COLUMN ONE : Bribes Buy Trouble in New Korea : For years, discreet envelopes of cash greased the wheels of daily life. But newly elected President Kim Young Sam is attacking graft at all levels, from high officials to wedding invitations.

They came around like clockwork, from the tax office and fire department, from licensing agencies and safety inspection bureaus, gathering for their regular feasts at Lee Il Ho’s elegant restaurant.

These officials weren’t after just meals. They wanted money, in exchange for allowing his business to operate. Not much: $10 here, $20 there. It was more annoying than expensive, but for years Lee put up with their incessant demands for envelopes of cash--the inescapable reality of living and working in South Korea.

For decades, millions of South Koreans have done the same. Mothers paid teachers for favorable treatment of their children. Soldiers greased palms for promotions. Business executives bought off bankers for preferential loans. Citizens “tipped” officials for speedy processing of driver’s licenses and birth certificates. Even foreigners were sucked into the game, paying customs officers to clear shipments or luggage.

But things have changed since Kim Young Sam, a longtime dissident, took office in February as the nation’s first civilian president after three decades of military rule. Restaurateur Lee says an amazing thing has happened: “Nowadays, nobody comes around asking for money. Social order is being restored.”

In just four months, South Korea’s new leader has taken aim at what he says is the rotting core and cause of many of his nation’s escalating social and economic ills: noemul or bribes.

The practice began as a gesture of appreciation in the Yi Dynasty more than six centuries ago. But in the past three decades, it has spiraled into untrammeled corruption, critics say.

Korean leaders, from Chun Doo Hwan to Roh Tae Woo, also started their administrations with populist anti-corruption drives. But Kim’s campaign is widely viewed as the most stunning, a veritable “bloodless revolution”--in part because he started from the top, including his own public disclosure of assets, and has spared no one, not even allies.

Kim has taken down generals and bank presidents, tax bureaucrats and education officials. He has confronted members of his ruling Democratic Liberal Party. He even sacrificed Choi Hyung Woo, his right-hand man and most trusted adviser, who was forced to resign after revelations that his wife had given money to officials to give their son a preferential university admission.

“There will be no sanctuary,” Kim has declared. “Politicians cannot have both honor and money.”

Kim’s crusade is a striking departure from business as usual in East Asia, where greasing the way with money is a common practice and some even argue that denouncing it as immoral is a Western, not an Asian, notion.

Still, the public has wildly supported Kim, and scores are coming forward to report requests for bribes or even coercion.

In his own government, Kim also has made it clear that corruption must be rooted out, and as a result, it has become something of a media crusade. Ministries and bureaucrats are conducting investigations. There are news stories and leaks of allegations of wrongdoing. The sheer weight of public opinion has forced top executives and ruling party politicians to resign--even before improprieties were proven.

This, in turn, has led some critics to blast Kim, comparing his tactics with the anti-Communist witch hunts conducted by U.S. Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy in the 1950s; both, critics say, impose their will by bully pulpit rather than rule of law. Skeptics in South Korea say Kim’s anti-corruption campaign will soon sputter and die, as others have done.

But his most avid admirers say Kim’s campaign marks a watershed for Korean society as it tries to move from back-room business dealings among elite power cliques into a textbook model of democracy.

Although corruption has existed for centuries, many say it escalated in recent decades partly because the nation’s breakneck development--from a farming to an industrial nation, from a $2-billion economy in the 1960s to a $280-billion one today--vastly multiplied the opportunities for wrongdoing.

Analysts also say the military governments used bribes to maintain power, and as is common in East Asia, the economy’s direction was strongly controlled by bureaucrats, leading business executives to win favor through cash.

“In the past 30 years, with less democratic governments, all segments of society became corrupted. To plant a new crop, President Kim has to clear the field first . . . it’s very abrupt and radical,” said Lee Sang Woo, a Sogang University professor recently appointed chairman of Kim’s advisory committee of academics. “But destruction is not reform itself. It is for creation.”

Kim, whose daring campaign has given rise to publicly voiced fears of assassination, says pervasive corruption has raised the cost of doing business, sapping the nation’s economic competitiveness. The country’s moral fiber has deteriorated, weakening its work ethic. If the corruption is left unchecked, he says, South Korea will become a third-rate nation.

“You all know an Asian country that was well-to-do before the Second World War which is poor now,” Kim said at a recent news conference, apparently referring to but not naming the Philippines. “And look at all those South American nations that are resources-rich. They all collapsed because of corruption. It’s the lesson we should learn from history: Corrupt nations fall.”

