later serve as Bush's national security advisor during the second vice presidential term,
and who would manage decisive parts of the Iran-contra operations from Bush's own
office. Gregg knew of an agent of the Korean CIA, Tongsun Park, who had for a number
of years been making large payments to members of Congress, above all to Democratic
members of the House of Representatives, in order to secure their suppport for legislation
that was of interest to Park Chung Hee, the South Korean leader. It was therefore a
simple matter to blow the lid off this story, causing a wave of hysteria among the literally
hundreds of members of Congress who had attended parties organized by Tongsun Park,
who had become the Perle Mesta of the 1970's when it came to entertaining
Congressional bigwigs. Tongsun Park also had a stable of call girls available, and could
provide other services. The US Ambassador to the Republic of Korea during this period
was Richard Sneider.
The Koreagate headlines began to appear a few days after Bush had taken over at
Langley. In February there was a story by Maxine Cheshire of the Washington Post
reporting that the Department of Justice was investigating Congressmen Bob Leggett and
Joseph Addabbo for allegedly accepting bribes from the Korean government. Both men
were linked to Suzi Park Thomson, who had been hosting parties of the Korean Embassy.
Later it turned out that Speaker of the House Carl Albert had kept Suzi Park Thomson on
his payroll for all of the six years that he had been Speaker. Congressmen Hanna,
Gallagher, Broomfield, Hugh Carey, and Lester Wolf were all implicated. The names of
Tip O'Neill, Brademas, and McFall also came up. The New York Times estimated that as
many as 115 Congressmen were involved.
In reality the number was much lower, but former Watergate Special Prosecutor Leon
Jaworski was brought back from Houston to become special prosecutor for this case as
well. This underlined the press line that "the Democrats' Watergate" had finally arrived. It
was embarrassing to the Bush CIA when Tongsun Park's official agency file disappeared
for several months, and finally tuned up shorn of key information on the CIA officers
who had been working most closely with Park. Eventually Congressman Hanna was
convicted and sent to jail, while Congressman Otto Passman of Louisiana was acquitted,
largely because he had had the presence of mind to secure a venue in his own state. A
number of other congressmen quit, and it is thought that the principal reason for the
decision by Democratic Speaker of the House Carl Albert to retire at the end of 1976 was
the fact that he had been touched by the breath of this scandal, which would go into the
chronicles as "Koreagate." With this, most of the Congress was brought to heel. We note
in passing that when George Bush takes a step up the ladder in Washington, the Speaker
of the House is likely to be ousted. Ask Jim Wright.
An interesting sidelight of Koreagate involves then Congressman Edward Derwinksi,
today Bush's Secretary of Veteran's Affairs. An article in the Wall Street Journal during
this period alleged that federal investigators suspected Derwinksi of informing the
Korean CIA that one of their officers was about to defect to the US for the purpose of
cooperating with the Koregate investigations. Derwinski denied the accusations, and he
was never prosecuted. [fn 38]