Nevertheless he found his life "very stressful, because I had to do two things at once-my regular job plus working for State Security. I came to detest the mechanism of the regime," which was using informants to sustain its power. "I realized that this variety of communism could not go on. That's the first thing I said when I defected to South Korea. I defected because I thought it was unjust." On February 25, 1983, when he was a major, he flew a M.IG 19 across the Demilitarized Zone and down to a South Korean air base at Suwon, tipping his wings to signal that he was defecting.

Although I was impressed by the forceful speech of the crewcut and balding, strong-featured Lee, I felt that something was missing in the story he'd told up to that point. My experience from interviewing many defectors was that, in the usual case, systemic injustice in the abstract was not enough to spur such a drastic act. A defector would know all too well that his family members remaining behind quite likely would be sent off to political prison camps, perhaps for the rest of their lives, to pay for his act. In view of that heavy responsibility, I had found, a North Korean normally would not defect unless he had fallen afoul of the system in some life-shattering fashion. But I also knew that the authorities in South Korea considered Lee a sincere defector. They had shown that by letting him join their air force (in a nonflying job, teaching about North Korea) and eventually, as he approached his fortieth birthday, by promoting him to lieutenant colonel.

I pressed Lee to tell me more of his story. And there was more, enough to persuade me that he had experienced conflicts with the system sufficient to motivate a self-loathing character in a Graham Greene novel. His epiphany it turned out, had involved the woman he loved. But I'm getting ahead of the story.

Back at the time of his defection, Lee told me, "lots of people doubted me because it seemed I didn't have such a decisive reason-that I just defected for political reasons." That was his reason, though, he insisted. "At bottom the regime just put too much pressure on people's basic rights." I asked him for an example. "For example," he replied, "because of the concept of cla.s.s struggle you're not allowed to marry whomever you want." Now I could see that his story was about to get more personal.

I drew him out on the rest and learned that, when he was twenty-seven, someone had arranged for him to meet a prospective bride. "I won't mention the full name, but Miss Chang's parents were from Seoul and came north in 1949." The couple got along well, corresponding by mail for about a year. "I wanted to marry her, but pilots weren't supposed to marry people with Seoul backgrounds." The mere fact that Miss Chang's parents had lived in South Korea-before she was born-made her loyalty suspect, along with that of her whole family. "I guess that was the turning point, the point where I started having conflicts," Lee told me. "What right has the regime to invade social relations?"

Lee was expected to consult with a senior State Security officer if he wanted to marry. "They didn't specifically say, 'Don't marry' They said, 'Do as you wish.' But the unstated message was that there would be lots of disadvantages for my family and me. After a background check on the woman, I knew it wasn't what we were supposed to do. I slowly distanced myself from her, trying to persuade her that marriage to a pilot would mean a hard life." He reminded her that North Korean military units were expected to grow much of their own food. "I told her, 'You'd have to do farming, raise pigs.' The last letter I got from her, she told me she was marrying another man. She quoted a Korean saying to the effect that 'birds of a feather flock together.' She understood the real reason. She was, I guess, outraged, upset."

Mean-while, Lee didn't have to be an Einstein to figure that there was a spy out there somewhere who was just waiting for him to say or do the wrong thing. That was the way the regime operated, after all. While Lee himself was with State Security there was always Public Security among other spying organizations. The various agencies watched each other, even had units officially stationed inside one another's organizations to facilitate their mutual spying. Lee felt his frustration bottled up for as long as he remained in North Korea. Lacking trust in those around him, "I couldn't talk about my dissatisfaction with anyone," he told me.

Among scores of defectors and refugees I interviewed, I found Lee particularly tough-minded. North Koreans, soon after their arrival in China or South Korea, tended to accept religion, Buddhism in some cases but more often evangelical Christianity-a new set of top-down, revealed, all-encompa.s.sing beliefs to replace the faith that had failed them in the North. Lee was different in that regard. "I'm not much of an organization man, more of an individualist," he told me. "That's why I haven't taken up religion yet. It's difficult to accept it. I still have doubts. I think religion was made to maintain the social order."

Then he looked hard at me and said, "I want the North Korean regime to know that when the regime changes, they'll have to take responsibility for punishing the families of defectors. Put that in your book."

FIFTEEN.

From Generation to Generation In February 1974, 1974, Pyongyang-watchers abroad read in Pyongyang-watchers abroad read in Nodong Shinmun, Nodong Shinmun, the North Korean party newspaper, an editorial ent.i.tled, "Let the Whole Party Nation and People Respond to the Call of the Great Leader and the Appeal of the Party Center for Grand Construction Programs of Socialism." the North Korean party newspaper, an editorial ent.i.tled, "Let the Whole Party Nation and People Respond to the Call of the Great Leader and the Appeal of the Party Center for Grand Construction Programs of Socialism."

It eventually turned out that the editorial had coincided with the Central Committee's unannounced endors.e.m.e.nt of Kim Jong-il's selection as successor to his father, who was party general secretary. Shortly before, in September 1973, the Central Committee had elected the junior Kim to membership in the party's elite politburo and named him party secretary for organization and guidance-the very powerful post that his uncle, Kim Yong-ju, had held.

Thenceforth Kim Jong-il "was not merely number two in the power hierarchy," high-ranking defector Hw.a.n.g Jang-yop recalled later. "This is what sets him apart from his uncle Kim Yong-ju." The junior Kim's power was far greater than his uncle had ever wielded. From 1974, said Hw.a.n.g, "even the most insignificant report could not reach Kim Il-sung without going through Kim Jong-il first, and none of Kim Il-sung's instructions could reach his subordinates without going through Kim Jong-il first."1 Without knowing all that, foreign a.n.a.lysts pondered the question of-who or what might be the mysterious "Party Center," so prominently singled out in the editorial. Clues began to appear. In February of 1975, Pyongyang television showed Kim Jong-il voting in local elections right behind Kim Il-sung and Kim Il, the next-ranked figure among active members of the guerrilla generation, who was not related by blood to the other two similarly named Kims. Voting order had been for decades a strong hint of rank in any communist country. In 1975, 1975, Kim Jong-il's portrait started to appear alongside that of his father in public places-but still the code term "Party Center" was used and his name was rarely heard in public. In March of Kim Jong-il's portrait started to appear alongside that of his father in public places-but still the code term "Party Center" was used and his name was rarely heard in public. In March of 1976, 1976, the term was upgraded to "Glorious Party Center." An official announcement the same year finally made clear the junior Kim's position in the party secretariat. the term was upgraded to "Glorious Party Center." An official announcement the same year finally made clear the junior Kim's position in the party secretariat.2 Although he had received the official nod, Kim Jong-il with his father's help was still in the midst of what would prove a very long process. On the one hand, the Kims had to win support for the succession plan among key officials suspected of harboring skepticism. On the other, they had to root out any exceptionally bold leading officials who might dare to oppose the scheme overtly-along with cagier officials who could be biding their time, disguising their opposition while awaiting the elder Kim's death as their cue to move against his son.

