Under The Loving Care Of The Fatherly Leader Part 5

Whether visiting factories and farms or simply riding for mile after mile through broad streets lined "with trees and neat, multi-story apartment buildings in the park-studded capital of Pyongyang, I found the contrast between what was being said by outsiders and what I was seeing with my own eyes very sharp indeed. I was not the first visitor to wonder whether the authorities had arranged for visitors to see only showplaces, built-like a Potemkin village of Czarist Russia-to disguise underlying poverty and impress the credulous.

My chance to take an unguided tour came after I realized that my hosts never scheduled appointments for me from roughly one o'clock in the afternoon until three or four. Instead, they kept urging me to take a rest in my room. It dawned on me that the North Koreans observed the custom of the siesta.38 They were leaving that time free because the people I wanted to interview would be napping-and because the guide and interpreter themselves wanted to rest. One day after lunch I yawned conspicuously and said I would like to have a rest. I could see the expressions of relief-the American had finally gotten with the program. We all took the elevator up together, and I got off at my floor. My handlers continued on to the floor immediately above me, where they had rooms. As soon as the elevator door shut, I took the stairs back down to the lobby. There, momentarily at least, the coast was clear. Trying to look as if I knew where I was going, I strode out into the park. Spying a narrow footbridge, I crossed to the other side of a stream and into what I took to be something approximating the real world of Pyongyang: both neat apartment buildings and, mixed into the urban landscape, realistically grimy sheds and small industrial installations. They were leaving that time free because the people I wanted to interview would be napping-and because the guide and interpreter themselves wanted to rest. One day after lunch I yawned conspicuously and said I would like to have a rest. I could see the expressions of relief-the American had finally gotten with the program. We all took the elevator up together, and I got off at my floor. My handlers continued on to the floor immediately above me, where they had rooms. As soon as the elevator door shut, I took the stairs back down to the lobby. There, momentarily at least, the coast was clear. Trying to look as if I knew where I was going, I strode out into the park. Spying a narrow footbridge, I crossed to the other side of a stream and into what I took to be something approximating the real world of Pyongyang: both neat apartment buildings and, mixed into the urban landscape, realistically grimy sheds and small industrial installations.

People looked at me suspiciously. I have no idea who was the first to rush off and inform the authorities that a lone foreigner was loose in the city, but it was only a matter of minutes before I turned around and saw a man tailing me. He was wearing a blue blazer (-with Kim Il-Sung portrait b.u.t.ton, of course) and gray slacks. I decided to have a little fun with him, so I turned into an alley and then doubled back to the same street I had been walking on. I calculated my detour to allow enough time that a man innocently walking behind me would have pa.s.sed the alley entrance and thus gotten ahead of me by the time I emerged. As I came out of the alley, I saw the plainclothes security man. He had stopped in front of what I took to be a miniature steel-making furnace housed in a shed, where he stood, having lit a cigarette. He was puffing it pensively, gazing at the fire of the furnace as if it were a particularly agreeable sunset. I half expected him to start declaiming on "the proud life of the smelters."

I stopped and waited for him to turn around, then stared at him so that he would be sure I knew what he was up to. What came over me, to challenge authority so blatantly? Merely the sort of irresistible rebellious impulse that a Western traveler in Pyongyang was subject to after a few days or weeks of experiencing the regime's heavy-handed control. The plainclothesman only followed me, not forcing me to turn back. So for a couple of hours I enjoyed unaccustomed freedom of movement.

I returned to the hotel after my stroll and found my handlers waiting for me outside the entrance, looking not a little panicked. One of them angrily suggested that "special spy training" had enabled me to give them the slip. I laughed and a.s.sured him that anyone who had grown up watching cops-and-robbers shows on American television was acquainted with the elementary techniques I had employed. Later, though, I thought about it and realized that with this episode I could have fueled, quite unintentionally, any speculation among North Korean officials that I might be the Washington agent they hoped to find among the American visitors. Had this been my ticket to the interview meeting with Kim Yong-nam?39 The parts of Pyongyang I saw that afternoon turned out to be much like the places on the official itinerary: solidly built and clean, for the most part, with real people living in more of those beige brick apartment buildings, shopping in the stores and eating in restaurants.

Still, strains and pressures were evident. Pyongyang's deserted look during most hours of the day and night was not wholly a result of ma.s.s transit and housing policy. With manpower resources stretched almost to the breaking point, people simply had little time to stroll on the streets. As I had learned at the tractor factory, the government claimed that a maximum eight-hour workday rule was enforced, with another eight hours reserved for study and the remaining eight hours for rest, according to the dictum of President Kim. Parks and housing complexes were almost empty until late in the evening. Nurseries kept children until 8 P.M. or later while their mothers, if they were not working overtime at their jobs, presumably attended group study sessions.

Among major problems facing the regime at that point, the need to provide more and better consumer goods was high on the list. When the Chonsam-ri farm deputy manager boasted to me about the people's limited need to spend money, he failed to mention there was little in the stores for them to buy.

Recall that the regime, shortly after the Korean War, had resolved policy disputes in favor of President Kim's formula of going all out to build heavy industry, putting off until later an improvement in living standards beyond the spartan level. Then came the 1960s and Kim's militaristic policy. As scholar Joseph Sang-hoon Chung noted in 1974, the average North Korean, "though his lot has improved substantially, has not benefited fully from economic development."40 That could be seen clearly by comparing North Korea's serviceable machine tools with its consumer goods, which were generally scarce, crude and monotonously lacking in variety. The country made basic appliances-refrigerators, electric rice cookers, washers, televisions-but had yet to place them in all households. That would take "a few years," an official said. Furniture looked as if it had been banged together by pupils in a shop cla.s.s; clothing was generally poorly tailored; the radio-phonographs in hotel rooms did not work. That could be seen clearly by comparing North Korea's serviceable machine tools with its consumer goods, which were generally scarce, crude and monotonously lacking in variety. The country made basic appliances-refrigerators, electric rice cookers, washers, televisions-but had yet to place them in all households. That would take "a few years," an official said. Furniture looked as if it had been banged together by pupils in a shop cla.s.s; clothing was generally poorly tailored; the radio-phonographs in hotel rooms did not work.

