Lockheed Martin must answer allegations that its chairman met Choi Soon-sil, the central figure in the “anything-goes” scandal involving President Park Geun-hye, last June before the nation’s key decision on a U.S. missile interceptor system.
Rep. An Min-suk, a four-term lawmaker of the main Democratic Party of Korea, claimed the meeting between Choi and Lockheed Chairwoman, President and CEO Marillyn Hewson occurred one month before the Korea-U.S. decision to deploy Lockheed Martin’s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.
The lawmaker claimed what Choi has received so far ― tens of millions of dollars she extracted from chaebol with Park’s help ― would be “peanuts,” compared with commissions from the THAAD deployment.
He also argued that the American firm had paid for an “influential” person’s long-term stay in the U.S. without identifying the person. He backed his claim by referring to a big jump in Lockheed’s Korean sales since Park took office.
The U.S. defense contractor was selected to provide Korea with its 40 F-35 Lightning jets at 7.3 trillion won. The choice was controversial because it Boeing’s F-15 Silent Eagle was the only that allegedly met the purchase criteria, but the F-35 was chosen instead.
True, the U.S. government will pay for the battery and its operations, with Korea’s role limited to providing the real estate. Given the lawmaker’s logic, he could indicate that the firm paid or promised to pay her for facilitating the deployment despite strong popular protests, with her commissions to be taken later from a potential increase of Korea’s share in the two countries’ burden of sharing the costs of maintaining U.S. troops.
Lockheed Martin and its chairwoman have been mentioned by an anonymous source with credible credentials of having links with the central person in the corruption scandal that is rocking Korea to its foundations. Lockheed would be best advised to speak clearly or risk stoking these suspicions and harming the two countries’ alliance. We would like to believe that Lockheed has grown corruption-free since its lobbying scandals involving Japan, West Germany and the Netherlands in the 1950s to 1970s.