Tongsun Park, Lobbyist Scarred by Koreagate Scandal, Dies at 89

An amiable Korean-born graduate of Georgetown University, he was imprisoned after a second scandal involving the U.N.

Listen to this article · 7:29 min Learn more

Share full article

The lobbyist Tongsun Park after testifying before the House Ethics Committee in March 1978. Implicated in an influence-buying scheme, he said he thought he was “taking part in the American political process.”

Tongsun Park, an urbane, amiable international lobbyist who stood at the center of two bribery scandals separated by nearly 30 years, and who was once a Gatsby-like figure in Washington whose flamboyant parties were attended by lawmakers, officials and the occasional Hollywood celebrity, died on Thursday in Seoul. He was 89.

His death was reported by Yonhap News, South Korea’s major news service, which said he had been admitted to a hospital about a week earlier with an unspecified chronic illness.

Mr. Park, a Korean-born graduate of Georgetown University, leveraged a family fortune and an easy gregariousness to seduce the power brokers of Capitol Hill in the 1970s.

All along, in secret, he was working for the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. Besides giving lavish parties, he gave out some $850,000 to dozens of members of Congress, often in white envelopes, in an influence-buying scheme known, perhaps inevitably, as Koreagate.

“I thought I was taking part in the American political process,” Mr. Park told the House Ethics Committee in 1978.

ImageMr. Park was sworn in before appearing again before the House Ethics Committee in April 1978.Credit…United Press International

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.