For some time, North Korean officials at higher levels had acknowledged the problems.41 Improvement had been a major goal of the six-year economic plan recently ended, but the planners had made little head-way on that score. "Improving the people's life" was a major goal of the current seven-year plan, which emphasized upgrading the quality and variety of consumer goods. In his New Year's speech, Kim Il-sung had said that in 1979 the country must "elevate the living standards of the people. All factories in the sector of light industry should operate to full capacity to produce more consumer goods. Improvement had been a major goal of the six-year economic plan recently ended, but the planners had made little head-way on that score. "Improving the people's life" was a major goal of the current seven-year plan, which emphasized upgrading the quality and variety of consumer goods. In his New Year's speech, Kim Il-sung had said that in 1979 the country must "elevate the living standards of the people. All factories in the sector of light industry should operate to full capacity to produce more consumer goods.42 Part of the quality problem was said to result from the laziness of some workers who lacked the communist att.i.tude of "one for all, all for one," and who were not behaving, in President Kim's phrase, as "masters of the nation." If a worker is not doing a good job, said a hothouse manager, "we educate him ideologically and politically so he can carry out his tasks well." Criticism sessions might be held-"It's something like mutual a.s.sistance so he can correct his mistakes and become a good gardener." If a worker should work well, "we praise and honor him." But the manager said that was "not a particularly fixed procedure."

In that stage of development of North Korean society, officials admitted, it was necessary to employ a system of material incentives. Work teams got extra money for exceeding not only quant.i.tative quotas but also quality standards, and they-were supposed to find their pay docked if their work fell off.43 "As we are applying the cost accounting system which was created by our Great Leader, Comrade Kim Il-sung, when we produce more we can get extra money but when we produce less we get less," said the hothouse manager. "As we are applying the cost accounting system which was created by our Great Leader, Comrade Kim Il-sung, when we produce more we can get extra money but when we produce less we get less," said the hothouse manager.

Another obvious way to improve the quality of goods would have been to reduce the reliance on locally developed technology-under which North Koreans had figuratively reinvented the wheel in a number of fields-and import either finished products or the plant machinery to make them. Indeed, the country's leaders wanted to import additional selected technology from the countries most advanced in each field, which often meant from the West and j.a.pan. The problem here was Pyongyang's reputation for stiffing debtors.

The usual estimate by outsiders was that North Korea owed about $2 billion abroad. The j.a.pan External Trade Organization broke that down as $300 million owed to j.a.panese creditors, $ 500 million to Westerners and between $1 billion and $1.2 billion to other communist countries. Periodic promises to pay at least the interest due on those debts had not been kept. North Korean checks written on third-country bank accounts had even been returned for lack of funds to cover them. Although officials now talked of repaying the debts by 1984, foreign creditors were pessimistic about getting their money even by then. They cited both the unreliability of past a.s.surances from Pyongyang and doubts that the ambitious goals of the economic plan could be met.

Much of the debt was for plants and equipment imported during the crash program to raise the technological and output levels of the country earlier in the decade. Outsiders generally believed that Pyongyang had launched the effort with little planning or preparation, following the abortive Red Cross peace talks in 19721973 and the shocking glimpses of Southern advances that the talks afforded North Korean officials visiting Seoul. The move to import selected foreign technology represented a relaxation-but not abandonment-of the North Korean policy of juche. of juche.

The plan was to pay for the overseas purchases with foreign exchange to be earned from expanded exports. When export earnings lagged and the payments slowed to a trickle, the country's international credit rating plummeted. The buying spree came to a halt. For example, trade with j.a.pan--which had been North Korea's largest noncommunist trading partner--was reduced to largely cash transactions in a few items handled through a small company the North Koreans set up in the Portuguese colony of Macao.

When I met the director of North Korea's Inst.i.tute of Economic Research, Ryom Kwon-san, for an interview, Ryom emphasized external causes for the payments problem. First, he said, the world-wide economic crisis triggered by the Arab oil embargoes and oil price increases had caused "many" countries to decline to take delivery of North Korean products they had ordered. (He mentioned only one by name, Pakistan.) Cement, magne-site clinker-for making firebricks-and machine tools were left piled up in North Korean ports. Second, he said, lower international market prices for certain commodities, especially copper, had reduced foreign exchange earnings even when the goods were shipped.

Ryom did not mention it, but I heard much later of another external factor: North Korean officials may have connived in cheating their own country, in the beginnings of an atmosphere of official corruption that was to become quite pervasive later. Kang Myong-do, a North Korean trading company vice-president, told a South Korean magazine interviewer: "The country is in such a state, and officials are just taking money for themselves. Moranbong watch factory was built in 1978 with Swiss factory components, but it's crummy stuff. The person who arranged it got a kickback from the Swiss for paying a lot of money for old machinery"44 When I pressed Ryom to say whether some of the fault did not lie with North Korea itself he admitted that delays in a port-expansion program had kept shipments from going out even in cases when buyers were prepared to accept them. The country "may have" had trouble supplying goods in a timely fashion, he said, and "possibly" was a victim of its own inexperience in trade with noncommunist countries.

Ryom said the country was completing expansion projects at its ports of Nampo, Haeju, Hungnam and Chongjin. To upgrade the capacity of the North Korean merchant fleet, he said, the shipyards had moved to build 20,000-ton cargo ships in addition to the old models of only 10,000 tons. He could not give a figure for total current fleet tonnage, he said, because he was not "a specialist in this field." Ryom suggested that a visit to the Nampo port, downriver from Pyongyang near the country's west coast, would demonstrate what was happening in port development. But I never got permission despite repeated requests. Bruce Dunning of CBS Television did go to the dry-cargo port and told me he had found dredging in progress, as well as construction to add new berths to the seven or eight in place. About ten ships were in port. A Panamanian-registered container ship was being loaded, but with old-fashioned conventional cranes; farm tractors pulling wagonloads of cargo outnumbered forklift trucks.

With improvement of transportation facilities, Ryom told me, "we think that the debt will be repaid soon." Then North Korea could proceed in carrying out "the main line of our party-to make bigger efforts to develop foreign trade in the coming years." For the time being, "we are mainly exporting cement, magnesite clinker and metal products," he said. "But we are going to emphasize also exports of machine tools, manufacturing machinery. We will increase the capacity of our factories." Already foreign demand for North Korean cement was increasing rapidly, he said, and if the seven-year plan should prove successful, the country by 1984 could be earning $1 billion a year from exports of cement, steel, chemical fertilizer and zinc.

However, some outside observers did not see much indication, up to that point, of an advancing trend in exports that would help North Korea pay off its debts. An a.n.a.lyst with the j.a.pan External Trade Organization in Tokyo noted that North Korea registered a decline in such princ.i.p.al exports as zinc and lead from 1977 to 1978 while selling more textiles and agricultural products abroad.

