A former CIA and White House intelligence analyst has been indicted on charges she worked as an influence agent for the South Korean government in exchange for luxury goods, designer handbags and expensive dinners at top restaurants. Photographs in the 31-page indictment show Sue Mi Terry receiving lavish gifts from South Korean intelligence officials. The country is one of Washington’s closest allies in Asia.
She also allegedly received $37,000 in secret payments for policy research programs she ran at think tanks.
From the CIA to the White House
Sharing a luxurious New York apartment with her husband Max Boot, a renowned columnist for Washington Postshe is free on $500,000 bail, awaiting trial.
Lee Wolosky, Terry’s attorney, said the allegations are “baseless” and “misrepresent the work of an academic and information analyst known for her independence and years of service to the United States.”
She arrived in the country with her mother at age 12 and earned a doctorate from Tufts University, where she joined the CIA. As a senior analyst on Korea issues, she produced hundreds of intelligence assessments from 2001 to 2008 under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. She then served in the White House as the National Security Council’s director for Korea and Japan. The indictment alleges that she began secretly collaborating with South Korea in 2013.
According to the lawsuit, Sue Mi Terry told a colleague that the Koreans had paid her to write an article for Foreign Affairs titled: “A Korea Whole and Free: Why Unifying the Peninsula Won’t Be So Bad After All.” Foreign Affairs is the most renowned American reference media on international relations and is published by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
The CFR, where she was a senior fellow, has terminated her collaboration. She is also accused of giving her South Korean case officer her notes on a meeting she had with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in 2022.
She used influential media
According to the indictment, Sue Mi Terry admitted that she was instructed by South Korea to collaborate with her husband, Max Boot, on an article that appeared in the Washington Post last year about Korea’s reconciliation with Japan. The article was reportedly written with information provided by the South Koreans. Boot has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
THE Washington Post has since placed an italicized warning above the online text that the co-author faces charges of having been in the service of Seoul, adding, “If true, the information would have influenced the decision to publish the Post.”
Sue Mi Terry had her connections in the think tanks and intelligence agencies of Washington, where she had been hovering for years. She is doubtless not the only one to act in this way, both to help “the old country” and for the lure of gain. This is the case, in particular, of several Americans of Chinese origin.
