By Kim Yon-se
Staff Reporter
President-elect Lee Myung-bak named seven senior presidential secretaries and the spokesman for Cheong Wa Dae, Sunday.
Among them, five are graduates of Ivy League universities, including Harvard, Pennsylvania, Cornell, while the other two are graduates of Vanderbilt and Michigan. The majority of them have an educational background in economics.
Except for the senior secretary for civil affairs, Lee excluded bureaucrats from the list. He favored graduates of his alama mater as two of the seven are graduates of Korea University and one is a professor there.
By age, two are in their 60s, two in the early 50s and four in their 40s. The majority of them have an academic background.
Lee said the appointees were ``the best of the best,'' adding, ``With me, they will do their best. I evaluate them as comparatively energetic figures.''
Rep. Bahk Jae-wan of the Grand National Party (GNP) was named as senior secretary for political affairs and Kim Choong-soo, president of Hallym University, as senior secretary for economic affairs.
Born in Masan, South Gyeongsang Province, in 1955, Bahk has served as an opposition lawmaker since 2004 after teaching political science at Sungkyunkwan University. He majored in economics at Seoul National University and public administration at Harvard.
The President-elect said he believes that Bahk will act as a bridge between the presidential office, the Cabinet and political parties.
Kim, 60, worked as president of the Korea Development Institute (KDI), a state-funded think tank, between 2002 and 2005 after serving as a presidential aide for economic policy in 1993. He was a key player in Korea's accession to the OECD in 1996.
He is respected for his knowledge and experience in macroeconomic policies, and is regarded as neutral on the issues of growth and redistribution.
Prof. Kim Byung-kook of Korea University was picked as senior presidential secretary for foreign and security affairs.
Kim, in his late 40s, has taught political science at the university since 1990 and is well known for his expertise on the United States. He has also served as director of the East Asia Institute, a non-governmental and non-profit entity founded with the goal of transforming East Asia into a society of nations based on democracy, the market economy, open societies and peace.
Some say Kim is one of the most appropriate figures to carry out Lee's willingness toward closer Korea-U.S. relations. But others criticize him for lacking experience in diplomatic and security affairs. He received a doctorate in political science from Harvard in 1988.
Park Mee-sok, a professor at Sookmyung Women's University, was named senior presidential secretary for social affairs.
Park, 49, has long had relations with the President-elect. She served as an aide after Lee was elected Seoul mayor and goes to the same church as him in Gangnam, southern Seoul.
President-elect Lee also selected Kwak Seung-jun, 47, an economics professor at Korea University, as his senior secretary for national policy planning.
Kwak, who was born in North Gyeongsang Province and graduated from the economics department of Korea University, served for then-Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak, nad has been one of the key architects of the President-elect's cross-country canal project.
Rep. Lee Joo-ho of the GNP was designated as senior presidential secretary for education, science and cultural affairs. He was born in Daegu in 1961.
Lee Jong-chan, a former chief of the Seoul High Court, was appointed as senior presidential secretary for civil affairs. The 61-year-old, who was born in Goseong, South Gyeongsang Province, has been working as a lawyer.
Lee Dong-kwan, 50, spokesman of the Presidential Transition Committee, was named spokesman of Cheong Wa Dae.
The spokesman, who served as an editorial writer for the Dong-A Ilbo newspaper before joining the Lee camp last year, will double as senior presidential secretary for public relations.