North Korean officials appeared not to understand why capitalists got so upset over such matters as bounced checks. For example, Ryom, introduced to me as one of the country's leading economists, said, "Our debt is not so much. I think there is no country that is not in debt." Mean-while, the impatience of some foreign creditors was approaching open contempt, with the view often expressed that North Korea could pay its bills if it really wanted to. The leading j.a.panese economic daily newspaper, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, had reported in January 1979 that cement plants and baking furnaces, imported from j.a.pan but never paid for, had been placed in operation in North Korea and could produce export goods to earn foreign exchange. Add that to an apparently improved domestic economy, the paper said, and j.a.panese businessmen--with "an increasing sense of distrust"-wondered why North Korea did not pay up. had reported in January 1979 that cement plants and baking furnaces, imported from j.a.pan but never paid for, had been placed in operation in North Korea and could produce export goods to earn foreign exchange. Add that to an apparently improved domestic economy, the paper said, and j.a.panese businessmen--with "an increasing sense of distrust"-wondered why North Korea did not pay up.

One Western diplomat who dealt with Pyongyang was even less reservedly bitter in his comments after several years of broken promises. He suggested that North Korea could meet its economic goals and pay its debts if it got rid of the bizarre personality cult around Kim and stopped spending huge sums for festivals honoring "the Respected and Beloved Leader."

Confronted with such criticisms, Pyongyang officials tended to go on the offensive. One approach was to blame Western lenders and news media for spotlighting the debt problem. Bai Song-chul, the official who had told me his story of being an orphan, was sitting in during my interview with Ryom. In his impatient fashion Bai interjected a typically tough message for me to pa.s.s along to the country's debtors: "If you are quiet, you "will be paid back soon, but if you are shouting, you "will be paid back later."

I was puzzled during and after my meeting with Ryom to realize that a North Korean economist seemed to know next to nothing of-what a Western economist would consider his field. I had asked that my handlers set me up with someone broad-gauged to talk about the economy. Ryom qualified, on paper. Besides directing the Inst.i.tute of Economic Research, he was chairman of the economics department at People's Economic University. But he proved a far cry from the high-powered purveyors of concepts I had spoken with in South Korea and other countries. I was dissatisfied with the bits of information I had managed to squeeze out of him in our first session of three or four hours' duration, so I asked him to return another day for a second session. The second session lasted about as long but proved equally unsatisfactory. The problem may have been not so much Ryom himself but the fact that the regime intentionally kept its economic results murky45 Outside a.n.a.lysts had suggested that the North Koreans at the time of their ill-fated venture into world markets really did not understand the up-and-down dynamics of those markets, having been accustomed only to the formal barter among communist countries. I wonder if Ryom himself was hinting at this sort of ignorance when he remarked, "Our people learned the alphabet after liberation and do not know foreign languages very well." In fact North Korea had begun to emphasize foreign language study in the schools. But how quickly could the long-isolated country produce a sophisticated corps of world trade specialists via a rigid educational system that focused narrowly on the life, times and thought of the practically deified President Kim? Kim had directed in September 1978 that "all college students should be well versed in more than one foreign language in order to learn advanced science and technology," and one list of North Koreans studying abroad as of February 1979 counted more than four hundred studying in such fields as languages, science, mathematics, medicine and foreign languages. However, not a single economics student was listed among them.46 Consumer goods, debt and other problems aside, Kim Il-sung's command economy did appear to have built itself an impressive foundation. I believed I could see the magnitude of the achievement as I left the country, this time riding the train from Pyongyang to Beijing. The vistas of neat, substantial farm houses, tractors and rice-planting machines and well-scrubbed, solidly built towns gave way at the Yalu River to China's squalid rural huts, urban slums, people and draft animals engaged in backbreaking labor.

The train was made up of green-painted pa.s.senger cars, most of them divided into compartments with two lower and two upper bunks each, plus a dining car. Clearly, the sociable place to be was the dining car, and there I sat for much of the trip, alternately peering out the window and talking politics with an a.s.sortment of pa.s.sengers who at various times included Hungarians, Russians, Americans, j.a.panese, a Dutchman and a Scot. (By now I was not surprised that no North Koreans chatted me up.) We began the trip by pa.s.sing through Pyongyang's rail yards, where wooden-bodied boxcars were lined up on sidings. The urban area petered out quickly and we were in the countryside. Here as earlier I saw numbers of tractors, and some rice-planting machines. In addition, though, oxen pulled wooden-wheeled carts. Houses in some places seemed a bit shabbier than those I had seen in other parts of North Korea-but as soon as I took note of those I would usually pa.s.s by other farming villages made up of clumps of the newer rural apartment houses that the state had been building. Soil quality on the North Korean side seemed to lessen as we drew closer to the city of Sinuiju and the Yalu River, which forms the border with China. In that area the predominant, dry-looking red clay resembled the poor fields surrounding my Georgia childhood home, whose nutrients had been leached out by generations of single-crop cotton planting and which could no longer support crops much more demanding than pine trees. Still, everything was neat and in order, and I saw no scenes of dest.i.tution.

Across the Yalu, the preferred exterior treatment for buildings changed from cream-colored stucco to red brick. We had a stop in the Chinese city of Dandong. While waiting for a different locomotive to be attached, we pa.s.sed through Chinese immigration in a station building whose large, framed portraits subst.i.tuted China's then-leaders for Kim Il-sung.

Then it was on through a Chinese countryside that presented a stark contrast to what I had seen in North Korea. Carts pulled by oxen and donkeys made up a great percentage of vehicular traffic outside our train windows. Even to move a huge boulder one group of workers had nothing but a donkey cart. The Chinese in 1979 had hardly any tractors. More of the houses we pa.s.sed were roofed with thatch, fewer with tile, than in North Korea, and houses typically looked poorer. In villages, towns and cities the landscapes ranged from shabby to tumbledown.

Still, while what I had seen of North Korea had a settled, almost prosperous look to it, and did seem clearly ahead in such key areas of development as farm mechanization and decent housing, China had the obvious edge in one category. While one could ride for a long time on a North Korean train without seeing much in the way of human activity, China served up a constant panorama of vitality-people everywhere, on bicycles, on foot, fishing in an irrigation ca.n.a.l, haggling.

Of course, China was another communist country where the authorities had sought to exert totalitarian control. Partly because it was such a big country, though, Big Brother could not indoctrinate and monitor the people there as thoroughly and efficiently as in North Korea. Indeed, life in China had already started to change. Mao Zedong was dead and, with him, his catastrophic Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Although I did not yet know it, the vitality I saw was to power the amazing changes that were about to come to China under Deng Xiaoping's reform-minded rule.

