to sit down with the American officials and settle things cleanly, but I can't, and it's maddening. The moment I get back to Korea, I'm finding an English tutor."
They retraced their steps and reached the hotel. Lee Young-hee was in the room assigned to Ki-jo. Ki-jo talked with him, rested a little, and then went out to look for Deputy Director Song Jeong-beom.
The delegation had gathered in the lobby, and the air was wrong. Public Information Director Won Chung-yeon sat looking gravely at interpreter Han Sang-guk on the sofa.
"Lieutenant Colonel Han, are you really all right? Will you be able to interpret at tomorrow's meeting?"
"I'm fine. A few aspirin and some sleep, and I'll be all right."
Han Sang-guk's voice was cracked.
"No. You can't just insist you'll do it. Do you know how important that seat is? If you collapse in there, Lieutenant Colonel, it will disgrace the country..."
Park Tae-joon laid a hand on Han Sang-guk's forehead, then shook his head, his face grave. Won Chung-yeon spoke with a scowl.
"This is bad. Coming all the way to America and having this happen..."
A short while later the presidential physician, who had been at the embassy with Chairman Park, arrived at the hotel. He took Han Sang-guk's temperature, had him open his mouth, looked down his throat, and whispered in Won Chung-yeon's ear. Won's face flushed deep red. He sighed.
"If Lieutenant Colonel Han is sick, I'll have to do it. What else is there?"
The physician told the interpreter to take a room to himself and not come out for the time being, and one of the aides led Han Sang-guk away.
"Can you really interpret on top of everything else, Director? You're busy enough as it is."
When Park Tae-joon asked, Won answered as if resigned.
"No, I could interpret. It's just... I can hardly face His Excellency like this."
"What if we call the embassy and tell them to find a replacement interpreter at once?"
Won could not decide. He hesitated, plainly at a loss.
"There must be someone in the delegation who speaks good English. We can't use a reporter..."
At those words Tae-joon glanced once at Ki-jo, then went straight to the front desk. He picked up the receiver, spoke at length with someone, and came back.
"The Chairman says you're to come to the embassy."
"Me?"
Ki-jo asked in surprise, and Tae-joon answered as if it were nothing.
"Yes. He says to come and have dinner together. The delegation was meant to eat at the embassy anyway, and he wants you to fill the seat Lieutenant Colonel Han left empty."
Won Chung-yeon, listening, asked, "You don't mean...?"
Tae-joon nodded, then looked after Ki-jo.
"They say the embassy has prepared Korean food. You're an official member of the delegation now, President Lee, so you'd better eat well."
At that, Won Chung-yeon grew busy. He raised a finger to his lips.
"President of DBC—this is under embargo. Absolutely. An embargo."
"Understood."
Having bound Ki-jo to silence, Won turned to the delegation.
"I'll put the reporters under embargo as well, and then we'll go."
Ki-jo waited with the others for Director Won, and together they went on to the Korean Embassy. Ambassador to the United States Chung Il-kwon received the party, with Counselor Kim Dong-hwan beside him.
Seated in Han Sang-guk's place, Ki-jo felt thoroughly out of place. Wedged among soldiers, he hardly knew where to rest his eyes. Chairman Park, seeing him so, introduced him to the embassy staff.
"The gentleman over there is Mr. Lee Ki-jo, who will interpret in Lieutenant Colonel Han's place. He runs a television network and is on good terms with Americans. He's a friend of mine as well, so don't worry—speak freely."
The moment he finished, everyone smiled at Ki-jo. Ki-jo rose, bowed to them all, and sat again. No sooner had he done so than Counselor Kim Dong-hwan, in the next seat, offered his hand.
"I heard about you from Jong-pil. He was very firm that if you came to America, I was to look after you properly."
Kim Dong-hwan, of the eighth class of the Korea Military Academy, grinned as they shook.
"I'll be in your care, Counselor."
Ki-jo took his hand and inclined his head.
"Jeong-geun said the same. President Lee is an honorary man of the eighth class, he told me—don't treat him lightly."
Kim Dong-hwan passed along what Oh Jeong-geun of the Finance and Economy Committee had said. A few seats away, Park Tae-joon caught Ki-jo's eye and grinned.
