Fight Fire With Compassion

[struggle4progress]

<snip>
As C.I.A. station chief in Seoul from 1973 to 1975, I faced a personal choice of either keeping silent about egregious use of torture by South Korea's intelligence agency, or taking action against it. In August 1973, South Korean agents kidnapped Kim Dae Jung, the opposition political leader, from his Tokyo hotel room. When word of the kidnapping got out, anti-government riots broke out at Korean universities. The Korean spy agency arrested an American-educated Korean professor, accusing him of provoking riots at his university. The professor denied this assertion — which was false — and was tortured either to death or to the point where he jumped out a window to escape further pain.

When I learned what had happened, I reported it immediately to C.I.A. headquarters. I sent a follow-up message asking permission to protest the South Korean actions. My boss in Washington, a man who is now dead, replied: "Stop trying to save the Koreans from themselves. That is not your job. Just report the facts."

For the only time in my C.I.A. career, I disobeyed orders. I went to the chief bodyguard of President Park Chung Hee and told him that I found it difficult to work with the South Korean spy agency because it seemed more interested in stifling domestic dissent than in working against North Korea. I made clear that I was speaking personally, and that I had not been instructed to register a protest against their actions, of which the bodyguard was fully aware.

A week later, the powerful director of Korean intelligence was fired. He was replaced by a former justice minister, whose first action was to prohibit torture by the agency's officers.
<snip>

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/10/opinion/10GREG.html?th

[pocoloco]

1. Thank you, Don Gregg

for not remaining silent!