At the time, though, if I could credit what my eyes revealed in terms of economic development, the comparison between North Korea and China seemed much more startling than any that could be made between North and South Korea.47 That seemed a likely partial explanation, at least, of why the Pyongyang regime contemplated only minor deviations from past practice. Perhaps the North's leaders themselves were lulled by the evidence of their successes, taking reports of the South's advances less seriously than they might have if their own system had less to show for it. That seemed a likely partial explanation, at least, of why the Pyongyang regime contemplated only minor deviations from past practice. Perhaps the North's leaders themselves were lulled by the evidence of their successes, taking reports of the South's advances less seriously than they might have if their own system had less to show for it.

TEN.

Lets Spread the Pollen of Love Kim Il-sung took the role of father of the republic literally. Easily adjusting to and expanding upon the enormous power that went with the job of top leader in a Stalinist state, Kim lived a life of increasing-eventually almost unimaginable-luxury in mansions and villas built for him by subordinates who competed for his favor. There he sired biological children with mistresses and concubines, not to mention his two officially recognized wives. He arranged for special schools to bring up "war orphans to think of themselves as his children.

The patriarch Kim ran the country as a family enterprise, filling high offices first with a.s.sorted members of his Kim and Kang clans and later with the youngsters, now grown up, who called him father or uncle. Capping this policy-was his decision to name Kim Jong-il, his eldest acknowledged son, as his successor, creating the communist world's first dynastic succession.

Kim Il-sung published prolifically on almost every other subject but had remarkably little to say about his relationships with women. While still an active guerrilla, Kim "had many comrade women who were his girlfriends," a former elite official of the regime told me. The woman who became his first officially recognized "wife, Kim Jong-suk, was the one who happened to be with him when he fled to the Soviet Union. "Otherwise it could have been any one of those women."1 Kim Jong-suk, a member of the guerrilla women's unit, gave birth to Kim Il-sung's first three acknowledged children. The eldest, Kim Jong-il, is believed by most outside a.n.a.lysts to have been born in the Soviet Union.2 The regime gives his date of birth as February 16, The regime gives his date of birth as February 16, 1942, 1942, but claims he was born in the foothills of Mount Paektu on the Korea-China border. A brother was born in 1944. Jong-il was called Yura, the nickname of a brother of a famous Soviet war heroine. His little brother was called Shura. (Among Russians, Yura is the pet name for someone named Yuri while Shura is short for Alexander.) but claims he was born in the foothills of Mount Paektu on the Korea-China border. A brother was born in 1944. Jong-il was called Yura, the nickname of a brother of a famous Soviet war heroine. His little brother was called Shura. (Among Russians, Yura is the pet name for someone named Yuri while Shura is short for Alexander.)3 Kim Il-sung's Russian-language interpreter in those days recalled that the two boys' mother "was a good cook and a very warm-hearted individual." Kim Il-sung's Russian-language interpreter in those days recalled that the two boys' mother "was a good cook and a very warm-hearted individual."4 After liberation she followed her husband to Pyongyang. There she had another child, daughter Kyong-hui. Her second son, Shura, drowned in 1948 while playing in a pond and Kim Jong-suk herself died in 1949. She is described as having been short of stature, freckled of face, "an illiterate with a dogged character." After liberation she followed her husband to Pyongyang. There she had another child, daughter Kyong-hui. Her second son, Shura, drowned in 1948 while playing in a pond and Kim Jong-suk herself died in 1949. She is described as having been short of stature, freckled of face, "an illiterate with a dogged character."5 Immediately after liberation, Kim is reported to have commissioned a search for Han Song-hui, his former wife, and, after many months, to have located her in remote Kangwon Province. She had resumed communist political activity and was serving as vice-chair of the Provincial Women's League.6 Kim established Han and her children, at least some of them his, in a mansion near Shinmiri, between Pyongyang and Sunan. Kim established Han and her children, at least some of them his, in a mansion near Shinmiri, between Pyongyang and Sunan.7 Around that time, Kim spied Kim Song-ae, a "cute and especially charming" typist working in the defense ministry, and arranged for her transfer to work in his office.8 During the period when the country's new leader was resuming relations with Han Song-hui and beginning an affair with Kim Song-ae, he was still married to Kim Jong-suk, who had been one of Han's subordinates in the partisan women's unit and like a younger sister to Han. During the period when the country's new leader was resuming relations with Han Song-hui and beginning an affair with Kim Song-ae, he was still married to Kim Jong-suk, who had been one of Han's subordinates in the partisan women's unit and like a younger sister to Han.9 Perhaps thanks to Han's clear seniority, there are no reports of jealous strife between those two female comrades. Rather, both seem to have focused their jealousy on Kim Il-sung's new relationship with his secretary. Eventually the revived relationship between Kim Il-sung and Han Song-hui cooled on account of the new office affair. Perhaps thanks to Han's clear seniority, there are no reports of jealous strife between those two female comrades. Rather, both seem to have focused their jealousy on Kim Il-sung's new relationship with his secretary. Eventually the revived relationship between Kim Il-sung and Han Song-hui cooled on account of the new office affair.10 Some years following Kim Jong-suk's death, Kim Song-ae, twelve years his junior, would be recognized officially as Kim Il-sung's wife and the first lady of the country-once again, it appears, without benefit of a public wedding ceremony.11 Whether or not it is true that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, certainly Kim Il-sung's newfound political power did not go just to the young ruler's head. Kim quickly began taking advantage of his position to arrange numerous liaisons with other women in addition to the three who had been or were to become his wives.

If Kim or his female conquests thought he was Heaven's gift to women, perhaps that was no wonder in view of his already extravagant but ever-intensifying personality cult. But whatever inst.i.tutional help he could call upon, Kim Il-sung also brought to his pursuit of the opposite s.e.x considerable personal charm that only increased with age and experience. Official biographer Baik Bong refers to Kim's "peculiarly moving smile,"12 and such references seem to reflect more truth than propaganda. I think of Kim when I see and hear the dignified, deep-voiced James Earl Jones in the role of an African absolute monarch, father of Eddie Murphy's Prince Akeem, in the Hollywood movie and such references seem to reflect more truth than propaganda. I think of Kim when I see and hear the dignified, deep-voiced James Earl Jones in the role of an African absolute monarch, father of Eddie Murphy's Prince Akeem, in the Hollywood movie Coming to America. Coming to America.