Kim Jong-il mobilized relatively young people to help him. Totally in charge of propaganda for the party starting in 1973, he commanded the newly formed Three Revolutions teams-North Korea's answer to China's Red Guards. He and his loyalists pushed aside older figures, many of whom were purged for alleged incompetence or insufficiently "revolutionary" att.i.tudes. But age was no barrier when he sought allies for his machinations, and he also teamed up with selected members of the old guard. Rivals, including his uncle, stepbrothers and stepmother, bit the dust.

To show his fitness for the top leadership, the propaganda and cultural specialist had to present himself as more broadly qualified. That required dabbling in the larger economy. In 1972, not yet formally anointed as successor, he is reported to have told leading officials and engineers that he had resolved to take upon himself "the task of automation." Presumably his father gave advance approval; in any event, the stated reason for what might have appeared to outsiders as arrant usurpation was that a "technical revolution," begun in 1970, had not made enough progress.

The technical revolution's official goal was "finally freeing all the working people from backbreaking labor." But as we saw in chapter 9, the movement appears rather to have been a response to the fact that militarization, by enlarging the army, had created a labor shortage. Automation was the way to stretch the available labor supply. Change had proven elusive, though, because managers were mainly concerned with meeting their production quotas. Thus, they had little time to think about automation, say the regime's official historians. Besides, "some people were victims of a sort of mysticism."

They believed that "putting industry on a totally automated track was feasible only in developed countries."3 At the outmoded, j.a.panese-built Hw.a.n.ghae Iron Works, Kim Jong-il demonstrated what was to become a signature element of his management style. If he decided on a project his philosophy was: Full speed ahead and the cost be d.a.m.ned. Steelmaking officials and technicians argued that automating Hw.a.n.ghae's old, worn-out sintering plant would not be cost-effective. That was nonsense in the young Kim's view. "Money should not be spared," he ordered. "Calculation should not come first in spending money for the working cla.s.s." In what seems an echo of his insistance as a university student that computation be dropped from the economics curriculum, he added: "Counting may be done later." His show project of automating the old iron works was completed in short order.

In Kim Jong-il's mind, the technical revolution was an extension of the ideological and cultural work in which he had done his apprenticeship. For him, policy issues boiled down to motivation. With material re-wards ideologically frowned upon, positive motivation meant propaganda and ma.s.s mobilization. His cinema and opera work merged directly into his new duties. North Koreans were encouraged to emulate the heroes and heroines of his movies and revolutionary operas. They organized "Sea-of-Blood" Guards and "Flower Girl" Guards to push for innovations. "Day after day, leading characters in the works of art became real in each factory and each workshop."5 A magic trick he encouraged the Pyongyang Circus conjurers to develop and show off to his father highlighted the campaign to reduce women's kitchen labor. A magic trick he encouraged the Pyongyang Circus conjurers to develop and show off to his father highlighted the campaign to reduce women's kitchen labor.6 To whip up support for the Hw.a.n.ghae Iron Works modernization, he brought in "a high-powered economic cheering squad" composed of Central Broadcasting Commission professionals to broadcast to factories and related industries nationwide, urging them to aid the automation project. To whip up support for the Hw.a.n.ghae Iron Works modernization, he brought in "a high-powered economic cheering squad" composed of Central Broadcasting Commission professionals to broadcast to factories and related industries nationwide, urging them to aid the automation project.7 In 1973, with output of tractors and other agricultural machines failing to meet demand, Kim Jong-il and his propaganda and agitation department mounted a campaign to raise productivity at k.u.msong Tractor Works and Sungri General Motor Works. "Party activists and hundreds of artists, reporters and editors rushed to the production sites, with all the means of publicity put into action, including newspapers, radio stations, TV stations and feature films." Artists sang and danced on the site, their songs "reverbrating in high pitch" as teach-ins, bulletins and wall newspapers called forth "the political consciousness and creative initiative of the working cla.s.s." Thanks to the "fresh innovations" thus inspired, both factories were said to have worked wonders.8 Despite such successes, the country's leaders remained troubled by workplace-level resistance to the campaigns.9 In 1973, the year of the campaigns in the two tractor plants, Kim Il-sung established a movement to remove the "shackles of outdated thinking" and promote vigor in carrying out ideological, technical and cultural revolution- "the Three Revolutions." Organized into teams of twenty to fifty members were tens of thousands of zealous ideologues-young party members, technocrats, intellectuals and college students, who had been educated completely under the communist regime. After special training, they were sent into factories, farms and offices, even schools. The elder Kim soon placed his son in command of the effort, In 1973, the year of the campaigns in the two tractor plants, Kim Il-sung established a movement to remove the "shackles of outdated thinking" and promote vigor in carrying out ideological, technical and cultural revolution- "the Three Revolutions." Organized into teams of twenty to fifty members were tens of thousands of zealous ideologues-young party members, technocrats, intellectuals and college students, who had been educated completely under the communist regime. After special training, they were sent into factories, farms and offices, even schools. The elder Kim soon placed his son in command of the effort,10 inspiring a.n.a.lysts abroad to suggest that one purpose of the teams was to root out opposition to Kim Jong-il's succession and install his young loyalists in positions of authority. inspiring a.n.a.lysts abroad to suggest that one purpose of the teams was to root out opposition to Kim Jong-il's succession and install his young loyalists in positions of authority.11 A North Korean named Kim Ji-il, who was an elementary school pupil when the movement was launched, recalled after his defection to the South that teams "would even come to our school and inspect the kids, their lifestyles and so on. This took about ten days. They would hold a meeting each day take one kid at a time and make him or her confess publicly to some misdeed or other. The other kids would get into the spirit of the criticism session and remind whoever was being grilled: 'You also did so and so!' I was cla.s.s president so I felt a lot of conflict about this. But North Korea is an inter-critical society."

Kim Ji-il recalled that "confessions might be something like, 'I was absent,' or 'I came late to school.' 'I didn't partic.i.p.ate well in the criticism session.' Or, 'I fought with another kid.' It wasn't the details they cared about. They wanted to intimidate you and give you stress. Each Monday we had to get up and make Kim Jong-il pledges: 'I will be faithful to the leader, blah blah blah.' Part of the pledge was, 'In case of-war I will sacrifice myself as an advance-guard stormtrooper.' I had to be the first one to read it, and they always criticized my p.r.o.nunciation of advance-guard stormtrooper, keunuidaekyeolsade. keunuidaekyeolsade. " "12 In workplaces, the teams' official missions were to whip up fervor for overproduction, combat conservative and bureacratic tendencies and "teach modern science and technology to those cadres who do not study much and who are preoccupied with their day-to-day work." Particular targets were older officials who had lost their own zeal and become mired in bureaucratic routine and sloth. Even the Central Committee of the Workers' Party was not exempted from the requirement to play host to a Three Revolutions team.13 Longer-lived than China's Red Guards, the Three Revolutions teams lasted for more than two decades. Former member Kim Kw.a.n.g-wook, whose term in the organization ended in 1993, told me that college students had been eager to join the Three Revolutions teams because it put them on the fast track leading to high officialdom. About 70 percent of college graduates went to work in Three Revolutions offices, said Kim, who defected right after leaving the group-before he could put his civil engineering training to work building underground tunnels for the army.

