Under The Loving Care Of The Fatherly Leader Part 17

From 1979 to 1987, Ahn told me, he had studied at Wonsan Foreign Language Inst.i.tution. When I noted that I had visited Wonsan, an east coast port, during my 1979 visit, he replied curtly, "That was in better times." At the school, he said, "I specialized in English but the course wasn't very good. There is one of those foreign language inst.i.tutions in each province. You go to language school right after four years of elementary school and spend eight years of middle and high school there. Future spies are selected from among the graduates.

"From 1987 to May 1993 I attended the university-level Kim Jong-il Political-Military Academy in Pyongyang. The term of study there is five years and six months. They basically teach espionage, terror and other undercover tactics there, including how to kidnap important government officials and lure potential defectors from South Korea and, in the event of war, how to get into South Korea ahead of the People's Army and destroy the important inst.i.tutions."

The junior member of the team that bombed the South Korean airliner in 1987, Kim Hyon-hui, who had posed as a j.a.panese traveler, had survived a suicide attempt with a poison capsule after capture (her senior colleague died) and ultimately told her South Korean captors the details of the mission. "Kim Hyon-hui had gone earlier to the same school, when it was called k.u.msong Political-Military University," Ahn said. "There are two tracks. She went through the one-year espionage course. The six-year program is for people who will be involved in the war effort." Ahn boasted that she "didn't do a tenth of-what I did. Compared with what we had to do, her work was very light."

He was pa.s.sionate as he elaborated on the superiority of his training: "Because Kim Hyon-hui had only one year of training, she would not have been the one in charge of an order given by Kim Jong-il. She wouldn't pull the trigger, or kidnap someone. Kim Hyon-hui was in the Department of External Information, concerned with j.a.pan. She wasn't being trained to infiltrate but just to become become j.a.panese. I was in the Strategic Division of the Party Central Committee's Espionage Department, of which the academy was a part and where we needed military training. She only got input and didn't learn how to output information. I would inspect important sites that might be ordered blown up and study the interiors to see where the explosives could be placed. As for swimming, I had to swim 10 kilometers; she only had to make four kilometers. I practiced scuba diving and all kinds of shooting-long distance, short-range, moving objects. j.a.panese. I was in the Strategic Division of the Party Central Committee's Espionage Department, of which the academy was a part and where we needed military training. She only got input and didn't learn how to output information. I would inspect important sites that might be ordered blown up and study the interiors to see where the explosives could be placed. As for swimming, I had to swim 10 kilometers; she only had to make four kilometers. I practiced scuba diving and all kinds of shooting-long distance, short-range, moving objects.

"We studied the geography ofSouth Korea. I knew it by heart. And I knew how to act like a normal South Korean. [My interpreter, Rhee Soo-mi, noted that Ahn indeed did not speak with so obvious a Northern accent as other Northerners she had helped me interview.] I could use the local currency and so on. I wasn't surprised by South Korea when I came here."

Q. Had you studied the "Orange Tribe" (as a species of trendy young Seoulites was dubbed in the mid-'90s)?A. "We learned all about the people who live here, from the Orange Tribe to beggars. [In spy training] people are cla.s.sified demographically by occupation and age group. We used audiovisual aids and studied dialects."Q. Were you trusted to know anything whatsoever about South Korea?A. "I read all the dailies published in South Korea. We also knew that South Korea was a much freer country with much higher living standards."Q. If they let you know that, how did they keep you loyal?A. "Actually they changed the system after the Kim Hyon-hui case. She hadn't been taught what I was taught about South Korea. She was taught about Western capabilities but she thought South Koreans didn't live as well as North Koreans. When she was taken to Seoul and saw the South Korean living standards, she betrayed the regime. So they decided it was better to teach the reality to avoid such surprises."Q. But how did they keep you loyal?A. "First you should not imagine that we were ordinary North Koreans. Our living standards were up to those of the higher cla.s.s in South Korea. We would do our best to conduct espionage in South Korea. In the past, though, if spies failed they would commit suicide. What the regime doesn't know is that the current crop would not commit suicide in case of failure but surrender, since we had learned that defectors live pretty well here."Q. Tell me about your family background and your att.i.tudes toward the regime as you grew up.A. "My family was part of the elite. All who attended the academy were selected for good family background, meaning no history of a.s.sociation with South Korea."I was a fanatical believer in the ideology. Every true rejection of ideology has a practical reason. In my case, I had wanted since my childhood to be a diplomat, and I was supposed to go to the External Information Department, the one that Kim Hyon-hui was in. But in my senior year at the foreign language school, I got into a fight with a soldier and that ruined my chances to go to the External Information Department and become a diplomat. Diplomats from my background are in fact spies who spy on other countries, not on other North Korean diplomats. Instead I had to go to the Central Party Espionage Department's Strategic Division."At the Kim Jong-il Political-Military Academy my ideology began to change. Ideological change combined with the damage to my career made me turn against the regime. I always knew about the discrepancies in the North Korean regime and felt dissatisfaction, but the main point that made me defect was this: If you're in the Strategic Department you can no longer meet your parents or other family members. You live like the upper cla.s.s but you're isolated all your life."Q. Why isolated?A. "Three reasons. First, we had been exposed to the realities of capitalist countries and the regime was afraid we might influence others who had not. Second, they also feared that ordinary people would see our much more opulent lifestyle and resent it. Finally, many trainees were killed in training, which could cause problems with parents-it was thought best they not know what we were doing."Q. But wouldn't the first reason have applied also to ordinary diplomats, who weren't isolated?

A. "Diplomats know, but they don't have the detailed knowledge of South Korean society that I was taught. Anyhow, diplomats who graduate from the academy are also isolated."