"Kim Il-sung is charming," a defector who knew him personally told me in an interview while the North Korean ruler was still alive. "He has been a politician for fifty years. When you dine with him, he's very generous and warm. He's a good-looking man except for that lump on his neck. His voice is very special. Most people talk from their throats. He talks from his belly like an opera singer."13 Armed with such an a.r.s.enal, the premier "seduced the wife of a high-ranking Korean People's Army officer and dispatched her husband to the Soviet Union for overseas study," Yu Song-chol said. At the offices of the Interim People's Committee, a typist named O Chan-bok slapped Kim's face when he tried to kiss her.14 The 1946 reforms included a law granting equality to women. Prost.i.tution and concubinage were outlawed, along with female infanticide. Pyongyang encouraged North Koreans to feel pride at having put such social evils behind them. They were urged to feel especially irate at the thought of American soldiers violating Korean women in the South. The 1946 reforms included a law granting equality to women. Prost.i.tution and concubinage were outlawed, along with female infanticide. Pyongyang encouraged North Koreans to feel pride at having put such social evils behind them. They were urged to feel especially irate at the thought of American soldiers violating Korean women in the South.15 For the premier, however, rules were to be skirted, not followed. To head off discontent among more straitlaced subordinates, Yu said, Kim arranged for secret love nests to be set up with code names "Number One" and "Number Two," and "summoned pretty young women there for secret rendezvous." For the premier, however, rules were to be skirted, not followed. To head off discontent among more straitlaced subordinates, Yu said, Kim arranged for secret love nests to be set up with code names "Number One" and "Number Two," and "summoned pretty young women there for secret rendezvous."16 Over the years, rumor among the Pyongyang elite had it that Kim had sired a number of children by women other than his deceased former wife and her successor as first lady. Besides unacknowledged wife Han Song-hui, "so many more had his children," one high-ranking defector told me.

Sometimes, as in the case of Han, Kim set up his children's mothers in their own households. In other cases the women married men who gave the children their names. Regardless, Kim continued to take an interest in his offspring from liaisons old and new. Because inquiring into the Fatherly Leader's personal lifestyle was an absolute taboo, "only the children of his two official wives are known," said the former official. "Even high officials don't know the head count of youngsters being brought up privately in the mansions."17 ***

It should come as no surprise that such an enthusiastic patriarch would become one of the world's premier nepotists. Kim Il-sung provided jobs for a stupefying number of relatives in addition to his offspring. His female cousins on his father's side did "well in the regime, for example, as did their husbands. Cousin Kim Jong-suk (same name as Kim's second "wife, but a different person) became vice-chair of the Korean General Occupational Federations and chief editor of Minju Choson, Minju Choson, organ of the administrative council. Her husband was Ho Dam, who served as vice-premier and foreign minister. Kim Il-sung's cousin Kim Shin-sook became deputy director of the Academy of Social Sciences and an official of the Democratic Women's League. Her husband, Yang Hyong-sop, rose to become a member of the party politburo and secretariat and chairman of the Supreme People's a.s.sembly- the parliament. organ of the administrative council. Her husband was Ho Dam, who served as vice-premier and foreign minister. Kim Il-sung's cousin Kim Shin-sook became deputy director of the Academy of Social Sciences and an official of the Democratic Women's League. Her husband, Yang Hyong-sop, rose to become a member of the party politburo and secretariat and chairman of the Supreme People's a.s.sembly- the parliament.18 Kim Il-sung gave a vice-presidency of the country to Kang Ryang-uk, the former Methodist minister who was a cousin of his maternal grandfather and who had taught him at Changdok School. In the united-front facade that Kim erected early in his rule, Kang was supposed to represent the moderate, noncommunist forces that had allied themselves with the communists. Besides heading the token opposition Korean Democratic Party, other a.s.signments before his death in 1983 included a vice-chairmanship of the General League of Trade Unions. Joining Kang as a vice-president was Pak Song-chol, who was Kang's son-in-law. Thus, of three vice-presidents serving during that period, only one was not not a relative of Kim Il-sung's. Pak was also made a member of the party politburo and chairman of the Central People's Committee. a relative of Kim Il-sung's. Pak was also made a member of the party politburo and chairman of the Central People's Committee.19 Kim Il-sung's first cousins included Kim Chang-ju, who rose to become vice-premier, and Chang-ju's brother Bong-ju, who became chairman of the Profession League Central Committee. They were the sons of Kim Il-sung's uncle Kim Hyong-rok-his father's younger brother, who had stayed home to farm, taking over as head of the Mangyongdae household. Hyong-rok's third son, Kim Won-ju, was a State Security Department officer whose a.s.signments included rooting out disloyalty to the regime among students at the ultra-elite Mangyongdae School. Won-ju's son Myong-su became a State Security official; Myong-su's brother Myong-ho, a colonel in the People's Army. Kim Byoung-il, another State Security official (in charge of inspecting the evidence brought in by investigators in loyalty cases), was married to a niece of Kim Il-sung.20 It was an exaggeration but not too far from the truth to say, as did one high-level defector, that "the topmost officials have to be relatives,"21 Son Sang-pil, who was amba.s.sador to Moscow, was a relative on Kim Il-sung's mother's side. Kim Kyong-hui, Kim Jong-il's sister, became a member of the party Central Committee and the Supreme People's a.s.sembly. Her husband, Chang Song-taek, also became an influential official who carried out sensitive missions for his brother-in-law. Son Sang-pil, who was amba.s.sador to Moscow, was a relative on Kim Il-sung's mother's side. Kim Kyong-hui, Kim Jong-il's sister, became a member of the party Central Committee and the Supreme People's a.s.sembly. Her husband, Chang Song-taek, also became an influential official who carried out sensitive missions for his brother-in-law.

Kim Il-sung's last wife, Kim Song-ae, became chairwoman of the Korean Democratic Women's Union. Kim Song-ae gave birth to Kim Il-sung's second set of acknowledged children. Her eldest child, daughter Kim Byong-jin, married Kim Kw.a.n.g-sop, who became an amba.s.sador to, among other countries, the Czech Republic. Kim Song-ae's first son, Kim Pyong-il, became amba.s.sador to Bulgaria, Finland and Poland.