Despite the teams' vaunted morale-building function, in reality the members worked as snoops and spies, Kim Kw.a.n.g-wook told me. Thus, in his initial a.s.signment in Pyongyang, "I had to write down everything any of the three hundred citizens I watched might say-anything against the regime." The young people spied on ordinary citizens, but our special duty was to spy on factory managers and government officials. We were sent to factories and treated like G.o.ds or kings, because they were afraid we'd rat on them. I was in the mines for six months, then I moved to a factory making excavation equipment. I took care of the transport, fueling and equipment departments and if anyone used them excessively I reported on that. If someone opposed an order Kim Jong-il had sent down-saying, "Why should we do that?"--we'd make a report, While I was in the mines an official got into that kind of trouble. He got fired and sent as a common laborer to an airport. It was someone else's report. At that time there were a lot of corruption scandals. We heard that Kim Jong-il said, "I'll choose more loyal and efficient mine officials." One official, in a department that was considered desirable, complained to his colleagues about Kim Jong-il's orders, and his colleagues reported him.

By the time Kim Kw.a.n.g-wook joined, the teams had reached something of an accommodation with the people they watched. Nevertheless, as we saw in the case of pilot-spy Kim Woong-pyong in chapter 14, they could not simply stop reporting altogether so they reported selectively. "Mostly we overlooked what we heard. We got TV sets as bribes. I myself received cloth to make a suit. We got to know those officials really well after a while. But how could there be nothing, among three hundred people? If-we called a cup a plate, it-was a plate. If officials crossed Three Revolutions team members, the team members might simply make up stories about them."

The considerably older subjects of all that surveillance "couldn't express animosity but I know they didn't like us," Kim Kw.a.n.g-wook said. "In Oriental culture you must speak a certain way to elders. I didn't speak that way--we used plain, not honorific, speech. Officials really hated the Three Revolutions teams." That didn't bother the youngsters much, though. "If you're a team member, you automatically get accepted into the party, so we didn't feel any compunction. That was my att.i.tude, and that's the way others felt as well."14 ***

Superficially the Three-Revolutions teams were similar to the radical Maoist Red Guards who rampaged across China. In reality, though, Kim Il-sung had long opposed the "leftist deviation" of bottom-up, egalitarian democracy. His regime had made clear its opposition to the "reckless rebellion" of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.15 Far from unleashing the ma.s.ses, the Three Revolutions teams were all about control. Kim and his son kept the teams themselves under tightly centralized control and used them, in turn, to control potentially troublesome elements in the bureaucracy and the economy. Far from unleashing the ma.s.ses, the Three Revolutions teams were all about control. Kim and his son kept the teams themselves under tightly centralized control and used them, in turn, to control potentially troublesome elements in the bureaucracy and the economy.

In March 1975, the third year of the Three Revolutions teams, Kim Il-sung claimed that because of the teams, the country had pa.s.sed the $1,000 mark in per capita income and joined the advanced countries. Even if such claims were true, not everyone was pleased. Watching the advance of the young Kim and his like-wise youthful comrades and disapproving of the aggressive behavior of the youngsters in the Three Revolutions teams, some of the old revolutionaries wondered how long it would be before they themselves were consigned to history. Kim Il-sung sought to soothe them in 1975. "The target of the Three Revolutions teams is not the old cadres themselves but their outdated thought," he said. "Elderly officials should not be simply dismissed but be remolded through the movement."16 As we have seen, and as we shall see again, Kim Jong-il's version of generational politics did involve selective harsh attacks on older-generation foes. He would not have been his father's son if purges had not been part of his a.r.s.enal. But he also worked hard to win the acceptance of first-generation members of the leadership, flattering and allying himself with those who supported him or who exhibited enough pliability that he believed he could deal with them.

There was no shortage of sycophants. When Kim Jong-il graduated from college and joined the Workers' Party in 1964, one former high official told me, the princeling rated his own female "mansions volunteer corps." Its organizers were Yi Yong-mu, a general in charge of the KPA Political Department, and Jun Mun-sop, bodyguard commander. Other flatterers, as well, introduced him to young women or brought him other gifts. "Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il both love to give and receive gifts," this former official said. "Kim Il-sung likes health food. Kim Jong-il requests presents with value overseas-gold bullion and foreign currency"17 Another former official, Kang Myong-do, told me that in the 1970s, Li Dong-ho, a very powerful figure in espionage in South Korea, held parties for Kim Jong-il and gave him presents. Foreign affairs specialist Ho Dam was also giving presents to flatter the junior Kim. Kang told me that Kim Jong-il seemed to savor the attention. The gift-giving, as is traditional in East Asia, was mutual. Kim Jong-il was wont to give lavishly, whether the recipient was already close to him or was someone he had yet to bring over to his side.

Official biographies relate incidents such as his gift to a television cameraman of an apartment in 1964-the year of the junior Kim's university graduation, when his work involved him with the Central Radio and TV Broadcasting Committee. The cameraman, a Korean War orphan, was a newlywed. The intent of the story is to show the young Kim following in his father's footsteps in showing "warm affection" for orphans "as if he were their own parent." Kim summoned the cameraman and drove him downtown.

Presently the car stopped in front of a high-rise apartment house. Leading the man up the well-polished artificial granite staircase, Kim Jong-il halted in front of Room Ten on the first floor, and produced a small piece of paper from his briefcase. "Now, take it, it is the occupation certificate. I could not allow myself to give you an old house because yours is a young family. ... Go in and see whether you like it." With these words Kim Jong-il opened the door.18 "Party rules prohibit gift-giving among members," a former elite official told me. "But Kim Jong-il gave gifts to try to buy people off from forming factions against him." When he gave an imported automobile, as was often the case, the gift was marked with a special "216" license plate-the numerals representing the junior Kim's birthday, February 16. "Once Kim Jong-il gave me an Audi with one of the '216' license plates," the same former official told me.

Besides cars, Kim Jong-il's gifts included television sets, radios and watches-all foreign-made, of course. The overall scale of his gift-giving soon grew so enormous as to affect the economy seriously. Various sources confirm that a special unit in the party, dubbed Room 39 on account of its office location, was given the mission of bringing in foreign exchange to pay for Kim's purchases. To accomplish that, Room 39 had a monopoly over the export of several high-demand products.

