The Night of Korea–Germany Friendship
The banquet hall of the Bando Hotel, where the Night of Korea–Germany Friendship was underway, was already filled with men from the Korea Employers Association. After paying his respects to Lee Byung-chull, Ki-jo made his way to the table where the members of Cheonwoohui sat. Chung Ju-yung of Hyundai Construction, Cho Choong-hoon of Hanjin, and Kim Jong-hee of Korea Explosives had all been invited to the evening. Park Hee-jun of AMKO had not—perhaps because he was an American.
As Ki-jo took his seat, Cho Choong-hoon spoke.
“The whole Employers Association turned out.”
“So they have.”
“Those men came to pry a loan out of someone, one way or another. Saul Eisenberg’s the speaker tonight.”
Ki-jo nodded.
At last Saul Eisenberg entered the hall. He came in with West German Ambassador Bungel, and was soon shaking hands and trading pleasantries with the principal figures of the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction. Every council member charged with finance, the economy, foreign affairs, and commerce and industry was in attendance. Eisenberg sat with the ambassador and the Supreme Council members—a place that made his standing plain at a glance. It was only fitting. He had secured a loan from West Germany of 150 million marks, some $37.5 million in all.
The evening opened with a congratulatory address from Ambassador Bungel. Saul Eisenberg rose next, the second speaker, and took his place before the podium. He was a stout man, bald, with a conspicuously large nose. At ease in such company, he looked over the distinguished guests from home and abroad, offered them a smile, and began.
“Korea is no nation fated to linger in poverty. She has abundant minerals and farmland, the sea on three sides, and a diligent people.”
The whole hall applauded his opening line.
“Above all, you possess a human resource that is sincere, industrious, and noble. Set that manpower at the center, put every resource to use, and within ten years you can reach an independent economy.”
He spoke of hope, lifting Korean pride and morale as he went. The members of Cheonwoohui smiled, plainly pleased.
“This is a moment of absolute opportunity. The free world that once came to Korea’s aid in war will now aid the second war Korea has entered. And that second war—it is nothing less than Korea’s revival and her economic independence.”
Applause filled the banquet hall once more. Chung Ju-yung clapped along and put in a word.
“That fellow sure can talk. Hahang!”
When the applause subsided, Eisenberg went on.
“For that revival, however, Korea will need two billion dollars over the next ten years. I know a great many first-class manufacturers and banks in West Germany and the United States. Korea must deal only with first-class firms, for only by joining hands with such companies can she grow truly strong.”
Eisenberg had a gift for bewitching people. He had wit, too.
The guests laughed and gave him a cheer that came from the heart. Ki-jo was not taken in by Saul Eisenberg’s silver tongue, but he had to grant that the man was remarkable.
“I should be grateful if the Korean government would at once instruct its missions in Tokyo, Bonn, London, Washington, Paris, and Rome to cooperate fully with my work. I can offer them advice ample and effective enough to see that they produce results.”
Saul went on to boast of ten West German machinery manufacturers. He called them the Arbeitsgemeinschaft—a producers’ consortium—and vowed that by pooling their strength they could support, all of a piece, not only the long-term commercial credits the military government wanted, but the development of underground resources in the Taebaek Mountains, telegraph and telephone service, and transport besides.
“And though he is not with us this evening, I offer my thanks to Director Kim Jong-pil of the KCIA. If I succeeded in bringing in this West German loan, it is entirely because Director Kim entrusted me with the whole of the authority to negotiate.”
At the last he boasted, without a trace of hesitation, that he had a connection to one of Korea’s true men of power. Ki-jo thought it a speech that could only have come from Eisenberg.
When he finished, the businessmen grew eager, each hoping for a word with him. Saul attended to them one by one and offered hopeful talk, then made his way to the table where President Lee Byung-chull sat and conversed with him at length. He took the president’s hand in his thick one, laughed brightly, and drew a smile from the man.
Ki-jo decided he had seen enough. He had watched Saul Eisenberg’s touting well enough, and all he could feel in it was the will to scoop every Korean client into his net and turn a handsome profit.
When Saul finished with Lee Byung-chull, he came over to the Cheonwoohui table and greeted Ki-jo.
