With the doubts about the regime that he had told me he harbored even as an undergraduate, I wondered how Kim Ji-il had pa.s.sed the scrutiny of the screening committee for overseas study. Was it acting? "I did have some doubts at the time but I didn't oppose the regime so I didn't really have to pretend or act," he replied. "In North Korea even if you had doubts, you couldn't satisfy your curiosity because you had no way of hearing the truth."

However, Kim continued, "the moment I set foot in the Soviet Union I changed. I saw a wave of individualism. People all dressed differently. Party members weren't forced to attend every single meeting but could skip some. I liked the way the stores worked: If you had money, you could buy, unlike the ration system in North Korea. This was a totally different world. I got to know the real details by making friends with Russians and talking with them. In essence, I think the mentality of Russians and Americans was essentially the same. I got there during the time when Konstantin Chernenko held the top job, but he was quickly followed by Gorbachev. I watched the unfolding of perestroika perestroika and and glasnost. glasnost. I became anti-regime after about a year in the Soviet Union. I went back to North Korea in the summer of 1987 for two months of home leave. My intent was not to say anything but to wait until I came back for a longer time before trying to change people's minds." I became anti-regime after about a year in the Soviet Union. I went back to North Korea in the summer of 1987 for two months of home leave. My intent was not to say anything but to wait until I came back for a longer time before trying to change people's minds."

In 1988, Kim Ji-il began thinking he really did not want to return to North Korea. "But I didn't think of defecting to South Korea until the moment of my defection," he told me. "If it were only a matter of ideological changes, everyone in North Korea should defect." For anyone who might actually go so far as to defect, "there's always a plus alpha. My plus alpha was my wife and my daughter. I had met my wife, a Soviet citizen, on campus. She was willing to go with me anywhere in the world. North Korea would have been no problem for her. But North Korean society would not have accepted her. An international marriage would be unthinkable there. It was a secret marriage. My daughter was born in 1989 and I didn't tell my government." I wondered: How could he have kept his marriage secret? "That shows how much freer we were in the USSR than in North Korea," Kim replied.

At first Kim's wife advised him, "Go back to North Korea. Defecting would affect your parents." Kim was "in a dilemma," he told me. "It was time to return to North Korea and I had to choose between my family in North Korea and my wife and daughter, whom I couldn't take back with me. I chose the wife and child. I didn't want my daughter to be brought up without a father." Having made his decision, he defected by traveling to Eastern Europe and presenting himself at a South Korean emba.s.sy.

At the time of Kim's defection, his father was in Germany making a deal with a German company. His mother back in Pyongyang worked in broadcasting as an editorial writer. A younger sister worked at Yongseong Nutrition Inst.i.tute, which had a factory that packaged high-quality food for consumption by the elite. A younger brother was studying at Kim Chaek University of Technology. He told me, hopefully: "Coming to South Korea doesn't mean I'm losing my parents. I believe they're alive. They may have suffered, but I believe they're alive. The trend is such that for North Korea to survive it must adapt to the free-market system as the Chinese have done. I believe North Korea will do it. That will bring openness and a lot of foreign cultural influences."

I mentioned the plans that were brewing at the time in Washington to broadcast North Korean news to North Koreans in their own language via Radio Free Asia. "It's a good idea," Kim said. "I listened to Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America in Russian. They-were a success in the Soviet Union. They reported stories that weren't in the Soviet press. My wife's family also listened." Among the radios owned by North Koreans, "some of the j.a.panese imports are short-wave. At customs they are stuck on one channel. But civilian and military high officials have short-wave radios that are not fixed to one channel."

TWENTY-TWO.

Logging In and Logging Out North Korean defectors to the South up until the 1990s were so rare that the Pyongyang regime and its sympathizers in the West could dismiss those few citizens who did make the break as malcontents-often criminals--whose testimony about conditions back home amounted to little more than artful propaganda, manipulated on behalf of the military-backed South Korean dictators by the sinister spooks of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. But as conditions in the North worsened, the numbers of defectors increased dramatically. Mean-while Kim Young-sam, a longtime democratic opposition figure, won the South Korean presidency in the election of December 1992 and set out to reform the intelligence agency. Soon there were in the South enough defectors, evidently free to speak their minds, that an interviewer willing to spend time unburdening them of their life stories could start to discern a combination of large patterns-recall, for example, the custom of gang-fighting among youths, covered in chapter 12-and small variations. Considered together, these suggested an essential truthfulness in what they had to say.

Take, for example, the men who had worked in the Russian Far East at logging camps and in a few cases at mining camps. I found that this group was largely misunderstood by Western reporters and commentators. Quite a few of my colleagues in the media suggested that armies of North Korean men had been forced to travel to Siberia to work in slave labor camps.1 In fact, as interviews with a number of them demonstrated to me, the men had gone of their own volition. Indeed, they had competed fiercely, using bribes and any other means available, to exert enough influence on North Korean officials to get themselves on the list. They saw going to Russia as their tickets to wealth other-wise almost unimaginable by North Korean standards. The work was approximately as arduous as what they would have experienced back home. The big difference besides huge salary increases was that it was possible to leave the camps occasionally and interact with Russians and ethnic Koreans and Chinese in nearby communities. Many loggers were transformed by experiencing Russia's relatively liberalized atmosphere. Here are some of their stories. In fact, as interviews with a number of them demonstrated to me, the men had gone of their own volition. Indeed, they had competed fiercely, using bribes and any other means available, to exert enough influence on North Korean officials to get themselves on the list. They saw going to Russia as their tickets to wealth other-wise almost unimaginable by North Korean standards. The work was approximately as arduous as what they would have experienced back home. The big difference besides huge salary increases was that it was possible to leave the camps occasionally and interact with Russians and ethnic Koreans and Chinese in nearby communities. Many loggers were transformed by experiencing Russia's relatively liberalized atmosphere. Here are some of their stories.

Chang Ki-hong defected in November 1991, while working at a North Korean timber camp in eastern Russia not far from Khabarovsk. When I met him Chang was enrolled as a Russian language student at Seoul's Yonsei University, one of South Korea's top-rated inst.i.tutions, and had married a fellow student. With his round face, strong jaw, reddish complexion and wiry hair, he had something of the appearance of a soldier-cla.s.sic Korean looks.