Q. So you had expected isolation anyhow?A. "Yes. But if I had become a diplomat the isolation wouldn't have been so extreme-I would have had occasional chances to meeet my family. Also, the work-wouldn't have been so strenuous."Q. You were isolated from women?A. "When I was at the language school I had friends who were girls, but the instant I entered the academy I was isolated from them. Once I reached twenty-eight or twenty-nine I would be given ten to fifteen days to get a woman. I would write to request my parents to propose a bride for me, then I'd go marry her and bring her back. In the agency there are a couple of women, but they are in great demand."Q. Any other reasons for your disappointment besides the isolated life?A. "In the Strategic Division, there was lots of strenuous training. And I would have to kill people even though I didn't want to."Q. You disliked your a.s.signment in Strategic? (I waited for him to mention any moral repugnance or sense of injustice.)A. "Yes. While I was growing up my parents always taught me to be good. In the Strategic Department they teach you to hurt or kill others to protect yourself. It bothered me."Q. Did you have a moral objection or was it more a matter ofconvenience?A. "It cannot be only a matter of convenience. I just couldn't stand doing over and over all my life things I didn't want to do."Q. What was your opinion of your unit's basic mission of destroying South Korea?A. "That it was possible and necessary in order for there to be reunification on Kim Il-sung's and Kim Jong-il's terms."Q. The end justifies the means?A. "Yes."Q. (I told him about the chemical warfare colonel who wanted to wipe out the whole South Korean population.) Is there a lot of such thinking in North Korea, that the end justifies the means?A. "No one ought to say we should kill all the 40 million civilians in South Korea. I was taught we should not kill all the South Koreans, but if they opposed our regime then we would kill them."Q. Have you met Lee Chong-guk (the man who had issued the chemical warfare warning), the only defector I've met who didn't describe any personal problem as part of his motivation for defecting?A. "Most of those who escaped from North Korea are people who couldn't stand their low living standards. I also am surprised by Lee Chong-guk. Could it be possible to defect with no reason?"In my case, if you asked for the one big reason I defected I would answer: Being exposed to unlimiited outside information I realized that if reunification came it would be by North Korean collapse or absorption into South Korea. I would become unemployed and because of my status as a spy my parents would be in danger." Q. Do you think any of the defectors is an agent provocateur? A. "I don't think so. That's not the way they infiltrate spies into South Korea." Q. Tell me more about the spy trainee lifestyle. Q. Tell me more about the spy trainee lifestyle.A. "Rations for us were different. I got high-quality rice, 900 grams a day eggs, chocolate, b.u.t.ter, drinks. At the academy I lived in a dorm, four people to a room equipped with air conditioning, television, video, refrigerator. After graduation and before I defected I was in an accommodation of that same standard."I graduated May 20, 1993, then defected on September 4. In the interim I spent one month practicing infiltration by water-swimming, scuba practice. The second month I studied taekwondo; taekwondo; the third month, wireless telecommunications plus reality training in a facility resembling South Korea. the third month, wireless telecommunications plus reality training in a facility resembling South Korea."A big tunnel, 12 meters high, 30 meters wide and 8 kilometers long, in the same area as the KJIPMA contains a 100 by 50 meter scale model of Seoul and, separately, approximately one-fourth-scale mockups of some of the more important inst.i.tutions. I remember seeing the Blue House, the police department, the Agency for National Security Planning, the Kyobo Building, the Shilla Hotel, Lotte and Shinsegye department stores, as well as small cafes. When you walked through the streets you felt you were there: discos, South Koreanmade cars, South Korean products inside the buildings. The scale model of all of Seoul has all the important buildings in Seoul, and the sub-way entrances. Next to each building is a brochure showing its whole interior."In the tunnel they broadcast all the programs from South Korean television and radio. It was my work to watch and listen. Even during practice sessions we had transistor radios attached to our belts and continually listened. In the tunnel you get 700,000 to 800,000 South Korean won won in fifteen days and you have to use it up. The tunnel has its own economy. You live there fifteen days or one month a year for training and during that time you buy products." in fifteen days and you have to use it up. The tunnel has its own economy. You live there fifteen days or one month a year for training and during that time you buy products."(I nearly gasped in wonderment as Ahn described that elaborate facility set up to train spies in conspicuous consumption while much of the rest of the population went hungry. To me it remains an unforgettable image.)"I've been in there three times. It's like a holiday. But there aren't any girls in the discos. Men demonstrate how the hostesses pour drinks.If women were inside the tunnel it would be too much like South Korean society and there would be trouble. But we were instructed in how to interact with South Korean women."Training in the tunnel was to enable us to meet other spies, kidnap important officials and so on. Fifty South Koreans have been kidnapped. The people who teach you South Korean customs and dialect in the tunnels were kidnapped from South Korea. The authorities wanted to bring important figures for that, but it's hard, so those were ordinary citizens. One was a university student who was kidnapped while camping in a tent with friends during vacation in a coastal area. Basically the whole practice drill is so that we can adapt ourselves to South Korean ways during peacetime missions to the South."We got other training for wartime. We practiced wartime kidnapping of generals from a moving vehicle, and from a building whose security force we had to penetrate. We learned to destroy South Korean telecommunications, get on a warship secretly and destroy it, bomb an inst.i.tution. We had highly developed light-weight explosives and learned the basic structure of a ship, the layout of the bridge, where to plant the explosives."Q. Does the regime plan reunification by force?A. "They always have that dream of reunifying through force, but there aren't enough resources now-they're very weak. So they're trying to find other ways. Thus, they're holding the nuclear card and trying to negotiate. Whenever they get their strength back they'll start dreaming their dreams again. Peaceful reunification can only occur through capitalist South Korean society overtaking North Korea. [If a federation or confederation is arranged] people in North Korea will be influenced by the lifestyle of the South and will oppose the northern regime. So to maintain their regime they believe they have to take over South Korea and get rid of capitalist ideas. They teach you that."Q. The elite must save their positions?A. "They don't put it that way They would say 'for the people.' They say that basically socialism is for the people while capitalism is for an elite few. They propagandize by saying if North Korea is absorbed into South Korea it will be a world for the small elite instead of a society for the people."Q. How could anyone believe that in a country where the elite live well and the people live like dogs?A. "Ordinary North Koreans didn't know the real circ.u.mstances in South Korea. They're brain-washed. Now, most North Koreans do know that South Korea is wealthier. There's been a lot ofchange in the way people think since the 1989 youth festival brought lots of capitalistic lifestyle into the country. But even ifthey acknowledge that South Korea is wealthy, people believe that ifreunification takes place they have to take its wealth and distribute it among themselves."Q. How firmly are reunification and food supplies linked together in North Koreans' minds?A. "Reunification is not the only prospect for eating well, but food is one factor in their hope for reunification."Q. What's the level of fanaticism among student spies?A. "At the academy there are between three hundred and four hundred students, sixty to eighty per cla.s.s year. I have no way of knowing how many are fanatics. But not all are. And even those who are fanatic adopt that posture because it's the way to get ahead. They aren't fanatics on general principle. If the North Korean regime were to collapse, the people who would be the leaders in helping to bring it down would be the people in the South Korea infiltration unit."Q. Did people say that?A. "I never heard such talk, it's just an opinion. There's a saying in North Korea: 'The dog you trust the most will bite you.' I did hear that saying. The people in the division hate Kim Jong-il more than anyone else does. Everyone used to be willing to sacrifice for the mission, for Kim Jong-il. But some things happened to change that. In 1989, he visited the South Korea infiltration division. He likes speed. He got on one of the speedboats there. And he did lots of promiscuous stuff with women he had brought there. People talked against him- 'How come we sacrifice for him?' Eight people disappeared suddenly after Kim Jong-il's bodyguards ratted on them."There was the Kim Hyon-hui case, too. She did her best, but when she was caught her parents were sent to a camp. The old man who died on that mission-Kim Sung-il-his family-was sent to prison. After seeing that, we thought, 'No matter what we do, if our missions become known to the world we'll be in trouble.' So we were very unsure about our futures. Even if-we did our missions well, if the fact we had done espionage became known our families would be sent to political prisons."Q. Did you meet Kim Jong-il?A. "I never personally met him but saw him during training."Q. Does he have a speaking problem?A. "I hear he speaks well one-on-one, but doesn't talk in a very courteous way. He's not deferential." (Ahn interjected that he admired my "objectivity." The regime hated that, he said. It wanted people to be either positive or negative. If they-were negative, it could change them.)"High officials in North Korea are getting prepared just in case the regime collapses. All ordinary people hate the elite and everyone hates Kim Jong-il. Ordinary people still worship Kim Il-sung."