Exact figures on corruption’s overall effect on the South Korean economy were not available. But executives roughly calculate that bribes add 5% to 20% to the cost of doing business.

To get a typical $10,000 shipment of imported golf clubs into South Korean stores, executives say that bribes might be required at five or six points: roughly $1,300 to the customs officer, $1,300 to the tax official, smaller payments to truckers to move the shipment from the ports to major cities and more payoffs to distributors to ensure that the goods are passed on to sports shops and other retail outlets. Finally, perhaps 3% of retail sales would have to be given to store owners to ensure that they display the product rather than keeping it in the storeroom.

“In Korea, there is no way for businessmen to do business fully legally and survive,” said Lee of Sogang University. “Frankly speaking, 100% of businessmen are connected in one way or another.”

Kim’s anti-corruption crusade has netted more than 100 top officials from diverse sectors of society:

* The National Assembly Speaker, several ruling party members, two Cabinet ministers and the Seoul mayor were forced to resign after amassing huge assets allegedly through land speculation or illegal means.

* Five air force generals, four wing commanders, two navy admirals, four navy captains, five other naval officers, three army generals and a marine commander were fired or arrested for offering promotions in exchange for bribes ranging from $3,800 to $386,000.

* Fifty-three education officials were reprimanded, fired or arrested for leaking answers to state-administered national exams.

* Twenty-three tax officials were sacked for “irregularities” in inspections; in 20 other cases, officials were found to have amassed more than $2.5 million in assets.

* Three officials of the Lucky Goldstar conglomerate were arrested on charges of paying $1.2 million in bribes to win an apartment construction contract. The officials allegedly padded a $28-million contract to $58 million and paid out the kickbacks.

* Two bank officials were arrested, allegedly after granting illegal loans in return for bribes.

Beyond the bold headlines, the campaign also seems to have touched ordinary people’s lives. Take, for instance, the Chong Ro ward office in central Seoul, where people went for marriage licenses and other documents.

“Before, if you were in a hurry, they told you to come back tomorrow, and then you’d be forced to give money to speed up the process,” said a 55-year-old teacher. “You could usually tell by all the applicants who would go through a side door that special transactions were being conducted. But I’ve been here 1 1/2 hours, and I haven’t seen that at all today.”

The teacher, awaiting a birth certificate, also said that an information desk had been set up, service was genuinely helpful and transactions were completed much more quickly--as evidenced by the plethora of empty seats in a waiting area that usually was standing room only.

Kang Won Ho, a ward office clerk, said transaction times have been cut from one hour to 30 minutes. A streamlined process allows one-stop approvals for many documents, instead of forcing people to stop at several sections--which multiplied the number of palms to grease. “We’ve been told to be more positive and forward-looking,” he said.

As an indication of how widespread the demand for cash had become, Kim has even banned the sending of wedding invitations. Koreans were starting to receive invitations--a subtle way of asking for gifts or money--from people they only vaguely remembered meeting. They jokingly called the phony invitations “bills.”

Would-be wedding guests now must receive phone or in-person invitations, officials said, noting that hosts violating this rule can be fined at least $130. (Kim also banned gaudy flower wreaths at wedding ceremonies.)

Not everyone is cheering his anti-corruption measures. “It’s guilty until proven innocent,” fumed one businessman. He said the president is “using the (bribery) issue to make damn sure everyone who has done anything to him is investigated.”

The businessman said that corruption certainly existed. He said an associate of his was asked by the government to pad a $17-million contract to $20 million and return a $3-million kickback. But, he said, Kim has gone too far with a campaign that has paralyzed business, leaving bankers afraid to make loans, officials reluctant to grant licenses and executives wary of signing deals because of fear they will become targets of government investigations.

A foreign businessman concurred, saying the anti-corruption campaign has given customs officials an excuse to hold up imports. “The laws and regulations here are so non-transparent that individuals are delegated lots of responsibility--it’s up to the customs inspector to decide whether a shipment of tennis balls goes through or not,” he said. “In the past, you could facilitate that by offering a bribe, but not now.”

Others say that widespread investigations into the military have torpedoed morale, and continuing arrests could upset the command structure at a time when South Korea faces new security threats from North Korea. Even Kim’s allies express concerns, particularly about the need to establish a legal foundation for the anti-corruption measures.

