hankyoreh

Samsung brothers Lee Chang-hee

By Kim Jin-cheol, staff writer

One night in mid-September 1984, Lee Maeng-hee, eldest son of Samsung chairman Lee Byung-chull, clenched his teeth at his father’s beachfront villa in Busan’s prestigious Haeundae district. At last, two men entered the room. “We’re from the Samsung secretarial office.” Lee Maeng-hee pulled the trigger and shot a Browning six-shooter shotgun into the air. The two men fled.

“Lee Maeng-hee, Prince Sado of Samsung,” recently published by Pyeongminsa, begins like a novel. In fact, the book is a work of non-fiction by 72-year-old Lee Yong-u. Prince Sado was the second son of Joseon Dynasty King Yeongjo. He was rumored to be mentally ill and was eventually killed by members of his father’s inner circle.

The author, as Daegu correspondent for the JoongAng Daily newspaper, formerly a Samsung subsidiary, closely observed Lee Maeng-hee. “I wrote the book because a lot of wrong things were being said about Mr. Lee,” the author told the Hankyoreh on Tuesday. He explained the book’s opening scene by saying, “There have been attempts to isolate Mr. Lee by branding him as mentally ill.”

The author makes three main assertions in the book. The first of these is concerned with the reason for Lee’s split with his father, Lee Byung-chull. In 1967, when his father retired as chairman, Lee Maeng-hee entered management, where he worked for seven years. “There was a conspiracy on the part of those close to Lee Byung-chull and opposed to Lee Maeng-hee’s self-righteous management style as head [of Samsung],” wrote Lee Yong-u. The author claims that dissatisfaction on the part of Samsung’s founders was conveyed to Chairman Lee in distorted form, exacerbating the conflict between him and his eldest son.

“A rumor also went around that this was due to a conspiracy concocted by close confidants of Lee Byung-chull such as JoongAng Daily chairman Hong Jin-gi, who wanted to put youngest son [Lee] Kun-hee on the throne,” the author wrote. Hong was Kun-hee’s father-in-law. “[The Samsung secretarial office] even used JoongAng Daily reporters as spies, garnering the JoongAng Daily the popular nickname ‘SCIA’ [Samsung Central Intelligence Agency]. In other words, Lee Maeng-hee failed, as eldest son, to succeed his father as chairman because of figures around the founding chairman.

Lee Yong-u also refuted the claim that Cheil Jedang was inherited by CJ. On April 17, Chairman Lee Kun-hee said, "Division of assets was completed under former chairman [Lee Byung-chull]. Each person has some of the [divided] money, including CJ." This meant that the inheritance process was complete, and that the inheritance lawsuit filed by Lee Maeng-hee was wrong. Lee Yong-u, however, pointed out that what had taken place was not inheritance, but an exchange of stakes in Cheil Jedang and Anguk Hwajae Insurance when CJ legally spun off from the Samsung Group.

Anguk Hwajae was acquired by Samsung Group in 1958; a 19.6% stake in it was held by Lee Maeng-hee’s wife and CJ advisor Son Bok-nam. This was swapped in 1993 for Lee Kun-hee’s stake in Cheil Jedang. At this time, Cheil Jedang spun off from Samsung, while Anguk Hwajae underwent a change of name to Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance. "It’s incorrect to call the swap of stakes in Anguk Hwajae and Cheil Jedang inheritance," said one high-ranking CJ official. A Samsung official, on the other hand, explained, "Chairman Lee Byung-chull distributed assets to Advisor Son following the acquisition of Anguk Hwajae."

Lee Yong-u also claimed that Lee Kun-hee controlled the cultural items acquired by his father. These include designated national treasures such as a Goryeo era celadon porcelain kettle in the shape of a lotus blossom and a solid gold Gaya era crown. The author wrote, "The general view is that these cultural properties are cultural heritage items that were donated by Chairman Lee Byung-chull to Samsung Foundation of Culture and belong to the public." The siblings in the Samsung family say, ‘Our father never bequeathed them personally to Kun-hee,’ but they are registered on Lee Kun-hee’s list of personal assets and have been moved from Ho-Am Art Museum in Yongin to Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, a new museum in Seoul.

An anonymous letter sent by Lee Byung-chull’s second son, Chang-hee, to the Blue House in 1969 is known to say that founding Chairman Lee had diverted a million dollars from Samsung C&T‘s Tokyo branch and used it to buy the Goryeo era celadon kettle. Lee Byung-chull’s older brother, Lee Byung-gak, was arrested in 1966 for buying illegally trafficked items such as the Gaya gold crown and.

Lee Yong-u wrote, “After the affair was over, items such as the 500-year-old Gaya gold crown were registered as movable cultural properties and kept at Ho-Am Art Museum.” The Samsung Group stated, “These cultural properties, too, were inherited by Chairman Lee Kun-hee.”

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