SEOUL - Lee Hu-rak, a former South Korean spy chief who brokered the signing of a historic 1972 peace document with North Korea following a secret trip to Pyongyang, died yesterday at age 85 in a Seoul hospital.
Mr. Lee, a retired army major general, was a close associate of former president Park Chung-hee, who ruled South Korea for 18 years following a coup in 1961.
While serving as Park’s top intelligence officer, Mr. Lee traveled to Pyongyang in 1972, met then-leader Kim Il Sung - the father of current leader Kim Jong Il - and helped broker a joint statement in which the two Koreas agreed to work toward peacefully reunifying their divided peninsula.
Mr. Lee’s trip was made at the height of the Cold War rivalry between the Koreas, and he reportedly carried cyanide to kill himself in case negotiations failed and he was taken hostage.
The joint communiqué was hailed as the first major accord between the Koreas on unification since the Korean War ended with a fragile truce in 1953. It was thrown into limbo a year later, however, when Pyongyang cut off ties with Seoul, criticizing it for having agents kidnap a South Korean opposition leader in Japan.
Mr. Lee allegedly ordered the abduction of Kim Dae-jung, who eventually won the South Korean presidency in the late 1990s, to help cement Park’s rule.
Kim forgave Mr. Lee and others involved in the 1973 kidnapping as part of his efforts to promote national reconciliation after becoming the president in 1998.