Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader

by Martin, Bradley K.

  6. While hardliners such as that official may have continued to hope for a quick collapse of the Kim regime, many other South Koreans had replaced that wish with caution born of observing the rocky road Germany had been treading. There seemed to be more South Koreans who would be happy enough to see a military government take over in North Korea and emulate the period of rapid economic development that the South had experienced under its own military government. That could bring the North more into the world that the South knew and reduce the ultimate burden to the South whenever the two might merge.

  7. Japanese officials in two of those agencies confirmed that Americans briefed them but declined to comment on details including dates and who the briefers were.

  8. Address by Korea University Professor (later South Korean foreign minister) Han Sung-joo at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, Tokyo, May 12, 1992.

  9. See Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley 1997), pp. 260–271. Oberdorfer, a former Washington Post diplomatic correspondent, offers in chapters 11, 12 and 13 a detailed account of diplomacy concerning the North’s nuclear weapons, based on his interviews with participants and documents he obtained by invoking the Freedom of Information Act. A more recent work by three participants is Joel S. Wit, Daniel B. Poneman and Robert L. Gallucci, Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis (Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press, 2004).

  25. I Die, You Die.

  1. “Seven N.K. Defectors Go Missing Over Two-Year Period: Daily,” Yonhap news agency, February 15, 2002, FBIS document i.d. 0grscgs02ah5r9.

  26. Yen for the Motherland.

  1. The interview was conducted in April 1989.

  27. Winds of Temptation May Blow.

  1. Bradley K. Martin, “Why South Korea Favors Propping Up the North,” Global Finance (July 1992): pp. 44–47.

  2. Korea Times (Seoul), November 26, 1992, p. 9, citing a report by Korea Trade Promotion Corp. (KOTRA). North Korea does not release trade statistics. The KOTRA figures are compilations of two-way trade data from sixty-one countries. North Korea’s global exports dropped 24.8 percent and imports 9.9 percent for 1991, according to a KOTRA report cited in Korea Times for November 20, 1992, p. 9.

  3. Unnamed South Korean officials estimated that the North Korean economy had shrunken by 3.7 percent in 1990, 5.2 percent in 1991 and about 5 percent in 1992, according to a report in Korea Times, January 8, 1993, p. 9. More alarming still was a Kyodo News Service report (Japan Times, April 1, 1993) datelined Beijing, which indirectly quoted “reports compiled by East European and Russian diplomats in Pyongyang” as saying the shrinkage in 1992 might have amounted to 30 percent.

  4. While North Korea claimed to have produced between eight and nine million tons of food grains in 1991, Russian experts estimated actual production at five million tons, according to Marina Trigubenko, director of the Asia Research Center at the Russian Academy of Sciences. At a seminar sponsored by Seoul’s Korea Rural Economic Institute, Trigubenko said the North would have a hard time feeding its 21 million people even with its programs to control population growth and reclaim some 300,000 hectares for farming (Korea Times, October 30, 1992).

  5. Korea Times, October 23, 1992.

  6. Conversation with a European investor, 1992.

  7. A South Korean analyst observed in 1987 that as older men ’were forced out of high military posts, their replacements tended to be Mangyongdae alumni, such as general staff chief Oh Guk-ryol; his deputy, Kim Gwang-hwan; navy chief of staff Kim Il-chol; Lieutenant Generals Choe Song-wuk and Li bong-won, party military commission members; and Kim Du-nam, director of the party military bureau. Other Mangyongdae alumni who did well as the junior Kim’s power increased were Kim Hwan, who became a party politburo member; Paek Hak-rim, minister of public security; Pak Yong-suk, a party bureau director; Yun Gi-jong, party finance bureau director; and several provincial party chiefs (Yoo Sok-ryol, “The Rise of Kim Jong-il and the Heir-succession problem,” pt. II, Vantage Point [December 1987]: p. 8).