Hw.a.n.g Jang-yop, the highest ranking North Korean defector, wrote of his great respect for Kim Il-sung during the years 19581965, the period when Hw.a.n.g was working directly under Kim as party secretary for ideology. Kim "was cruel to his political enemies but generous to his colleagues and subordinates," Hw.a.n.g said. "The only thing I felt uncomfortable with was that he put too much trust in his relatives and too much value in their opinions."22 Kim Il-sung's closest guerrilla comrades also were ent.i.tled to practice nepotism. Choe Yong-gon and Kim Il, before they died, were numbers two and three in the regime, and their wives were then party Central Committee alternate members. So was Choe's cousin, Choe Chong-gon, who also became director of the air force's General Political Bureau.23 Kim Il-sung himself, during the purge of Pak Hon-yong's followers in 1952, attacked as "petty bourgeois" the formation of factional groupings based on "kinship, friendship, connections with the same school or common regional origins."24 But a more tolerant take on nepotism is made to issue from the mouth of no less a figure than Kim Jong-suk, Kim Il-sung's beatified second wife and the mother of Kim Jong-il. As a young, still unmarried woman in the guerrilla band, she supposedly opined that it was inevitable, at least at the village level, for relatives to work together. The important thing, she was quoted as having instructed a communist youth group, was to keep such kinship relations from influencing one's work. But a more tolerant take on nepotism is made to issue from the mouth of no less a figure than Kim Jong-suk, Kim Il-sung's beatified second wife and the mother of Kim Jong-il. As a young, still unmarried woman in the guerrilla band, she supposedly opined that it was inevitable, at least at the village level, for relatives to work together. The important thing, she was quoted as having instructed a communist youth group, was to keep such kinship relations from influencing one's work.25 One need only look into Korean history, though, to find the Confucian patterns that repeated themselves in the hereditary North Korean ruling cla.s.s that Kim Il-sung built. The yangban yangban were the hereditary n.o.ble cla.s.s of scholar-official-landlords under the Yi Dynasty, which reigned from 1392 to 1910. One Western diplomat specializing in things Korean saw "a modern-day parody" in what he called North Korea's "communist yangban cla.s.s." were the hereditary n.o.ble cla.s.s of scholar-official-landlords under the Yi Dynasty, which reigned from 1392 to 1910. One Western diplomat specializing in things Korean saw "a modern-day parody" in what he called North Korea's "communist yangban cla.s.s."26 As if not yet satisfied with the number of relatives he had to choose from for his appointments to official posts, Kim Il-sung early in his rule expanded the pool by playing father to the country's orphans. It was in December of 1950, after meeting a woman whose husband had been killed in action and who was now struggling to raise their four children alone, that Kim decided the state would rear "orphans and all the children the parents thought it difficult to bring up because of many children," he later wrote in his memoirs. Kim gave the orders to build schools for the children of "patriotic martyrs" in every province. As a result, he said, "all the orphans grew up quickly and warmly in the bosom of the country and the people. Though numerous parents were victims, the orphans were never crying nor roaming through the streets."27 The orphans' schools also gave Kim Il-sung a group of intense loyalists who, as Bai Song-chul told me during our train-ride conversation in 1979, looked upon Kim as their father. That was particularly true of the graduates of the Mangyongdae School for the Bereaved Children of Revolutionaries, which produced much of the country's military, intelligence and internal security elite. Kim set up the school near his ancestral home in 1947. It was to receive the children of fallen revolutionaries who had asked him "with their dying breath" to "educate their children and train them into fine revolutionaries after the independence of Korea."28 Whether they had really asked that or not, in Korean cultural terms Kim was no doubt correct to a.s.sume that helping to continue their lineage and make their children their elite "successors" was what those martyrs would have wanted him to do in repayment of their sacrifice. Take the case of Ryang Se-bong, an independence fighter killed in a trap set by j.a.panese agents. The regime sent Ryang's son through the elite school at Mangyongdae and gave him a political job with an air force unit. When the son, too, died in a plane crash, Kim "feared that Commander Ryang's lineage might be broken." Fortunately, there was a grandson, but he was crippled with polio. The party saw to his education, and he became a writer who "creates literary works in bed. He has two sons and a daughter."29 Kim told in his memoirs of having "dispatched many officials to various places at home and in northeast China to find the bereaved children of revolutionaries. At that time hundreds of such children came home from China. Some of those children ... have now become members of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of our Party."

Several of Kim's family members were eligible to attend the Mangyongdae School. Son Kim Jong-il-qualified, I suppose, by the loss of his former-guerrilla mother-enrolled there. Another pupil was a daughter of Kim Hyong-gwon, the hot-tempered uncle of Kim Il-sung who had fought the colonialists and died in a j.a.panese prison. "I thought I would bring her up with all care to succeed her father," Kim wrote. Alas, she was killed later in a Korean War bombing raid.30 He expanded the school's mission to include children of Korean War dead, as well as the offspring of North Korean agents killed in the South before and after the war. From the 1960s, those target groups declined in numbers. The school widened its admissions net, while still focusing on training a future elite. As that proved more and more to be a family elite, the descendants of prominent figures in the regime had an edge in gaining admission. He expanded the school's mission to include children of Korean War dead, as well as the offspring of North Korean agents killed in the South before and after the war. From the 1960s, those target groups declined in numbers. The school widened its admissions net, while still focusing on training a future elite. As that proved more and more to be a family elite, the descendants of prominent figures in the regime had an edge in gaining admission.

Others who enrolled at orphans' school are reported to have been Kim's unacknowledged children. Indeed, it is tempting to speculate that the education of his own children as well as younger relatives was a factor in his decision to establish the school at Mangyongdae. Fortuitously or not, the North's const.i.tution decreed an end to discrimination against illegitimate children.31 Ultra-loyal to Kim as a result of the combination of blood ties and training, some of his youngsters are said to have grown up to form a sort of b.a.s.t.a.r.ds' honor guard. a.s.suming positions in important party and state organizations, they helped to run the country while functioning as the eyes and ears of their father-and, later, of their half-brother, Kim Jong-il. While "no one can be treated quite on the level of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il," a former elite official told me, those offspring "get preferential treatment because they are royalty even if illegitimate." Ultra-loyal to Kim as a result of the combination of blood ties and training, some of his youngsters are said to have grown up to form a sort of b.a.s.t.a.r.ds' honor guard. a.s.suming positions in important party and state organizations, they helped to run the country while functioning as the eyes and ears of their father-and, later, of their half-brother, Kim Jong-il. While "no one can be treated quite on the level of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il," a former elite official told me, those offspring "get preferential treatment because they are royalty even if illegitimate."

Few names have been known for certain, even by other members of the elite, as this has been one of the ultimate taboo subjects in North Korea. As I shall relate later, however, I was told the ident.i.ty of one man described as probably the most powerful, at the time, of Kim's unacknowledged children. Another, much younger man, apparently Kim's illegitimate son, was reported to have begun work in the party propaganda bureau.

Watching the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, starting in 1956, and later observing the abortive revolt by Mao Zedong's designated successor, Lin Biao, in China, Kim Il-sung became determined to name his own flesh and blood as his successor.32 The idea was not only to guard against posthumous insults but also, within his lifetime, to avoid challenges to his power from nonfamily underlings impatient to take over. "Think about it," one former official of the regime said to me. "Who would let go of such a lifestyle and give up his regime?" The idea was not only to guard against posthumous insults but also, within his lifetime, to avoid challenges to his power from nonfamily underlings impatient to take over. "Think about it," one former official of the regime said to me. "Who would let go of such a lifestyle and give up his regime?"