Chang was born in Yomju, North Pyongan Province, in 1963. Not only had his father fought in the Korean war, Chang told me, but "before the Kim regime came to power, our family were neither landlords nor capitalists. So we were considered to have a good family background. Mother worked in a salt factory. Father couldn't work because he was disabled and couldn't walk well. He stayed at home and did some wood-cutting." The household's living standard was in the middle-to-high range.

Chang told me he had begun his education with nursery school and kindergarten. "They didn't give us much training in nursery school. It really started in kindergarten. When we played soldier with toy soldiers, we would always say, 'The general is Kim Il-sung.' We would learn about his family, his upbringing, where he was born, how brave he was in fighting j.a.panese imperial rule. They had a room where they put up pictures of Kim Il-sung's life. We would have to memorize the pictures and the stories that went with them. The pupils who did best at that got red stars for exemplary-work. And if you excelled in studies of Kim Il-sung, you got more snacks than other pupils. I got a lot of red stars."

After kindergarten, "basic education is eleven years," Chang said. "But when I was in school it was nine years-four years of elementary school followed by five years of junior and senior middle school. You would finish around eighteen. I remember I was always hungry. Another thing: Even in elementary school I was so accustomed to being part of a highly organized system. When I went into second grade I had to become part of the children's corps. In junior high I switched to the socialist youth league. You stay in that until you're about thirty years old. Then you either get into the party which is good, or become part of some other organization for adults. You're always part of some organization. You're never on your own. All these are basically subsystems within the system called the party. They make people more manageable." (Since North Koreans while remaining in the country were trained to avoid asking why things were the way they were, as Chang himself said a little later in our talk, I suspected that last observation about making people more "manageable" to have been something of an afterthought, the product of fairly recent reflection.) "The basic thing you learn in youth organizations is that you can't be an individual," Chang continued. "You're part of a system. You learn more about the Kim regime, about Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il-that they are G.o.ds on their own terms. They told us that the family is another organization. Parents can feed you, they brought you into the world. But as for the party and government, even after your death they can allow your political life to continue eternally. Because of the existence of the party and government, the family can exist. Kim Il-sung comes first. He is the father of all."

I asked him whether parents would ever have objected to putting Kim Il-sung, party and state ahead of the family. "They figure everyone in the world must be living like this, so there is nothing to object to," Chang replied. "Of course, they have small complaints about the Kim regime, food shortages and so on, but nothing they would speak out about. To make sure we wouldn't complain, in each New Year's speech Kim Il-sung reminded us that 'we all have to suffer and sacrifice as long as imperialism exists in this world and the United States and South Korea are preparing to make war on us.' He made that speech every New Year's until 1991.

"Basically the mental processes of North Koreans aren't so complex," Chang continued. "They do acknowledge they are poor. Even those who don't have exchanges of information with relatives in j.a.pan and China recognize they lead poor lives. Maybe 80 percent imagine that South Koreans live better. But their mentality is separated between lifestyle and politics. They don't connect the two and blame the government for their poverty." Again, I figured this was something Chang had sorted out for himself fairly late in life, after his arrival and debriefing by government officials in the South-although that did not keep his words from ringing true.

When Chang was growing up, "most of the people in my town worked in factories or on collective farms," he said. "Besides such regular jobs, there was a law pa.s.sed in 1985 permitting 'household cooperation communities.' Those without work could stay home or stay in the neighborhood, engage in cottage industries and go to the markets to sell things they had made, such as cigarettes. Before 1985, there was a market every ten days where people could sell their own produce or industrial products. After 1985, small consumer goods like cigarettes could be sold there also, and you could go to the seash.o.r.e to get clams to sell. If you wanted to be part of the household cooperative community you needed to get government permission."

I asked Chang about the regular distribution system for food grains. "The distribution systems were different for workers and farmers," he said. "Farmers got their year's supply of rice after the harvest. Workers got their supplies every fifteen days, between 700 grams and one kilogram per person depending on their work. Unemployed people got about 300 grams; children, 400 to 600 depending on age. Even if you ate very sparingly you could only live on the ration for twelve days. So for three days you would starve or hunt for roots to eat."

Like all the other North Koreans I interviewed, Chang could remember with some precision the fluctuations of food supply for people where he lived. "It was always hard and seemed to be getting worse," he said. "Until the 1970s maybe it was all right. In the early '70s, when I was in elementary school, we could still find jams in the stores and eat them. Later, from around 1975, they-were unavailable. From the mid-eighties things started getting really much worse. In 1988, I was still getting all my regular grain distribution. I left North Korea in 1989, for Russia and started getting letters from relatives saying the distribution center didn't have rice, or other grain. The center gave people tickets instead of grain. Later on, if the food arrived, they could exchange the tickets for food."

Although residents of Pyongyang got special privileges, Chang told me, people like his family who lived outside Pyongyang were "not as envious as you would think. The general run of people don't even think of living in the capital. If you reach a certain rank you may get a call from Pyongyang City Hall. The population is always controlled at two million. Once in a while if they get too populous they send people elsewhere."

I asked Chang what he had done for fun and excitement as a child. "Of course childhood activities are different for children in Pyongyang and the provinces," he said. "I didn't have much time to play. I had to do my social labor--work in the fields after cla.s.s-even in elementary school. In winter, the schools usually didn't get coal supplies so we had to go get corn husks and dry them to use for fuel. In the summers, I do remember playing. We went to an apple orchard, ate some apples and ran around."

Chang managed to get accepted into a university right out of school, which was unusual, and thus he was not required to put in the usual decade-long stint in the military. "You're exempt if you enter university, as long as you spend six months in a military training course," he told me. "I went to Sinuiju University and studied to become a teacher. In North Korea teaching is not considered a very good profession. It's hard to sustain a normal life as a teacher. And the basic image of a teacher is not very positive. It may seem a bit sissy. Lots of women are teachers. So after I graduated I went to work for the railroad, where I was in charge of controlling the tracks, coupling and uncoupling the trains. It was very dangerous work. I worked on the railroad until 1987. From then until 1988 I was applying and preparing for my Russia a.s.signment."