According to defector Kang Myong-do, Room 39 was founded in 1974 and given sole authority over the export of gold and silver, steel, fish and mushrooms. "Only through Room 39 could those products be exported," said Kang. "Previously each unit handled its own imports and exports, but Kim Jong-il's order made it treason to deal in those products through any other route. Because of Room 39 activities, the government had no bank reserves and became nearly broke. So from the mid-1980s most foreign trade had to be done on credit. Anyone who could borrow $1 million from another country-was considered a North Korean hero."19 ***

Gift-giving didn't win over all the skeptics who questioned Kim Jong-il's rise. Different approaches were needed to deal with several first-generation revolutionaries who "treated Kim Jong-il as a kid not yet weaned," in Kang Myong-do's words. Those included top civilian officials Kim Dong-kyu, Kim Il and Pak Song-chol as well as a senior general, O Jin-u, who had been a guerrilla protege of Kim Il-sung's in Manchuria.

According to Kang's account, Kim Jong-il betrayed a bosom pal to get O on his side. The pal was Yi Yong-mu, the ambitious general and Politburo member in charge of the political department of the Korean People's Army (and, by some accounts, the husband of a cousin of Kim Il-sung's), who had oiled his way into Kim Jong-il's inner circle starting in the junior Kim's college days. "Yi was very obsequious to Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-il liked that very much," said Kang. "He gave lots of presents to Kim Jong-il and built him a mansion at Changwan Mountain. From the KPA orchestra he handed over nineteen-to-twenty-year-old women to Kim Jong-il as Happy Corps members-they both liked women. Yi was really friendly with Kim Jong-il. They went all over the country in a Lincoln and a Mercedes-Benz. Yi used familiar language in addressing Kim Jong-il. Kim Jong-il trusted Yi 100 percent. Yi was very confident, and O Jin-u didn't like his att.i.tude."

Then, said Kang, "some personnel problems arose in Kangwon Province. The First Infantry commander's job was open, and Yi and O favored different people. O was a veteran of the First Infantry and he wanted a first-generation revolutionary to take over the job. Yi wanted one of his own cronies." On paper, Yi was in charge of military personnel matters, having been a.s.signed the job by Kim Il-sung himself. According to Kang, though, Kim Jong-il realized that if he supported his buddy Yi he would "be seen as siding against the first generation of revolutionaries. Kim Jong-il, being smart, sacrificed Yi, consigning him to a secondary post in a logging area in the remote mountains of Chagang Province." Going further, Kim Jong-il suggested to Kim Il-sung that O Jin-u be given Yi's former job as head of the overall political department of the KPA. "Kim Jong-il considered O Jin-u not so smart, but he wanted somebody from the first generation on his side," said Kang.20 O's support apparently proved useful to Kim Jong-il in his compet.i.tion with his uncle. Hw.a.n.g Jang-yop is quoted as reporting that Kim Jong-il and O Jin-u "were major factors behind driving Hur Bong-hak, Kim Kw.a.n.g-yop and other military men out of power between 1969 and 1970 for purposes of emasculating Kim Yong-ju politically"21 Kim Yong-ju was elected to the Politburo in 1970, ranked sixth in the regime. Kim Il-sung gave him the high-profile mission of negotiating with South Korean intelligence chief Lee Hu-rak in the North-South talks of 19721973. But in the palace politics at home Yong-ju had met his match in his cunning nephew, and the uncle's rise proved ephemeral. He lost to Kim Jong-il his post as party chief of organization and guidance in September 1973. As a consolation prize Kim Il-sung gave him a vice-premiership- negligible in the scheme of things in Pyongyang, where the party apparatus far outranked the cabinet. Kim Yong-ju was dropped from public mention entirely after his attendance was noted at an April 1975 meeting of the Supreme People's a.s.sembly. (He was not to make another announced appearance until 1993.22) His follower Ryu Jang-shik like-wise disappeared from public view in September of 1975.

Around that time, Kim Jong-il managed to neutralize any clout possessed by his stepmother, Kim Song-ae, who had favored Uncle Yong-ju in a bid to improve the eventual chances of her own son Pyong-il. By introducing Kim Il-sung to two women who then became favorites of the Great Leader, Kang Myong-do told me, Kim Jong-il drove a wedge into his father's marriage and reduced the first lady's influence. (Kang added that the Fatherly Leader's son by one of those women was being raised in Switzerland.) To add insult to injury, the propaganda apparatus pressed Song-ae into service in 1975 to offer public praise of her late predecessor and rival for Kim Il-sung's affections. Photographed wearing a facial expression in which some Nodong Shinmun Nodong Shinmun readers thought they discerned distaste, she called Kim Jong-suk- Kim Jong-il's late mother, then the subject of Pyongyang's version of beatification-an "imperishable communist revolutionary fighter and outstanding woman activist." readers thought they discerned distaste, she called Kim Jong-suk- Kim Jong-il's late mother, then the subject of Pyongyang's version of beatification-an "imperishable communist revolutionary fighter and outstanding woman activist."

An apparent interruption in Kim Jong-il's rise came when the regime removed his portrait from public places in October 1976 and reduced what had been practically daily references to "the Party Center," then dropped all use of the term from the early part of 1977. That curious incident remains to be fully explained, but the consensus of Pyongyang-watchers seems to be that the young Kim's disappearance from public view was a response to concern his advance had engendered among influential people.

Soviet newsmen stationed in Pyongyang told me when I visited the capital in 1979 that the key concerns leading to Kim Jong-il's public sidelining had been expressed within the military, where Kim Jong-il-as we saw in his involvement in the the contest between O and Yi-had a.s.sumed an oversight role.

The junior Kim's portaits came down just a few weeks after the 1976 Panmunjom incident in which North Korean troops, wielding axes, killed two American officers who had led a detail to trim a poplar tree that interfered with visual monitoring of the truce zone. The killings came after the Americans had refused North Korean soldiers' demand that they halt the tree-cutting. Having seen enough of the younger Kim's leadership, one of the Russians told me, irate North Korean officers had blamed Kim Jong-il for the diplomatically embarra.s.sing axe incident and had succeeded in getting him removed, for the time being, from his military role.

