Sue Mi Terry / Yonhap NIS should do more to regain trust of US By John Burton The indictment of Sue Mi Terry last week has sent shockwaves through Washington’s Korea-watching community. As a respected North Korea expert and former CIA analyst, her alleged role as an unregistered agent for South Korea’s spy agency has triggered the biggest scandal in this field in years. This case offers a glimpse into the tangled relationships within Washington’s foreign policy establishment, while also raising concerns about South Korea’s efforts to influence U.
S. politics and the possibility of U.S.
spying on the Korean Embassy. Terry is a beneficiary of the revolving door that shuffles former government officials into jobs at leading U.S.
think tanks. Her career began as a North Korea analyst at the CIA before moving to the National Security Council at the White House during the George W. Bush administration and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in the early years of the Obama administration.
Leaving government service in 2010, she held an academic post at Columbia University as well as working for a consultancy firm before joining the Center for Strategic and International Studies in 2017 and the Wilson Center in 2022. This year, she moved to the Council on Foreign Relations, where her husband, Max Boot, a conservative foreign policy commentator and a Washington Post columnist, is a senior fellow. Her role at leading think tanks made her a go-to commentator for t.