The compet.i.tion to get to Russia was severe, Chang explained. "For North Koreans, to be able to go to Russia is the chance of a lifetime. You can earn lots of money. The average income in North Korea is about 60 won won a month. In Russia I got 900 a month. In Russia I got 900 won won a month. Actually I would have gotten 3,000 a month. Actually I would have gotten 3,000 won won a month, but the North Korean government kept 2,100 a month, but the North Korean government kept 2,100 won. won. A special committee selected me. You have to have a good family background. My elder brothers were high officials in the party and my third brother was an actor in Pyongyang. Eighty percent of those selected are party members. I wasn't a party member, but they checked to make sure I was ideologically stable-not susceptible to subversive influences. In each workplace there's a party secretary. My party secretary at the railroad recommended me." A special committee selected me. You have to have a good family background. My elder brothers were high officials in the party and my third brother was an actor in Pyongyang. Eighty percent of those selected are party members. I wasn't a party member, but they checked to make sure I was ideologically stable-not susceptible to subversive influences. In each workplace there's a party secretary. My party secretary at the railroad recommended me."

When he arrived in 1988 Chang found that "the lifestyle of the camp was basically the same, a miniature North Korea with 15,000 to 20,000 North Koreans working there. My work was a.n.a.lyzing statistics of the operation. I had an eight-hour day, but had to study ideology during my off hours. I was in Russia but I was controlled by North Koreans. To get out of the restricted area I needed a pa.s.s."

I asked Chang how his outlook had changed while he was working at the camp. "Until I got to the Soviet Union I believed in the regime," he said. "But when I got to the Soviet Union and started meeting people there, I realized there must be something wrong back home. It was after I had been there about six months that my mentality started to change. We are taught that the whole world worships Kim Il-sung. I met Russians who made fun of this Kim worship, and then I realized that he was not in fact worshipped by the whole world. Cultural differences played a big role in the changes I went through. In North Korea there are no entertainment facilities. All you can do is drink a lot. In Russia I saw cinemas, discos. I didn't go to discos often, because there would be big trouble if I got caught; I would be sent back to North Korea. The North Korean authorities wouldn't allow us to go because they thought it would make us lazy." But Chang did manage to get out on the town occasionally. "I was affected. I realized this was the kind of life people should lead-not suppressed and controlled."

Although he liked the lifestyle in Russia, Chang didn't think of defecting on that account. Rather, it was radio that set him off. "I'm the curious type, and my friend and I started listening to South Korean and other foreign broadcasts. He was caught and sent back. I was put under surveillance because we were such close friends. It was one month before I was due to go back to North Korea myself, but I was afraid if I went back I would be executed or sent to a prison camp." Chang had listened to South Korea's state-owned KBS, which broadcast special programming to Korean-speaking people in communist countries. He had also heard Korean-language programming from the Soviet Union and from China's ethnically Korean Yan-bian region. As for KBS, "I could listen in the afternoon but the reception was bad. At night from eleven o'clock I could listen. At first I had a hard time understanding the South Korean dialect. They had people criticizing the government on various issues. And at that time they were running a series on the rise of the Kim Il-sung regime in North Korea. It was very interesting to get a different perspective. So I experienced some ideological change. My friend and I kidded each other, 'Let's go to South Korea.' Ultimately it was that ideological change coupled with fear of execution that prodded me to defect."

I told Chang that the U.S. Congress was preparing to fund Radio Free Asia, which would likely have a Korean-language service directed to North Koreans. "Of course it would be good! What bad could come of it?" he said. "But there's a saying in Korea: 'Listening 100 times is not as good as seeing it once.' Actual interchange is needed, too."

When he decided to defect, Chang realized it would not be easy. "The problem was that the North Korean and Russian police worked together. If anyone tried to escape, the Russian authorities would capture him and turn him over to the North Koreans. Many tried, but most were caught and sent back, to death in most cases. One day I read an ad from a Moscow department store saying that South Koreanmade goods would be sold there to people with dollars to buy them. I decided to go to Moscow in the hope of meeting some of the South Koreans there. A Russian friend got me a ticket to Moscow. Most escapees don't have good plans for getting away. They just run for the mountains-it seems to be a Korean instinct. The authorities know that, so they just go to the mountains and recapture the escapees. But the Russian cops didn't think of looking for me en route to Moscow. Unfortunately, by the time I got to Moscow the August Revolution had broken out there and the South Koreans had all gone back home. So I figured I had to cross the Russian border. My job experience on the railroad helped. I realized that all Eastern European countries except Hungary required a visa. I bribed a railroad worker to let me climb a ladder in the restroom to the roof of the car, where I stayed until the train crossed the border into Hungary. I went to the South Korean emba.s.sy."

Kim Kil-song, when I interviewed him in 1994, appeared to be something of a dandy. He was fussily gotten up in long-oval, gold-framed spectacles, a rectangular gold watch with gold band, starched white shirt, a floral print tie with tie bar, double-breasted brown-checked sports jacket and dark trousers. But on his left hand, in the web between thumb and forefinger, was a tattoo, and after I had heard his story I knew he had not always been a fashion plate.

Kim was born in 1962 in Pyongyang. His father, injured in 1952 while fighting in the Korean War as an officer, had been mustered out in Pyongyang. After recovering from his wounds, the father held management jobs in a porcelain factory which made household crockery. There he met Kim's mother. The couple married, first living at the factory and later being a.s.signed an apartment. Eventually his mother stopped working at the factory and took a job as a salesperson at a textiles store near their home. His father at that time commuted to work by trolley bus.

In 1964, there was a rea.s.signment in which less "loyal" North Koreans were moved out of the good jobs and out of Pyongyang to menial positions in the provinces. Kim's father had been a landowner-he had owned an orchard in Northern Hamgyong Province. That was enough to bar the family from the loyal cla.s.s. They-were sent to Sinuiju, on the Yalu River across from China, where the father worked loading shipments on trucks at a synthetic textile factory. The mother worked in a sporting goods factory, making b.a.l.l.s. From then on the family remained in Sinuiju.

Such treatment for a wounded Korean War veteran shocked me a little, and I asked Kim whether it had made his parents bitter. "They blamed their ancestors," he replied. "Possibly they felt the regime was at fault for their treatment, but they would have had very little chance to express it. Once or twice when times got very hard Mother would express some dissatisfaction with the regime: 'How could they question our past background?'" By hard times, Kim meant that "housing was terrible," at least for his family. "We lived in a house that had been damaged in a Korean War bombing raid. Up through 1968, there was no food problem, but then food conditions worsened. We didn't have enough food. There were few goods in the store. Before that, I remember taking pocket money and going to stores to buy candy. I could see the products on the shelves. But shortages began in 1969. Just in one or two years they ran out of supplies. It happened all over the country. We heard from neighbors who had visited relatives in other provinces. There, too, there were no goods in the stores."

