11. Hwang Jang-yop, Problems of Human Rights (3).
12. Kang Myong-do, son-in-law of Premier Kang Son-san, told me in a 1995 interview that the Pochonbo band was part of the Happy Corps. The Pochonbo band members by 1989 were along in years, he noted; thus their appearance at more-or-less public performances such as the one I had attended. Kim Jong-il had a new band made up of yet younger women, the still-secret Hwangjae-san Band, the members of which were likewise Happy Corps members available to him for sex on demand, Kang said.
20. Wherever You Go in My Homeland.
1. Kim Jong-su did drop what, in retrospect, I recognize as hints that food might have been a problem. He told me of the traditional wedding custom of presenting food to whoever might care to attend. “Now we have to train people not to be so lavish at weddings,” he said. Later he said, “See how we’re wasting food here? I tell my son, ‘Think of the starving people in Africa. Don’t waste food.’”
2. When I saw such soil I was reminded again of my home region of northwestern Georgia, these days considered largely unfit for agricultural uses more demanding than pasture or forest.
3. Director Kim said annual rice harvests ’were up from around seven metric tons per 10,000 square meters ten years before to 8.5 and corn production was up from 6.5 tons to eight tons per 10,000 square meters. The great leader’s “precious teachings” played a key role in all this, the director said: Kim Il-sung had personally visited the farm eighteen times, giving such advice as “Use more fertilizer.” I asked how the country’s president had become such an expert on farming. “The Great Leader and the Dear Leader are political activists,” farm director Kim explained patiently. “They are clear in economic fields, and the Great Leader in particular cultivated some crops himself to develop production power.”
4. Tak, Kim, and Pak, Great Leader Kim Jong Il, vol. 1 (see chap. 5, n. 15), pp. 198–199.
5. Choe In Su, Kim Jong Il, vol. 2 (see chap. 10, n. 43), pp. 96–97.
6. Kim, With the Century, vol. 2, p. 172.
7. Foreign observers doubted it ever would be completed and considered it a white elephant.
8. That was Bruce Cumings, who recounts the story as follows: “In the mid-1980s, the American embassy in Seoul had the hallucination that my work was one cause of the incessantly anti-American student demonstrations of the period. This is pure nonsense, but it flew back into my face so many times that it may be pertinent to our story. The first volume of my Korean War study [see chap. 2, n. 25] circulated as an English-language samizdat in the early 1980s and then was translated (badly) by publishers who pirated the copyright, only to find the book banned by [South Korean dictator] Chun Doo Hwan. Nevertheless, it was usually available in the right bookstores.
“In 1987 and 1988 I kept getting calls from the Voice of America or the U.S. Information Agency, asking me for taped interviews that would then be broadcast in Korea. My work was being distorted by the students, they said, and I should clear the record. The American director of the Fulbright program told me that I ought to come out to Korea and disabuse the students of their false impressions. Other American historians were invited under these or other auspices to travel to Korea and set the record straight on the Korean War and other things; a couple of them did not hesitate to please the powers that be by denouncing me as a radical if not a pro–North Korean sympathizer.
“I never agreed to any of the official entreaties. Usually I would just not return their calls, but once or twice I opined that if Americans stopped backing dictators and began treating Koreans with dignity, the problem would go away and I would sink back into my ordinary obscurity” (Cumings, Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History [New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1997], pp. 385–386).
Kim Chullbaum (The Truth About the Korean War [see chap. 5, n. 5], p. viii) describes the problem that many older South Koreans perceived: “[A]fter 1980, in our society, as far as the factional leaders who were pushed close to Marx-Leninism were concerned, the faction of young scholars who leaned toward the left wing and the radical students accepted the assertions of the revisionist scholars and, while calling for the war of national liberation promoted by Kim Il Sung, it is a fact that they aggravated the confusion of ideology and thought.”
Historiographer James I. Matray in “Korea’s Partition” (see chap. 4, n. 1) notes that Cumings and co-author Jon Halliday in Korea: The Unknown War (see chap. 4, n. 60) “insist that South Korea initiated the Korean War, contending that the ‘Fierce Tiger’ unit of the ROK’s Seventeenth Regiment on the Ongjin Peninsula launched an assault northward at around 0200 on 25 June 1950. Reviving [I. F.] Stone’s interpretation, Halliday and Cumings claim that Rhee set a trap for North Korea. The South Korean attack would provoke a communist invasion and bring US military intervention, thereby setting the stage for the ROK conquest of North Korea. Cumings presents a detailed explanation of this trap theory’—and much more—in the second volume of his Origins of the Korean War. Despite the testimony of former communist military leaders, the North Koreans always have maintained that the ROK attacked first and initiated the war.”