  8. Yoo Sok-ryol, True Story of Kim Jong Il (see chap. 3, n. 61), p. 11.

  9. Ibid.

  10. Han spoke at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan on May 22, 1992. In 1978 South Korean scholar Chae Pyung-il had written, “(N)orth Korean society, moving into the welfare-distribution era, cannot escape from the liberal movement—liberalism by Communist standards. The emergence of the new generation in high government posts as well as the growing number of technical-managerial specialists in production units is bringing about new organizational behavior in North Korean society. .Many though not all, of the new generation have become more realistic, often pragmatic” (Chay Pyung-gil, “The Policy Directions of the North Korea Regime,” Vantage Point [November 1978]: p. 13).

  11. Kim Dal-hyon was in charge of the External Economic Commission at the time of our visit. In a cabinet reshuffle on December 11, 1992, he retained his deputy premier’s rank and was given the chair of the State Planning Commission. Premier Yon Hyon-muk was replaced by Kang Song-san, who had been premier once before, from 1984 to 1986. Viewed as a reformer, Kang had governed North Hamgyong Province as chief secretary in the interim following his first stint as premier and recently had pushed the plan for a special economic zone in the Tumen River area, which is part of that province (Reuters report, Korea Herald, December 12, 1992; Agence France-Presse and Yonhap reports, Korea Times, December 12, 1992).

  12. I later heard that this sort of virtuoso show of memory and comprehensive thinking at a press conference had been highly thought of among officials in the former Soviet Union.

  13. Korea Times, October 21, 1992.

  14. Korea Herald, March 13, 1993.

  15. In a lecture on “The Unified German Economy and Its Implications on a Unified Korean Economy” delivered at Seoul’s Research Institute for National Unification, August 26, 1992, World Bank Chief Economist Lawrence H. Summers observed, “There is a political dynamic that was unfortunate for gradual reform in East Germany and is in North Korea. Namely, there was a reason for Poland to exist quite apart from its being communist. There was no reason for East Germany to exist except for its being communist. There is no reason for North Korea to exist except for the fact that it is communist. That is why East Germany stayed harder-line longer than Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia despite the blandishments of significant amounts of financial assistance from West Germany and that is why I suspect North Korea is unlikely to make a move toward a market system.”

  16. Kim, With the Century (see chap. 2, n. 2), vol. 3, p. 221.

  17. Pyongyang had long championed a federal system as a stage in reunification. The developments in Germany, if anything, hardened the North’s demand that Korean reunification permit maintenance of separate political-economic-social systems in North and South.

  18. It was picked up and rebroadcast on South Korea’s KBS, October 23, 1992.

  19. International Herald Tribune, January 29, 1993, p. 3. Aidan Foster-Carter (“Korea’s Coming Reunification: Another East Asian Superpower?” published by The Economist Intelligence Unit, London, April 1992) estimated Seoul would need to come up with $9–$10 billion to invest in the merger each year for a decade, plus $6–$16 billion a year in subsidies.

  20. Reported in Korea Times, Yonhap dispatch, August 18, 1991.

  21. South Korean government estimates for 1991 are $6,498 and $1,064, respectively. Korea Annual 1992 (Seoul: Yonhap News Agency), pp. 177, 276.

  22. Korea Times, January 29, 1993.

  23. In a campaign appearance December 3, Chung told a group of Korean journalists he would become a “unification” president, using the Souths economic superiority to push inter-Korean exchange and, within five years, absorb the North into the Souths free-market economy (Korea Herald, December 4, 1992, p. 2).

  24. The South Korean press in January 1993 quoted an unnamed government source as saying North Korea was planning “investment fairs” in Minneapolis and oth
er major American cities, targeted mainly at ethnic Korean investors (Korea Times, January 26, 1993).

  28. Sea of Fire.

  1. Kim, With the Century, vol. 1, p. 12 (see chap. 2, n. 2).

  2. Kim Dong-hyeon, Choi Hong-yeol, and Lee Cheong, “Testimony of 1st Lt. Lim Yong-son, who had distributed anti–Kim Il-sung pamphlets and escaped from North Korea in August 1993,” Wolgan Choson, 1993.

