A response to the following message to Mr. Steve Linton will appear on this page when it is received.

Tokyo 2/28/96

To: Steve Linton (eugenebell@aol.com)

Dear Steve,

I just heard tonight from someone you met on the plane to Pyongyang that you understood I was being funded by the Chosen Soren (the Japan-based pro-North Korean Association of Korean Residents). This is very disturbing as it is absolutely untrue and destructive to the humanitarian, non-political nature of my efforts to bring rice to the starving flood victims in North Korea.

No one is funding me nor have I have received even one yen in contributions from any pro-North Koreans I know of except anonymous contributions coming into our Tokyo Internet Campaign bank account through an appeal on our behalf which appeared in the Asahi Shimbun and netted over 1.5 million yen in numerous mostly small contributions. Other contributors have been church groups, some Japanese business people, Wyeth-Eisai (A powdered milk manufacturer) neighbors in the Garden Hills complex and donors from all over the world who have sent in funds after seeing our Home Page. These have included students at Seoul National University, a producer from the KBS network in South Korea, Christian and Buddhist leaders in South Korea, even the last surviving member of the Lee Dynasty, Kyu Lee, who contributed $250 to feed 75 people for one month (i.e. the amount necessary to buy one ton of rice from Thailand through a Swiss trading company). They have ranged from a croupier in an Estoril casino to a student in Alaska. Our project is absolutely transparent. I would like to track down this false information as soon as possible and appreciate if you could tell me where you heard it, why you are spreading it without checking with me and who else is promulgating it so I can nip it in the bud.

Best regards,

Bernard Krisher

>Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 08:39:15 +0900 >To:

>From:bernie@media.mit.edu (Bernie Krisher)

>Subject:Re: Chosen Soren

>You WROTE

>Dear Bernie,

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Your friend was so positive about your program I ASKED him if he was helping you or not. No harm intended.

SL

MY REPLY

To: Mr. Steve Linton

Dear Steve,

My friend, Mr. Kim, is not a Chosen Soren official. He left that organization many years ago. He is an independent interpreter (and >commentator) and has a healthy *capitalist* translation business. He voluntarily translates the UN, WFP and other key reports on our Home Page into Japanese for the benefit of our Japanese surfers.

Many people are positive about our program because of its purely humanitarian objectives.

Best regards,

Bernie Krisher