An unofficial, Tokyo-based spokesman for the regime, Kim Myong-chol, insisted in a 1982 article in a Hong Kong magazine that Kim Jong-il had not been involved in the axe incident: "Kim Jong-il was preoccupied at that time with organizing the North Korean people, party and government. He was simply too busy to have had any role in that affair, Pyongyang says." Much later, however, after Pyongyang had cranked up a propaganda campaign to glorify the junior Kim as a great general, another unofficial overseas spokesman pictured Kim Jong-il as having given an order, during the axe incident, that the Americans "should be taught a lesson." When the United States responded to the killings with a display of military muscle, "Kim Jong-il was not impressed and laughed at the American moves."23 A Swedish diplomat who was based in Pyongyang as his country's amba.s.sador during that period offers an intriguing aside: "The pictures of the son seemed to change." Mean-while, Eastern European diplomats openly circulated rumors that Kim Il-sung had a son older than Kim Jong-il from an earlier marriage. "Had the elder one been required to renounce his rights as firstborn in favor of his brother?" The diplomats could only speculate, as they were unable to confirm the rumors that there was an older son.24 In a widely disseminated story from that period, a pro-Seoul Korean-language newspaper in j.a.pan, Toitsu Nippo Toitsu Nippo (Unification Daily), alleged on February 2, 1978, that young military officers led by an aide to Gen. Yi Yong-mu had attempted to kill Kim Jong-il in a hit-and-run automobile collision in September 1977, inflicting serious head injuries on him and sending him into a coma. According to the account, the young officers were immediately arrested and executed and Yi was removed from his post, while doctors specializing in treatment of "human vegetables" were invited to Pyongyang to examine the junior Kim. There is little evidence for this. Although, as we have seen, Yi Yong-mu was out of favor while Kim Jong-il drew closer to regime elder O Jin-u, Yi later made a comeback of the sort that was not uncommon in the North Korea system. He came to be ranked near the top of the regime as a key deputy to Kim Jong-il on the Central Military Commission. (Unification Daily), alleged on February 2, 1978, that young military officers led by an aide to Gen. Yi Yong-mu had attempted to kill Kim Jong-il in a hit-and-run automobile collision in September 1977, inflicting serious head injuries on him and sending him into a coma. According to the account, the young officers were immediately arrested and executed and Yi was removed from his post, while doctors specializing in treatment of "human vegetables" were invited to Pyongyang to examine the junior Kim. There is little evidence for this. Although, as we have seen, Yi Yong-mu was out of favor while Kim Jong-il drew closer to regime elder O Jin-u, Yi later made a comeback of the sort that was not uncommon in the North Korea system. He came to be ranked near the top of the regime as a key deputy to Kim Jong-il on the Central Military Commission.

That would have been out of the question if Yi ever had involved himself in such a seriously bad career move as a botched attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Great Leaderdesignate.

Tales such as that a.s.sa.s.sination yarn seem to have been fed by Kim Jong-il's still-wild personal life, which was public enough to cause some in the military and the leadership to disdain him as a young reprobate. The story of his being seriously injured in an automobile wreck fits into what some others have said-one account says he was driving recklessly and caused an accident himself-even if there is nothing to the coup story. Hw.a.n.g Jang-yop after his defection to the South said he had heard that Kim Jong-il "was injured when he fell during horse riding-but I don't know well."25 A leader more concerned than Kim Il-sung with the opinions of others might have heeded the signs of opposition or skepticism and withdrawn his son's appointment. But they did not call Kim Il-sung "iron-willed" for nothing. Kim Jong-il's retreat to the shadows was merely temporary. Meanwhile, efforts continued to remove or isolate those resisting the succession scheme.

Vice-President Kim Dong-kyu was the center of opposition to Kim Jong-il's succession within the older generation of former guerrillas in the leadership. Not only had he been an anti-j.a.panese resistance fighter but he also had lost an arm in the struggle. When ousted, he ranked number two in North Korea, right after Kim Il-sung. He didn't like Kim Jong-il, as Kang Myong-do related to the Seoul newspaper JoongAng Ilbo. JoongAng Ilbo. When the young man was being elevated, Kim Dong-kyu said: "I think they're being too rash on this succession matter." At that point, according to Kang's account, Kim Il-sung did nothing. When the young man was being elevated, Kim Dong-kyu said: "I think they're being too rash on this succession matter." At that point, according to Kang's account, Kim Il-sung did nothing.

Having gotten O Jin-u on his side, according to Kang's account, Kim Jong-il manipulated doc.u.ments so as to be able to give Kim Il-sung a report that Kim Dong-kyu had been a traitor to the j.a.panese resistance movement. That got Kim Dong-kyu exiled in 1977 to a rural area in North Hamgyong Province. In 1980, Kim Il-sung happened to be in that area and caught sight of a very large mansion. He found that it was Kim Dong-kyu's and became very upset. Kim Il-sung sent Kim Dong-kyu to dissidents' camp No. 16 in Hwasong, according to Kang's version, and in 1984 Kim Dong-kyu died there "of malnutrition and despair."

First Lady Kim Song-ae's dream of seeing a child of her own succeed to her husband's position at the helm of the nation came to naught. Her elder son, Pyong-il, had his career in the capital cut short. His younger brother Yong-il never had a place in public life in the first place.

Born in the early 1950s,26 Pyong-il studied English in Malta in the late 1960s, attended the North Korean military academy and learned to fly light, civilian aircraft at an airport in East Germany. (Some reports say he also studied in Moscow.) He became a member of his father's military bodyguard corps, as had his stepbrother, Kim Jong-il. Kim Yong-il, for his part, studied electronics at Dresden Technical University in East Germany, becoming fluent in German. He went on to get his Ph.D. in Berlin. His plan when he finished his studies in the mid-1980s was to go back to North Korea to head an electronics factory, according to a former East German official who knew both him and Pyong-il. The German described the two brothers as "intelligent and well-educated." Both displayed the common touch, he told me. "They know life and they know regular Koreans." Both spoke Russian, he added. Pyong-il studied English in Malta in the late 1960s, attended the North Korean military academy and learned to fly light, civilian aircraft at an airport in East Germany. (Some reports say he also studied in Moscow.) He became a member of his father's military bodyguard corps, as had his stepbrother, Kim Jong-il. Kim Yong-il, for his part, studied electronics at Dresden Technical University in East Germany, becoming fluent in German. He went on to get his Ph.D. in Berlin. His plan when he finished his studies in the mid-1980s was to go back to North Korea to head an electronics factory, according to a former East German official who knew both him and Pyong-il. The German described the two brothers as "intelligent and well-educated." Both displayed the common touch, he told me. "They know life and they know regular Koreans." Both spoke Russian, he added.27 Kang Myong-do in his interviews with JoongAng Ilbo JoongAng Ilbo sorted out the story of Pyong-il. According to Kang's account, as North-South tension increased following the axe incident at the DMZ, Pyong-il entered the bodyguard division. A Kim Il-sung University graduate in addition to being a member of the first family, he rose quickly at first. Soon he was promoted to colonel and named vice-head of the strategic department of the bodyguards. sorted out the story of Pyong-il. According to Kang's account, as North-South tension increased following the axe incident at the DMZ, Pyong-il entered the bodyguard division. A Kim Il-sung University graduate in addition to being a member of the first family, he rose quickly at first. Soon he was promoted to colonel and named vice-head of the strategic department of the bodyguards.

