Anna Jiwon Park has been covering the politics at The Korea Times since the summer of 2024, when she joined the press pool for the Office of the President in Korea. Prior to that, she spent about five years reporting extensively on financial markets, regulatory authorities and the financial industry. She joined The Korea Times in 2019 after spending eight years as a broadcast journalist at Arirang TV, Korea’s leading global broadcaster, covering politics, defense and culture.
Is Korean American ex-CIA officer really secret agent for S. Korea?
Sue Mi Terry, a North Korea expert with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), speaks during the Jeju Forum held at the International Convention Center Jeju, May 29. Yonhap
By Anna J. Park
Leading scholar indicted by U.S. prosecutors for acting as unregistered agent for Seoul
Sue Mi Terry, a well-known North Korea specialist who previously worked at the CIA and the White House National Security Council, has been indicted by federal prosecutors in Manhattan on charges of working as an unregistered foreign agent for the South Korean government for more than a decade.
The 31-page indictment released Tuesday (local time) by a Manhattan federal court stated that Terry was advocating for South Korea's policy positions and disclosing nonpublic U.S. government information to South Korean intelligence officers since 2013, five years after she left the CIA.
In return, the indictment document said she received luxury goods, including a $2,845 Dolce & Gabbana coat, a $2,950 Bottega Veneta handbag and a $3,450 Louis Vuitton handbag, and more than $37,000 in funding for a public policy program on Korea affairs that she controlled.
"Despite engaging in extensive activities for and at the direction of ROK Government officials and notwithstanding her knowledge of the foreign-agent registration requirement, Terry never registered as a foreign agent with the Attorney General as required by law," the indictment reads.
The federal prosecutors' document went on to point out the two counts that she was charged with: failing to legally register as a foreign agent as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act and conspiring to violate the act.
Regarding the charges, Lee Wolosky, Terry's lawyer, said that the allegations are unfounded and she will fight the charges.
"The allegations are unfounded and distort the work of a scholar and news analyst known for her independence and years of service to the U.S. Dr. Terry has not held a security clearance for over a decade, and her views on matters relating to the Korean Peninsula have been consistent over many years. In fact, she was a harsh critic of the South Korean government during times this indictment alleges that she was acting on its behalf,” the lawyer said in a statement.
Sue Mi Terry, then director at Bower Group Asia, speaks on an Asia Society panel entitled "Crisis on the Peninsula: Implications for the U.S. - Korea Alliance" in New York, U.S., June 19, 2017. Reuters-Yonhap
As Terry has been such a leading security expert on matters relating to the Korean Peninsula, the news came as a shock to local diplomatic and international relations experts in Korea.
"Since she has been actively involved for such a long time, it's actually quite surprising. However, I think if the U.S. federal prosecutors decided to indict her, there must be some evidence. Based on previous cases that share some commonality with Terry's case, the U.S. would not have acted without evidence," a diplomatic expert told The Korea Times, on the condition of anonymity.
The expert added that if she had officially registered as a lobbyist in the U.S., her actions would have been fine. Yet in that case, the roles she previously held in the U.S. government and think tanks would not have been permitted.
Another international relations expert emphasized that one should take heed of the timing of the public release of the news. Sue Mi Terry's indictment document broke out just days after President Yoon and U.S. President Joe Biden jointly adopted the Nuclear Deterrence and Nuclear Operations on the Korean Peninsula on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington last week. Earlier this week, President Yoon boasted that South Korea's strengthened alliance with the U.S. has been elevated to a nuclear-based one.
"What we can infer from her indictment is that while the U.S. appears to reward South Korea with a political gift of a strengthened U.S.-South Korea alliance, it is also a clear attempt to distance itself from the interests of South Korea. This move should be seen as a signal of pressure for practical concessions from the South, specifically in matters like defense cost-sharing negotiations between the two countries," the international relations expert told The Korea Times on condition of anonymity.
"South Korea may mistakenly believe that aligning with the U.S. significantly bolsters American power, but in reality, Washington considers South Korea as a card that can be discarded at any time if there are greater stakes in the global chess game," the expert added.
Sue Mi Terry speaks before a documentary film screening related to North Korean defectors held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Seoul on Nov. 6, 2023. Yonhap
Born in Seoul and raised in Hawaii and Virginia, Terry's family moved to the U.S. when she was 12, and she became a naturalized U.S. citizen. She received her bachelor's degree in political science from New York University and a master's degree and doctorate in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
For decades, Terry has been a renowned expert on Korean Peninsula and East Asian affairs, as she held various leading positions at the U.S. government as well as major think tanks in Washington D.C. and New York.
Lately, she has been working as a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York. Previously, she served as a senior fellow with the Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies from 2017 to 2021. In 2021, she became director of the Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy at the Wilson Center in Washington D.C.
Meanwhile, Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) said Wednesday afternoon that the agency is closely communicating with its U.S. counterpart over the issue.