The Chaebols Are Back

Inside a hotel provided by the Iranian government.

"I have something to report to Your Majesty, so I'll make an international call here?"

Anything missed must be corrected immediately.

"yes."

"What is it?"

"International oil prices will soon rise due to an emergency situation."

"That's your analysis."

Special Envoy Lee Jae-gyu didn't seem to have liked me as I was a youngster. To this, he didn't like the phrase which the president had instructed Special Envoy Lee Jae-gyu to obey him.

"This is an analysis which even the President acknowledges."

"Hi, you mean His Majesty is speaking directly before you presently?"

Such a mood came along like early days when there existed differences of opinions between Lee Jae-gyu and Cha Ji-cheol.

'The Cha Ji-cheol I know.'"

He was a hotheaded and reckless rascal.

When he was a National Assembly member, he beat up so many opposition party members that Rep. Kim Du-han, seeing this, advised him to stop beating up helpless members of the National Assembly and take it out on him.

Of course, at the time, Cha Ji-cheol had nothing to say because the one who got on his nerves was Joseon's fist, Kim Du-han.

Cha Ji-cheol and Lee Jae-gyu were like best friends to the point that they hated each other.

'and!'

This is my subjective opinion.

Kim Du-han is nothing more than a political thug.

I just acknowledge that he has a good head and the capability to sense the times well. 

"sorry."

If this keeps going on, Special Envoy Lee Jae-gyu may think that I'm a person like Cha Ji-cheol.

I didn't want that to happen, so I talked softly to placate Jaegyu Lee.

"But there is something I must report."

"Hey, Lee Seong-su."

"Yes, sir."

"Don't you think you might be wiretapped?"

wiretapping?

"Seongsu, what you did at the airport must have been to show someone." "That's right." "If you thought that far, why didn't you think of wiretapping?"

"ah."

That's why youth who are spurred on only think about what they have to do and just advance." 

I used to believe that Special Envoy Lee Jae-gyu was merely an old fart, but he's actually a considerate old fart. 

"Your Majesty, you are right." 

"Really urgent?"

January 20th, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries abruptly increased world oil prices by some 10%, as I remember.

'There's only one week left.'

If it's urgent, then it's urgent.

"It's urgent."

"Then write it here."

"yes?"

"You and I aren't the only ones on this visit to Iran."

"Yes."

Special Envoy Lee Jae-gyu is going to report to the Blue House by sending staff to a location other than the hotel arranged by the Iranian government.

Advertisements

"Write it down."

"Yes, sir."

I wrote down what I believed precisely as Special Envoy Lee Jae-gyu had asked me to and gave it to him. Special Envoy Lee Jae-gyu was a bit taken aback when he read the contents.

"Logical. Is this why His Majesty wants to keep you by his side?"

It appears that people's assumptions about me are slightly changing.

'perhaps?'

I believe I have a bias due to my recollections of Special Envoy Lee Jae-gyu.

"But, Special Envoy."

"why?"

"Where will you take this news to the Blue House?"

"The US embassy in Iran would be safest."

"America cannot know."

"The United States is Korea's blood ally and best ally."

"I know it sounds presumptuous, but there are no permanent allies."

"Lee Seong-su."

The expression in his eyes shifted once more.

"Yes, sir."

"Before you enlisted, you were a student activist who preached anti-Americanism, weren't you?"

This is the point when Lee Seong-su's history comes to mind.

"There was a time when that happened."

Even if my soul is the chairman of Shinsung Group, Lee Seo-jin, my body is Lee Seong-su. That is why Lee Seong-su's past deeds are making me say this.

"Korea is nothing without America."

For a second, I couldn't help but consider one of the conspiracy theories that the United States was involved in assassinating the president.

'No way.'

But I wouldn't say for certain that it's not possible.

Because nothing has been unveiled.

* * *

The Blue House Presidential Office.

The Minister of Education stands in front of the President.

"Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, we will choose national support students among engineering students."

The president started to implement the job that Lee Sung-soo had proposed.

"Okay, then. And what did I instruct you to discover?"

"I believe the appropriate individual would be a professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and currently the director of the Theoretical Physics Research Group of the Fermi Accelerator Laboratory."

"What is your name?"

"My name is Lee Hee-so and I am from Gyeongbuk."

"We certainly need a teacher to guide the national scholarship students."

But Lee Hee-so?

The nuclear physicist of 'The Rose of Sharon Has Blossomed'?

Inevitability arrives like coincidence.

dripping!

Then someone knocked.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Chief of Staff to the President entered.

"dismissal."

The Chief of Staff to the President called in the President.

Advertisements

"What's going on?"

A telegram from Special Envoy Lee Jae-gyu has arrived from Iran."

"What is it?"

"Here it is."

The President's Chief of Staff handed the telegram to the President politely, and the President read it slowly.

"Isn't Chairman Kim Byung-chul the head of a company that has close connections with the Japanese business circle?"

"yes?"

"Bring him to the Blue House. He owes me something too."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Chairman Kim Byung-chul owes the president?