  3. Hwang Jang-yop, Problems of Human Rights (2) (see chap. 6, n. 104).

  4. Ibid.

  5. Korea Times, February 3, 1993, p. 9.

  6. Quote of unnamed participant provided by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency, picked up by Agence France-Presse and carried in Korea Times, March 18, 1993.

  7. Lee Chong-guk was interviewed also by the Japanese weekly Shukan Post for an article that appeared in the June 3, 1994, issue. When I interviewed him he confirmed the information in that article.

  A skeptical analysis of North Korea’s chemical warfare ability may be found on pp. 129–130 of Selig Harrison’s Korean Endgame (see chap. 8, n. 3).

  8. Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings, Korea: The Unknown War (see chap. 4, n. 60), pp. 214–217, sum up reasons why the North Koreans would feel themselves on the defensive.

  9. Whether he did or not, “it’s his game to win or lose,” as Han Sung-joo, South Korea’s foreign minister, said in an appearance at the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club on March 18, five days after the North’s announcement.

  10. Agence France-Presse dispatch, Korea Times, March 3, 1993.

  11. Choe Pyong-gil, “Yu Song-chol’s Testimony” (see chap. 2, n. 18).

  12. In his March 18 appearance at the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club.

  13. Reuters dispatch, Japan Times, April 1, 1993.

  14. Kennedy discussed the concept in an interview reported in a Reuters article (Korea Herald, March 2, 1993) about his new book, Preparing for the 21st Century.

  15. One diplomat from a former Soviet-bloc country told the author that Deputy Premier Kim Dal-hyon, a relative of the ruling family, had received his chemistry training in Romania—where, ironically, one of his teachers was Elena Ceausescu.

  16. Associated Press dispatch from Tokyo quoting Korean Central News Agency Korea Times, March 23, 1993.

  17. Vladimir Ivanov, a Russian expert, cautioned in a July 1992 conversation that Washington would be mistaken to push for the collapse of the North Korean regime—a policy that he felt could invite a military response from Pyongyang. A fellow at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs, Ivanov recommended that American policy makers encourage the youthful, reformist elements in North Korea. He estimated that only about 10 percent of the elite were dyed-in-the-wool Kim Il-sung loyalists. Of the remaining 90 percent, half—the old—were irrelevant, he said. “A policy attacking the 10 percent fanatics hurts the 45 percent young elite,” people who could be reformists, Ivanov said. One caveat is that Ivanov spoke from the perspective of someone who had lived through the fall of the Soviet Union. Cynicism among the Soviet elite had been rife.

  18. See “Interview of Former High-level Official” (see chap. 6, n. 88) in which Kim Jong-min, interviewed under a pseudonym, said:

  “North Korea’s elite or economic experts view South Korea’s economic development as the result of President Park Chung-hee’s efforts. They view the Park period as being very significant.”

  Q. On what basis do they arrive at that conclusion?

  A. “There is a publication in North Korea entitled ‘Secret Communication’ [pitongsin]. Cadre who receive this know most of what is going on concerning South Korean politics. ‘Secret Communication’ carries South Korean broadcasts or newspaper articles without any doctoring.

  “Those who receive and read ‘Secret Communication’ range from cadre who are subject to ratification by the secretariat down to unit responsible persons. Provincial party level responsible secretaries are known to receive this publication as well. It is delivered daily, and is turned back in after being read. The contents are primarily South Korean top news stories as well as international political issues.”

  Q. Do experts analyze economic policies of the Park Chung-hee era?

  A. “Of course, individually they interpret them as they like; however, no one dares talk about it in public. Even when I was in North Korea, there were some who individually liked President Park Chung-hee. They even listened to his speeches.”

  Q. What points do they like about Park?

  A. “First, they felt that Park was a simple person, that he was straightforward and meticulous. Listening to his announcements on the South Korea–Japan talks or the Tokyo issue [a dispute with Japan regarding sovereignty over an island], his position was quite clear. There was a feeling that these positions stemmed from nationalist points.