In his youth, Kim told me, he had been "very faithful to Kim Il-sung. Even though life was hard, I was thankful. Without Kim Il-sung we would be in an even worse situation, I thought. I learned that way of thinking from kindergarten and elementary school. Once in a while, my parents, too, would say, 'You have to be faithful to Kim Il-sung.'" I asked how he expressed his faithfulness. "In each household there was a portrait of Kim Il-sung," he said. "If my father brought home some clothes or snacks or a toy for me, instead of thanking Father I would go to the portrait of Kim Il-sung, bow before it and say, 'Thank you for the wonderful gift. "

I wanted to know more about the family's housing. "We lived in the same house until I was in high school," Kim told me. "Because of the bombing it was leaning, about to fall down, but we couldn't get any help from the authorities to fix it because my father was an ordinary worker. He worked at a big factory. Finally though, the factory built a housing complex and we moved to an apartment. That apartment was about eighteen square meters, with two small rooms to house my parents, two brothers, two sisters and myself-altogether seven people. Lots of families of seven people lived in one-room apartments. We considered ourselves very fortunate to have two." The apartment was unfinished when the family moved in. "There was a little room meant to be a bathroom, but it didn't have plumbing except for a water faucet. The equipment had been unavailable when the apartments were built. We made a cement tank to store water for bathing. We had to go downstairs to use a communal toilet. Anyhow, in North Korea, except in Pyongyang, when they say, 'We have housing for you,' you can't expect to find it ready to move in. The interior is just the rough concrete structure. You have to finish it yourself, with floor covering, doors, and so on. Usually in Pyongyang you do get a finished apartment, but in the provinces, no."

Kim told me he had remained loyal to Kim Il-sung throughout a ten-year army enlistment that started in 1979 when he was seventeen. He was stationed in Kaesong, near the border with South Korea, as an artilleryman. "I worked on launchers with thirty separate warheads. I became a sergeant, commanding one launcher and a squad of twelve men attached to it." I asked what he had been taught about his mission. "While I was in the army, conditions in North Korea worsened," he replied. "We had about three hours of ideological studies each day, and they taught us to believe that all our difficulties were due to the U.S. Army and the South Korean government. I believed I had to fight. I even wanted to sacrifice my life for the country. They constantly taught us about the superiority of socialism and the greatness of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. I believed socialism was the best. They continually told us stories about South Korea that highlighted the negative aspects of capitalism-the gap between rich and poor, beggars and homeless people living in the streets and under bridges, people getting no education because the South Korean government could not provide equal opportunities to the people. I believed it totally."

Kim explained that North Koreans believed because they had no alternative sources of information. I asked him about broadcasts from abroad, but he said he had never heard one while he was in North Korea. Well, then, wasn't there a grapevine, as other defectors had told me? "I'm skeptical about the powers of the grapevine," Kim replied. "All right, an ethnic Korean living in Yanbian [in China] might have visited South Korea. He might pa.s.s the word that South Koreans are wealthy But even if I had heard it, I was so brain-washed I wouldn't have believed it. And even if I had believed it, I wouldn't have dared to spread it. But there may be some difference between civilians and soldiers in this regard. I would be pretty sure such rumors don't spread in the army even now. But among civilians, rumors of South Korean wealth are spreading and there are some people who are envious of South Koreans' lives."

His remark about the military's resistance to outside information intrigued me and I asked Kim to explain. "During your ten-year hitch in the army you get no leave," he explained. "There's no contact with the outside world. No outside information can penetrate. There's much more ideological study than civilians undergo." I pressed him on whether there was some way that the United States and South Korea could get through to soldiers despite those circ.u.mstances. "It's very difficult to penetrate the army" he said. But he added that the situation was not entirely hopeless. "Just continue the drops of propaganda leaflets and the propaganda broadcasts through DMZ loudspeakers. Even though they try not to listen, how can they not hear some of those?"

I went back to Kim's remark that he had been ready to fight and asked him to talk about that. "The North Korean government tells the civilian population that unification will come through peaceful means," he said. "In the military though, they taught us that reunification would be possible only through forcible measures, so we had to be prepared for war. Then, after reunification, we would restructure South Korea with socialism. They taught us that food shortages are the result of isolation caused by the capitalist societies' sanctions. Through a-war, we believed, we could come out of that isolation. We believed that through reunification on North Korean terms, if we had South Korea, we would then have enough farmland to cultivate enough food to sustain life."

That sounded to me a little like Hitler's concept of lebensraum. lebensraum. I asked Kim to try to recreate for me the lectures he had heard in ideological training, in the words of the instructors to the extent he could remember. Here are some of the spiels he remembered: "We have to reunify the peninsula by 1995, even if-we must use force to achieve it. Everyone serving in the army now must be prepared for this war. You must be prepared to sacrifice your life for the country. Capitalism is an evil, a vice. Socialism is the system that works for the people. We military must fight together to enforce a socialist regime. South Korea is a very anti-humanitarian regime. For the sake of Koreans north and south, for the betterment of the whole race, we must ensure the triumph of socialism. Even though South Korea has the U.S. Army to help it, North Korea is prepared. We're better than the U.S. Army. We've been preparing since the Korean War. We have enough men and materiel to fight the war and win. There's a basic difference between us and the other side. The South Korean and American armies are structured according to the capitalist ideal. Their soldiers fight for money. They aren't prepared to sacrifice their lives to win the war. North Korean soldiers are prepared to sacrifice our lives. We are not fighting for money but to create an ideal society for the people. During the Korean War, eighteen countries helped South Korea but we still won. We didn't have enough materiel then, but now we have what we need. We definitely can win this war." I asked Kim to try to recreate for me the lectures he had heard in ideological training, in the words of the instructors to the extent he could remember. Here are some of the spiels he remembered: "We have to reunify the peninsula by 1995, even if-we must use force to achieve it. Everyone serving in the army now must be prepared for this war. You must be prepared to sacrifice your life for the country. Capitalism is an evil, a vice. Socialism is the system that works for the people. We military must fight together to enforce a socialist regime. South Korea is a very anti-humanitarian regime. For the sake of Koreans north and south, for the betterment of the whole race, we must ensure the triumph of socialism. Even though South Korea has the U.S. Army to help it, North Korea is prepared. We're better than the U.S. Army. We've been preparing since the Korean War. We have enough men and materiel to fight the war and win. There's a basic difference between us and the other side. The South Korean and American armies are structured according to the capitalist ideal. Their soldiers fight for money. They aren't prepared to sacrifice their lives to win the war. North Korean soldiers are prepared to sacrifice our lives. We are not fighting for money but to create an ideal society for the people. During the Korean War, eighteen countries helped South Korea but we still won. We didn't have enough materiel then, but now we have what we need. We definitely can win this war."

