The Pentagon’s Missionary Spies
U.S. Military Used Christian NGO as Front for North Korea Espionage
ON MAY 10, 2007, in the East Room
of the White House, President George W. Bush presided over a ceremony
honoring the nation’s most accomplished community service leaders. Among
those collecting a President’s Volunteer Service Award that afternoon
was Kay Hiramine, the Colorado-based founder of a multimillion-dollar
humanitarian organization.
Hiramine’s NGO, Humanitarian International Services Group, or HISG,
won special praise from the president for having demonstrated how a
private charity could step in quickly in response to a crisis. “In the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina,” read Hiramine’s citation, “HISG’s team
launched a private sector operation center in Houston that mobilized
over 1,500 volunteers into the disaster zone within one month after the
hurricane.”
But as the evangelical Christian Hiramine crossed the stage to shake
hands with President Bush and receive his award, he was hiding a key
fact from those in attendance: He was a Pentagon spy whose NGO was
funded through a highly classified Defense Department program.
