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Reception
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Lee Soogeun was the vice-president of North Korean Central News Agency. He was ordered by Lee Hyosun, North Korean Communist Party official in charge of anti-South maneuvering to falsely defect to the South. He did as ordered on March 22, 1967 when he was at Panmunjom covering a story on the Military Armistice Commission. As soon as the commission is completed at around 5 pm, he jumped onto the car of Brigadier General Van Claft, the UN representative to the meeting.
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The Korean government welcomed him heartedly for he was a leading journalist in the North and elite. He was given with a house and the settlement allowances, and even arranged a marriage by the Korean government in their efforts to help him settled in the South.
He pretended to disclose the situation in the North through a nationwide lecture session and TV and radio appearances, but in fact was gathering various confidential information of the South for the North. He tried to have his niece Bae Kyongok to transfer the secret information that he accumulated to North Korea through the Soviet. Suspecting his behavior, the South Korean intelligence agency started to have a keen watchful eye on him. He found out that he could not stay in the South any longer, he escaped the country with a false passport with his niece to Hong Kong, Bangkok and finally to the Ho Chi Minh City . There, he was captured by the South Korean intelligent agents and sent back to Seoul on a military aircraft. He was then tried and put to an execution on July 3m 1969.
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