Even Kim Il-sung had to know that his succession plans would be seen as a betrayal of his communist ideals. (Recall his schoolboy criticism of Korea's feudal Yi Dynasty.) Indeed, Hw.a.n.g Jang-yop, who became the regime's chief ideologue in 1965, believed that Kim Il-sung "probably did not have the intention of turning over power to his son from the beginning." Hw.a.n.g at that stage was impressed by the senior Kim's "sense of democracy in trying to be fair to all children, regardless of-whose offspring they were."

But as Kim's "personal dictatorship continued and its political foundation strengthened," Hw.a.n.g recalled, "he became over-confident, believing that he could do anything he liked. More and more he came to regard the government as his personal property."33 Hw.a.n.g added: "In a situation where all means of production actually belong to the Great Leader, the economy itself naturally serves the interest of the Great Leader before all else. The national economy is nothing more than the household economy of the Great Leader. North Korea's economy exists first and foremost to serve the Great Leader." Hw.a.n.g added: "In a situation where all means of production actually belong to the Great Leader, the economy itself naturally serves the interest of the Great Leader before all else. The national economy is nothing more than the household economy of the Great Leader. North Korea's economy exists first and foremost to serve the Great Leader."34 In one post-defection article, Hw.a.n.g recalled having heard Kim Il-sung utter "relatively humble remarks" during the time when they had worked closely together. The senior Kim, for example, said: "I wasn't a big part of the partisan struggle against the j.a.panese" and "I never dreamed back then that I would become the leader of North Korea."35 In Hw.a.n.g's view, however, "North Korea, with the vestiges of feudalism still maintaining a stronghold on society, was from the very beginning a hotbed for a personality cult. Personal dictatorship was established more firmly in North Korea than in any other socialist country." In the first stage, that involved simple emulation, "under Soviet supervision," of Stalin's cult. In Hw.a.n.g's view, however, "North Korea, with the vestiges of feudalism still maintaining a stronghold on society, was from the very beginning a hotbed for a personality cult. Personal dictatorship was established more firmly in North Korea than in any other socialist country." In the first stage, that involved simple emulation, "under Soviet supervision," of Stalin's cult.

After Kim consolidated power, he made his surviving younger brother a very high official. Kim Yong-ju joined the party Central Committee in 1961, was named party secretary for organization and guidance in 1962 and advanced to full membership in the politburo and number six ranking in the entire regime in 1970. At that time he was viewed abroad as likely successor to his elder brother as top leader.36 In the official Kim family mythology, Yong-ju is described as having spent his childhood in terror, fleeing search parties. Kim Il-sung wrote in his memoirs that, while he himself battled j.a.panese troops, the j.a.panese authorities hunted for Yong-ju as part of their attempt to pressure rebels. They distributed photographs of the youngster, Kim Il-sung said, so "my brother had to roam aimlessly, under a false name and by concealing his ident.i.ty, about cities and villages all over the three provinces of Manchuria and even in China proper."37 Yu Song-chol gave a somewhat different account, in which Yong-ju was a guerrilla for a time but fled to China and got a job in a j.a.panese store there-after Kim Il-sung told him it was his duty to survive and carry on the family line. Yu said Yong-ju was in Hawaii during the 1940s but returned to North Korea after liberation.38 In Pyongyang, high-ranking officials lived in special neighborhood enclaves. Those mimicked the exclusive communities Soviet officials had established in the city after liberation, with their own schools, shops and hospitals.39 Kim Yong-ju lived in the Mansu-dong neighborhood. (His next-door neighbor was Choe Yong-gon, a former anti-j.a.panese fighter who reached the number two position in the regime.) Kim Yong-ju sired at least one houseful of children who grew up to take prominent posts in the regime, including son Kim Bong-ju, who became a party Central Committee member. One former high-ranking North Korean official who defected to South Korea told me in an interview that Kim Yong-ju "has lots of kids. They're in all departments of government-good jobs, of course." In a country where few people could be satisfied with the quant.i.ties of food they got to eat, "all his sons and daughters are very very fat-real heavyweights.40 In the early 1970s the regime dropped a very clear official hint that a close relative would become Kim Il-sung's successor. The 1970 edition of North Korea's Dictionary of Political Terminologies Dictionary of Political Terminologies had included this critical definition: had included this critical definition: Hereditary succession is a reactionary custom of exploitative societies whereby certain positions or riches may be legally inherited. Originally a product of slave societies, it was later adopted by feudal lords as a means to perpetuate dictatorial rule.

The definition failed to appear in the 1972 edition of the dictionary.41 Some defectors have reported that Kim Il-sung's wife, the former typist Kim Song-ae, hoped her brother-in-law would win the succession. She favored Kim Yong-ju not because she was on friendly terms with him (she was not) but, apparently, simply because he was of the older generation. That meant his tenure might be short and afterward there might still be a chance at the top job for Kim Pyong-il, her own elder son. Pyong-il, Kim Jong-il's stepbrother, was too young to be considered at that time.

It's quite possible, though, that Kim Il-sung never seriously considered his brother as his successor. Actuarial tables, after all, would have given the brother only a few years to rule beyond Kim Il-sung's own life span. For Kim Il-sung, who wanted to perpetuate his system and ideology, picking a significantly younger man probably-would have seemed the sound choice. But as a consummate strategist he would not have let everyone know his decision until he had laid the groundwork.

In the meantime, palace intrigues raged in which the object was to gain Kim Il-sung's favor. A princ.i.p.al means of doing so was flattery. The contenders, a former high official related, "went crazy trying to idolize Kim Il-sung in order to display their loyalty to him."42 They certainly knew the way to the Great Leader's heart. Constantly a.s.sured of his G.o.dlike attributes, Kim became a caricature of the cla.s.sic potentate. It seems there was nothing he did not consider himself ent.i.tled to. Feeding his enormous appet.i.tes and ego provided full-time and never-ending work for those around him. They certainly knew the way to the Great Leader's heart. Constantly a.s.sured of his G.o.dlike attributes, Kim became a caricature of the cla.s.sic potentate. It seems there was nothing he did not consider himself ent.i.tled to. Feeding his enormous appet.i.tes and ego provided full-time and never-ending work for those around him.

Such a lofty being could not, for example, partake of the ordinary food that was rationed out to ordinary mortals. Kim Il-sung had to have special orchards and greenhouses and farms producing his food. His rice grains were polished individually to make sure he would get not a single bad grain. According to one former Pyongyang-based foreign diplomat, there was a rumor among the people that Kim's special apple trees were watered with a sugar solution-an otherwise unthinkable luxury in a country-where sweets were very rarely available.