When Chairman Kim Byung-chul's second son reported his father's corruption to the Blue House, the president closed his eyes to the corruption and made the contents of the report public to the president.

"Yes, if international oil prices increase, international shipping rates will naturally increase."

Lee Seong-su was a president who could not help but be more to my liking.

* * *

Office of the Director of the CIA.

"This is the text of a cable sent to Korea by the Korean President's special envoy's aide from the U.S. Embassy in Iran."

In spite of Lee Seong-su's coaxing, Special Envoy Lee Jae-gyu dispatched the telegram drafted by Lee Seong-su to Korea via the U.S. Embassy in Iran.

Of course, the information was delivered to the American CIA.

"International oil prices will go up, so international shipping rates will go up as well?"

"That is the entire text."

"So, the $500 million grant that the home country was to offer is being utilized in purchasing oil."

The US had anticipated this because the South Korean president had sent a special envoy to Iran.

"That is the sole reason why the special envoy of the Korean president visited Iran unofficially, a nation with which we have no diplomatic relations."

"Then the individual who insisted we purchase oil using a loan of 500 million won must be Special Envoy Lee Jae-gyu."

"yes?"

"I sent you a telegram stating that international shipping rates will increase."

It was the CIA director who suddenly mistakenly assumed that the work being done by Lee Sung-soo was being done by Lee Jae-gyu.

"What about Lee Jae-gyu?"

"I am a retired military man."

There's another soldier in Korea who's crazy."

There's more?

I believe it's referring to the President of South Korea.

"Find out the facts about the individual named Lee Jae-gyu and report back."

* * *

January 14, 1973, the Shah of Iran's office.

'The King of Iran is really ignoring Korea.'

why?

Because the President's special envoy is still residing in a hotel arranged by the Iranian government like a rotten date palm.

[What are those large-nosed things saying nowadays?]

As the Iranian government official visited the hotel and asked me to follow him, Special Envoy Lee Jae-gyu was unable to suppress his enthusiasm.

[The Shah of Iran has only granted me an audience.] [This is how you treat a special envoy? This is a diplomatic blunder, a blunder, how the Shah of Iran treats Korea so unimportantly, damn it!] [Special Envoy.] [Why?] [Korea is objectively unimportant.] [What?] [Everyone is doing their best to change that.] [So you want me to remain here?]

Then I sensed that Special Envoy Lee Jae-gyu was staring at me like Cha Ji-cheol.

[It is the King of Iran's will.] [You naughty thing.]

I don't know why I am so presumptuous to you.

'One thing is for sure.'

It is the first time that a rival-like thing has come.

Light orange is the color symbolizing Special Envoy Lee Jae-gyu.

Anyway, it is like this.

Advertisements

I saw the Shah of Iran stare at me with peaceful eyes.

[Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi]

-Occupation: Emperor of Iran.

-Ability: Average.

-Special Notes: After he was exiled as an unsuccessful monarch of a destroyed country, he passed away in Egypt.

When I encountered the King of Iran, his personal information seemed transparent.

'Death after exile.'

This is how it is now after the revolution. And within this office, the Iranian Shah's chief of staff and the Iranian government's prime minister are staring at me.

'The King of Iran is light green.'

I suppose the significance of that green is interest in me.

'What's important is.'

He is the Prime Minister of the Iranian government.

'It's marked in red.'

His idiosyncrasies were very refreshing.

-Special Note: A loser of vain ambitions?

How would one interpret this sentence?

'Yes, this Prime Minister is also of royal stock.'

To be precise, he is a prince.

So what is the ambition of the prince?

Of course he will be king.

On that account, the Iranian king has an adversary beside him.

So I need to think how I can utilize this opportunity.

"Why did a young diplomat from a nation like Korea visit Iran?"

The King of Iran asked me through an interpreter.

Iranians are nearer to white.

In other words, they are Persian, not Arab. Therefore, if you question an Iranian person whether he or she is Arab, he or she will be rude and act angrily.

"Inshallah."

Inshallah?

This is Allah's will.

The correct meaning is, "Let Allah's will be done."

"Inshallah?"

The Iranian king stared dumbfounded at my words.

That is why they do such faces when I, a pagan, say Allah, their sole god.

Actually, referring to Allah at all times is considered blasphemy.

'The King of Iran is a secular Muslim.'

Thus by granting the right to vote to women, he defied traditional Shiite clerics.

"Isn't everything that happens in this world God's will?"

In a sense, in the Middle East, 'Inshallah' is the justification for everything.

It is, "Let Allah's will be done," and if you are even late for a meeting, you just say "Inshall" and you are done.

"Is it the will of the great Allah that the young diplomat is presenting himself to me?"

The King of Iran talked to me and laughed.

A traditional fundamentalist Shiite religious authority would not giggle like this when referring to Allah.

'Somehow or other, the King of Iran.'

He will be a reformist king.

Of course, he was a failed reform king.

So his ability display will be average.

Advertisements

Actually, it's lucky that he's not incompetent.