South Korean Envoy Offers Resignation

South Korea’s ambassador to the United States, embroiled in a widening scandal over an alleged political slush fund involving conglomerate Samsung Group, has offered his resignation, the South Korean presidential office confirmed today.

Hong Seok-hyun, 55, has been under growing pressure to step down after a Korean television station reported last week on a wiretapped conversation in which Hong and a top Samsung executive allegedly discussed illegal contributions of $10 million to governing party candidate Lee Hoi-chang in South Korea’s 1997 presidential campaign.

According to the report, Hong discussed delivering bags of cash to Lee’s brother, and asked Samsung for more money. Hong also allegedly discussed a smaller contribution to opposition candidate Kim Dae-jung, who eventually won the vote.

At the time, Hong was publisher of JoongAng Ilbo, a major daily newspaper then partially owned by Samsung Group, one of South Korea’s most powerful family-owned conglomerates known as chaebol.

MBC-TV reported that the conversation between Hong and Lee Hak-soo, now vice chairman of Samsung Group, was secretly taped by the nation’s espionage agency.

Hong said his resignation, submitted Monday, was “to take responsibility for causing social confusion” in relation to the scandal, according to South Korean media reports.

The resignation is a setback for South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, who had named Hong to the post in December. A spokesman said today that Roh, expressing a sense of wistfulness, would decide whether to accept Hong’s resignation at the appropriate time.

Roh on Monday ordered the National Intelligence Service to conduct an in-house investigation into illegal wiretapping activities in the 1990s.

Officials at Samsung, the parent company of the globally known Samsung Electronics Co., have not acknowledged the authenticity of the tape recordings on which MBC-TV reported. But the company issued a statement Monday expressing “our sincere apology for causing social confusion.” A spokesman for Samsung Group declined to comment further today.

The controversy is a blow to Samsung Group’s recent efforts to present itself to Koreans as a conscientious and caring corporation, countering complaints from activist groups about the Samsung’s family ownership structure and its vast power in Korean society.

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Jinna Park of The Times’ Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.