Tongsun Park | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1935 (age 88–89) |
| Nationality | South Korean |
| Tongsun Park | |
| Hangul | 박동선 |
|---|---|
| Hanja | |
| Revised Romanization | Park Dongseon |
| McCune–Reischauer | Park Tongsŏn |
Tongsun Park (born 1935) is a former South Korean lobbyist. He was involved in two political money-related scandals:Koreagate scandal in the 1970s,and the Oil-for-Food Program scandal of the 2000s. Park had a reputation as the "Asian Great Gatsby". [1]
In 1976,Park was charged with bribing members of the U.S. Congress,using money from the South Korean government,in a successful effort to convince the United States government to keep U.S. troops in South Korea. In 1977,he was indicted by a U.S. District Court on thirty-six counts,including bribery,illegal campaign contributions,mail fraud,racketeering,and failure to register as an agent of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. He avoided a federal trial by testifying to the court in exchange for immunity. His testimony did not have a major impact,though it led to three members of Congress getting reprimanded,and may have convinced Speaker of the House Carl Albert not to seek re-election. One of the implicated former representatives,Otto Passman of Louisiana's 5th congressional district around Monroe,was charged with conspiracy,bribery,acceptance of an illegal gratuity,and income tax evasion. When his trial was moved from Washington,D.C.,to Monroe,Passman was quickly acquitted.
In 1992,Park was approached by Samir Vincent,an Iraqi-born American who was lobbying unofficially on behalf of the Saddam Hussein regime,to try to create a program that would bypass the United Nations-approved economic sanctions of Iraq that had started in 1991. Park agreed,requesting a payment of US$10 million for his effort,to which Vincent agreed. Park served as a liaison between Vincent and then-United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali,with whom Park was friendly. In late 1996,partly as a result of Park's lobbying efforts,the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program began. After 1997,when Kofi Annan became the new secretary-general,the government of Iraq dropped its ties with Park,but by then Park had received about US$2 million in payments.
In 2005 Park was accused of acting as an intermediary with corrupt United Nations officials in the oil-for-food conspiracy orchestrated by Saddam Hussein. His name surfaced as part of investigations into the Oil-for-Food scandal. In July 2006 he was convicted in a U.S. federal court on conspiracy charges. [2] He became the first person convicted through the oil-for-food investigation. On February 22,2007,he was sentenced to five years in prison. He also was fined $15,000 and required to forfeit $1,200,000. [3] According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons Website,he was released from prison on September 10,2008. The next day,he left the United States for South Korea. [4]
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In 1966, he founded The Georgetown Club at 1530 Wisconsin Ave NW. He was known for throwing parties in his social club which is now turned into a private restaurant. [5] By the 1970s, his wealth of expensive homes, worldwide jet travel and a consulting firm (Parkington International Inc.) grew his influence among his connections and friends. [6]
Saddam Hussein was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 to 2003. He also served as prime minister of Iraq from 1979 to 1991 and later from 1994 to 2003. He was a leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and later its Iraqi regional branch. Ideologically, he espoused Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, while the policies and political ideas he championed are collectively known as Saddamism.
The Subcommittee on International Organizations of the Committee on International Relations was a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives which met in 1976 and 1977 and conducted an investigation into the "Koreagate" scandal. It was chaired by Representative Donald M. Fraser of Minnesota. The committee's 447-page report, made public on November 29, 1977, reported on plans by the National Intelligence Service (KCIA) to manipulate American institutions to the advantage of South Korean government policies, overtly and covertly.
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The Oil-for-Food Programme (OIP) was established by the United Nations in 1995 to allow Iraq to sell oil on the world market in exchange for food, medicine, and other humanitarian needs for ordinary Iraqi citizens without allowing Iraq to boost its military capabilities.
The Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf (CPSG), formed in 1990 to support president George H. W. Bush’s campaign to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, was a bipartisan group whose members were active in U.S. foreign-policy circles. “The 39-member group…[included] former U.S. Rep. Stephen Solarz of New York, who was a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Richard Perle, a former assistant defense secretary for international security policy.”
John Vincent Weber is an American politician, lobbyist and former Republican Congressman from Minnesota.
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Jack Allan Abramoff is an American lobbyist, businessman, film producer, and writer. He was at the center of an extensive corruption investigation led by Earl Devaney that resulted in his conviction and 21 other people either pleading guilty or being found guilty, including White House officials J. Steven Griles and David Safavian, U.S. Representative Bob Ney, and nine other lobbyists and congressional aides.
"Koreagate" was an American political scandal in 1976 involving South Korean political figures seeking influence from 10 Democratic members of Congress. The scandal involved the uncovering of evidence that the Korea Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) was allegedly funneling bribes and favors through South Korean businessman Tongsun Park in an attempt to gain favor and influence in American politics. Reversing Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter's pledge to withdraw American military forces from South Korea is thought to have been one of their primary objectives.
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The Iraqi Perspectives Project is a research effort conducted by United States Joint Forces Command, focusing on Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Gifts of Deceit: Sun Myung Moon, Tongsun Park, and the Korean Scandal is a 1980 non-fiction book on Koreagate and the Fraser Committee, a congressional subcommittee which investigated South Korean influence in the United States by the KCIA and the Unification movement, written by Robert Boettcher, with Gordon L. Freedman. Freedman had served on the U.S. Senate Watergate Committee staff and had been a producer for ABC News 20/20 prior to his service on the subcommittee.
Richard Thomas Hanna was a U.S. Representative from California. He became involved in a scandal dubbed Koreagate by accepting bribes from a businessman working for the South Korean government. He was found guilty, resigned his seat, and served one year in prison.
Oscar Sherman Wyatt Jr. is an American businessman and self made millionaire. He was the founder of Coastal Corporation and a decorated bomber pilot in World War II. In 2007 the U.S. federal court in Manhattan tried him for illegally sending payments to Iraq under the Oil-for-Food Program.
The Oil-for-Food Program Hearings were held by the U.S Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations beginning in 2004 to investigate abuses of the United Nations (UN) Oil-for-Food Programme in which the economically sanctioned country of Iraq was intended to be able to sell limited amounts of oil in exchange for vital food and medicine for its population.
Samir Vincent also known as Samir Ambrose Vincent is an ethnic Assyrian Iraqi American that pleaded guilty in January 2005 to being an illegal agent for Saddam Hussein's government and helping to skim money from the Oil-for-Food Programme which earned him millions of dollars in the process.
The AWB oil-for-wheat scandal refers to the payment of kickbacks to the regime of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in contravention of the United Nations Oil-for-Food Humanitarian Programme. AWB Limited is a major grain marketing organisation based in Australia. For much of the 20th and early 21st century, it was an Australian Government entity operating a single desk regime over Australian wheat, meaning it had the sole ability to export Australian wheat, which it paid a single, fixed price for. In the mid-2000s, it was found to have been, through middlemen, paying kickbacks to the regime of Saddam Hussein, in exchange for lucrative wheat contracts. This was in direct contradiction of United Nations Sanctions, and of Australian law.
Otto Ernest Passman was an American politician who served in the United States House of Representatives for Louisiana's 5th congressional district from 1947 until 1977. As a congressman, Passman chaired the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Aid where he was a well-known opponent of foreign aid spending.
Grover Connell was an American businessman and a trader of rice and sugar whose company was once the world's largest independently owned rice trader and accounted for 20% of U.S. rice exports. He was a member of the Forbes 400.
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