While Western scholars’ left-revisionism continued to inspire the anti-American left in South Korea, Matray says that in scholarly circles from around 1985 the movement had “peaked in popularity and begun to lose adherents.” He notes that John Merrill (see chap. 4, n. 80) “observed in 1989 that the question of who started the Korean War no longer was a matter of debate. The size and scope of the North Korean offensive argued powerfully that Pyongyang planned the invasion in advance. William Stueck agrees, emphasizing the international dimensions of the conflict in the most recent full-length account of the Korean War.” This last is a reference to Stueck, The Korean War: An International History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).
9. Hwang Jang-yop, Problems of Human Rights (3).
10. “As Korean people we have this great Leader. But our compatriots in South Korea are undergoing all sorts of terrible suffering, under the colonial rule of the U.S. imperialists, and looking to our great Leader, they are enduring hardships and struggling valiantly, thinking of the days when they too will be able to live happily with the fatherland reunited” (Baik II [see chap. 4, n. 24], p. 4).
11. While a student in Jilin, Kim wrote in his memoirs, he and his comrades made a major alteration in communist doctrine. Instead of workers (and peasants) as the vanguard of the revolution, as .Marxist-Leninist teachings had held, “we defined the young people and students as constituting the fully-fledged main force of the revolution.” The correctness of this view is shown by the importance of young people and students in social and political movements since the March 1 (1919) uprising. And, added Kim, “Young people and students are the main force of the revolution in South Korea, too.” He cited the April 19 uprising of 1960, the Kwangju uprising of 1980, and the popular protests that culminated in the 1987 government decision to resume free elections for president.
12. In North and South Korea certain important social indicators, as reported by their respective governments, were virtually identical in the 1980s. Life expectancy at birth, in 1985, was 68 in the North and 69 in the South. In 1986 about 65 percent of each population lived in urban areas. Adult literacy rates over 98 percent were recorded in both Koreas in 1988 (Byoung-lo Philo Kim, Two Koreas in Development [see chap. 1, n. 2], pp. 88–91).
13. Author’s conversation with one of the group’s American hosts, June 1989.
14. In view of his obvious intelligence and ability, it is interesting to speculate that Kim Jong-su might have been the otherwise unidentified elder son from a “previous marriage” referred to in the succession rumor, mentioned in chapter 15, that Swedish Ambassador Cornell (North Korea Under Communism [see chap. 9, n. 3], p. 124) heard from East European diplomats in Pyongyang in the mid-1970s. Although I was not aware of that rumor at the time I talked with my source, I did ask then whether Kim Jong-su was Kim Il-sung’s firstborn. “There are probably a couple older than he is,
” the former official replied.
15. During his UN assignment Kim Jong-su did stay in touch with at least one other journalist-researcher, Selig Harrison—and in situations that suggested once again that Kim had access to top leadership in Pyongyang. After speaking with Kim Jong-su, Harrison was invited to his second meeting with Kim Il-sung (Harrison, Korean End Game [see chap. 8, n. 3], pp. 211–212 and 221–222).
21. If Your Brain Is Properly Oiled.
1. Cho Gap-jae, “Interview of Former High-level Official” (see chap. 9, n. 37).
2. “The average North Korean lives an incredibly simple and hardworking life but also has a secure and cheerful existence, and the comradeship between these highly collectivised people is moving to behold” (Andrew Holloway A Year in Pyongyang [published in 2002 on the Internet Web site of Aidan Foster-Carter, http://www.aidanfc.net/a_year_in_pyongyang.html], chapter 3, p. 6).
3. “The claim of the Pyongyang regime to have attained the goal of 8 million–ton grain production is belied by the prevalence of pellagra victims caused largely by malnutrition throughout North Korea. A shortage of food grains that forces the North Korean population to eat large quantities of maize with little intake of animal protein makes North Koreans vulnerable to the disease” (Lee Won-joon, “Changes in North Korea’s Agricultural and Fishery Policies,” Vantage Point [July 1979]: pp. 7, 9). Researchers in the American South found in 1937 that the missing substance in the diets of pellagra victims is not protein, per se, but the vitamin niacin, which is “plentiful in red meat, fish, poultry, green leafy vegetables and, as it happens, brewer’s yeast” (Howard Markel, “The New Yorker Who Changed the Diet of the South,” New York Times, August 12, 2003, p. D5).
