The indictment of Sue Mi Terry, former senior Korean analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency and member of the National Security Council (NSC) under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, was unsealed on July 15 and contained two charges pertaining to her acting on behalf of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and not having registered as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act from 2013 through at least June 2023.
The indictment of Sue Mi Terry is damning, as it contains alleged self-admissions from Terry herself as to her collaboration and cooperation with the ROK’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) in both Washington DC and New York. Terry’s efforts on behalf of the NIS are detailed, to include tasking given to her, her acceptance of the tasking, her successful accomplishment of the tasking and her receipt of goods, services and money from the NIS in exchange for completing her tasking.
From the eyes of an any intelligence officer worth their salt, she appears to have been a long term cooperative asset of the ROK NIS.
And yes, friendly nations, allies included have national interests and influencing U.S policy was of interest to the ROK.
Sue Mi Terry
She was born in Seoul, South Korea, raised in northern Virginia and at present, is a resident of New York City. She is a naturalized U.S. citizen. Taking data points from her bio published on the site of one of the many think tanks with which she was associated, she received her B.A. from New York University, her M.A. and Ph.D. in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Terry joined the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2001 as a senior analyst and per her bio, “produced hundreds of intelligence assessments, she would also go on to serve as the Director for Korea, Japan, and Oceanic Affairs at the NSC (2008-2009) and then as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council (2009-2010).
She worked or was affiliate with a plethora of independent think tanks, and universities.
These include:
- Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy at the Wilson Center from 2021 to 2023
- Senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (2010-2011)
- Senior fellow with the Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies from 2017 to 2021
- Managing director for Korea at Bower Group Asia – 2017-2021
- Senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute from 2011 to 2015.
- In addition, she was known to have taught at Tufts University, Georgetown University, the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, Seoul National University, and the University of Chicago, where she was a 2019 Pritzker Fellow at the Institute of Politics.
In addition, her bio indicates a number of books and videos on the subject of the Koreas, and having served as an MSNBC commentator. Furthermore, and this would provide one of the hooks to charging her under FARA, was her numerous instances of testifying before congress as a subject matter expert. Each time she was asked to testify, she was asked to file a “Truth in Testimony” document which asks if the witness (Terry) is an active registrant under FARA. She answered “NO” in every instance. Thus, per the indictment, “Terry portrayed herself as unbiased and independent, preventing Congress and the American public from fairly evaluating Terry’s testimony as the testimony of an agent of the ROK Government.”
Crimes and Remuneration
The indictment indicates that Terry had two consensual interviews with the FBI. The first occurred in November 2014 and the second on June 5, 2023.
The first interviewed followed an instance in 2014, which appears to have followed her having told a former government colleague that she had been hired by ROK to write an article which was published in the Foreign Affairs magazine, “A Korea Whole and Free -Why Unifying the Peninsula Won’t Be So Bad After All. The article identifies Terry as a former analyst with the CIA and a “senior research scholar” omitting the fact that the ROK had paid her to craft the piece.
During this first interview, she identified an ROK NIS officer as her contact. The special agents admonished her, “because of her status with the Korea policy expert community, the ROK NIS might try and approach her again, including by offering to covertly pay for conferences regarding Korea policy.” She responded, that “she was glad to have contact with the FBI should such a situation arise.
Well it did, and she didn’t and the FBI was surveilling her engagements with NIS, to including the handover from one NIS officer to another. Her third handler, was the Chief of Station at the NIS Station, Washington DC. The transition between handler two and three was filmed by the FBI where she was introduced to her new NIS handling officer.
Terry would go on to facilitate meetings with U.S. policymakers under the guise of receptions and conferences. One of the more blatant instances occurred on April 18, 2023, when she hosted a conference prior to the ROK president’s visit to the U.S. and meetings with President Biden. The video, readily available, shows Sue Mi Terry as the host of the “70 Years of the US-ROK Alliance: The Past and the Future” under the umbrella of the “Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ Korea Center and the Korean Association of International Studies (KAIS).” The keynote speaker was Edgard D. Kagan, Special Assistant to the President and Senior director for East Asia and Oceania at the NSC. The indictment reveals the ROK had reached out to Terry in an urgent manner in late-March and highlighted how the KAIS was going to hold an event pre-summit, but needed conference space. Terry went on to direct the staff at the Wilson Center to organize the event with KAIS. The event went off without a hitch, KAIS paid the Wilson Center $25,418.70 for expenses, Terry received $26,035, and no one new the true source of the funding – the government of the ROK.
Another instance occurred earlier, in 2019 when she arranged for the Director of NIS to meet with “current and former senior U.S. national security officials.” One former intelligence officer later would tell the FBI special agents, “he considered the meeting to be highly abnormal and could not think of another instance in which he was invited to a think tank to meet a current head of a foreign intelligence service.”
Terry resigns instead of being fired
At the June 5 interview, Terry admitted to the FBI Special agents, that “her conduct was bad.” And also admitted that following her departure from the CIA she was in regular contact with ROK NIS. That since August 2020 when she was handed over to her third handler, that she had met with him approximately 20 times.
More importantly, and perhaps the most damning, she acknowledged that “she was a ‘source” for the ROK NIS, meaning that she provided valuable information to the ROK intelligence service.”
She also revealed that, “she had resigned in lieu of termination from the CIA because the CIA had ‘problems’ with Terry’s contacts with ROK NIS officers.”
Terry’s cooperation with the ROK NIS has been splayed out for all to read and assess.
Her remuneration in dollars totaled approximately $37,000. She liked the lavish life, expensive restaurants, drinks at the exclusive bars and she made sure her NIS handlers gifted her the top-of-the-line fashion items to include Dolce & Gabbana coat ($2845), Bottega Veneta handbag ($2950), and Louis Vuitton handbag ($3450).
In exchange, she gave the government of the Republic of Korea, access to policy makers, and a voice hidden within her own.
Key take aways
Interests will always be more important than friendship. The dustup between the NIS and the FBI and the CIA no doubt occurred quietly, as the efforts of the NIS were revealed as the indictment went public. Perhaps NIS officers were sent back to Seoul and an apology received.
Yet, Terry’s actions also put at risk the reputation of the many organizations which she was associated, which she manipulated on behalf of the ROK and whose independent analysis, especially those which Terry had a hand, must be reevaluated, given her undeclared relationship with the ROK NIS.
It is not illegal to represent a foreign government in the United States, regardless of one’s prior employ. Indeed, many former diplomats, intelligence officers, government executives, and military personnel, as do a plethora of organizations. The active and historical FARA filings are maintained by the National Security Division of the Department of Justice and are available for perusal. As of July 17, there are 514 active registrations ranging from representing organizations such as the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan to six organizations associated with the Russian Federation.
What happens when one attempts to keep their relationship with a foreign government or individual associated with a foreign government secret while representing their interests, is what we see happen this week with Sue Mi Terry, they get prosecuted for failure to register as an agent of a foreign government.
