Requiem For A Policy

The three suicide notes Chung Mong Hun, 54, left on his desk beside his watch and glasses before leaping from the window of his 12th-floor office last week provided few clues to his motives. (Chung apologized to his family in a few scribbled lines, gave encouragement to a colleague and, in a note to his employees, wrote: "A foolish man does a foolish thing.") But few men in South Korea could have had more burdens to bear. Chung, one of eight sons of the late Chung Ju Yung, pioneering chaebolist and founder of the Hyundai group, had been demoted in the Hyundai empire from group chairman to overseer of Hyundai Asan, the subsidiary that specializes in tourism and industrial investments in North Korea. He was on trial for his still-murky role in the clandestine transfer of at least $450 million to North Korea in 2000, money allegedly used to secure North Korean participation in a groundbreaking inter-Korean summit that year. (The Hyundai group is alleged to have contributed $100 million.)

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