Q. How did you escape?

A. "I made a run across the DMZ into Kyonggi Province, carrying two bombs to blow myself up if necessary an AK47 a.s.sault rifle and a small pistol [a.s.sembled on the pretense of a training session]. The South Koreans saw me cross. I headed for a South Korean camp. No North Koreans noticed me leave."

THIRTY-ONE.

Neither Land nor People at Peace "The Supreme Committee for the Struggle of National Salvation has reviewed Kim Il-sung's and Kim Jong-il's crimes, and sentences them to seizure of their wealth and execution."

Lim Young-sun claimed to have printed that sentence on slips of paper, then distributed them in the northeastern part of North Korea in September 1991. On the reverse side of the fliers, which were about one-fifth the size of a standard sheet of typing paper, was this further message: "All you soldiers and working citizens, form combat units and fight. Hurray for a triumphant, free people!" The former People's Army first lieutenant said that he and some anti-regime colleagues had carved a rubber stamp from a tire to print the fliers. He picked up a young woman pa.s.senger and bribed the conductor to give them both seats on the crowded train, then used his chatting with her as a cover while he tossed handfuls of fliers from the window as the train moved through the desolate region. Lim's motive? As usual with defectors, it had begun with personal disappointment. Lim said he was outraged that his father had been mistreated by the regime and that his own career was limited on account of questionable family background. In his twenties, he "decided to get revenge on the regime for what it had done to my family name."

A slender, rather good-looking man, Lim was thirty when I met him in 1994. (Yes, he wore a gold watch.) "When I started learning to write," he told me, "the first thing I learned to write-even before my own name--was 'Kim Il-sung'. Even though I didn't know my parents' birthdays, I knew the birthdays of Kim Il-sung and his ancestors. I was a very ideal student. I partic.i.p.ated in a parade with Kim Il-sung and went on stage wearing a red kerchief as a children's corps member. I don't know if you could call it love, but I did revere Kim Il-sung and I would have done anything at all to show my loyalty. The whole process of daily life is a testing of loyalty toward Kim Il-sung. I just thought everybody lived that way It seemed normal to me at the time. I was in my twenties before I started thinking it was strange.

"Father came from South Korea to the North during the Korean War. He was a volunteer in the Uiyonggun, Uiyonggun, the army of South Koreans fighting on the North Korean side. All those were volunteers. But there are always conflicts between Koreans from different regions. North Koreans don't like South Koreans, because they're more intelligent and better educated, and they have the potential to take over the regime. Father was one of the five best architects in North Korea, but his work was not properly acknowledged as the others' work was. He resented that. Superiors or subordinates were given credit for his work. People from South Korea always confront a limit. It's hard to break through that, regardless of your abilities." the army of South Koreans fighting on the North Korean side. All those were volunteers. But there are always conflicts between Koreans from different regions. North Koreans don't like South Koreans, because they're more intelligent and better educated, and they have the potential to take over the regime. Father was one of the five best architects in North Korea, but his work was not properly acknowledged as the others' work was. He resented that. Superiors or subordinates were given credit for his work. People from South Korea always confront a limit. It's hard to break through that, regardless of your abilities."

When Lim was born in 1963, the family lived in the captial, Pyongyang, where his father was designing buildings. The father was a party member. Lim's mother worked in retail. Lim was the third son in a family of three boys and two girls. "We were comparatively well off, living in a three-room masonry house with television, radio and phonograph-but no refrigerator at that time. Then my father's South Korean background got in the way of his career." In 1976, the year of the Panmunjom axe-killing incident, "we had to move to North Hamgyong Province, to a cooperative farm where my parents both became farmers. Father was reduced from high party official to ordinary party member. The reason they gave was, in preparation for the war to come, they had to decrease the Pyongyang population. Of course, my parents understood the real reason: family background.

"I heard my father complain a lot. But I was too young to think of much. I just thought the family was moving. In the country, we lived in one room of a farmer's mud-walled house. There was no kitchen. We had to build our own outside, with planks. We took our TV with us but there was no reception in that remote area then, so we sold it eventually. As life got harder, we also sold the radio and the phonograph. We had a j.a.panese-made loom and sold that, too. As for clothing, it wasn't that bad. We took a lot with us, and some of my dad's schoolmates in Pyongyang sent us clothing. But the food I ate was mainly potatoes and corn. There were some Chinese cabbages and radishes, but we couldn't make kimchee without the other ingredients- pepper powder and so on. We just soaked the vegetables in salt water. The place is near Mount Paektu, very mountainous. I had to walk six kilometers to school, each way Actually you could hardly call it a school. It was a storage room. The teachers had licenses but their standard was low. In some aspects, I knew more than the teachers. It was very undeveloped, like a feudal society.

"I took the university entrance exam. Since childhood I had dreamed of studying economics at a university. But because my father had been expelled from Pyongyang, and despite lots of bribes by my mother to school officials, they a.s.signed me to an agricultural college. I didn't want to attend it, so I didn't go. To ameliorate my family background I decided to enter the army in 1980, when I was seventeen. I was an ordinary soldier for eight years, then took one-year officer training and got a commission. I served at a missile base and underground airbase in South Pyongyan province. When I was in the army, I was second to none in study and practice. I was so diligent I won seven medals. But always there were limitations on account of my family background. I couldn't go to the academy.