For a moment Ki-jo resented both Lieutenant Colonel Han Sang-guk and Park Tae-joon. Yet it was fate, too, that Lieutenant Colonel Han—who in the original history had interpreted without a hitch—had suddenly fallen ill, and Ki-jo chose to accept as fate the fact that Tae-joon had gone out of his way to recommend him into this seat. For Public Information Director Won Chung-yeon, though, both turns seemed a disaster. All through the meal he apologized to Chairman Park again and again, as if the lieutenant colonel's illness were his own fault.
It was dinner, but with drinks beside it the evening ran long. There Chairman Park went back over, with his staff, the requests they would make of Kennedy. Listening, Ki-jo found the substance unchanged from the history he remembered. To hold off a communist invasion, Korea had to keep an army of six hundred thousand in the field and develop its economy at the same time, and it was caught between the two. From 1960 onward, as American military aid shrank, the burden on the Korean government had grown sharply. The government had drawn up a five-year economic development plan, and carrying it out would take a great deal of money; lately, though, reports had appeared that the United States meant to reduce its grant aid. The Korean government viewed those reports with deep alarm, and it would request a loan of one hundred million dollars for a special economic stabilization fund, an economic loan of seventy million, and eight million dollars in technical assistance. That was the heart of it. They judged that the fading of American grant aid could not be stopped, and their policy was to take in loans beyond the sum of the aid cut and spend the money on development.
Ki-jo listened and practiced interpreting as they spoke.
When the banquet—half meal, half work—was over and the delegation was heading back to the hotel, Chairman Park turned to him.
"President Lee, stay. Let's talk."
He took the Ki-jo who remained into the reception room, sent out the security officer who had followed them—Park Jong-gyu—and, not quite meeting Ki-jo's eyes, offered an awkward smile.
"I'm sorry. I was the one who had them bring you."
Ki-jo had already made up his mind. Since it had come to this, he would help the Chairman through the talks as far as he was able.
"It won't do you any good to regret it later. If you ask President Kennedy for a hundred, I'll interpret it as a request for a hundred and fifty or more."
Chairman Park laughed, soft and open.
"If you were a soldier, President Lee, you'd be up for a firing squad."
Ki-jo let the joke pass and made a demand of his own.
"Chairman, let's settle forms of address first. The whole time I'm attending you, I will call you Your Excellency. Please give me a suitable form of address in return."
"A suitable form of address?"
"President Kennedy's interpreter will be in that room, and he is fluent in Korean. He'll be listening to everything you and I say to each other, and he'll be reading the nuance as well."
Ki-jo knew who that interpreter was. On the surface he was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army; in fact he was a cultural officer of the CIA, Kenneth Alfred Campen. A concealed intelligence man, an elite fluent in six languages, Korean and Japanese among them. His record was a strange one. During the Korean War he had served as a code-breaking intelligence officer and had proposed to MacArthur's headquarters that an atomic bomb be dropped on Manchuria to stop the Chinese Communist forces coming south. From the war until recently, Campen had watched everything that happened in Korea. Syngman Rhee's repeated political convulsions, the fraudulent election of March 15, the April 19 Revolution and Rhee's resignation, the coup of May 16—he had seen all of it on the ground. He was, one could fairly say, a hard-line man who knew Korea well.
"Hm..."
As Chairman Park turned it over, Ki-jo offered a suggestion.
"What if you mixed the two—a blunt hey, you, and imja?"
"We'll do it your way, imja."
"Please come down further than that."
"I'll speak as you tell me to."
Chairman Park grinned, a little awkward. Whenever Ki-jo saw that shy smile, his feelings grew tangled. It was hard to believe that a man so easily abashed could have been so harsh once he held a dictatorship. He set the thought aside.
"If, during the talks, I cover my mouth and lower my voice to say something to you, think carefully about that point before you answer."
"All right."
Chairman Park nodded.
That day Ki-jo reported that the founding of KISA looked favorable, and he proposed that if a power plant came up they press the Americans hard to build one, since a plant was essential to running the steel mill. Chairman Park set a finger to his chin and nodded.