Eisenberg & Co.
"If you want so much as a fertilizer plant, you've got to sit down with a man of Eisenberg's weight. That's all I'm saying."
Ki-jo agreed.
"Has Eisenberg come to Korea?"
"No. He won't be here. Word is he went to West Germany with the Korean officials."
Ki-jo nodded. Among the offer brokers and loan middlemen entrenched at the Bando Hotel, Eisenberg stood in a class of his own—on another scale entirely from Dr. Lee, the English scholar, from the offer broker Mr. Shin, and from the Italian, Dariana.
Saul N. Eisenberg was a German Jew, an unusual man who had fled Nazi persecution for Japan and made his fortune there. He had opened the Korean branch of Eisenberg & Co. inside the Bando Hotel and had been trading since the 1950s, chiefly as Korean agent and offer broker for major American and West German firms, arranging commercial loans along the way. Through the 1960s and '70s, as American aid dwindled and Korea plugged its shortage of foreign exchange with borrowing, he would come to broker some eighty percent of the nation's overseas loans.
But the problems were grave. He skimmed ten percent of every commercial loan as a brokerage fee, and the frauds ran further still—secondhand goods passed off as the imports he delivered. Plants he had brokered broke down within a fortnight and brought factories to a halt; thermal power stations raised at great effort often failed to do their job. He even supplied Korea with a nuclear plant. Wolseong Unit 1, begun in 1977, was Saul Eisenberg's handiwork.
He was a deeply compromised man, yet by scattering a portion of those enormous commissions as bribes through political and official circles, he reaped windfall profits in Korea for years. Traces of him survived in the diplomatic papers of both Japan and the United States. Japan recorded that he spread bribes so aggressively he obstructed Japanese firms trying to enter the Korean market; the United States judged that the money he poured into Korean politics was used as political funds. In Korea itself he was only a rumor, a name passed around in whispers.
That morning Ki-jo had read in the paper that the government's loan mission had secured results in West Germany and come home. The sum was a mere $37.5 million, but it was a loan formally concluded with the West German government. What the Federation of Korean Industries had failed to negotiate, Saul Eisenberg had brought off. It was an absurd reality—the credit of the nation standing lower than that of a single German trader.
Jung-hun must have seen the same article. He said to Ki-jo, "That Eisenberg is really something. I'd bet he's the one who got the loan through."
Ki-jo nodded. Eisenberg fattened himself on underdeveloped countries that lacked information and connections in the advanced world, gouging them and scattering bribes—but for a Korea desperate for foreign exchange, he was a necessary evil. Ki-jo finished the conversation and left Jung-hun's office.
Down in the lobby, he caught sight of Lee Maeng-hee in the ground-floor coffee shop, taking tea and talking with a man. Passing by, Ki-jo looked him over. It was Kim Myung-hwan, manager of the Korean branch of Eisenberg & Co. Anyone who came and went at the Bando Hotel often enough came to know the face and the name. Ki-jo pretended not to see them and walked out of the hotel.
A few days later the papers reported that General Van Fleet would be coming to Korea. Ki-jo thought the visit had something to do with Saul Eisenberg.
General James A. Van Fleet had commanded the U.S. Eighth Army for about two years during the Korean War and formed his ties with the country then. His bond with Syngman Rhee ran deep—deep enough that when Rhee visited the United States in July 1954, he spoke Van Fleet's name in his addresses before both the House and the Senate. "Koreans call General Van Fleet the father of the Korean Army," Rhee had said. Van Fleet founded the Korea Society, the friendship association between the two nations, which bestowed the Van Fleet Award on those who advanced the relationship, and he was credited with establishing the Korea-America Foundation and aiding Korea's economic development.
What Korea did not know well was that he had also been a vigorous businessman. He was often invited to state ceremonies and gave to the poor, and only those good works were ever brought to the fore. After retiring he had set up real-estate and investment companies of his own and run a range of ventures. He served as consultant and adviser to major American corporations, active enough to advise Twentieth Century Fox. Right after the May 16 coup he had publicly endorsed the "military revolution," built trust with Park Chung-hee's government, and in practice brokered a wide sweep of American private investment into Korea—oil refining, housing, film, shipbuilding. He was, in effect, Saul Eisenberg's formidable rival.
It seemed he was coming to check Eisenberg, now that the man had begun bringing West German private firms into Korea. If he differed from Eisenberg in anything, it was that he did not scatter bribes.
On December 17 Van Fleet arrived, met Chairman Park, and promised to do what he could so that an integrated steelworks might be brought into Korea, along with plants for fertilizer, aluminum, synthetic resin, and pulp. Ki-jo could have met him. He did not. He judged that the visit was meant to turn the Korean government's eyes away from the loans it was seeking in West Germany for economic development. In fact, every Korean investment plan Van Fleet announced in the early sixties came to nothing.
Once the overnight visit ended and he left the country, word came from the West German embassy. The new ambassador had asked Ki-jo to call.
Ambassador Hertz, who had arranged the loan for Cheongsan's fertilizer plant, had departed for his new post in Mexico, and Ambassador Karl Bungel had taken his place. Ki-jo made his way to the West German embassy inside the Bando Hotel. It was his first visit since the ambassadors had changed. As he stepped inside, staff who knew him welcomed him in, and he was shown through to the ambassador's office to greet the new man.
"A pleasure, Mr. Lee Ki-jo. I had hoped to meet you sooner. I'm glad we finally have the chance."
Ambassador Bungel was a different sort from his predecessor. If Hertz had been the scholarly type, the new man seemed a practical, hardheaded German. While they shook hands, Ki-jo's gaze moved naturally to the man waiting with the ambassador. Bungel introduced him.
