This corporate legacy project presents a series of interviews with Americans and Koreans who worked in businesses, banks, and government during the 1970s in Korea. All of these figures an essential role in helping to advance Korea’s rapid economic development. How were they able to overcome significant obstacles, such as the 1970s oil price shock and the middle income trap?

This video series produced by the Korea Society was created to honor Americans and Koreans who contributed to this process. We express our sincere gratitude to Philip Sherman, a former Citibank Korea Country Manager and Korea Society patron and member, for his time and effort in collecting the stories of the individuals that contributed to Korea's economic lift-off. This series was produced by Peter Stuehmke and Nikita Desai.




Introduction
This introductory video provides an economic overview of Korea in the 1970’s, summarizing its economic goals and the process it embarked on to achieve them. The video explains how the United States and American businesses played an important role in Korea’s success. At the time, the US was:
• A leading buyer of Korean exports
• A leading private lender
• A leading foreign direct investor
• A continuing provider of government-to-government assistance

Sakong Il
A graduate of Seoul National University and UCLA PhD, Dr. Sakong is one of Korea’s leading economists. In the 1970s, he was at the Korea Development Institute, and then joined the government as an adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister and then the President. He was also Finance Minister from 1987-88. In the film, Dr. Sakong gives an insider’s perspective of Korean development in the seventies and eighties and comments on the roles of American participants in those developments.




Philip D. Sherman
Mr. Sherman, Citibank’s senior officer in Seoul 1974-78, outlines how the banking community stepped up at a critical time to support Korea’s economic rise. Mr. Sherman received the Order of Diplomatic Merit Sung Yi from the Korea Government in 1978.




Jae-hyung Hong
In the seventies, Mr. Hong was assistant to Finance Minister Kim Yong Whan when the first oil shock-related loan was launched. He subsequently served as Financial Attaché in London and Minister of Finance and the Economic Planning Board, and then a member of Korea’s National Assembly. He offers a Korean perspective on the international financing issues of Korea during the seventies.




John Day, James L. Whitely and Philip D. Sherman
Three bankers who lived and worked in Korea during the seventies engage in a panel discussion at The Korea Society detailing their experiences and memories. Mr. Day was the representative of First National Bank of Chicago as part of a long career that included also Bank of Montreal and Salomon Brothers Smith Barney. Mr. Whitely was Representative of Marine Midland Bank in Seoul and subsequently held senior positions at Chemical Bank and JP Morgan Chase.




Herbert Telshaw
A former Marine, Mr. Telshaw had a lifetime career as a financial and then general manager at General Motors in the US and Asia. He was Executive Vice President of General Motors Korea, GM’s joint venture with Shinjin Motors and The Korea Development Bank from 1975 to 1978, when he became head of FM Philippines. Mr. Telshaw relates how GM brought its resources and industry knowledge to build up GMK which had previously been a wholly-owned part of Shinjin assembling GM products. He also describes the general dynamics of foreign joint ventures in Korea.




Robert Tanzola
A career international executive with General Motors, Mr. Tanzola served as Sales Director of General Motors Korea from 1974 to 1977. Later, he worked in Asia and Latin America, becoming Vice President of Sales for GM International, Marketing and Product Development for Latin American, the Middle East and Africa. He explains the very rudimentary sales and marketing situation which CM found itself in when it first came to Korea and how the company began the development of what is now: one of the world’s leading vehicle markets.




David Law-Smith
David Law-Smith is a career executive for Caltex, the joint venture of Standard Oil of California (Chevron) and Texaco Inc. He served as its Chairman and CEO before it was folded into Chevron. Mr. Law-Smith was finance manager at Honam Oil Refunding Company, Korea’s #2 refiner. This was a joint venture between the Lucky Group and Caltex. Mr. Law-Smith gives his perspective both on the Korean refining and marketing industry as a whole and his experiences at Honam Oil as a joint venture with a leading Korea conglomerate (chaebol) ground.




John T. Bennett
An agricultural economist by background, Mr. Bennett was the Economic Counsellor at the US Embassy in Seoul during the seventies. He founded the Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI) in 1982. He relates how the US worked with the Korean government during the seventies with a focus on technical and educational cooperation, and gives insight into the operation of the Korean government from his perspective at the Embassy