"From 1986, I acted as a screen-writer for the army movie studio. The studio is in Pyongyang, but I remained in my army unit and wrote scenarios based on observing other soldiers. Through this I started meeting high officials, people from the central party. I got to know about the high life they were living. I don't care that much about Kim Il-sung's lifestyle, but to keep his power he's destroying the people. In most aspects my own situation was improving, but I doubted the regime: Why were my opportunities always limited because of my family background?

"The head of the Department of Movie Creation under the Ministry of the People's Armed Forces was Li Jin-u. I got close to him. He talked about the problems of the regime. I became a.s.sociated-with the anti-regime movement within the ministry. In 1989, Kim Jong-il issued an instruction that as a present to Kim Il-sung we had to reunite North and South by 1995. But when Kim Jong-il gave that instruction, some people in the ministry did not want forceful reunification. They wanted it done peacefully, no matter how long it might take. Their goal was to get rid of Kim Jong-il in a coup d'etat. They wanted to attempt a coup d'etat either when Kim Il-sung got physically feeble or when Kim Jong-il really wanted to start a war." I asked why the plotters opposed starting a war. "Do you. you. want war?" Lim replied. "These are the normal people. It's the abnormal people who would want war." want war?" Lim replied. "These are the normal people. It's the abnormal people who would want war."

Lim said he had not been directly a part of the plotters' organization, which numbered in the hundreds of members. But he and some young colleagues were moved to form their own, much smaller organization. "First, I wanted to oppose war. Second, I didn't like the succession of Kim Jong-il. I wanted minimal freedom for the 20 million North Koreans. But basically, we did not want to be the people to initiate change. Because I was young, I didn't want what I was doing to have any political color. But since I knew all the guys in other organizations I wanted to prepare to help if some organization started a coup d'etat. We pondered for about a year on how to make the biggest impact." In September 1991, he boarded the train from Mount Komu in North Hamgyong Province to Chongjin and, during his ride, distributed about 400 of the printed fliers. Colleagues on different routes distributed about 600 more.

"The authorities investigated for about a year to find out who did it," Lim said. "I was always stressed, fearing capture. Probably the reason I wasn't caught is that my people were among the searchers." But mean-while the larger anti-regime organization in the military was discovered and crushed. "State Security agents in the ministry found out about their attempt. They got rid of them by late 1992, arrested them all. At the New Year in 1993 Kim Il-sung made a speech. The State Security man who caught the plotters was promoted from major general to full general. The group arrested included a vice-marshal and nine or ten other general officers, one of them four-star. They were going to have an armed coup, get rid of Kim Jong-il and resume talks with South Korea. Yi Bong-yol was rumored to be the four-star general involved. I'm not sure of the others. I didn't dig up details for fear I'd be arrested myself. Word on this came via the State Security people in the military units. I never saw the doc.u.ments, but in each department they had official discussions of what had happened inside the ministry. When State Security felt something was fishy, they bugged the houses of some officers, got evidence and secretly arrested them. People thought they'd just gone on long trips, and only later heard they had been arrested. Along with the generals, about 200 to 300 were said to have been arrested, with half of those executed and half sent to political prison. I don't know the method of execution, but at that time they had started using the electric chair in North Korea.

"A year after we distributed the fliers it seemed the coast was clear for me, but in February 1993 they resumed investigating the incident. In North Hamgyong, my home province, a special State Security force was formed to find the criminal. They investigated anyone who had ridden a train there in September 1991. It was discovered I had visited the province September 24, 1991, and stayed about ten hours, so State Security suspected me. In March of 1993 they found some evidence at my home." While the authorities worked to nail down further evidence, Lim made his preparations and fled to South Korea via a third country.

There is much drama in Lim's account. Perhaps that owes something to his skills as a screen-writer. In South Korea he published two books about his experiences. "When I first defected, South Korean intelligence people knew of the flier incident very well," he wrote in the second volume, River That Runs South. River That Runs South. "One of them said, 'Did you know that Kim Jong-il promised to bestow the t.i.tle of "hero" on whoever could find the truth of this incident?'" "One of them said, 'Did you know that Kim Jong-il promised to bestow the t.i.tle of "hero" on whoever could find the truth of this incident?'"

While Lim's accounts were gripping, some readers were skeptical. Defector Oh Young-nam said he had been a captain in State Security in Pyongyang from June 1991 until April of 1993, covering the entire period when Lim supposedly was the object of intensive investigation. Oh told me he had not heard of the flier incident even though he was in charge of an inspection department combatting spies and anti-government movements. He added that the regime was "very fast to act in such a case. If someone puts out a leaflet with anti-government information, there's no possibility of getting away. The intelligence net-work is very well kept. Sometimes sons would report on fathers. I never really trusted my wife, because I've seen too many cases where wives reported on husbands. Thus there is no open opposition." Due to extreme shortages, Oh added, "you can't find clean A-4 paper anywhere, even in an office. You can use a kid's notebook, but I can't imagine someone tossing full packs of leaflets."

That is not to say there were no opponents of the regime. Oh told me that his father, a bodyguard, had died in a 1960s shootout with special forces soldiers at a mansion where Kim Il-sung and first lady Kim Song-ae were staying in Changson county, North Pyongan province. "It was Kim Song-ae who shut my father's eyelids," Oh said. "This is widely known in North Korea." The coup plotters, he said, turned out to be under the control of Minister of National Defense Kim Chang-bong, who was not present for the gun battle.

Other sources indicated that anti-regime activities had not been infrequent. Kim Myong-chol guarded both Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il during his stint in the bodyguard service from 1976 to 1985. When I met him in 1994 he was suntanned, with coa.r.s.e hair and a toothy smile. Oh yes, and he wore a gold watch. "When I entered there were only about 3,000 to 4,000 bodyguards," he told me, "but after the killing of Ceaucescu and his wife in Romania in 1989, they increased the number and now it's about 70,000." Kim Myong-chol had left by then but he learned of the increase from old colleagues when he visited headquarters.