“How do you do? You must be President Lee Ki-jo.”
Saul offered his hand, and Ki-jo took it.
“I’ve heard a great deal from Krupp. They speak very highly of you—a true businessman, they say. Ha ha ha.”
The Cheonwoohui members smiled at the sight of Saul arriving at their table. After greeting the others, he turned to Ki-jo in earnest.
“I hear you’re putting your strength into steel. They tell me you’ve been dealing mainly with American firms—but why not join hands with Krupp again and build an integrated steelworks?”
Ki-jo sensed that, after President Lee Byung-chull, he himself was the next mark.
“I’m already moving several substantial ventures with the Korea Employers Association. An integrated steelworks with Korea Cement, and a fertilizer plant with Samsung.”
Saul revealed that he was pursuing a loan of fully $100 million with Korea Cement for the steelworks, and one of some $50 million with Samsung for the fertilizer plant, and declared that both had made considerable progress. At his words, the mouths of the Cheonwoohui members fell open. He suggested that Cheongsan join Korea Cement in the hundred-million-dollar integrated steelworks.
Inwardly, Ki-jo was cold to it. What the man called progress amounted to nothing more than an exchange of preliminary loan agreements—a sort of provisional contract. In the original history, every one of those projects would be canceled.
As if he had read Ki-jo’s mind, Saul tossed out another proposal.
“You handle both freight and passenger transport, don’t you? Why not manufacture your own trucks and buses? Joint production with West Germany’s MAN, and with Mercedes-Benz, is entirely possible.”
At the mention of building trucks and buses in-house, Choong-hoon’s eyes lit up. President Chung Ju-yung, who had once run an auto repair shop, showed interest as well. Riding the mood, Saul pressed his advantage and let his tongue run.
“Japan’s Hino and Fuso aren’t bad either. Not the equal of West German goods, but the price is cheap. Ha ha ha.”
Ki-jo felt as if he had walked into a department store of industry. The trouble was that this particular store was in the habit of gouging its customers.
“You run a fertilizer plant and a power-tiller factory in Ulsan, yes? Then build an integrated steelworks and an automobile plant in Ulsan as well. In the Soviet Union they call a thing like that a kombinat.”
Kombinat — a regional complex in which several technically related branches of production are sited close together.
“It would be the Cheongsan Kombinat. Or should one say the Ulsan Kombinat? Perhaps it would be better simply to change the name of Ulsan to Cheongsan. Ha ha ha.”
Saul laughed with great heartiness. At his dreamlike talk, the Cheonwoohui members swallowed hard. If the ventures he proposed were actually realized, it would be only a matter of time before Cheongsan overtook Samsung and became Korea’s greatest chaebol.
Ki-jo made a show of thinking it over, then spoke.
“Mr. Eisenberg, what would you say to bringing West German firms into KISA?”
“Ah… KISA?”
At the name, a faintly sour look crossed Saul’s face.
“KISA is fine, of course. But how long do you intend to stay buried in USOM’s shadow, taking their interference? USOM will run KISA however they please. Korea ought to show America that she can build an independent economy of her own.”
He spoke as if he loved Korea very much. Perhaps he truly did. Korea, after all, was the innocent child who filled his pockets.
“I’m told General Van Fleet will be coming before long to form an investment consortium for Korea. I think I can afford to wait until then.”
Ki-jo named Van Fleet, Saul’s rival, and meant to provoke him. Hearing it, Saul slipped a counterproposal across.
“If you’ll quietly tell me what the American firms quoted, I’ll put a deal together for less. Whatever you want made, there’s nothing West Germany can’t make as well as America. Ah—except space rockets. Should you wish to send a man to the moon, you’ll have to join hands with the Americans. Even Germany can’t manage that. Ha ha ha.”
At Saul’s seasoned, old-fox manner, even Ki-jo let out a dry laugh.
“Mr. Eisenberg, the proposal for trucks and buses was genuinely attractive. If you bring me something more concrete later, I’ll give it serious consideration.”
Of all Saul’s suggestions, Ki-jo judged the production of trucks and buses to have real meaning. Both America and Japan were extremely reluctant to hand over automobile-manufacturing technology. If, through the man, the foundations of truck production could be brought in from Germany or Japan, Korea might later build her own trucks and buses.