Pyong-il's lifestyle became extravagant, according to Kang's account. Pyong-il's cronies included Kim Chang-ha, son of Kim Byong-ha, who was head of the State Security Department, and Chon Wi, son of the head of bodyguards. They often met at the Kim Byong-ha home and held frequent parties there. Pyong-il's custom was to hand out watches engraved "with Kim Il-sung's name as presents to guests. "He was very extravagant and generous and had lots of followers who flattered him by saying: 'Long live Kim Pyong-il!' You weren't supposed to say that about anyone but Kim Il-sung-it's against the one-man rule system."28 At that time, according to Kang's account, Kim Jong-il was spying on Kim Pyong-il and learned of his activities through Room 10 in the party headquarters, which was established in 1978 to set up spy net-works to catch any deviation from one-man rule. (Kim Jong-il had no use for either Pyong-il or Yong-il, caring only for his sister Kyong-hui, one former high-ranking official recalled.29) "Kim Jong-il was always waiting for a chance to get his stepbrother in trouble," said Kang. "He used this information and made a report to Kim Il-sung." Kim Il-sung got angry and fired Pyong-il, according to Kang, who told me in an interview that Kim Pyong-il for a time stayed in Pyongyang. Finding that few people dared to have anything to do with him, he asked to be sent abroad. Thus were Pyong-il's political hopes dashed. In the army where real influence resided, Kang said in his JoongAng Ilbo JoongAng Ilbo interviews, "there is no one who supports Pyong-il. No one." Kim Pyong-il was consigned to overseas emba.s.sies, far from the center of power. He drew successive postings as amba.s.sador to European countries including Bulgaria and Finland. interviews, "there is no one who supports Pyong-il. No one." Kim Pyong-il was consigned to overseas emba.s.sies, far from the center of power. He drew successive postings as amba.s.sador to European countries including Bulgaria and Finland.

It seems to me that Kim Jong-il must have learned from this incident a profound lesson: He must stick to the role of the modest, filial son for a very very long time. This may help to explain his reluctance to show himself publicly and step front and center, even after his father died. long time. This may help to explain his reluctance to show himself publicly and step front and center, even after his father died.

As for First Lady Kim Song-ae's other children, Kang Myong-do told me that Pyong-il's elder sister Kim Byong-jin was the wife of a diplomat, Kim Kw.a.n.g-sop, who at the time of our talk was amba.s.sador to the Czech Republic. Kim Jong-il's young stepbrother Kim Yong-il, Kang said, was living an isolated life in Pyongyang, having no job. The studious Kim Yong-il was enthusiastic about the social sciences as well as the electronics-related subjects he had studied. Unlike his elder brother Pyong-il, he had never been a political threat. But like Pyong-il he found that people avoided him. Rather than going abroad he was spending his days in his Pyongyang mansion, doing history. His one friend, by Kang's account, was O Il-su, O Jin-u's son. The two had studied together in East Germany.30 Hw.a.n.g Jang-yop, who had left the Central Committee in 1965, returned in 1979 to find that the tone at the political heart of the country had changed drastically. Hw.a.n.g's close, sustained involvement with both Kims makes him one of the most important witnesses to the inner workings of the regime. His testimony after he defected to South Korea in 1997 was largely favorable in its appraisal of the way Kim Il-sung had run things up through the 1960s and beyond. But from 1974, when the Great Leader designated his son as heir, Hw.a.n.g's portrayal shows the country heading for disaster. The reason was partly a change in Kim Il-sung himself, who from that time "became increasingly conceited and turned sloppy in his work."31 But the main problem, as Hw.a.n.g discovered, was Kim Jong-il's management style and, ultimately, his personality. Hw.a.n.g had "worked from 1958 to 1965 as party secretary for ideology. "At that time, Kim Il-sung's younger brother Kim Yong-ju was in charge of party affairs. But when I returned to the central committee in 1979 as the party central secretary, it was Kim Jong-il who was running the show. I was shocked by the numerous changes that had taken place during my long absence. Life in the central party before had been filled with joy and pride at working at the heart of the nation's brain power, but life in the very same organization after my return was filled with unease and tension. I was constantly on my toes, fearful of getting hurt by the highly-charged wire of dictatorship so close at hand."

Highly intensified surveillance even of top-ranking officials was one big change that Hw.a.n.g immediately noticed. He found that a new headquarters party committee "specifically charged with controlling the lives of-workers in the party central committee" had been established under Kim Jong-il, "various departments within it controlling the organizational or ideological lives of the party officials or carrying out secret intelligence activities." Thenceforth, "the lives of workers in the party central committee were placed under two- to three-fold scrutiny and control at all times."

Another thing Hw.a.n.g noticed was a change in the style and tone of Central Committee meetings. In the earlier days when Kim Il-sung presided he "gave many positive examples to encourage the partic.i.p.ants and refrained from too much criticism. He always emphasized that strengthening the positive could overcome the negative. In contrast, Kim Jong-il focused on criticizing bad points and encouraging mutual criticism among partic.i.p.ants. It is only when a meeting is conducted in this manner that he claims that the meeting went well amid a revolutionary mood. Those who refrain from criticizing others during meetings are denounced because of their lack of revolutionary att.i.tude, whereas those who loudly and harshly criticize others are praised for their revolutionary zeal and loyalty to the Great Leader."

Hw.a.n.g wrote that "Kim Jong-il is by nature a person who does not like living in harmony with others. He makes people fight against each other and depend only on him. Thus, when he talks about strengthening the organization, he means making strict rules to guarantee unconditional obedience to him and holding more meetings for officials to criticize each other. During mutual denunciation sessions, the yardstick used is the degree of one's loyalty to Kim Jong-il. So the more party members criticize each other and fight among themselves, the greater Kim Jong-il's authority becomes."

At the mutual denunciation sessions, said Hw.a.n.g, "even the smallest defect is blown out of proportions into a serious incident," providing fodder for more elaborate "grand debates and ideological struggle rallies" to come. Then, "after making people bicker among themselves, Kim Jong-il would sit back and enjoy the fight." His pattern was to repair to his office and watch on closed circuit television as his underlings laid into each other. Hw.a.n.g came to believe that Kim actually took pleasure in hara.s.sing party officials.32 Kim Il-sung had done business mainly through face-to-face encounters, Hw.a.n.g reported. But Kim Jong-il, having turned the meetings into loyalty tests, switched to doing actual business through paperwork. "Kim Jong-il established a system of getting each department to submit policy recommendations, which he would approve before implementation. It was a strict system, especially when it came to new or basic issues, which could never see the light of day unless the recommendations were submitted for his approval. This was a system that hardly existed during Kim Il-sung's rule."