"Externally-we were guarding against enemy countries; internally, counterrevolutionaries," he said. "There was a 300-page book published by the Bodyguard Service detailing past incidents involving people who opposed the government. I remember a lot, but I can't remember dates and names. Around 1977, in Anak County, Hw.a.n.ghae Province, a person stole an AK a.s.sault weapon from a soldier, cut it down-sawed it off-and hid it inside his jacket. He was headed for Pyongyang to terrorize a high party official when a plainclothes bodyguard caught him. His chest was bulging. There were similar incidents involving different weapons. Some people decided they wanted to give a letter of complaint to Kim Il-sung personally and tried to get through the bodyguards to him, but they got caught." He mentioned also a large student anti-regime movement, led by the son of a vice director of State Security that he said was uncovered in 1991 at Wonsan University. "I didn't realize any of the contradictions while I was a bodyguard," Kim Myong-chol said. "I was prepared to give up my life for Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. Bodyguards are more loyal than the army. Bodyguards are people with a st.u.r.dy background of loyalty. Even a dog wouldn't go against an owner who had raised him."

Aspects of Lim's story did check out. For example, army movie creative boss Li Jin-u was a real person who got into real trouble. Lee Chong-guk, former sergeant in the Bureau of Nuclear and Chemical Defense, related to me a rumor that Li Jin-u had been killed for spreading secret information about nuclear weapons. "In 1989, Li Jin-u was making a movie, Red Maple Leaf," Red Maple Leaf," Lee said. "Researching for the scenario, he had to use data processing and look up information. He found some information about nuclear weapons and told Western reporters about it. That upset Kim Jong-il, who had Li killed. That's a rumor, but for sure Li was never seen again." Lee said. "Researching for the scenario, he had to use data processing and look up information. He found some information about nuclear weapons and told Western reporters about it. That upset Kim Jong-il, who had Li killed. That's a rumor, but for sure Li was never seen again."

And the 1992 purge of dissident or at least disgruntled officers in the Ministry of People's Armed Forces did happen, by the accounts of many sources. According to Kang Myong-do the leader was Vice Marshal Ahn Jong-ho, and forty other elite officers were involved. Ahn Jong-ho, Kang said, had graduated from Mangyongdae Revolutionary School. As an officer he had studied at a Soviet military academy before returning to the KPA for a.s.signments in the strategy and battle training departments, heading the latter. He had been a rising star, Kang said. Others involved were the deputy commander of the battle training department and the vice head of the strategy department, Kang said.

Kang said the officers harbored doubts about the regime and personally disliked Kim Jong-il. All had studied for three to four years at the Russian academy and had experienced considerable freedom, comparatively speaking. It was natural, he said, that they had some doubts after that experience. They also abhorred Kim Jong-il's distortion of history. Quite a few had been his cla.s.smates at Namsan Senior Middle School, so they knew his "promiscuous lifestyle. They disliked his changing his birthplace to Mount Paektu." The forty, Kang said, were executed, and the authorities "got rid of" fifty others who had studied in Russia. Kang listed previous coup attempts from as far back as the 1960s led respectively by Ho Bong-ha, Yi Hyo-seun, Kim Chang-bong and Kim Byong-ha. "Even in this tightly controlled regime there is always a possibility of coup d'etat," he said.1 Former party secretary Hw.a.n.g Jang-yop added that in addition to the leaders who were executed, "almost all the people who had studied in the Soviet Union were deemed to have been influenced by the antiKim Jong-il organization even if they-were not soldiers. These people were not allowed to travel overseas, and anyone found to have the slightest connection to the antiKim Jong-il organization was executed, resulting in the death of almost all the students who had studied in the Soviet Union in the 1980s. I used to supervise the Juche Science Inst.i.tute, where I met a Russian literature graduate of Kazan University in the USSR. The professor who had supervised his graduation thesis was the dean in charge of foreigners, and such professors usually had connections with the Security Bureau of the Soviet Union. Based on this flimsy reasoning, the People's Army arrested the graduate and had him shot.2 Choe Joo-whal, a former People's Army lieutenant colonel who defected, said the purged officers' offenses included giving military information to Russian intelligence. The internal spy who discovered the plot was Won Eung-hui, said Choe, who put the number purged by Won on Kim Jong-il's orders at around three hundred. Kim Jong-il, he added, was going all out to build support among other military officers. In 1992, Kim had a "very fancy" apartment building constructed on the Taedong River in Pyongyang so that he could give the apartments to influential generals. In 1995, he gave twenty generals new Mercedes Benz automobiles as presents, Choe said.3 In his December 7, 1996, speech, Kim stated that "currently, there are no anti-revolutionaries within the party," although there was "huge chaos due to the poor performance of the party in constructing socialism," and those party workers who had "stood by with folded arms during this hard time will have to account for their actions in the future." In the event, after the three-year period of mourning for his father ended and he made good his threat, he seems to have found some officials to accuse of being outright oppositionists.

From 1997, according to reports that filtered out of the country, North Korea publicly executed over fifty high officials. According to South Korean intelligence chief Lee Jong-chan, one of them was Ri Bong-won, a four-star general who supervised KPA personnel decisions and was accused of spying for South Korea.4 There were rumors, reported abroad, of a coup attempt by elements of the Sixth Army Corps in North Hamgyong Province. Kim Jong-il told some ethnic Koreans from j.a.pan in April 1998 that the rumors were "a baseless lie. There was no such attempt. What really happened was that we found some defects in the political indoctrination program of the corps and had to remove some officers after self-criticism meetings. Contrary to the published reports, neither the corps commander nor the political commissar was executed. The joint chief of staff, who was the corps commander in question, is here today. After the so-called coup attempt, he was promoted to the chief of the joint staff. Now the enemy propagandists claim that the political commissar was behind the coup and that it was he who was executed. The truth of the matter is that the commissar was relieved because of his stomach cancer."5 Back to the account by Lim Young-sun of his adventure on the train, I see three items of circ.u.mstantial evidence in favor of crediting Lim's story. First, there were afterward quite a number of new and credible reports of anti-regime leafletting and graffiti writing. Second, the single provocation Lim claimed to commit was so modest (except by North Korean standards) that I would expect a movie scenarist exercising literary creativity to come up with something more heroic-car chases, shootouts, that sort of thing.

Finally, I found Lim to be perfectly plausible in the role in which he cast himself: leader of an ambitious movement. He seemed to me the sort of man who in traditional Korean cultural terms would be accepted as a leader and thus would be capable not only of dreaming up but also of carrying out an important movement. That is to say, he came across as an impatient authoritarian-the same bossy type as Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and the South Korean military coup leaders-turned-dictators who had opposed them. Lim showed that side of himself in his behavior toward my interpreter, Rhee Soo-mi, pounding home his points to her. (An amba.s.sador's daughter, accustomed to big shots, she refused to let him rattle her; following her work with me, she went on to become a New York lawyer.) I was not sure whether Lim intended irony in one peculiar exchange. "You should go to live in North Korea," he told me. I asked what I would learn there. "To obey," he replied with no sign of mirth.