“An excellent choice. Best to begin with the related industries that can strengthen the businesses you already have.”
When Ki-jo showed interest in the automobile industry, Cho Choong-hoon and Chung Ju-yung looked at him with relief. Eisenberg moved on to another party, and Ki-jo talked with the Cheonwoohui members. All of them were excited by what they had heard.
“I’d like to try a business in homegrown trucks and buses.”
Choong-hoon said.
“I’ve run an auto shop, so I know what makes a good car. And what’s the best car of all? A car’s a thing that can’t help breaking down once it’s bouncing over rough roads. So a good car is one that’s easy to fix when it breaks, with parts that don’t cost the earth. That’s what I mean. While we’re at it, we ought to build passenger cars and sell them too. Cut down on the private cars coming in from abroad, and you stop wasting foreign currency—now how fine would that be.”
Ju-yung had his say as well. Even Kim Jong-hee of Korea Explosives grew excited at the possibility of making automobiles.
“President Lee, if we build trucks, couldn’t we build armored cars too? Hanwha would only have to make the powder for the machine guns mounted on them. Ha ha ha.”
Every one of them volunteered to put up capital if Ki-jo launched an automobile business.
“If the terms are right, I’ll join hands with any firm—West German, American, or Japanese.”
Ki-jo thought that if he could start an automobile business with the members of Cheonwoohui, nothing could be better. The automobile business of the 1960s carried great risk; it would be wiser to share it.
“I hope the steelworks goes up quickly. Make the cars and the engines out of steel from there, and we could build them cheaper, couldn’t we?”
Kim Jong-hee said it with a smile, as if the mere thought pleased him.
As the Night of Korea–Germany Friendship drew toward its close, Ki-jo went to Lee Byung-chull to take his leave before going. When he said he would be off ahead of the others, Lee Byung-chull sat him down.
“Have a word with me.”
Lee Byung-chull begged the pardon of the Employers Association men who had no liking for Ki-jo. Once they had shifted their seats, he began in earnest.
“I’ve been all over the country looking at sites for industry, and try as I might, there’s nowhere to match Ulsan—the sea beside it, and the Taehwa River running through.”
Ki-jo already knew the Employers Association had settled on Ulsan as the place for a large-scale industrial complex.
“I’d be glad if the Association’s factories came to Ulsan as well.”
He said it readily, and Lee Byung-chull’s face brightened.
“That so? If it suits President Lee, it suits us. Mind you, I’m of a mind to build a fertilizer plant in Ulsan myself. Would that sit all right with you?”
He was giving notice that they would be rivals in fertilizer. Ki-jo did not mind. Cheongsan Fertilizer’s profits might shrink a little, but for the good of the country the man needed to build that plant and supply the nation’s farms with more fertilizer, and cheaper.
“Of course. Wouldn’t it be better if we could import the raw materials together, and export as well? Gather the factories in one place, and I expect the government will build us a power plant all the sooner.”
“Ha ha. Good all around, I’d say. And President Lee—I’m thinking of producing urea fertilizer. Cheongsan makes nitrogen fertilizer, so we won’t be stepping on each other, will we?”
“What would you say to producing compound fertilizer together? Mixing what both our companies make.”
At Ki-jo’s words, Lee Byung-chull laughed aloud. The men of the Employers Association and the members of Cheonwoohui looked over at the two of them, laughing together.
“It pricks my pride a little, you not seeming to take Samsung for a rival—but we can grow the market together, can’t we? Let’s make a good job of it.”
Lee Byung-chull mixed humor into the words. Ki-jo felt himself drawing a little closer to the man. The Miwon venture had already shown that a war of attrition with Samsung at home would do no one any good. The fate of Korean enterprise was to cultivate what each did best, go abroad, and sell hard.
Ki-jo was able to close the last outside engagement of 1961 in warm conversation with Lee Byung-chull. The year 1962, soon to arrive, would be a time when businessmen, bound tightly together amid hardships on the scale of a foreign-exchange crisis, would have to labor for the reconstruction of the economy.