It could not have been easy finding ways to flatter Kim Il-sung further, but it seemed that every year brought something new. Kim Jong-il reportedly dreamed up the idea of having delegates to 1970's Fifth Congress of the Workers' Party wear lapel badges adorned with a likeness of the Respected and Beloved Leader.43 By the time I visited in 1979, all citizens were wearing them. Some were simple, round pins while others showed Kim's portrait against various backgrounds. I asked a hothouse manager whether the difference in badges indicated difference in status of the wearers. Oh, no, he replied; the badges served only to "highly revere our Leader and wish him good health." Fifteen years later, a defector gave me a different version: "You can tell someone's status by looking at his Kim Il-sung portrait badge. For high officials of the party, the portrait appears against the background of a red flag. Some people want to seem important, so they buy badges that indicate higher status than they possess. Of course if you are caught ... By the time I visited in 1979, all citizens were wearing them. Some were simple, round pins while others showed Kim's portrait against various backgrounds. I asked a hothouse manager whether the difference in badges indicated difference in status of the wearers. Oh, no, he replied; the badges served only to "highly revere our Leader and wish him good health." Fifteen years later, a defector gave me a different version: "You can tell someone's status by looking at his Kim Il-sung portrait badge. For high officials of the party, the portrait appears against the background of a red flag. Some people want to seem important, so they buy badges that indicate higher status than they possess. Of course if you are caught ...44 Despite what foreign a.n.a.lysts had thought, Kim Yong-ju did not have it sewn up. Instead the nod would go to his nephew, Kim Jong-il. Testing his son's abilities before anointing him as the successor, Kim Il-sung had Jong-il handle the arrangements for the elder Kim's own sixtieth birthday. The sixtieth is a major milestone for any Korean; in the Great Leader's case, his son turned it into perhaps the most extravagant celebration in North Korean history up to that point--which helped earn him the right to try to outdo himself with the bashes honoring the Great Leader's sixty-fifth and seventieth birthdays.

Brilliantly reading his father's psychology, Kim Jong-il established (as noted in chapter 1) the Kim Il-sung Inst.i.tute of Health and Longevity. In a country that advertised an average life span of seventy-three, the inst.i.tute was mandated to find ways for the Fatherly Leader to live longer and enjoy himself. For medical and dietary research it used human guinea pigs whose ages and physical characteristics were similar to his.45 A former high official of the regime explained to me that the inst.i.tute focused on the aging Great Leader's symptoms of insomnia, cardiovascular problems and advancing s.e.xual impotence. In due course the doctors came up with a prescription: the Respected and Beloved Leader should eat dog p.e.n.i.ses at least seven centimeters (2.8 inches) long. That prescription was not, of course, the only product of the inst.i.tute. One European who served as a diplomat in Pyongyang told me he treasured a box of special matches that were produced as part of the ma.s.sive effort to protect the Iron-Willed, Ever-Victorious Brilliant Commander from harm. The matches would burn for a maximum of half their length, and then they went out. That way there was no risk that they would burn the Great Fingers. A former high official of the regime explained to me that the inst.i.tute focused on the aging Great Leader's symptoms of insomnia, cardiovascular problems and advancing s.e.xual impotence. In due course the doctors came up with a prescription: the Respected and Beloved Leader should eat dog p.e.n.i.ses at least seven centimeters (2.8 inches) long. That prescription was not, of course, the only product of the inst.i.tute. One European who served as a diplomat in Pyongyang told me he treasured a box of special matches that were produced as part of the ma.s.sive effort to protect the Iron-Willed, Ever-Victorious Brilliant Commander from harm. The matches would burn for a maximum of half their length, and then they went out. That way there was no risk that they would burn the Great Fingers.

Kim Il-sung and his family-were accustomed to luxurious living in mansions and villas. Chinese Red Guards criticizing him for his bourgeois ways reported that his estate in Pyongyang, commanding a full view of the Taedong and Potong rivers, covered tens of thousands of square meters and was "surrounded on all sides by high walls. All sides of the estate are dotted with sentry posts. One has to pa.s.s through five or six doors before one comes to the courtyard. This really makes one think of the great palaces of the emperors in the past." Besides his main residence, Kim had "his own palaces everywhere in North Korea. ... All of these villas are on a grand scale. Although Kim Il-sung stays in these villas for only a few days every year, such stays usually require the services of large numbers of military and security personnel.46 Hw.a.n.g Jang-yop, who had worked in close contact with the two Kims, confirmed that account: "All around the city of Pyongyang are several special facilities, or what can be termed 'special royal villas,' equipped with all sorts of luxuries from performing arts centers to medical facilities and even exclusive hunting grounds," Hw.a.n.g wrote. "There is probably no other country in the world both in the past and present that has as many royal villas as North Korea. Any place deemed to boast the slightest scenic beauty is designated as a site for one of these royal villas. An army of escorts [bodyguards] guard all these places, and hostesses are stationed there round the clock in readiness for a royal visit. ...47 But those competing for Kim Il-sung's favor believed that more was better and did not mind spending huge sums for yet more elaborate facilities to show their loyalty. As a former Public Security Ministry official observed dryly, "In the process of such compet.i.tive idolization, excessive funds were spent.48 In his memoirs, recalling a conflict with a wicked landlord in his guerrilla days, Kim wrote, "Long experience had bred in my bones the feeling that the richer people were, the more cold-hearted they were, the more devoid of virtue." Wealth, he lamented, is "a trap which swallows and destroys virtue." But after taking power Kim Il-sung had changed. He was no longer the outraged young revolutionary who had vowed to "wipe out the old society of immorality and corruption" and replace it with a beautiful society permitting "no gulf between the poor and the rich.49 A Chinese Red Guard publication that attacked him as a fat counterrevolutionary also catalogued some of the villas Kim had to choose from by the late 1960s, for weekend getaways. One was set among the pines of the San-mien District near Pyongyang, a second in the scenic Chin Mountains, a third at Chuwol Hot Springs, a fourth in the border city of Sinuiji and a fifth along the coast in the vicinity of the port of Chongjin. The article also criticized Kim for building a cemetery to demonstrate filial piety toward his parents and ancestors. And it attacked North Korean officials for giving expensive gifts and hosting elaborate parties.50 For his sixtieth birthday, Kim got the most expensive mansion up to that point, costing the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars, according to a former official's estimate. The funds, this source told me, came from gold mining. "North Korea can mine up to 50 tons of gold a year, so they can afford that sort of thing."51 By the time of Kim Il-sung's death in 1994, he and son Kim Jong-il had some one hundred places to call home. The same source reported that out of those hundred, there were some that Kim Il-sung "has not even visited yet." He added that Kim Jong-il's younger sister, Kyong-hui, as well as his half-brother, Pyong-il, had their own villas.52 One former official to