  “We even felt a sort of pride when Park strongly criticized the United States at the time of the Chongwadae [Blue House] wire-tapping incident. At the same time, however, he could not issue a totally hostile statement no matter how much he opposed the United States. Seeing that, we sympathized with his position as a president of a small power.”

  The interviewer paraphrased Kim Jong-min’s remarks, saying Kim had estimated that the number of people who were able to find out about South Korean events through either “Secret Communication” or the radio totaled 2 to 3 percent of the total population. Kim Jong-min, the interviewer said, did not feel firmly convinced that this small number of people with knowledge of other societies could guide serious reform in North Korea.

  19. Kim, With the Century, vol. 3, p. 303.

  20. Kim Dong-hyeon, Choi Hong-yeol, and Lee Cheong, “Testimony of 1st Lt. Lim Yong-son.”

  21. Hwang Jang-yop, Problems of Human Rights (2).

  22. Kang testimony in JoongAng Ilbo. The detail about the Russian experts came out in the author’s interview with Kang.

  23. Letter to author, January 3, 1994.

  24. The jamming of VOA began in early January 1993, according to a Reuters report (Korea Times, January 15, 1993, p. 3).

  25. See chapter 20.

  26. Since deceased, a true friend dearly missed.

  27. Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency on .March 30, 1993, carried a demand that the United States “promptly cancel” a proposed “Radio Free Asia” broadcasting project similar to Radio Free Europe. The broadcasts would carry news of communist countries such as China and North Korea to any of their own people capable of picking up the transmissions. “The United States is trying hard to stifle our socialism at any cost by sending the wind of liberalization’ into our country,” said the statement by an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesman (Asahi Evening News, March 31, 1993). Not satisfied with saying it once, Pyongyang repeated the demand on April 3. Japan Times for April 4, 1993, carried a Reuters dispatch quoting the KCNA as saying, “While threatening by wielding the nuclear stick, the United States is foolishly attempting to destroy the socialist system of Korea by raising the wind of liberalization with black propaganda full of lies and deception, a method it used in the European region.”

  28. Selig Harrison’s Korean Endgame (see chap. 8, n. 3) provides a thorough account of the diplomacy. As a Georgian I took a certain pride in Carter’s diplomatic suc-cess. I first met him in Decatur, Georgia, in the 1960s when he had lost his first race for governor and was preparing for another. What struck me about him then was his hair, which suggested ambitions beyond our state. “What is a Georgia politician doing wearing a Kennedy hairdo?” I later asked the person who had introduced us.

  29. Hwang, Problems of Human Rights (2).

  29. Without You There Is No Country.

  1. Kim Il Sung, With the Century (see chap. 2, n. 2), vol. 1, p. 15.

  2. Hwang Jang-yop, Problems of Human Rights (2) (see chap. 6, n. 104).

  3. Kim, With the Century, vol. 3, pp. 421–422.

  4. Ibid., preface.

  5. A frequent visitor to North Korea who requested confidentiality was my source for this. O
n the topic of food-supply corruption, wire-service reports in October 1992 quoted an unnamed visitor to North Korea as saying the problem had become so serious as to be the object of a government campaign. Following are excerpts from an Agence France-Press article as printed on page 4 of Korea Times for October 14, 1992:

  “Tokyo (AFP)—North Korea, allegedly hit by acute food shortages, has launched a campaign against widespread civilian looting and extortion of food by government officials, a recent visitor to Pyongyang said Tuesday.

  “The visitor, a specialist on Korean affairs, told the Japanese Kyodo news agency that the Public Security Ministry in Pyongyang had posted notices in residential areas warning against food extortion.

  “ ‘Severe punishment will be meted out to persons engaged in the illegal extortion of food,’ the notices were quoted as reading. They also mentioned ‘acts of plundering grain from state and collective warehouses,’ the visitor told Kyodo in Beijing.