It was not exactly the lazy man's approach to governing. "No matter how busy he was, Kim Jong-il would personally read all the recommendations submitted and provide his comments or conclusions," said Hw.a.n.g. "For important doc.u.ments submitted personally by the party secretaries, he would put the approved doc.u.ments in his special envelope, write the recipient's name on it, and seal it before pa.s.sing it to the secretary in charge. All this const.i.tutes a huge workload, but Kim Jong-il never pa.s.ses this work to someone else but handles it personally."

Kim inst.i.tuted a simple system of priorities regarding his rulings on the doc.u.ments submitted to him, Hw.a.n.g said. "Those with Kim Jong-il's signature and date of approval written on it by Kim Jong-il himself become legal doc.u.ments that must be put into action at all costs. A doc.u.ment with only the date of approval on it is returned to the bureau that submitted it, and the bureau can see to its execution at its discretion. A doc.u.ment that has neither date nor signature but only two lines means that it does not matter one way or other; it is up to the bureau that submitted it to execute or cancel the plan. Besides these weekly reports, important bureaus fax papers to Kim Jong-il whenever necessary to gain his approval."

Like others who had worked in the higher levels of the regime, Hw.a.n.g noted Kim Jong-il's penchant for holding drinking parties. But Hw.a.n.g put them in context as "an important element in Kim Jong-il's style of politics," not merely a recreational outlet. "He throws such parties frequently, and summons artists to perform in them. These parties were probably the means through which Kim Jong-il formed his group of va.s.sals. By inviting his trusted subordinates to a party, he can observe their personalities at close range and imbue them with pride at being close attendants of the Great Leader. But since it is a drinking party, it is often the case that those who enjoy drinking are invited more often than others. Sometimes, gossip or pa.s.sing remarks at these parties can become official policies the next day. At these drinking parties, those who get drunk only need to be respectful to Kim Jong-il; they can say anything they like to anyone regardless of his t.i.tle. So in a way Kim Jong-il's system of sole leadership is strictly implemented at these parties."

Although the parties had a business function from Kim's point of view, they inevitably led to some drunken policy making. Kim at his parties would occasionally issue orders so odd that they could not be carried out, Hw.a.n.g said. "Kim Jong-il is more than capable of making quick and accurate calculations guided by self-interest, but he is also fickle and impatient, resulting in spontaneous and irrational instructions. For example, he commanded everyone who went on overseas business trips to wear watches made in the watch factories of Pyongyang as a mark of North Korea's self-reliant economy. But the problem was that the watches made in Pyongyang were of very low quality, and so everyone was reluctant to wear them when traveling abroad. He also gave instructions for women to wear the traditional Korean costume in black and white, but no one follows these instructions except the women working in the party Central Committee."

The fact that Kim insisted on giving personal approval to every policy did not deter him from punishing whoever had proposed a policy that eventually caused him regret, Hw.a.n.g observed. "There was once when the manager in charge of doc.u.menting the Great Leader's instructions at the Organization and Guidance Bureau got the professors of Kim Il-sung University to write a fifteen-volume [set of] Kim Jong-il literature (100 percent fake, of course) in order to publicize that Kim Jong-il was an industrious ideologist even as a student. The manager submitted every draft for Kim Jong-il's approval before publication. But later, when it was pointed out that the works could end up strengthening the authority of one individual [other than himself], Kim Jong-il punished the manager and the professors who auth.o.r.ed the works, and ordered that the contents be completely revised."

One difference between the two Kims that Hw.a.n.g noticed concerned formality. As we have seen, Kim Il-sung from his partisan days expected obedience from his subordinates. Still, the elder Kim was not one to insist on elaborate, needless formalilty Hw.a.n.g said. "But Kim Jong-il has initiated numerous formalities to guarantee the people's absolute obedience to the Great Leader. Whenever there are important functions or events, he would get people to pay their utmost respect to the Great Leader by writing and offering up grand speeches swearing allegiance to the Great Leader or congratulating him. He also ordered ceremonies for people to lay wreaths at the foot of Kim Il-sung's statue or at the martyrs' tomb. Every festive occasion, workers are made to hold 'pledge gatherings,' where they start the gatherings with songs exalting first Kim Il-sung and then Kim Jong-il and end the gatherings with songs wishing the two Kims long life and good health."

In these circ.u.mstances, North Koreans must "hold frequent meetings just to write up pledges of loyalty or letters of grat.i.tude to the Great Leader," Hw.a.n.g said. "On the night of New Year's Eve, a year-end party is held on a national scale. Kim Jong-il does not attend this official party but holds his own private one with his regular party-goers and cohorts. Then at 12 midnight or dawn of New Year's Day, he would fax out to each bureau director a brief New Year greeting along the lines of, 'Everyone worked hard last year. Let us work even harder to achieve greater victory this year.' Consequently, the bureau directors must report for work even on New Year's Day to hold ceremonies to receive Kim Jong-il's message and send a suitable reply in the form of resolutions or pledges of loyalty. That is the way Kim Jong-il prefers to do things."

Two of Kim Jong-il's least attractive qualities, Hw.a.n.g found, were se-cretiveness and jealousy. "Whenever there is a gathering, Kim Jong-il always emphasizes two things. One is keeping the party's secrets, and the other is refraining from pinning one's hopes on any individual official. This is a reflection of Kim Jong-il's personality; he prefers secrecy to openness, and is jealous of other people's good fortune." The secretiveness might have had something to do with Kim Jong-il's well-known penchant for staying out of the public eye. "Kim Jong-il does not like to meet people on official business or make public speeches, and prefers gathering his cohorts for parties to holding official functions. He prefers working at night to working in the day."

Kim Jong-il's "pathological" jealousy was another quality not shared with his late father, Hw.a.n.g said. "Kim Il-sung was not jealous of subordinates who were loyal to him. He disliked conceited people, but he was never jealous of those who were faithful to him just because they had the public's trust. But in the case of Kim Jong-il, he becomes jealous of even his loyal subordinates if they gain popularity among the ma.s.ses. He even dislikes the good fortune of other countries, and becomes jealous of leaders in other countries who are known to be popular with the people. This trait may well be closely related to his thoroughly egotistic viewpoint of ideology."

Kim found a curious way of justifying his jealousy in ideological terms. As Hw.a.n.g related, Kim "says that he opposes the worship of any individual. He is the Great Leader of the people and therefore not an individual, but the rest of the party officials are considered individuals since they are not the Great Leader. For example, if a party secretary in charge of a certain district wins the confidence of the residents, he will surely get the secretary replaced. And from time to time, he would purge officials by labeling them anti-revolutionaries who induce illusions about individuals."