"Allow me to present Mr. Kim Myung-hwan, manager of the Korean branch of Eisenberg & Co."
"A pleasure."
Ki-jo spoke first. The man smiled, a quick flash of teeth.
"I believe we've seen each other around the hotel now and then. Isn't that so?"
"Yes. I think we have."
Ki-jo knew very well who Kim Myung-hwan was—Saul Eisenberg's man in Korea.
"I asked the two of you here together because I believe you will both have a large part to play in economic exchange between West Germany and Korea."
From the first, Ki-jo had the impression that the ambassador's purpose was to put him together with Kim. Eisenberg & Co. ran the domestic sales agencies for great West German firms such as Siemens and Demag. Eisenberg's profit was West Germany's profit as well. Bungel brought up the fact that his predecessor, Hertz, had built Cheongsan's fertilizer plant on a West German loan.
"From here on, Korea will find it difficult to obtain fiscal loans."
With that, Ambassador Bungel came to his real purpose. The best loans, he said, were fiscal loans, state to state, but those were hard to come by. Next best was the Development Loan Fund available from the United States, yet even that yielded less than ten percent of the sum requested—so commercial loans, transactions between firms, would become the prevailing form. For a country in Korea's urgent circumstances, a nation that needed to develop quickly, he added, commercial loans paid out the moment they were applied for were precisely the thing.
"With a commercial loan, the intermediary is everything. You need a firm that can stand in the middle and guarantee the credit Korea lacks. I should think Eisenberg & Co. is the best suited to that work."
Ki-jo nodded, and no more. Eisenberg kept branches in some forty countries and was not particular about what passed between the underdeveloped world and the advanced one. His record ran to thousands of deals brokered, from weapons and nuclear plants down to daily necessities.
Ki-jo let his eyes travel over the clothes of the man seated before him. From the watch on Kim Myung-hwan's wrist to the suit on his back, everything was a costly import. Ki-jo knew that the commission paid to the Korean branch manager of Eisenberg & Co. came to something like 0.05 percent of the loan. In the history he remembered, the man was said to have made some twenty million dollars. Not all of it would have stayed in his pocket. A considerable share he, too, would have scattered as bribes among officials and politicians.
Ki-jo judged that Eisenberg had confirmed both the coming of an American nuclear plant to Korea and the formation of the international steel loan consortium, KISA—and that once Van Fleet himself arrived to drum up commercial-loan business, Eisenberg had begun to move in earnest. Kim Myung-hwan, as his agent, looked ready to dip a spoon into the steel venture Ki-jo was pushing.
Ambassador Bungel gave his all to the selling.
"Chairman Park went to the United States and failed to secure the funds required for the Five-Year Economic Development Plan. A visit to West Germany, however, should bring better results. I shouldn't wonder if we have good news between the two countries before long."
He let it be known, lightly, that the West German government was inclined to invite Chairman Park in the near future, and he mentioned once again that Eisenberg & Co., so close to the great West German firms, would play an admirable role. The new ambassador's first impression was not a good one. Ki-jo heard him out, then left the West German embassy with Kim Myung-hwan.
"Come up to our office and have a cup of tea."
Ki-jo accepted. He had no wish to put himself in the hands of Eisenberg & Co., but the man who, in the history he remembered, had both harmed Korea and helped it was worth making use of. He could stir the American government and its business world, and he could bring German firms into KISA. That, in turn, might help draw Japanese firms in after them.
In the Eisenberg & Co. office inside the Bando Hotel, Ki-jo was served tea. Kim Myung-hwan, seated across from him, spoke with a serious face.
"I may work for a foreign company, but I work to develop Korea. Somehow we have to bring in the foreign capital that will develop this country, don't we? We are doing our utmost to bring that capital in."
"You're doing admirable work."
Ki-jo let none of what he felt show.
"Well, you may not care to hear me say this, but Ambassador Hertz, who had ties with you, has left Korea, hasn't he?"
"That's right."
"Ambassador Bungel, as you've seen, is a man with deep ties to our firm. If you make use of us from here on, you can form a deep connection with the new West German ambassador as well."
"I see."
"And… from what we've looked into, Cheongsan has no separate organization for dealing with the authorities."
"That's correct."
At Ki-jo's answer, Kim Myung-hwan smiled.
"The soldiers may act incorruptible for now, but who knows what comes next. Once the regime is handed back to civilians, things will go back to something very like the old days. And even if the soldiers hold on to power, it will come to the same thing in the end. People are all alike."
The thin, sour smile still on his face, he made his offer.
"If government liaison looks like a blank wall to you, leave it to us. Our firm has been at this work since Syngman Rhee's government, and we were active under Chang Myon as well."
Ki-jo nodded.
"After April 19, and again at the revolutionary trials after May 16—have you ever once seen the name of Eisenberg & Co. come up?"
"No."
"That's how surely we handle our business."
Kim Myung-hwan broke off for a moment, as if to give him time to think, and then went on.
"I know you're working hard for the national economy, Mr. Lee. But reality isn't so forgiving. I'm a patriot too, laboring for the country's development no less than you are."
He said it, and laughed. Ki-jo disliked false patriots of his kind, but he gave no sign of it.
"KISA was formed not long ago. I'd be grateful if Eisenberg & Co. could connect us with a good number of German firms."
"Of course. That's exactly what we ought to do. I'll show you what Eisenberg & Co. can do. You'll see for yourself before long. Ha ha ha."
Ki-jo laughed with him. Having been treated to the tea, he rose, saying he would think it over. The world held every kind of person, and even those who did unsavory work could be of use. He needed the power that every kind of person possessed.
When he stepped out of the Bando Hotel, the cold wind of late December was sweeping the streets. Ki-jo turned up the collar of his coat and walked slowly toward the company.