Lim said he wanted to study for a while and then work in a corporation. I figured that in no time he would be CEO.

THIRTY-TWO.

In a Ruined Country [N]o man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six.-THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE Kim Jong-il's election on July 26, 1998, to the Supreme People's a.s.sembly North Korea's parliament, was unanimous, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. The current Great Leader won election from Pyongyang's District 666. 666. Whoever picked the military-dominated district for him may not have been aware that the number has satanic a.s.sociations. (Perhaps someone realized it later. In 2003, Kim was elected instead from District 649.) Whoever picked the military-dominated district for him may not have been aware that the number has satanic a.s.sociations. (Perhaps someone realized it later. In 2003, Kim was elected instead from District 649.)1 The KCNA reported that the voters in District 666 666 sang, danced and shouted wishes for Kim's longevity after they had voted. Exulted one: "Experiencing the same glee that our people felt when they held Great Leader Kim Il-sung in high esteem as head of state fifty years ago, I cast my ballot for the Supreme Commander, Kim Jong-il." Many outside a.n.a.lysts believed- mistakenly, as it turned out-that the hoopla was preparation for the junior Kim's formal takeover of the country's presidency. That t.i.tle had been vacant since his father's death in sang, danced and shouted wishes for Kim's longevity after they had voted. Exulted one: "Experiencing the same glee that our people felt when they held Great Leader Kim Il-sung in high esteem as head of state fifty years ago, I cast my ballot for the Supreme Commander, Kim Jong-il." Many outside a.n.a.lysts believed- mistakenly, as it turned out-that the hoopla was preparation for the junior Kim's formal takeover of the country's presidency. That t.i.tle had been vacant since his father's death in 1994, 1994, even though the son as head of the military and the Workers' Party had exercised effective control over the machinery of power. In the end, the expertly embalmed father was kept on as the country's president in perpetuity. even though the son as head of the military and the Workers' Party had exercised effective control over the machinery of power. In the end, the expertly embalmed father was kept on as the country's president in perpetuity.

All the folderol about unanimous elections and t.i.tled glory aside, how ?were the fifty-six-year-old Supreme Commander's subjects really feeling about their leader? On his watch a famine, brought on by flooding and drought-and, to a large extent, by refusal to change failed economic and agricultural policies-had killed countless countrymen in the three years since 1995. Whether estimates of up to two or three million dead from famine-related causes during that period were correct or not,2 there was no disputing that hunger was extremely widespread. It afflicted even the best-fed large segment of the populace, which was the Korean People's Army. The soldiers "get more than other North Koreans but they're not getting enough," an official with close ties to the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) and U.S. militaries told me in June 1998. there was no disputing that hunger was extremely widespread. It afflicted even the best-fed large segment of the populace, which was the Korean People's Army. The soldiers "get more than other North Koreans but they're not getting enough," an official with close ties to the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) and U.S. militaries told me in June 1998.

The man told me a story that harked back to H. G. Wells's frail, flushed, four-feet-tall Eloi. In the first year of the most devastating period of the famine, he said, "two North Korean soldiers from a frontline unit in the south-western islands got washed away in a boat while checking their nets, seeking protein. They stayed approximately two days in the boat, and were almost dead when rescued. The ROKs picked them up, and let the North Koreans know we'd return them. While they had them in the ROK Navy hospital they examined those boys from a.s.shole to appet.i.te. They found both had liver dysfunction due to chronic malnutrition. Both had kidney dysfunction and skin discoloration. Both had severe dental problems. The big one was five feet five and a half inches tall. The other one was four-foot-eleven. The big one, nineteen years old, weighed 98 pounds. The little one, twenty-one, was eighty-nine pounds. We don't get a lot of North Korean soldiers to do in-depth medical a.n.a.lysis. We didn't know whether we had the runts of the litter. We repatriated them through Panmunjom. About ten days later we saw on Pyongyang television these guys returned to their unit for a heroes' welcome. Everybody in the unit was the same size.

"We can't extrapolate but we can draw a very firm conclusion that in that unit on the frontline islands the men were all little, all chronically undernourished and not in very good health. And when I look at other North Koreans, other than in Panmunjom, I see little scrawny guys. North Korean defectors arriving in Seoul plump up after three to six months in the South. You can conclude all are undernourished-perhaps not malnourished, but not up to their genetic potential. In South Korea there are lots of six-foot-two, 180-pound guys. Even North Korea's big guards at Panmunjom are not nearly as big as South Korean JSA [Joint Security Area] guards. Anecdotally I'd say it's clear about the KPA: their gas tank is running pretty close to empty."

This jibed with what World Food Program a.s.sistant Executive Director Jean-Jacques Graisse told me and other journalists in Tokyo that same month. In North Korean kindergartens, Graisse said, "the children look far better than they did two years ago when the food a.s.sistance started. The food was was delivered and delivered and has has produced positive results among children." But still, along the Pyongyang-Wonsan-Chongjin route, said his colleague, Eri Kudo, "we really saw in nurseries and kindergartens significantly undersized children with very, very thin limbs." Said Graisse, "I was shocked to see in most cla.s.ses that the children on the average looked two years younger than they-were"-a judgment that he said medical doctors working for aid organizations confirmed. produced positive results among children." But still, along the Pyongyang-Wonsan-Chongjin route, said his colleague, Eri Kudo, "we really saw in nurseries and kindergartens significantly undersized children with very, very thin limbs." Said Graisse, "I was shocked to see in most cla.s.ses that the children on the average looked two years younger than they-were"-a judgment that he said medical doctors working for aid organizations confirmed.3 On family visits the WFP officials asked to see kitchens so they could learn what people were eating. One old woman had only a large rice bowl containing a watery porridge of rice and grated corn-mainly water. The woman explained it was for her entire family-three bowls of that porridge for the day for five family members. Walking around, Kudo found an old man lying down-her husband. He could not stand up. His digestive system was too weak to take even the porridge. Kudo saw swollen faces. One aspect of East Asian culture, she noted, is the high value placed on forebearance: " 'Try to put up with the situation, don't complain too much.' So we imagine there are many more like that."

