KISSINGER TESTIFIES HE TOLD JUSTICE OF KOREAN SCANDAL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R000600130011-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 18, 2004
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: April 21, 1978
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2004/05/21 : CIA-RDP81 M00980R00060013001 1 -0
WASHINGTON POST PAGE __-G/ DATE
A4
1
HENRY A. KISSINGER
"I turned over... a list of names"
Kissinger Testifies He Told
Justice of Korean Scandal
By Charles R. Babcock
Washington Post Stcff Writer
Former secretary of state Henry A.
Kissinger testified yesterday that it
wasn't until 1975 that he received U.S
intelligence reports that South Ko-
rean agents were "bribing" rather
than lobbying members of Congress.
Kissinger told a House Interna-
t.ioiial Relations subcommittee that he
told President Ford about the sensi-
tive new reports-apparently inter-
cepts from the super-secret National
Security Agency. They agreed, he
said, to overrule intelligence commu-
nity objections 'and turn the material
over to the Justice Department.
"Indeed this whole investigation
was started because I turned over to
the attorney general a list of names
we had," Kissinger said.
The subcommittee, headed by Rep.
Donald Fraser (D: Minn.), has been in-
vestigating why Nixon administration
officials failed to act on reports that
alleged South Korean agents, includ-
ing Washington businessman Tongsun
Park, were attempting to influence
members of Congress.
Kissinger said he could recall only
one of three top-secret, eyes-only mem-.
os FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
wrote to him in 1971 and 1972. when
he was President Nixon's national se-
curity affairs adviser, about CIA re-
ports of the South Korean lobbying
campaign.
Former attorney general John N.
_Mitchell testified last month that he,
too, recalled seeing only one of the
three Hoover memos.
Kissinger explained that he was
busy with higher priority foreign pol-
icy issues at the time, including the
Nixon administration's initiative on
relations with the People's Republic
of China. Besides, Kissinger said,
Mitchell's Justice Department, not his
office, had jurisdiction in such alleged
criminal matters.
Yesterday's appearance was Kis-
singer's first public explanation of his
knowledge of the Korean influence-
buying campaign. His testimony con-
flicted at times with that of others,
cited by Fraser, but he was treated
with deference by his interrogators
throughout the one-hour session.
Fraser did not ask him, for instance,
anything about Tongsun Park or Kim
Dong Jo, the former Korean ambassa-
dor who also has been accused of mak-
ing cash payments to members of Con-
gress. A subcommittee aide said later,
"It wouldn't have done any good. He
wouldn't have remembered,"
Kissinger told reporters after the
hearing that he didn't recall hearing
any such reports about Kim Dong Jo.
He declined to elaborate on his tes-
timony about the 1975 intelligence re-
ports that became the basis for the in-
itial Justice Department investigation,
except to say the source was not the
Korean presidential palace.
There have been demonstrations in
Korea in recent weeks over reports-
denied in Washington-that the
United States planted an electronic
"bug" in the residence. of President
Park Chung Hee.
During his testimony, Kissinger
said that Gen. Alexander M. Haig Jr.,,
his deputy on the National Security
Council. would have seen sensitive
communications like the ones from
~RIDG (CENTRE
Hoover. But Haig, now the NATO
commander in Europe, told the sub-
committee that he had seen none of
the Hoover memos.
Kissinger did recall, he said, getting
word of the Hoover memo that men-
tioned the "alleged bribery" of a
member of Congress. Since the mem-
ber, later identified as then-Rep. Cor-
nelius Gallagher (D-N.J.), was in-
dicted, "I assumed the Justice Depart-
ment was dealing with the matter,"
Kissinger said. Gallagher pleaded
guilty and served a prison term on an
unrelated tax evasion charge.
Kissinger testified, as Mitchell did
last month, that he would have re-
called a reference in another Hoover
memo that the Koreans had given sev-
eral hundred thousand dollars to the
Democratic Party. "I find it even
more inconceivable that Mr. Mitchell
would have done nothing about it," he
said.
Approved For Release 2004/05/21 : CIA-RDP81M00980R000600130011-0