Lee Jong-seok, the new director of the National Intelligence Service, is a North Korea strategist and scholar who played key roles during the era of inter-Korean rapprochement in the early 2000s.
Taking the oath at the start of his confirmation hearing on June 19, Lee picked "building a peaceful and safe South Korea, founded on two pillars of cooperation and a strong military," as one of his priorities as the head of the country's top spy agency.
Lee said he saw it as his job to support the success of a "national interest-based, pragmatic diplomacy" -- the phrase that has come to define the new administration's foreign policy vision.
Speaking to The Korea Herald after his confirmation hearing, Lee said, "reducing inter-Korean tensions and restoring dialogue with North Korea" is the "demand of the people."
Lee previously served as unification minister and deputy secretary-general of the National Security Council under another liberal president, the late Roh Moo-hyun.
Rapprochement-era minister of unification
Lee was a key national strategist in the Roh administration. He was appointed Roh's minister of unification in February 2006 to oversee inter-Korean affairs, only to resign in December that year in the aftermath of North Korea's first nuclear test.
At the confirmation hearing, Lee was grilled over whether he thinks the broad economic assistance to North Korea, given over two liberal administrations under presidents Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung, was beneficial to the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
Lee said he believes economic aid to North Korea "had helped thaw strained ties," which was met by protests from opposition lawmakers who said that it had only funded Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs.
Lifetime North Korea scholar
Lee has been a scholar of North Korea for over 30 years, with his main area of concentration being the Workers' Party of Korea, the North's ruling party.
When Lee was not in public office, he served as a policy adviser to the unification and national defense ministries and worked at top research institutions in the country, including the Sejong Institute, where he was an emeritus senior fellow until his appointment. He was also a visiting professor at Beijing University in 2017-18.
At the confirmation hearing, Lee denied claims he is a "North Korea dove."
Calling himself a "pragmatist," Lee said he had not subscribed to any particular schools of thought or associated with particular factions when it comes to North Korea. "I have followed the principle of pragmatism throughout my professional life," he said.
Lee's public remarks from years back came under scrutiny at the confirmation hearing, including his reference to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as "someone who has the qualities of both a CEO and an absolute ruler," speaking at the Jeju Forum in June 2021.
When asked by an opposition lawmaker whether he considered the North Korean leader to be a dictator, Lee replied, "He is a dictator."
Lee was also asked to elaborate on his past remarks opposing the introduction of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system for defending against North Korean missiles, or the signing of the General Security of Military Information Agreement, the information sharing pact with Japan.
Lee said extra THAAD deployments required a "careful consideration of factors such as South Korea's national interests and the South Korea-US joint defense posture."
As for GSOMIA, Lee said that because the scheme is "already agreed upon and in place, it should be complied with."
13 trips to North Korea
According to records he submitted to the National Assembly, Lee has been to North Korea at least 13 times.
His first visit to Pyongyang was in June 2000 for the inter-Korean summit. In 2006, he visited North Korea five times as unification minister -- for a ministerial summit and other business -- including two site visits to the joint industrial park in Kaesong. His last trip to North Korea was in December 2018 for a ceremony marking the start of the construction of coastal railways connecting the North and South.
Six former spy chiefs of South Korea visited North Korea while they were in office, the latest one being Suh Hoon. Suh, who was the NIS director for former President Moon Jae-in, was part of the Seoul delegation for the 2018 inter-Korean summit.
Long history with President Lee
President Lee Jae Myung and his new spy chief go back a long way.
The two are believed to have first met around 2010 when the president had just been elected mayor of Seongnam. The NIS director worked for the president at his Seongnam mayoral office as well as his Gyeonggi Province gubernatorial office on inter-Korean projects.
The NIS director was a main player in the president's 2022 and 2025 campaigns.
arin@heraldcorp.com