Kim interrupted his memories to tell me that North Korean soldiers had no actual knowledge regarding the weaponry facing them, which could help explain their strong confidence of victory. Then he continued recalling the teachings that had been drilled into him in the army: "As soon as we have won the war, we will root out capitalist ideas in the South. We army men, stationed there, will teach the people about socialism, teach them to follow the leadership of the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il-sung. Whoever resists will be killed. Right now the United States is basing nuclear weapons in Okinawa and other places. But there is no need to fear them. We have better arms than the U.S., and we can win. So feel confident, soldiers, and do not fear the nuclear arms of the U.S. If a war is staged in South Korea, that will not be an invasion but a war for justice. Once we are unified, we no longer have to use our money to build up our military might. We can use all our resources for the betterment of the people's lives. Having the South Korean farmland, with the country united under the leadership of Kim Il-sung, we can produce enough staple food not to be threatened by the Western world's economic sanctions. As soon as we are reunified, we will all be able to 'eat rice with beef soup, wear silk clothing and live in houses with tile roofs.' Right now we don't have enough food supplies and we must train strenuously. This is because our army is an army for war. As soon as the war is won we will have a better society."

I asked Kim whether the indoctrinations had changed in any way during his ten years in the army. "The basic objectives remained the same, although there may have been some change in structure," he replied. "According to political events the structure might change. Right now [October 1994] I'd speculate they're teaching with reference to the North KoreaU.S. talks- maybe something to the effect that the United States won't give up what we want so we'll still have to advance reunification through force. Each year the New Year's teachings by Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il were emphasized. From 1986, there was more emphasis on getting South Korea's farmland and eating better: 'This ordeal is continuing because of South Korea and the United States. We have to defeat their armies and unite the North and South.'"

Kim said he had been subjected to the lectures "right up to July 14, 1988, the day before I was mustered out. In North Korea, we have 'Strategic Sundays,' for study, plus three hours of ideological study daily." He acknowledged that those sessions could become tedious. "Of course, if you hear the same thing over and over, you'll get bored. But the punishment for drowsing during the lectures is so severe you can't even think of allowing yourself to doze off. Punishments include from ten hours of continuous ideological studies to a whole week of them, around the clock, with no sleep. They may hit you, or make you run around the mountains." But Kim didn't study just out of fear, he said. "I was enthusiastic because diligence would pay off later. If you want to climb the career ladder, knowing ideology is essential. I wanted to enter a university after my enlistment, and the very first exam to screen applicants is on ideology. At the same time, I was very loyal."

In the end, he said, "I was not selected to take the exam. Only two out of a hundred were selected. It turned out they had to be the sons of high-ranking officials or of workers very loyal to the regime. I had some hopes but was disappointed in the end." Although he was disappointed, he was not disillusioned. "Even if I had been dissatisfied, there was nothing I could do. My fate would not have changed. So I just accepted the outcome. If I felt some disappointment, I blamed my parents: Why wasn't my father a high-ranking official?"

I knew that the usual procedure for anyone ending his military hitch was to be sent to work in the mines, unless he managed to get into a university. I asked Kim how he had avoided that fate. "In principle, everybody ending his enlistment is sent to the mines," he said. "But the regime makes sure parents have at least one child at home to look after them. My two elder brothers had already been sent to the mines, so I was allowed to go home to Sinuiju. I worked there in a company making textile-dyeing equipment. Afterward I went to Pyongyang on temporary a.s.signment as a construction worker under the central party's management department. I worked on the Koryo Hotel, Kim Jong-il's gift apartments-those he awarded to people-and the 105-story hotel, until April 1992. I went back to Sinuiju then, and in August went to Siberia."

He explained the lure of Russia. "When I got back from the army, my father was seventy-two and my mother was in her sixties. Neither could work any longer. I had to work hard to support them. The problem was, you couldn't get extra pay for diligence. That's why I decided to go to Siberia. It paid twenty times what you could make in North Korea." Getting there was "very difficult," Kim said. "There are about 10,000 North Koreans working in Siberia. Each year a third of them rotate home, so there are some 3,000 openings. Around 9,000 sign up, which means a three-to-one compet.i.tion. To be selected you have to give side gifts to officials. The family had no money. I borrowed 1,000 won won -a couple of years' wages. With that I managed to get a three-year contract." -a couple of years' wages. With that I managed to get a three-year contract."

There was more indoctrination before his departure, but this time he quickly had an opportunity to see that what he was being taught wasn't true. "I had to undergo an intense ideological training session. They taught us that Russians were having a hard time since they'd given up socialism, so we shouldn't a.s.sociate with Russians in Siberia. When I got there, I secretly visited stores and discovered that the situation was not at all as I had been told.

Russians worked very diligently and got paid accordingly for their work. I also came into contact with some Chinese merchants who had visited South Korea. I learned from them about the real situation in the South. I also a.s.sociated with some immigrants from Korea, and listened to South Korean radio. So I started to become affected. What really made me decide I'd been lied to was when I visited department stores in the larger cities, which had lots of South Korean goods on sale."

I had understood Kim's job to have been logging, but he corrected me on that. "Among the Koreans sent to Siberia," he said, "a few are sent to mines instead of doing logging, to earn Russian currency that can be used to pay for trucking the timber and so on. I was one of those, and I realized I "was getting only 10 percent of-what my Russian co-workers got. The other 90 percent was going to the [Korean Workers'] party. I got upset at that and argued about it, getting into trouble. At dawn on the day I would have been arrested for insubordination, I escaped to Vladivostok. Two Chinese-Korean immigrants there helped me, and when I heard of a ship in port that was bound for Pusan, I stowed away aboard it. I got to South Korea December 30, 1993. Now I work for a pharmaceutical company, in the personnel department."

