THE SEOUL BROTHER

The freehanded Korean businessman had fled, the party-giving Oriental beauty was testifying to a federal grand jury, and a bipartisan clutch of Congressmen were nervous about Washington's latest payola scandal.

The FBI, the Justice Department and the State Department are investigating alleged payments, running into six figures, by South Korean agents to at least a score of present and past Congressmen. One investigator told TIME that the affair could be "horrendous," possibly involving "bribery, income tax evasion, espionage and misuse of national security information."

The principal figure in the case, which was first reported by the Washington Post, is Tongsun Park, a wealthy Korean rice broker renowned in Washington as a lavish entertainer and Seoul brother of lofty U.S. politicians. In December 1973 Park was co-host of a party for Democratic House Majority Leader Tip O'Neill at the George Town Club. Among the guests: Gerald Ford, who was then Vice President.

Park was almost late for his own party. Shortly before, U.S. customs officials at Anchorage had stopped him as he was en route to Washington from Korea, and they copied his papers. The material included a three-page typewritten list of more than 90 legislators and federal officials, some of whom had figures with dollar signs written next to their names. The tip-off on Park may have come from CIA telephone taps and electronic bugs in South Korea--the disclosure of which may now be embarrassing to the U.S. Government. Park said the sums represented requests for campaign contributions, although some of the job holders on his list were not elected to office.

Investigators believe Tongsun Park used commissions that he received as the intermediary between the Korean government and U.S. suppliers of federally subsidized rice to buy influence on Capitol Hill for South Korean Dictator Park Chung Hee.

Democrat Edwin Edwards, a former Congressman who is Governor of Louisiana, acknowledged that in 1971 his wife Elaine had taken an envelope containing $10,000 in cash as a "gift" from Tongsun Park. Democratic Congressman John Brademus of Indiana says he received $4,700 in campaign contributions from him in 1972 and 1974. Investigators are looking into the possible involvement of other Congressmen, including Democrats Otto Passman of Louisiana (the recently defeated head of the House committee that handles foreign aid), Robert Leggett of California, Joseph Addabbo of New York and Republican William Broomfield of Michigan. They are also examining Park's association with at least two former Congressmen: Cornelius Gallagher of New Jersey and Richard Hanna of California.

Before he hastily decamped for Korea, Park admitted to an associate that he gave up to $10,000 each to some Congressmen because "he liked them." Denying any formal ties to the South Korean government, Tongsun Park also told associates, "I'm not an agent, but that Suzi Thomson--there's an agent if I ever saw one."

Korean-born Suzi, a naturalized American, is a comely divorcee of 45 who for the past ten years has been a congressional "liaison" aide for retiring House Speaker Carl Albert. On her $ 15,000 salary, she managed to give many elegant and intimate parties that brought together Capitol Hill dignitaries, journalists, attractive Korean women and agents of the Korean CIA. In September a federal grant of immunity apparently forced a reluctant Suzi to talk to the grand jury about herself, Tongsun Park and the South Korean regime. The Justice Department has subpoenaed the bank records of the Korean embassy and its attaches to learn whether and to whom Korean CIA agents and diplomats, besides Tongsun Park, distributed money. And the probe goes on.

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