The court decision last month on Lee Soo-geun, whose name in South Korea was synonymous to “double spy,” and the recent case of a Jordanian double agent who murdered seven CIA officers, as well as the popularity of KBS hit spy drama Iris, generated a great deal of public interest on the veiled life of a double spy, according to Chosun Ilbo Saturday.
Lee, a former North Korean senior cadre with the state’s propaganda outlet, the Korean Central News Agency, defected to the South in 1967. Five months later, the South Korean spy agency recruited him as its own agent.
When Lee attempted to flee to a third country, the South’s spy agency nabbed him, charging him a double spy and executed him. Lee’s niece was also imprisoned for over 20 years on charges of helping the North Korean spy.
Last month, a South Korean court ordered the government to pay 6.8 billion won in damages to her for false charges.
“Intelligence officials forced Bae into making a false confession,” the court said in the ruling at that time.
In Korea, the “golden period” for spies was during the Three Kingdoms period (57 BCE to 668 ACE). One of them, Koguryo, for example, used Buddhist monks such as Doryom, to spy on its rival countries.
The popularity of the TV series, Iris, also led to making the movie, “Double Spy,” which is currently on movie theaters across the nation. The protagonist works for the South Korean spy agency, but actually provides information to North Korea. In the end, he is abandoned by both, the plot goes.
The TV drama, Iris, also had a North Korean mole who works for South Korean presidential office.
The article didn’t say about the social impact of such dramatized spy actions. The two rival Koreas used dramas and movies to raise the public’s mental alertness against each other.
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