Minister-nominee found to have advised the CIA

Posted on : 2013-02-20 16:20 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Questions raised over Kim Jeong-hun’s loyalty due to background of close involvement with US interests
 Feb. 19. (News1)
Feb. 19. (News1)

By Lee Tae-hee, staff reporter

Kim Jeong-hun, nominee for Minister of Future Creation and Science, sat on an advisory committee for the US Central Intelligence Agency in 2009, a Unified Progressive Party lawmaker revealed on Feb. 19.

The news comes on the heels of revelations that Kim also served as a director for In-Q-Tel, a company established by the CIA in 1999.

In a Feb. 19 press release, Rep. Lee Seok-ki said Kim’s name was included in Sept. 9, 2009, message to CIA employees from director (and current Secretary of Defense) Leon Panetta about his meeting with the members of a newly formed advisory committee.

Other members of the committee included former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman and Bush-era Iraq War commander Richard Myers, as well as Harold Smith, vice president of the leading US defense company CSC, and Fran Townsend, former homeland security adviser to George W. Bush.

Lee said that the committee members were briefed on major efforts involving counterterrorism, nuclear nonproliferation, cyberterrorism, and war zones and “declared their willingness to help the CIA achieve its goals.”

Meanwhile, a video surfaced on YouTube showing Kim being interviewed by the Stevens Institute of Technology while appearing there as a graduation speaker in 2012. In the video, Kim is described as having “continued to express his appreciation to his country” by serving as a CIA advisory committee member.

“Kim Jeong-hun has actively worked for the US Central Intelligence Agency, serving as a director for In-Q-Tel, a company the CIA founded in 1999, and participating in 2009 as an advisory committee member,” Lee said, adding that President-elect Park Geun-hye “needs to explain why she nominated him as Minister of Future Creation and Science while knowing his background.”

The concern is what position Kim, who has expressed strongly patriotic sentiments toward the US, might take in the event of a conflict between that country’s interests and South Korea’s if he serves as a Cabinet minister.

Lee questioned whether Kim was the only candidate from the fields of information, communications, or technology qualified to hold the post.

“As someone who claims to value the national interest, the President-elect should withdraw his nomination for Minister of Future Creation and Science,” he said.

Lee also expressed his concerns in a message on his Facebook page.

“It is cause for serious concern that Kim Jeong-hun, someone who as a young man served as an officer on a US nuclear submarine and who until just a few days ago has lived as an American, has been nominated for Minister of Future Science and Creation, a position of responsibility for all the country’s science policy, and the future home of the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission,” he wrote.

“All the facts about Kim Jeong-hun need to be brought to light. Hopefully, he is not a black-haired American,” he continued, using a colloquial term for overseas Koreans who identify more with their adopted country.

 

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