Office of Presidential Press Secretary Lee Don-kwan Suspected of Engaging in Retaliatory Psychological Warfare Against Monk Myungjin

Lee Dong-kwan (left), special advisor to the president for external cooperation, and Monk Myungjin. Kyunghyang Shinmun Archives

When Lee Dong-kwan, special advisor to the president for external cooperation and a strong candidate for the next chairman of the Korea Communications Commission, served as the Cheongwadae senior secretary for public relations, his office instructed the National Intelligence Service (NIS) to engage in online psychological warfare against Monk Myungjin (Apr. 19) around the time Lee reported the Buddhist monk for libel (Apr. 13) for arguing that Bongeunsa Temple received pressure from outside. The presidential press secretary’s office ordered the intelligence agency to spread news of Monk Myungjin’s personal wrongdoings online a few days after the monk disclosed Lee’s attempt to exert pressure on the Buddhist temple.

According to the investigation records of the illegal investigations conducted by the NIS in 2017-2018 that the Kyunghyang Shinmun obtained on June 29, A, who was the head of the NIS psychological warfare team in April 2010, said to the prosecutors, “I remember receiving a report from a Part One deputy director in the psychological warfare team, who told me that an agent dispatched to Cheongwadae (press secretary’s office) requested online psychological warfare. He mentioned that the (NIS) Bureaus 7 and 2 were working to expose misconduct, such as Myungjin’s visiting a ‘room salon,’ and asked the psychological warfare team to engage in an online operation against Myungjin as well.”

A explained, “Usually the NIS agent dispatched to Cheongwadae delivers requests from the presidential secretaries,” and said, “From what I know, ### who made the request, was a grade-4 or 5 at the time, and it doesn’t make sense that an official in that level would ask for psychological warfare activities on his own.” In other words, the instruction for the online psychological operation likely came from someone higher up in the press secretary’s office.

Lee Dong-kwan reported Monk Myungjin to the police for libel on April 13, 2010, six days before the instruction to engage in an online operation to manipulate public opinion. It was because the monk pointed at Lee as the person who blocked the press conference by Kim Yeong-guk, a member of the external relations commission in the Cultural Corps of Korean Buddhism at the time who planned to expose outside pressure on Bongeunsa Temple. This is why Lee is suspected of ordering online propaganda for personal retaliation as well as to remove a religious figure critical of the government. The psychological warfare team in the National Intelligence Service, which received instructions from the Cheongwadae press secretary’s office, oversees psychological warfare against North Korea.

According to the prosecutors’ investigation records, the NIS released an internal report titled, “Results after Considering Requests for Online Cooperation from Cheongwadae” on the day it received the instructions from the presidential press secretary’s office. The report states, “As for the information on Myungjin visiting a room salon and embezzling settlements, since the domestic part in our agency (NIS) is already spreading the news, we expect no problems in additional efforts to spread the news.” It suggested that since the intelligence agency was already spreading negative information on Monk Myungjin offline through conservative organizations, there should be no problem in spreading such news online.

The NIS psychological warfare team created negative public opinion on Monk Myungjin online and offline according to the instructions from Cheongwadae. In the court ruling on former NIS director Won Sei-hoon, the judges recognized the fact and said, “The online psychological warfare team engaged in online psychological operations posting about Myungjin visiting a room salon in Gangnam, the hosting of a Buddhist service on state affairs, and his career as the CEO of Minjok 21 on four major portals and Twitter.” The court also acknowledged that the Cheongwadae Office of the Senior Secretary for Civil Affairs ordered the NIS to investigate Monk Myungjin in January 2010, and from then until May that same year, the Office of the Senior Secretary for Public Relations and the Office of the Secretary for Planning and Management constantly instructed officials to check for any misconduct or weaknesses concerning Myungjin.

The NIS agents who conducted the online propaganda against the Buddhist monk confessed during the investigation that the instruction from the Cheongwadae press secretary’s office was inappropriate and did not fall in the scope of the psychological warfare team’s tasks. A told the prosecutors that the psychological warfare team’s key duty was to encourage change in the North Korean regime through propaganda against North Korea and stated, “In the Republic of Korea, a liberal democratic state, there is the freedom of expression. So, we cannot engage in oppression just because someone criticizes the president, and such activities are not part of the psychological warfare team’s tasks.”

When a prosecutor asked B from the public opinion team in the NIS office of strategy for national interest, if Monk Myungjin was involved in activities that supported North Korea, he said, “From what I know, he didn’t.” He further stated, “When it came to Monk Myungjin, there wasn’t any problem serious enough to charge him with violating the National Security Act. So, I think they pressured him by collecting and distributing information on personal wrongdoings, actions that were inappropriate for a religious figure.”