4. Testimony of Kang Myong-do (see chap. 1, n. 7).
5. This interview took place August 20, 1992, in Honolulu. Recall the story of Chong Ki-hae, the returnee from Japan whose new life in the North Korean “motherland” we chronicled in chapter 6. A reduction in the grain ration came in the early 1970s, Chong told me, confirming that part of Professor An’s timeline. The cuts were described as “patriot rice” but explained as having been mandated by poor harvests. Farm districts had not been able to meet their harvest quotas, although they had reported having met or exceeded them, Chong told me.
6. I interviewed him on February 8, 1994, in Seoul. Ko told me he had been born on February 13, 1961, in Kimchaek City, an industrial city in North Hamgyong Province.
7. According to high-level defector Hwang Jang-yop, “As Kim Jong-il began to rise to power, North Korean leaders began to insist that the anti-Japanese partisan struggle led by Kim Il-sung took place over a wide area spanning Northeast China and the Korean peninsula rather than only in Northeast China under the leadership of the Chinese Communist party. North Korean leaders claimed that proof of this could be found all over North Korea in the form of ‘slogan trees’—trees on which Kim Il-sung wrote anti-Japanese slogans such as Down with Japanese imperialism’ and ‘Long live Korean independence.’ The idea probably came from stories told by independence fighters who recalled that while hiding in the forest they had stripped the bark off the trees to write slogans such as ‘Long live Korean independence.’ But strangely no such slogan trees ’were discovered in Northeast China, the main stage of the partisan struggle. The trees ’were discovered only in North Korea, and over 10,000 of them at that. Back then, the partisan fighters most probably sent only one or two spies to the Korean peninsula at a time. And they would not have sent spies to northern Korea just to strip the bark off trees and ’write slogans on them. The spies would have been busy avoiding the watchful eyes of the Japanese police as they engaged in secretive intelligence work, so where on earth would they have found the time to strip the bark off trees and make the ink to ’write slogans on the trees with brushes?” This fabrication “was probably done through the Party History Center, a bureau in the central party under the personal supervision of Kim Jong-il,” ’wrote Hwang. He acknowledged that he himself from 1987 had been in a supervisory position over the Party History Center. However, he said, “I did not involve myself in the Research Center projects. My duties stopped at reviewing the documents and offering my opinion on current issues. Once I quietly asked a member of the Research Center, ‘You say more than 700 slogan trees were discovered on the Moranbong in Pyongyang. But when we were schooling in Pyongyang we often climbed the Moranbong to have lunch, and we never saw any markings on the trees. Isn’t the sudden discovery of hundreds of slogan trees going a bit too far?’ To which the official answered, ‘The slogan trees on Monanbong are different. The partisans did not strip the bark off them to write slogans with brushes but carved markings on them with knives as means of communicating with one another.’ I was too flabbergasted to question him any further.” Knowing that there were only about 60 Koreans in the Eighty-eighth Special Brigade, Hwang wrote, “helps us deduce the size of the armed rebellion against Japanese rule. So how could so many people have climbed Moranbong and left communication signals on hundreds of trees?” (Hwang Jang-yop, Problems of Human Rights [I] [see chap. 2, n. 1]).
8. I interviewed him on February 15, 1994, in Seoul.
9. See “Summing Up of the 1970s,” p. 16: “As north Korea declares the attainment of the goals with no statistical backing, its agricultural situation is hard to figure out. A clue to answering the agricultural question came when President Kim addressed a meeting of county-level responsible secretaries of the Party in October 1979. He was quoted as having said: The Juche farming method is faced with a limit and we should cultivate more land to produce more grains.”
10. I interviewed him on November 1, 1993. He told me he had been born on July 14, 1953, and had defected on May 2, 1991.
11. I interviewed him on February 17, 1994, in Seoul.
22. Logging In and Logging Out.
1. See, for example, Giles Whittell, “Kim Sells Workers to Gulags in Debt Deal” (London: The Times, Aug. 6, 2001).
2. See Anatoly Medetsky “North Korea Seeks Closer Ties with Russian Far East,” Vladivostok-datelined dispatch from the Associated Press, April 4, 2002; “North Korea Opens New Air Route to Russian Far East,” Seoul-datelined Reuters dispatch, April 5, 2002; “North Koreans in Russian Far East,” Khabarovsk-datelined article in JoongAng Ilbo, July 23, 2002.
