[The Fountain] The weight of a memoir

Recently, a former prosecutor’s memoir is reigniting an old controversy.

SHIM SAE-ROMThe author is a communication team reporter of the JoongAng Holdings. A memoir often causes social stir as it discloses secret stories. A notable example is the allegation of “taking 4 billion won [$3 million] for the three-party merger,” which was raised by former lawmaker Park Chul-un in 2005. The title of the memoir was “Testimony for the Right History – Secret Political Stories from the Fifth Republic, the Sixth Republic and the Three Kims Era.”

Former Rep. Park revealed that former president Kim Young-sam received over 4 billion won in political funds from then-president Roh Tae-woo around the merger of the three parties in January 1990. The former president said it was the first time he’d ever heard of such a claim, calling it “political slander.”

The memoir published in 2016 by former foreign minister Song Min-soon, titled “The Iceberg is Moving,” was also controversial. In 2007, during the Roh Moo-hyun administration, Korea abstained from voting on the UN resolution on North Korean human rights, and Song claimed that there had been prior communication with North Korea.

He wrote, “National Intelligence Service Chief Kim Man-bok suggested, ‘Let’s ask North Korea first,’ and then presidential chief of staff Moon Jae-in sought advice from me.”

Ahead of the presidential election in the following year, the political scene was turned upside down. As a candidate in 2007, Moon Jae-in said in an interview that Song’s claim was fundamentally flawed.

Recently, a former prosecutor’s memoir is reigniting an old controversy. Lee In-gyu, who had served as head of the Central Investigation Department of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, published his memoir titled “I Was a Prosecutor of the Republic of Korea,” in which he claimed that all bribery charges related to the late former President Roh Moo-hyun’s “Park Yeon-cha Gate” were true.

This is not the first time that lawyer Lee, who resigned shortly after former President Roh’s suicide, made such claims. But the opposition Democratic Party (DP) is outraged. Rhyu Si-min, former board chair of the Roh Moo-hyun Foundation, criticized in a YouTube broadcast, “Lee is similar to Park Yeon-jin, the villain in the drama ‘The Glory’.” Rhyu added, “The book is not even worthy of a review.”

It is noteworthy that even the prosecution, where Lee is from, also finds the memoir uncomfortable. “Is it appropriate for an individual to publish the truth of a historical investigation?” asked a former head of the High Prosecutors’ Office who worked in the same Central Investigation Department. He added that the unwritten iron rule of the special investigation prosecutors is only to speak through investigation.

A recollection to open the door to the truth may be necessary. But it could be better not to forget George Orwell’s famous words. “An autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.”