Whether it was out of jealousy or simple security concerns or both, Hw.a.n.g noted that "Kim Jong-il forbids any relationship that does not revolve around him. He condemns family orientation or regionalism as hotbeds of sectarianism, and opposes all forms of socializing including cla.s.s reunions. He is even against people forming bonds based on teacher-student or senior-junior relationships. He demands that people maintain close relationships with those close to the Great Leader and keep those not close to the Great Leader at arm's length. He also set up thorough measures to marginalize certain people such as his step-siblings born of Kim Il-sung's second wife from the power circle and to keep them from relating to the ma.s.ses. Not a few people were stripped of their t.i.tles and expelled for accepting gifts or letters from Kim Jong-il's step-siblings. So even ordinary people avoid anyone blacklisted for marginalization."

The corollary was deference due to Kim's own household, Hw.a.n.g reported. "Kim Jong-il becomes furious when his loved ones are not given the hospitality due them. He loves the dancing troupe that entertains him. The dancers are meant only for Kim Jong-il's eyes, but when in a generous mood, he would allow Party Central Committee members to watch the performances. There was once when he ordered an ideological struggle rally because the party officials did not clap hard enough during a performance. After that incident, party officials who attend performances by Kim Jong-il's favorite artists make sure that they clap long and loud. They have to keep up the applause through several curtain calls and can only leave their seats when the performers no longer respond to their applause."

As for Kim Jong-il's secretiveness, it may have been justified by fear of the consequences in case his secrets were revealed. Kim "has cruelly killed countless people," Hw.a.n.g a.s.serted. "His worst fear is having these crimes exposed. Thus he says that 'keeping secrets is the essence of life in the party,' and forbids everyone from revealing anything more than what is reported in the papers. He has forbidden the wives of party officials holding positions any higher than vice-director from holding a job for fear that they would leak party secrets while at work."33 Without giving names or the date, Hw.a.n.g offered a horrifying example of the intersection between secretiveness and killing: "One of Kim Jong-il's secretaries got drunk once and told his wife about Kim Jong-il's life of debauchery. The good wife, a woman of high cultural and moral standards, was genuinely shocked, and thought, 'How can a leader who leads such an immoral life safeguard the happiness of his people?' After much thought, she decided to write a letter to Kim Il-sung asking him to reprimand his son. Needless to say, the letter went to Kim Jong-il, who threw a drinking party and had the woman arrested and brought before him. In front of all the guests at the party, he p.r.o.nounced the woman a counterrevolutionary and had her shot on the spot. Kim Jong-il's intention was to issue a warning to those present that leaking whatever went on at drinking parties would be punishable by death. The poor woman's husband actually begged Kim Jong-il to let him do the shooting. Kim Jong-il granted the secretary his wish, and gave him the weapon to shoot his wife."34 In 1979, the coast apparently clear, official p.r.o.nouncements resumed their mention of the "Glorious Party Center." Still, when I visited North Korea that spring I found that questions about Kim Jong-il were discouraged. Only one official, the forthright Bai Song-chul, would confirm for me that the younger Kim was being groomed to succeed his father. While his portraits reportedly had reappeared in some public places, those did not include the usual sites visited by foreigners. Evidently the regime wished to avoid stirring up foreign criticism of the dynastic succession scheme, perhaps because the plan still needed some tidying up.35 So well did Pyongyang hide its cards during my visit at the time of the 1979 table tennis tournament that I had almost no idea of the enormous extent to which the country already bore the imprint of Kim Jong-il. In fact the younger Kim had exerted major influence for fifteen years already, and had served as co-ruler for five years. The economic achievements I was permitted to see were, it is true, largely those of the father, displayed shortly after they had peaked. But I realized only much later that what I had observed of North Korea's cultural life-including the extreme form that the personality cult had taken--was largely the work of the son.

It was May of 1980 before an on-the-record acknowledgment to the outside world of the plans for Kim Jong-il's future came from a spokesman for North Korea. Meeting foreign journalists, Choe U-gyun, editor of pro-Pyongyang newspapers published in Tokyo, attacked what he called the Western ma.s.s-media view that the younger Kim's accession to power would be a case of "hereditary" succession. "We understand hereditary succession normally means takeover of power by foolish, spoiled offspring," Choe said. But Kim Jong-il, he said, "is a brilliant leader. He is possessed of excellent leadership qualities in terms of policy decision-making. Not only that, he is possessed of moral integrity worthy of an excellent leader. He is endowed with unrivaled leadership capability over economic affairs, political affairs, cultural affairs and over even military affairs."

Choe extended the catalog of virtues of the junior Kim even further, piling on the sort of praise long a.s.sociated with Kim Il-sung himself as he listed such a blinding array of qualities as to make dissent by ordinary mortals unthinkable. He focused especially on Kim Jong-il's artistic achievements. The Pyongyang Art Theater Troupe was then visiting Tokyo, Choe noted. Among its members, "many of those musicians and dancers, magicians and jugglers received the personal guidance of Kim Jong-il." The younger Kim even invented a system of notation for prescribing the dancers' movements, Choe said. "He's also an excellent film director-maybe something like Hitchc.o.c.k but of a different genre. Lenin is credited with fostering and training and inspiring Russian novelist Gorky, but Kim Jong-il is doing a similar job."

Attending that briefing, I attempted to listen respectfully and keep a straight face during Choe's recital of Kim Jong-il's virtues. I found it a bit much, though, and finally I could not resist asking, irreverently, whether the junior Kim could juggle and dance at the same time. Choe did not answer directly, but said simply that a great composer is never the best singer, and that Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k, although a great director, was never a great actor.36 By the time of the sixth party congress in October of 1980, Public Security Minister Li Jin-su was able to announce: "In the course of our struggle against the anti-revolutionary elements, the extremely few antagonistic elements were completely isolated." Next, he said, the regime would rally the public and "shatter" those "antagonistic elements"-presumably the opponents of the succession plan.37 By then, according to a former high-ranking official, anyone Kim Jong-il was unable to control had been completely isolated. The elder forces knew what their role would be and were prepared not to interfere in Kim Jong-il's role. By then, according to a former high-ranking official, anyone Kim Jong-il was unable to control had been completely isolated. The elder forces knew what their role would be and were prepared not to interfere in Kim Jong-il's role.38 A party congress provided a rare chance for Pyongyang-watchers abroad to catch up on the relative rankings of officials. One interesting change: Kim Song-ae, Kim Il-sung's official wife and the mother of Kim Pyong-il, was demoted from number 67 67 on the 1970 party Central Committee membership list to number 105 in 1980. on the 1970 party Central Committee membership list to number 105 in 1980.

In the compet.i.tion to glorify and cater to the aging Great Leader, supreme flatterer Kim Jong-il had emerged as the winner, hands down. "Among Kim Il-sung's children he was the one who got his father's trust," a former North Korean diplomat explained to me many years later.4 "He supported Kim Il-sung's deification." "He supported Kim Il-sung's deification."

Reflecting his victory at the same congress Kim Jong-il was elected to the five-perso