Although the National Assembly recently passed a landmark law requiring public disclosure of assets by top government and political leaders, the action came after Kim essentially shamed officials by revealing his own $2 million-plus in assets. They included his house, health-club membership, car and father’s fishing farm.

“Ordinary citizens eagerly wanted to see a clean government, so he could wield the machete without a law. If other high-ranking officials defied or challenged him, people would denounce and stone them,” said Lee Bu Young, a lawmaker with the opposition Democratic Party. “But it is important to lay down a legal foundation.”

Some institutional changes would be easy enough to establish: a formal system, for instance, for expediting business or civil documents that would cost more but be available to anyone willing to pay. But Kim Keun Tae, a dissident and winner of the John F. Kennedy Award for Human Rights, said Kim must make bolder changes.

The president could, for example, press hard for a law requiring that real names be used in financial transactions. That would eliminate what is widely suspected to be massive tax evasion and other corrupt practices. Although Kim has pledged to support that reform, he has not moved on it, in part because his advisers have cautioned that it could cause a stock market plunge and massive capital flight if not launched properly.

Kim Keun Tae and lawmaker Lee also called on the president to eliminate the dreaded national security law and repressive anti-labor measures, which have been used to quash political opposition. And they urged him to rehire 1,500 teachers fired by the Roh administration after they tried to form a union--in part, to protest the widespread practice of parents giving teachers bribes.

Cho Jung Muk, a former math teacher and now an official with the National Teachers Coordinating Committee, said the ubiquitous envelopes contained anywhere from $65 to $1,280 and were given one to five times a year. In some areas, teachers are said to receive as much in bribes as their salaries, which start at about $830 a month. In exchange, parents expect their children to get special attention, favorable grades in such subjective subjects as art and front-row seats in classes, which often hold 60 students, making it nearly impossible for those in the back to see.

Cho’s group found that the practice of teacher bribery was actually harmful. After 100 students committed suicide in the course of one year because of unbearable academic pressures, several alarmed teachers tried calling in parents to discuss the problem--but found that many were reluctant because they were afraid they would be expected to bring money.

The teachers formed a group in 1987 to crusade against corruption but found a disappointing lack of support. “The powers that be in the education system were loyal to the military government and regarded us as a challenge to authority,” Cho said. “Others liked the system the way it was--everybody a little tainted so no one could raise the issue of honesty.”

Despite his reputation as an envelope refusenik, Cho said he had been offered money 10 times during his seven years as a teacher.

He said that wiping out the entrenched practice would take more than presidential pronouncements. Raising teachers’ salaries and general educational investment, relatively low at just 3% of gross national product, would help eliminate the temptation, he said.

Still, Cho, like many others used to the fits and starts of past anti-corruption campaigns, is not holding his breath. “Kim Young Sam says anyone taking envelopes will be fired,” he said, “but once his campaign is over, the practice will resume again.”

Chi Jung Nam, researcher in The Times’ Seoul Bureau, contributed to this report.

The Envelope, Please? No! Says S. Korea’s Kim

President Kim Young Sam has led what many are calling an unprecedented attack on endemic corruption in South Korea. Here are his career highlights and aspects of the payoffs he has targeted:

Kim Young Sam

Born: Dec. 27, 1927, on Koje Island near Pusan.

Family background: only son among six children of well-to-do fisherman.

Education: philosophy graduate, Seoul National University.

Career: served on army propaganda team during Korean War . . . at age 25, youngest candidate elected to National Assembly . . . career politician . . . lost a bid in 1971 to Kim Dae Jung to become opposition presidential candidate . . . ousted from National Assembly in 1979 by Park Chung Hee after urging United States to intervene in Korean politics to implement democracy . . . joined with Kim Dae Jung in 1985 to battle Chun Doo Hwan’s oppression . . . 1987 presidential candidate--his bid clashed with that of Kim Dae Jung, giving Roh Tae Woo the office . . . joined Roh in 1990 in what was viewed as a maneuver for December, 1992, presidential campaign . . . elected president, took office in February, 1993.

A Proper Payoff?

Generally accepted etiquette for payoffs in South Korea (before President Kim’s crackdown):

* White envelopes de rigueur for delivery.

* Bribes handed over at the end of a meeting, humbly, often described as a gesture of appreciation. Sometimes, money euphemistically called “transportation reimbursement.”

* Announcing the actual sum is a no-no.

* Peeking inside to see the cash amount in front of the giver is the height of bad taste. “That would be regarded as a supreme insult,” said one Korean familiar with bribery etiquette.