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What the people are most curious about in the 386er spy scandal is how far the tentacles reached. Bluntly speaking, is Cheong Wa Dae safe? The investigation into the spy scandal must produce a transparent result convincing a majority of Koreans that the ex-student activists of the so-called 386 generation now working at the presidential office are free of any suspicion and that they have ferreted out every last mole and collaborator. Otherwise, the spy scandal would remain unfinished business.
Chang Min-ho, the head of the spy ring dubbed Ilshimhoe, is not simply another overseas Korean suspected of being a spy. Since entering the country in 1993 immediately after joining North Korea's Workers' Party, Chang formed lines of personal contact while working as a department manager at what is now the Korea IT Industry Promotion Agency under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. He then cemented his foothold as a successful businessman in the IT industry serving, among others, as president of Game TV. He was so firmly established that he was among the list of some 300 people the ruling camp under the Kim Dae-jung administration considered for recruitment ahead of the 2000 presidential election. Last year, he became the CEO of a firm in which the second largest shareholder of a major terrestrial broadcaster invested. He secured enough contacts and clout to meet anybody he wanted to. No wonder 386er clustered around him, and that some of them were absorbed into his organization.
North Korea pestered him to report trends in Seoul¡¯s North Korea and U.S. policies, the moves of opposition presidential candidates and the plans of major political parties. Would a person who had established such status and who was under a constant barrage of orders from North Korea content himself with hanging around the minor opposition Democratic Labor Party, on the periphery of the political arena? His final target must have been Chong Wa Dae, the node where all the information in the country is gathered, and where those who handle the information are connected to him through the link of student activism. That must also be the final target of the investigation.
Is Kim Man-bok, the newly-nominated National Intelligence Service director, fully qualified to handle the task? What he thinks will from now on determine how the investigation proceeds. NIS Director Kim Seung-kyu publicly hinted that the incoming director should not succeed him. Pundits mention Kim Man-bok¡¯s ideological closeness to Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok and his personal ties with 386ers in Cheong Wa Dae. The incoming NIS director should know that history is watching every step he takes.
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