I asked Kim to permit me a personal question about his tattoo. "Some friends and I got tattooed when we went into the army," he replied. "This says, 'Martial Spirit.'" I wondered if he had talked to any former soldiers, mustered out more recently than he, and learned whether their indoctrination had been like his own. "Yes, I knew some in Siberia. They were told: 'No one here is going to end his. .h.i.tch before a war comes.' They call the soldiers 'reunification soldiers.'" Would they fight? "They don't have any fear. They'll just run down to South Korea once war erupts." Could the North win? "With what I know now, they don't have a chance of-winning. I don't believe they could take Seoul-although Seoul certainly would be affected by a-war."

I met Chae Myung-hak the same day I spoke with Kim Kil-song in October 1994. Chae had arrived in Seoul the previous February. He sported an early Beatles sort of bowl haircut with heavy bangs down to his eyebrows. From there down his face featured high cheekbones and a strong jaw.

Chae was born in 1960, in Kuson, a city in North Pyongan Province, he told me. His father had been a policeman. Leaving the force in 1963 after eleven years, the father had then become a communal farmer. Chae's mother was also a farmer. Chae heard from them that "before my father became a farmer, we lived a comparatively wealthy life." His own memories of material conditions dated to the late 1960s, "when we didn't have basic necessities like shoes and clothing, and couldn't find them in stores. But from the time I was seventeen I have no perception of how the society worked because I was in the army. We were allowed to write letters, but officers would read them first, and when we received letters they only gave us the parts that were cleared. Besides, we had our hands completely full with strenuous mountain training for war. There was no time to think of the rest of society."

Chae did not know at the time he enlisted that he would be a.s.signed to the special forces-an elite posting. "For special forces, they pick about 10 percent of recruits, choosing on the basis of good family background and healthy bodies," he told me. "They trained us to attack certain sites in South Korea, including Kimpo Airport and certain Honest John, Hawk and Patriot missile sites. We specialized in nuclear missile sites. We had spies in South Korea who took pictures of the sites and mapped them. We had exact mockups of the installations we were to attack. We were trained so thoroughly we could even attack blindfolded." Pending war, only higher-ups knew the actual locations of the targeted sites in South Korea, he said. Mean-while the men prepared to deal with the first obstacle, the heavily mined Demilitarized Zone. "We were trained to cross the DMZ. For training we had the same set-up, fences, mines and all, and we had to practice getting through."

I wondered if his trainers had predicted how a new war would begin. "Since my childhood I had been taught that the Korean War erupted because the United States pushed the South Korean army into it," Chae said. "We were taught that the Americans at some time would start another war, so we must be prepared. It would bring a lot of casualties on both sides. But we had to beat the United States. They told us that a war, which the U.S. would start, was necessary to bring reunification. We would have to win it. They told us the war would start with a U.S. attack, but in looking back on it since my defection I have to a.s.sume the plan was for North Korea to invade South Korea."

Reunification would bring material benefits, the trainers told their military charges: "They said, 'We are deprived now because of the United States. But once reunification comes, North and South will prosper together and Korea will become the head of the Asian world.' We were taught that North Korea was poor because the U.S., with its forces in South Korea, prevents reunification of the peninsula. They said North Korea is very mountainous compared with the South. We don't have much farmland and can't grow enough rice. But South Korea has great farming potential while North Korea has mineral resources and advanced heavy industry. They told us that even though South Korea has lots of farmland, they don't use it to the fullest but instead build army and air bases on it. Therefore, South Korea is poor. So once we reunite, Korea will emerge as the leader of Asia."

When I pressed him on the connection in the indoctrination sessions between making war and getting more to eat, Chae replied: "I should clarify that we were not taught that we would invade South Korea to gain its land so we could increase our agricultural production. We were taught that the U.S. and South Korea would invade North Korea, and we then would have to bring about reunification. The benefit of increased food is just an incentive given to soldiers."

Chae said he had been taught that Kim Il-sung would be in charge of the reunified Korea-"but then I couldn't have imagined anything else. He had been our sole leader for decades. I had no doubts. I just presumed that would be the natural outcome." Soldiers like Chae had "no specific orders" regarding their post-reunification role, "but basically all the political instruction taught me that once reunification came the South Korean army and others, being enemies, would have to change their ideology to socialism. We would have to keep a watch on them." That didn't seem a terribly difficult task, in light of what the North Korean soldiers were taught about the South. "I thought South Koreans would be delighted to be reunified by the North Koreans," Chae said. "In North Korea they broadcast news of South Korean student demonstrations, anti-government and pro-unification. After seeing those broadcasts we a.s.sumed that South Koreans were anti-government and would favor the North Korean regime after reunification. When I was in North Korea I believed people were basically the same. The only differences were due to their leaders. The South Korean and U.S. governments, not the people, were the villains, I thought. I even thought I understood U.S. soldiers. I was a sergeant, with a squad of eleven men under me. Being a low-ranking soldier myself, I knew the American soldiers just followed orders."

Starting in 1984 when the North sent food aid to the South following flooding there, Chae told me, even for the military "the food problem was an important issue." Civilians who were supposed to get 600 grams of grain a day got 520. The military suffered a lesser reduction in rations. "We went from 800 grams to 760." Reasons given were that "the harvest was not so good that year. And we were told we had to help our brothers in South Korea in their desperate straits. Each year the situation worsened, and they explained that the harvests had not been satisfactory. From 1985 through 1988 things got worse, but not so drastically. When I left the military in April of 1987, I was sent to North Hamgyong Province. When I got there I realized the grain ration had been delayed. January, February, March and April rations were not provided. Finally, in June, they gave us the delayed ration. North Hamgyong was an exception, though. Other places were only a couple of months late. People blamed the provincial governor, saying he lacked the ability to overcome the problem by bartering with another province." The central government did not, however, punish the governor. After all, Chae noted, "the government had sent him there."

Chae said that, in civilian life, "my first job was as an engine repairman, but I couldn't earn much so I took a job as a diver in Rajin. It would pay better and I could buy food on the black market. I dived for marine products on the sea floor-crabs, octopus, clams and so on--which were exported for foreign exchange. That meant I could make more money." Chae told me he had harbored no doubts about the system at that point. "I just thought the food shortages were due to poor harvests."