Was the regime's collapse, or at least its leader's overthrow, at hand? That might have seemed a likely outcome in almost any other country similarly afflicted-and especially in an East Asian country traditionally imbued not only with the desire to show forebearance but also with the notion that a ruling dynasty keeps power only until the "mandate of heaven" is withdrawn. In that old way of thinking, natural disaster itself is blamed on the ruler, seen as a sign of heaven's disapproval of a lack of righteousness in his administration and a signal that it is time for a change. It seemed clear to me and some other outsiders that the Kim dynasty really was responsible for long-term policy failures that exacerbated the disasters befalling the land.4 And in truth, North Koreans were not so far away from the traditional ways of viewing their rulers otherwise. Did some of the more simple-minded among the populace also see their woes in the mid- and late-1990s as the revenge of heaven upon the system the Kims had built? And in truth, North Koreans were not so far away from the traditional ways of viewing their rulers otherwise. Did some of the more simple-minded among the populace also see their woes in the mid- and late-1990s as the revenge of heaven upon the system the Kims had built?

Leaving aside heavenly portents and omens, a study ent.i.tled "Pattern of Collapse in North Korea," written by an American expert and circulated among Pyongyang-watchers in the latter half of the 1990s, hypothesized a seven-phase process. Much of North Korea seemed already to have pa.s.sed through the first three phases listed in the paper by Robert Collins, who based his theorizing on accounts of communism's collapse in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and on his decades of experience as a U.S. government employee observing North Korea.5 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea long since had encountered resource depletion, which was Collins's Phase One. The country then had moved into Phase Two, prioritization, in which someone had to decide either that everyone would suffer equally or-the decision actually made-that certain groups such as the party elite and the military would be given priority in distribution of scarce food and other resources. (American food aid specialist Andrew S. Natsios argues in The Great North Korean Famine The Great North Korean Famine that this setting of priorities in favor of Pyongyang and nearby west coast areas meant cutting off the east coast of the country from food subsidies. Natsios calls such a policy "triage," a term normally applied to decisions by frazzled military medics, following b.l.o.o.d.y engagements, that certain wounded soldiers will be treated-because their chances of recovery seem high--while others, whose prospects are considered relatively hopeless, must be left to die.) that this setting of priorities in favor of Pyongyang and nearby west coast areas meant cutting off the east coast of the country from food subsidies. Natsios calls such a policy "triage," a term normally applied to decisions by frazzled military medics, following b.l.o.o.d.y engagements, that certain wounded soldiers will be treated-because their chances of recovery seem high--while others, whose prospects are considered relatively hopeless, must be left to die.) Robert Collins's Phase Three, local independence, also seemed well established in much of the country by mid-1998. In that phase, working-and-living units-even whole localities-that got little or nothing from the center because they were left off the priority list had to adopt their own means of coping. That often involved circ.u.mventing regime policies, as we shall see in chapter 33.

Thus, as the end of the millennium approached, North Koreans should have been moving into Phase Four-suppression-if the regime was heading toward imminent collapse according to the pattern Collins posited. In what he called a "most pivotal phase," the core group of the regime would feel its ultimate political control threatened by the new disdain for the rules shown by groups pursuing survival-at-any-cost schemes. So Kim Jong-il and company would crack down, handing to their formidable internal security apparatus "maximum, even indiscriminate, powers" to suppress actions that contradicted state policies.

In case suppression should fail to put a cap on local independence, it would instead push the country into Phase Five: resistance by organized groups and leaders. If the drama should play out fully, there would then ensue Phase Six, the fracture of the core group, a splintering that would occur because of opposing views about how to handle increasingly violent resistance; and, finally, Phase Seven, realignment of the national leadership without necessarily eliminating all of the core group.

Were things happening the way Collins, writing in 1996, had postulated? No outsider can know for sure about much of anything that happens in North Korea, of course. But there are always the Pyongyang-watcher's fallback techniques of a.n.a.lysis based on sc.r.a.ps of information from all kinds of sources including defector testimony and the regime's news media and propaganda-the sort of "tea leaf reading" that also characterized the work of kremlinologists and sinologists.

Thus, my attempt to solve another, seemingly unrelated mystery--why the DPRK had barred United Nations World Food Program aid monitors from thirty-nine of the North's counties-turned out to be instructive. My findings suggested that Kim Jong-il and company so far might have avoided falling into the trap of Phase Four, as Collins defined it. In that case, the Kim family regime (let us eschew obvious comparisons to Satan and his beastly manifestations) still might have some staying power.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea deserved its t.i.tle as the most secretive country in the world. In the atmosphere of constant preparation for a new war that had prevailed in North Korea since the end of the first Korean War in 1953, secretiveness had always been about regime survival, first and foremost. Besides the obvious wish to prevent hostile, spying eyes from seeing the country's strengths and weaknesses, the authorities were determined to keep ordinary North Koreans from contact with foreigners who might inform them that much of the information their rulers drummed into their heads about their own country and the outside world was blatantly false.

So it was news when the regime's need for international aid to respond to a full-blown food crisis forced it to ease the restrictions on foreigners' presence and movements. More than one hundred international aid workers based themselves in North Korea. Their organizations demanded freedom of movement sufficient to a.s.sure themselves that the food reached hungry people. World Food Program monitors from abroad numbered thirty-six by 1998. They had visited 171 counties. They worked out of six offices spread around the country and drove about in their own Toyota Land Cruisers to avoid the interminable delays of the creaking public transportation system. "The DPRK two years ago barely had an international presence," said the WFP's Graisse. "This has been a breakthrough." Indeed, an optimist could see in those developments a positive omen presaging a wider opening by the regime.

Why, then, did I focus on the negative-on the thirty-nine counties that were not not open to WFP monitors and whose inaccessibility had led the Rome-based organization to announce on May 18, 1998, that it was withholding 55,000 metric tons of food worth some $ 33 million? (That was 7 percent of the aid it had planned to deliver that year, the proportion based on the fact that those counties accounted for about seven percent of the total population.) My lack of optimism stemmed from having watched North Korea for more than two decades. Always eager to credit signs of opening in the isolated and rigidly controlled country I had become increasingly skeptical as I saw how little actually changed-and as I came to realize how very strong was the interest of the Kim family and other members of the top elite in resisting change, regardless of the citizenry's needs. open to WFP monitors and whose inaccessibility had led the Rome-based organization to announce on May 18, 1998, that it was withholding 55,000 metric tons of food worth some $ 33 million? (That was 7 percent of the aid it had planned to deliver that year, the proportion based on the fact that those counties accounted for about seven percent of the total population.) My lack of optimism stemmed from having watched North Korea for more than two decades. Always eager to credit signs of opening in the isolated and rigidly controlled country I had become increasingly skeptical as I saw how little actually changed-and as I came to realize how very strong was the interest of the Kim family and other members of the top elite in resisting change, regardless of the citizenry's needs.