23. Do You Remember That Time?
No notes.
24. Pickled Plum in a Lunch Box.
1. Hwang Jang-yop on July 3, 2003, told South Korea’s National Assembly that he had heard about the testing directly from Kim Jong-il and Kim’s aides. See “S. Korea Clears Top Defector for U.S. Visit,” Reuters dispatch from Seoul, July 18, 2003. For an extensive chronology of the first nuclear crisis see “IAEA-North Korea: Nuclear Safeguards and Inspections” (Monterey Calif.: Monterey Institute of International Studies, Center for Nuclear Studies, 2002), http://cns. miis.edu/research/korea/nuc/iaea7789.htm.
2. I heard this pungent description from Katsumi Sato, the editor of Gendai Korea.
3. Testimony of Kang Myong-do (see chap. 2, n.7). When I interviewed Kang after his remarks had been published in JoongAng Ilbo, I asked him how he had known about the nuclear program. He replied that a Yongbyon official had told him. “We knew each other for about ten years. He’s a close friend of my elder brother. Lots of high officials didn’t know for sure about the nuclear program, but we were always curious. So I just casually asked him. I guess he never thought I’d defect.” At the time I spoke with Kang, his assertions were getting little support from the South Korean and U.S. governments. There seemed to be a tendency both in Seoul and in Washington to play down the sophistication and productivity of the North Korean nuclear program. The fear seemed to be that acknowledgment that the North was well along in its program, with a number of nuclear weapons probably completed, would force a major policy reappraisal. “The South Koreans were afraid I’d say it again,” Kang told me. “In fact, I believe totally in what I said.” Kang indicated that he and his information had received so
mething of a cold shoulder from the Americans— because, he presumed, Washington had not thought it politic to come out and say that North Korea already had a functioning nuclear weapons program. Before defecting to South Korea he had made contact with U.S. officials, he said. “I went to the U.S. Embassy in Germany and turned over a letter I had written to President Bill Clinton, offering policy recommendations on the nuclear issue. But I had to wait a couple of days before someone in the U.S. government came to talk with me. Since the Americans were in talks with Pyongyang at the time, I thought maybe they were sending me back to North Korea. The U.S. wanted to say that the North did not have nuclear weapons at that time. I know that the Americans know better, know that there are in fact nuclear weapons in North Korea.”
4. See “Nuclear Jitters,” Newsweek, April 29, 1991.
5. Defector Ahn Hyuk, a former table tennis champion, noted in an interview that Kanemaru was taken to Kim Il-sung’s most lavish villa, Hamneun Majeonho, near the seaside. “There are a couple of buildings there, one for Kim Il-sung and one for his guest. About an hour before Kanemaru awoke each day, Kim Il-sung would go to the front of his building and walk around, waiting. Kanemaru was really snowed by Kim’s eagerness.” (Ahn asserted that Kanemaru was not the only foreign visitor of whom Kim made a fool. Billy Graham, the American evangelical preacher, “also succumbed to all that pampering. Kim Il-sung probably was being kind to him in order to get some Christian donations funneled to North Korea.”) Kim Il-sung around that time was publishing his memoirs, laced with accounts of Japanese bad behavior. He recalled, for example, that when Koreans in 1930s .Manchuria, faced with Japanese “punitive” campaigns, fled to the hills, even a baby’s cry could give them away to the enemy. One woman hugged her baby too hard to keep it from crying; when the enemy withdrew, she found it was dead. “To avoid such accidents, some women used to dose their babies with opium to keep them fast asleep. Unable to endure the ceaseless atrocities perpetrated by the ‘punitive’ troops, some women even gave their beloved babies to strangers. … Bourgeois humanists may mock the maternal love of communists, asking how a woman could be so cruel towards her baby or be so irresponsible with its life. But they must not hold these women responsible for the deaths of their infants. If they knew how many bitter tears were shed as these women buried the soft bodies of their babies in dry leaves and left their babies in the care of strangers, they would condemn and hate the Japanese imperialist who sent their human butchers to Jiandao. The crime of trampling upon the maternal love of this country’s women was committed by none other than the fiends of Japanese militarism. If she is to make amends for her past, Japan must repent of these crimes. … In demanding evidence of their past crimes, the rulers of Japan continue to mock the memory of millions of Koreans who were slaughtered by their army” (With the Century, vol. 3 [see chap. 2, n. 2], pp. 14–15).
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