Chae went to Russia in October 1989. "According to what I heard from people at home, the youth festival earlier that year caused things to get drastically worse. I heard from some officials that if a country wins the right to host the Olympics, there are lots of economic benefits. The youth festival, on the other hand, drains a country's treasury so badly it takes five years to recover. To hold the festival the government spends a lot, and the people have to pay"

Chae wanted very badly to go to the Soviet Union as a logger. But he found that "it's very difficult to be sent to Siberia if you're single. Only 1 or 2 percent of those who go don't have families." The authorities reasoned that a family's presence back home would serve as a guarantee of a logger's return after his contract was up. Chae devised an ingenious strategem. "I made a contract marriage with a woman who had a child. She was the wife of a coworker who was sent to a prison camp, which meant they were automatically divorced. I knew him. He was a senior official, head of the production line. He stole a lot of products that were supposed to be exported, and got caught for embezzlement."

That was an economic crime, but Chae said that even in the case of political crimes it was no longer automatic that the offender's family would be sent away with him. There had been a change of policy. "In 1991 a woman defected with two men and went on television to talk about North Korea. The broadcasts could be seen near the DMZ. This brought about a lot of problems, so the government wanted to get rid of all her relatives. But there were too many, including a number of high-ranking officials. From 1992 the regulations changed. Whoever betrayed the regime, that person was the only traitor. That's the reason there have been more defections since 1992. People don't have to worry so much about families they leave behind. Family members now just lose social privileges-no promotions, no central party membership, etc. There's the report that Marshal O Jin-u's son escaped to China. This won't affect O Jin-u."

Chae said one big reason he was so eager to go to Russia was that, although he had not picked his bride, he did hope eventually to have a real marriage. Mean-while, "the diving job was too dangerous. I almost died three times, twice because of a blocked oxygen hose and another time because of a compression problem. I knew this dangerous job would kill me, but I couldn't earn enough in normal jobs to get married. So I decided to use my pay from the diving job to give gifts to officials so I could go to Siberia and make more money. I used about 3,000 won won to pay off officials: the party secretary at my work unit, the city director in charge of sending people overseas, the vice-head of the State Security office." I asked him if having to make payoffs to those officials had caused him to doubt the system. "No," he replied. "It just seemed the natural route to get to Siberia. I wanted very badly to go." to pay off officials: the party secretary at my work unit, the city director in charge of sending people overseas, the vice-head of the State Security office." I asked him if having to make payoffs to those officials had caused him to doubt the system. "No," he replied. "It just seemed the natural route to get to Siberia. I wanted very badly to go."

It was his arrival in Russia that started to change his att.i.tude. "I realized Siberia and Russia were decades ahead of North Korea. This brought out a discrepancy, because I'd been taught that the Soviet Union was the poorest country among European nations. I realized the government was lying to us. From Koreans I met in Russia, I learned it was North Korea that had invaded South Korea, and that Kim Jong-il hadn't been born in Korea on Mount Paektu but near Khabarovsk. That was shocking. While I was in Siberia I saw a doc.u.mentary on [then South Korean President] Roh Tae-woo's meeting with Gorbachev. The doc.u.mentary showed South Korean automobile a.s.sembly lines. I realized that to sell all those products that I saw in the markets of Khabarovsk, South Korea had to have become industrialized. Over the course of about a year I realized all the facts through conversations with Russians, reading newspapers, watching movies from France, Italy and the United States, watching TV My ideology shifted and became unstable. There was no time to listen to the radio, but occasionally I heard South Korean popular music."

Still, it took a series of additional shocks before Chae started contemplating defection, he told me. "Even though my ideology had changed, my basic sentiment was that I planned to go back to North Korea. After three years in Siberia I wanted to return. But due to some agreement with the Russians, everybody had to stay another year. My father pa.s.sed away then. They wouldn't let me go home for the funeral. That enraged me, and I came up with the idea that I should escape, go to the Russian authorities, obtain a Russian pa.s.sport and then fly back to North Korea." Hearing Chae relate his desperate plan, and feeling certain he would have been caught and either executed or sent off to a camp if he had attempted it, I was reminded yet again of my equally screwy 1979 thoughts of fleeing across the DMZ.

"Even though I hatched that scheme," Chae continued, "the occasion didn't arise. And while I was still thinking about it, my roommate got drunk and stabbed a fellow worker. He was going to be sent back to a prison camp, so he escaped. The authorities started questioning me to find out where he was so they could capture him. They threatened that if I didn't help them they wouldn't let me return to North Korea. There were three opportunities to return that year. Although I had been on the list for the first group, they took my name off. So I decided to escape. I still had that plan of going back to North Korea, but people demanded too much money for a pa.s.sport. I decided to go to Moscow with a friend. There I met some South Koreans who were managing a restaurant. I worked as a security guard at night and carved jewelry in the daytime. With the money we asked the Russian mafia in Siberia to make Russian pa.s.sports. But we realized we would just be sent to prison camps if we did go back to North Korea, so finally we decided to go to South Korea. We thought of going to the United States, but South Korea is, after all, Korean. Arriving at Kimpo Airport as tourists with Russian pa.s.sports, we turned ourselves in. We had return tickets to Russia in case we should be rejected. We went through immigration and then asked people how to find the intelligence officials. We caused some confusion because North Korean spies might come in the way we did."

Chae said he was working at Sempyo Company, a South Korean maker of soy sauce, in the factory. "It's temporary work," he said. "Then the government will send us somewhere else."

Chae had teamed up with a friend, Kim Tae-pom, for the escape from their logging camp and defection to South Korea. When I went to interview Kim, I met a slender man wearing a light green suit, a floral necktie with a big knot, metal-rimmed gla.s.ses and a black plastic watch-unusual, as noted earlier, among defectors, who typically sported expensive timepieces.

Kim was born in Pyongyang, in 1962. In 1976, when he was in high school, the family was sent to South Pyongan Province because of his sister's polio. "Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il didn't want disabled people in Pyongyang," he told me, echoing what I had heard from other sources about a policy of removing handicapped people, midgets, beggars and anyone else considered unsightly from the showcase capital. The forced move came despite a "good" family background. Kim Tae-pom's mother was a Korean War orphan. There were siblings in the army and at the Mansudae Art Theater. "My parents were upset," Kim told me, "but this was a government order. What could they do? My father took a demotion from a high party official's job in the Department of Administration to become a much lower-ranking member of the local economic committee in Songchon. The clothing we could get there was not as nice, and our house was smaller. But we still had relatives in Pyongyang. With their influence we eventually moved to a bigger house. Because of my father's demotion, our food rations were smaller. In Pyongyang our grain ration had come in rice, every week, and we had received two kilograms of meat weekly After the move we got mixed grain, which was lower in quality. It was distributed only every ten days, along with one kilogram of meat."