The regime continued to display a remarkable ability to thwart both external and internal forces for change. Take, for one example, the very concept of monitoring aid deliveries. In the mid-1990s, in the immediate wake of flooding that had devastated much of North Korea and precipitated the food crisis, one Westerner who was raising funds for aid insisted that he must deliver it personally. Renting trucks, he traveled through country seldom seen by Western visitors and handed over the goods directly to people identified as the end-recipients. That relief organizer prepared a lecture that he ill.u.s.trated with slides showing one of his deliveries. I attended his presentation in Tokyo and saw that the supposedly needy North Koreans who were pictured lining up to receive his gifts were not gaunt and haggard, shabbily dressed people. Their faces did not appear discolored by the malnutrition-caused disease pellagra. Rather, in those slides they looked "well dressed, robust and well fed-in some cases exceptionally handsome or beautiful. I guessed that they were either local party officials or actors. Did the fund raiser who was showing those slides realize that the recipients of his handout did not look like ordinary North Koreans? If so, he did not tell his listeners on the night when I sat in on his presentation.

Insisting on accompanying aid to the end-users was not the only technique used by visiting foreigners. Journalists no less than aid monitors and visiting U.S. congressmen asked or demanded, in the midst of their travels within the country, to see places not on their previously arranged itineraries. Visitors hoped, thus, to find the real, unvarnished truth instead of prepared scenes. Were the famine's effects on the condition of the population worse than the authorities wanted the world to know? Was the food aid getting to the people-or, rather, was it being diverted to high officials or the military? Sudden requests for schedule changes were one of the few means for trying to check. Any visitor who did not relish being fooled was duty-bound to try that tactic, but often the effort was futile. One international aid worker told me he had learned while in North Korea that the authorities typically dispatched sound trucks to alert residents of districts that were about to be subjected to "surprise" visits by foreigners. The trucks' loudspeakers warned that only party members were authorized to speak with the guests.

Sometimes, a last-minute request elicited more or less full disclosure, but usually not without a struggle. "Of course we have to indicate in advance we wish to visit this or that," Graisse of the World Food Program said in Tokyo, "but there can be small deviations from the plans." He had just returned from a visit to the city of Sinuiju, across the Yalu River from China. His original itinerary there had emphasized kindergartens and nurseries, since the WFP's aid program focused primarily on feeding children. But his organization was planning a new program of a.s.sistance to hospitals, so Graisse after his arrival in the city asked to see a pediatric hospital. He got his wish, but after he arrived at the hospital he ran into trouble when he asked to see the kitchen. That request caused "visible pain on the face of the hospital administrator." A long discussion ensued before the administrator permitted his visitor to open pots and see what was inside, which was not much: a bit of rice brought by the family of one patient and some "very clear" soup made of weeds, spinach and sea-weed.

But let's return to the part of the WFP's batting average that especially intrigued me: those thirty-nine counties to which it had failed to gain access. Aside from the Hitchc.o.c.kian spy-chase a.s.sociations of the number (The 39 Steps), what was so special about those counties? How were they different from the 171 counties to which the monitors did have access? With foreigners permitted to go to the other counties, why were thirty-nine still closed tight? Here was a mystery. And anyone who disliked trying to solve mysteries would have no business spending his or her days watching so secretive a country as the DPRK. what was so special about those counties? How were they different from the 171 counties to which the monitors did have access? With foreigners permitted to go to the other counties, why were thirty-nine still closed tight? Here was a mystery. And anyone who disliked trying to solve mysteries would have no business spending his or her days watching so secretive a country as the DPRK.

Pyongyang itself vaguely cited reasons of security for barring foreigners from those areas. But in a country-where the regime's security-was the be-all and end-all, that explanation hardly narrowed down the practical possibilities. The authorities did mention sensitive military installations, and I phoned a Western diplomat in Seoul to ask him if those might explain the exclusion. "I can't comment on that at all," he said. "You're asking me to discuss USFK [United States Forces Korea] targeting information on an open line for publication."

North Korea did have plenty of military installations, all of them more or less sensitive. The fact that food monitors were permitted to travel to certain food-distribution centers certainly did not mean they were welcome on military bases within the same county jurisdictions. Presumably the authorities could, if they wished, give access to food-distribution centers in some or all of the thirty-nine still-closed counties while forbidding the monitors to travel near military installations.

Pondering the whys of keeping thirty-nine counties closed to outsiders, I noted that some of them were in areas where-as former political prisoners and prison guards had told me-the regime had maintained concentration camps for political offenders. And in the same harsh and remote northern mountains were communities largely comprising families that had been banished from Pyongyang and other desirable parts of the country on account of "bad family background." In the 1990s additional families had been tarred with the designation because relatives had defected to South Korea.

I wondered: Were some of the thirty-nine counties off limits precisely because the regime did not want outsiders to see what was happening to the members of the "hostile" and "wavering" cla.s.ses who lived there? A-worst-case scenario occurred to me. I knew that prisoners already had been half-starved as a matter of policy. Their official daily grain ration even in times of relative plenty had been as little as 300 grams per person, versus the 700 grams rationed to a normal working adult.6 Now the food shortage had become so severe that grain rations failed to appear for months on end. Even citizens cla.s.sified as loyal were reduced to receiving as little as an average of 100 grams a day or less. So what was happening to those North Koreans who were politically out of favor? Were the prisoners in their camps and the banished families in their mountain communities being treated even worse than before? Specifically had the regime systematically abandoned them to starvation? Now the food shortage had become so severe that grain rations failed to appear for months on end. Even citizens cla.s.sified as loyal were reduced to receiving as little as an average of 100 grams a day or less. So what was happening to those North Koreans who were politically out of favor? Were the prisoners in their camps and the banished families in their mountain communities being treated even worse than before? Specifically had the regime systematically abandoned them to starvation?

There were some ghastly communist precedents. Stalin used famine "to achieve mastery" over the Ukraine, as the North Korea demographic expert Nicholas Eberstadt has written. "Soviet troops were actually emplaced at border points to prevent travelers from smuggling food into the desperate region." Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, once it had taken power country-wide, says