It all began with a letter from a self-styled Christian pastor. The sender of the registered mail to 1 Hyoja-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, named Choe Tae-min, was totally unknown to the addressee, Park Geun-hye.

The contents of the letter were not made public, but, judging from what transpired afterward, it must have carried very moving words to console the young lady who was grieving the death of her mother by an assassin’s bullet.

According to legend circulating in media circles, Choe claimed in his letter that the deceased first lady Yuk Young-su appeared in his dream and asked him to help Park become a leader of Korea and Asia. Another version was that Park had a dream the night before she received the letter, in which she was led by a light through darkness to a wise man who offered to help her out of her agony. (Kim Kyung-jae put the first version in the Kim Hyung-wook Memoirs he wrote for the former chief of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency.)

Anyway, the writer of the letter, then in his early 60s -- his six aliases, six daughters from six marriages and extensive criminal record still unknown -- was invited to the Blue House and eventually became a sort of mentor to the president’s daughter.

Madame Yuk was sorely missed by the people after the “Aug. 15, 1974 incident.” Even those who hated her husband for his dictatorial rule liked Yuk for her naturally modest airs in public and her elegant maternal smile. Park, then aged 24, had to cut short her study in the French city of Grenoble to play the role of first lady in place of her mother. She began a nationwide spiritual renewal movement along with Choe Tae-min.

Park had to cease her dependence on Choe following the death of her father Park Chung-hee, as the new strongman Chun Doo-hwan sequestered him in a remote place. Yet, she maintained contact with his family even after his death in 1994, though that relationship was costly. At all important junctures since she entered politics after 18 years in seclusion, the ghost of Choe Tae-min cast a dark shadow over Park Geun-hye, smudging her leadership image.

At one point, she even mentioned a DNA test to challenge the most malicious rumor that she had a secret lovechild with Choe. The names of Choe’s daughter, Sun-sil, her husband Jeong Yun-hoe and her daughter from a previous marriage dogged Park while her political career advanced rapidly. The liberal media, including internet news outlets and podcasts, led the probe into the Choe family, but conservative papers and their sister cable channels joined in the race to expose what they called the “real power behind the Blue House.”

Park made her own suggestion for the real powers in the presidential offices, jokingly pointing to her two pet dogs while having tea with leaders of the ruling Saenuri Party. Her austere lifestyle, even keeping her closest relatives away from her residence, brews so much speculation about who she relies on most on personal matters as well as some intriguing state affairs. Therefore, she might insist the role of her few associates is being disproportionately magnified in the eyes of the public.

But, what happened over the past few years involving the Choe family threw the nation into disgrace. As the Blue House failed to provide a full account of how the president responded to the tragic sinking of the Sewol ferry in April 2014, the nation’s ingenious rumor mills produced the name Jeong Yun-hoe as her companion during what they called “the lost seven hours.” A second version had it that the escort was Choe Sun-sil, who allegedly spent the time with the president in a massage shop.

Then it was reported that Jeong and Choe had just divorced with the mutual promise to not make public sensitive matters they became aware of during their eight years of marriage. This boosted speculation of a romantic relationship between the president and Jeong, her secretary from 1998-2007. Later in the year, an internal Blue House memo was leaked to a Seoul daily revealing that Jeong was regularly meeting presidential secretaries to advise on high-level appointments.

So it seemed that the Republic of Korea was in the hands of a divorced couple with the trust of the president. Several presidential secretaries were replaced and the Jeong turmoil barely died down helped by the emergence of new scandals, including those in the legal service. And then new controversies flared up over the establishment of two public service foundations each financed through a murky process.

The Mir and K-Sports Foundations were created in the space of a few months from late last year to promote Korean culture and sporting programs in global arenas. The willingness with which big businesses donated money to these organizations and the exceptionally short time it took to go through the required legal procedures to establish them led people to suspect influence from somewhere high up in the government.

Media muckrakers have uncovered enough facts to link the twin bodies to the presidential staff and then to Choe Sun-sil, by now confirmed as the closest confidant of the president. Chaebol executives hurriedly signed up billions of won for the two foundations upon calls from the Federation of Korean Industries apparently relaying a message from the Blue House. When the absurdities came to light, the boards of the foundations acted expeditiously to decide their respective abolition.

This happened in the democratic Republic of Korea in 2016, not in the 1970s when conglomerate owners sprinted to the Blue House with big chunks of their own slush funds to please or not to offend the dictatorial ruler. Choe Sun-sil will still have much work to do around the Blue House, if President Park does not regret her association with the Choe family for the past four decades.

As the 60-year-old Choe is spotlighted in the Mir and K-Sports episodes, the part of Jeong Yun-hoe in the mystery soap opera about the seven hours of April 12, 2014 appears unrealistic between the president and her loyal friend. It is much to the relief of many who had wanted to believe Park’s assertion that she had not seen Jeong since 2007.



Kim Myong-sik is a former editorial writer for The Korea Herald. He can be reached at kmyongsik@hanmail.net – Ed.