I asked Kim to recall for me a time when he had been really happy. He replied: "Do you have a religion? In North Korea the juche juche ideology is another form of religion. I was very faithful to that. I felt ecstatic when we got presents from Kim Il-sung-clothing, food." I asked him then about negative feelings. "I never felt any dissatisfaction toward Kim Il-sung himself," he said. "Maybe I had some criticism of the regime, especially regarding the food situation. But unless you're a true dissident, there's no crticism of Kim Il-sung-only of the government." He added, however, "Before we moved we were part of the elite, but after we moved I felt some discrepancies in the social structure, the gap between the elite and others." ideology is another form of religion. I was very faithful to that. I felt ecstatic when we got presents from Kim Il-sung-clothing, food." I asked him then about negative feelings. "I never felt any dissatisfaction toward Kim Il-sung himself," he said. "Maybe I had some criticism of the regime, especially regarding the food situation. But unless you're a true dissident, there's no crticism of Kim Il-sung-only of the government." He added, however, "Before we moved we were part of the elite, but after we moved I felt some discrepancies in the social structure, the gap between the elite and others."

After graduating from high school, Kim Tae-pom had gone to a trade school but dropped out on account of eye problems. He went to work in a car factory, then became a member of an elite paramilitary "shock unit" of the Central Committee of the League of Socialist Working Youth. Everyone joined the youth league (around age fourteen), and there were chapters even in the army, but those shock unit members were special. They came from "good" family backgrounds. To be accepted, applicants had to demonstrate ideological stability. They got paid "well and were in line to become cadre. Kim Jong-il had founded the shock units and they were somewhat similar to Three Revolutions teams, which were run by the party itself.

Kim Tae-pom and his colleagues wore military uniforms and had military ranks. From 1982 to 1984 his unit was responsible for security at an a.r.s.enal. The members spent from 8 to 9 A.M. studying the life and works of Kim Il-sung, then worked from 9 A.M. until evening constructing facilities. After supper, from 9 to 10 P.M., they attended indoctrination sessions. Following a full hitch, a member was ent.i.tled to party membership and a factory job back home without having to go to work in the mines. Kim's post-shock unit job, which he held from 1984 to 1989, was as an equipment repairman in a thread factory near his South Pyongan province home. At the factory, 90 percent of the employees were women.

Eventually Kim Tae-pom wanted to leave the thread factory, and his salary of 80 won won per month, for better pay and a better life. He applied to go to Russia. "Pay in Siberia would be 70 times what I'd made before, even after the government had taken its big cut. The men who go there expect to make enough to live on for the rest of their lives. Usually they buy household appliances in Russia that are not available in North Korea. Sometimes they sell those back home; in other cases they use them." per month, for better pay and a better life. He applied to go to Russia. "Pay in Siberia would be 70 times what I'd made before, even after the government had taken its big cut. The men who go there expect to make enough to live on for the rest of their lives. Usually they buy household appliances in Russia that are not available in North Korea. Sometimes they sell those back home; in other cases they use them."

Basic requirements for getting sent to Russia included party membership, no criminal record and a good family background with no capitalist forebears. But Kim said that, when he applied, the ratio of largely qualified applicants to those who actually would be employed was fifteen or twenty to one. "To get on the list, you had to give or promise a television set or refrigerator to a higher official involved in the selection process. Some applicants actually wrote contracts promising to send the appliances to their official patrons after a year's work in Siberia." I wondered how such an obviously corrupt contract could be enforced. "The worker is bound to come back," Kim replied, "so they get him one way or another. This official would have enough power over your later career to ensure misery if he so chose."

I probed in vain for any sense of revulsion on Kim's part concerning such arrangements. "I feel it's justified," he said. "The official works hard to send the worker to Siberia, so there should be a payoff for him. Above that official there may be higher officials. This lower official has to work hard to get his own candidate to Siberia, has to pay off higher-ups. I just thought that was the way things were. I thought it was understandable. This system is prevalent throughout society. For example, if I couldn't make it to the factory one day I'd see the manager and give him some gifts and ask him to look the other way In North Korea most bribery involves goods, not money. When my father worked as an official at a county economic committee he received so many 'presents' from farmers-potatoes, green onions and so on. In North Korean law, if a person receives a present in the form of goods, that's a 'friendly present.' Money is a bribe."

In 1989, Kim Tae-pom went to Russia as a truck driver, hauling food from local markets to a logging camp. For his third year the a.s.signment changed to loading the food onto trains. His story was, I realized, a typical one: He arrived as a young man devoted to the regime of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, but soon started to have his a.s.sumptions challenged. "Factors that influenced me included conversations with Russians and being able to find and read South Korean newspapers. Other parts of the world became accessible. I learned that the rest of the world was different from what I'd been taught. There was more freedom to criticize the regime because we were in Siberia. Among friends, people often let out their dissatisfaction. The situation in North Korea had drastically worsened in 1986. And by 1989, when I left, it was far worse still. Letters from our families back home openly described problems with food. But the North Korean official broadcasts always insisted that things were getting better. I was aware of the discrepancies. I listened to Radio Moscow, Yanbian [China] radio and KBS."

In 1992, Kim said, "I bribed officials to alter my papers so I could get home leave for five months, see my family and give them some money. In December 1992, I returned to Siberia, realizing that nothing had changed in North Korea and feeling that I could no longer endure North Korean society. Coincidentally I learned I was going to be sent home on account of the bribery. That's why I escaped." On February 1, 1993, Kim Taepom fled to Khabarovsk, where he hid until he met some Americans and a Russian reporter who were able to help him get to Moscow and then to South Korea.

The reader has met Ahn Choong-hak already. In chapter 6 Ahn told us about his childhood pal who had been punished for comparing his frozen pile of feces to the sacred Mount Paektu. In chapter 12, we saw Ahn, enraged at learning that his family background was too flawed to get him into an elite college for spies and infiltrators, flinging his mother's sewing machine to the ground. After that outburst he returned to his military unit, where he was a model soldier and the driver for the Eighth Division commander, and remained there for four more years until his ten-year hitch ended in 1984.

Ahn did not leave the military entirel