Kim Dae- jung and the Quest for the Nobel

Transcription

Kim Dae- jung and the
Quest for the Nobel
Kim Dae- jung and the Quest
for the Nobel
How the President of
South Korea Bought
the Peace Prize and Financed
Kim Jong- il’s Nuclear Program
Kisam Kim and Donald Kirk
kim daejung and the quest for the nobel
Copyright © Kisam Kim and Donald Kirk, 2013. All rights reserved.
First published in 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United
States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New
York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers
Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above
companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United
States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN: 978- 1- 137- 35308- 5
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available from the
Library of Congress.
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Scribe Inc.
First edition: July 2013
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Sang- mi and Sung- hee
With much appreciation for their patience and understanding
Contents
Foreword by Janet Hinshaw-T homas
Preface
xiii
Map of Korea
xv
1
Asylum at Last!
1
2
Norwegian Base
13
3
Softening the Swedes
4
Spreading the Net
33
5
Eyes on the Prize
47
6
Shielding the Deeds 59
7
Courting the Bishop 71
8
Scaling the Summit
85
9
Beyond the Summit
95
10 Playing the Media
ix
23
107
11 Swedish Connection 121
12 Easily the Winner
133
13 Sunshine Exposed
147
14 In History’s Glare
159
15 Legacy of Terror
171
Epilogue
183
Chronology
187
Cast of Characters
197
viii CONTENTS
Nobel Peace Prize Winners
203
Glossary: Abbreviations and Acronyms
205
Notes
207
Bibliography
223
Index
229
Foreword
When Mr. Kim walked through the doors of our small office, I
immediately felt that I had the privilege of meeting a fearless man who
championed truth and justice. Many victims of persecution come to our
nonprofit (actually “for loss”) agency. Some can prove past persecution,
some even with bodily scars, while others have endured severe
psychological trauma. It is always a welcome challenge to help such
people present their cases in front of erudite immigration judges while
facing well- versed government attorneys.
Usually clients who were journalists are the easiest to coach in helping
them understand which elements within their often tragic or broken lives
are important to the case. Those with absolutely no schooling or who are
functionally illiterate commonly fail to distinguish between lifethreatening circumstances and those events that the law recognizes as past
persecution on the basis of one of the five legal grounds for asylum.
Mr. Kim’s case, however, presented a different challenge. He was from
South Korea, a country that has had a somewhat checkered past in
autocratic presidents, but not a country in which torture or persecution is
routine. Yet he had diligently uncovered facts of gross governmental
deceit. And, almost like Don Quixote, he continued to reveal those facts
in the public arena through his articles, blogs, emails, and so on. Although
his email was hacked, articles were erased from the web, and publishers
threatened not to accept his writings, he continued because he was so
outraged by the facts he had been able to uncover.
Luckily Mr. Kim was not in the clutches of his government, as he
enjoyed the temporary protection of life and liberty in the United States.
But he always faced the prospect of being forcefully returned by our
government to South Korea, where he would be tried for revealing the
illegal acts of his government and would also be well within the reach of
North Korean agents.
The life of a whistleblower is a precarious one. Some, like Deep
Throat of Watergate fame, have decided not to become public; others,
even in our democracy, have known ridicule, dismissal from jobs,
destitution, and sometimes even jail time. We were lucky in having an
immigration judge
x FOREWORD
who once mentioned, while in private practice many years earlier, that he
had represented a Soviet defector. He was able to see important and almost
universal similarities. Having an immigration judge with insight into
political realities is critical. Far too many immigration judges have very
limited life experiences, although they may be able to analyze esoteric
aspects of immigration law.
It is my belief that Ki- sam Kim’s courage and defiance in the face of
great persecution and likely torture by individuals working in his
government was acknowledged by Judge Honeyman. Moreover the judge
was savvy about the devious methods of North Korean agents. Twice the
judge granted asylum, overruling the appeal of the government attorney
the second time.
Meanwhile, with this book Ki-s am Kim continues his efforts in the
hope that his government will rectify a condition that allowed the president
of his country to transfer funds illegally to North Korea, thereby financing
the development of atomic weapons, which threaten the very existence of
South Korea. This was particularly shocking because the illegal transfer
was motivated by the desire to gain international acclaim. Furthermore,
Mr. Kim uncovered proof that the security agency and other members of
the South Korean government had been put to the service of ambitious
politicians, allowing for the illegal wiretapping of political enemies, for
example.
Does Ki- sam Kim have a message for readers of the English- speaking
world, or for that matter, the people of all nations? I would say
emphatically that he does. “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts
absolutely” is a well- known saying. In the realm of national politics,
elected officials must be held to the same standard as law-a biding citizens.
Not even the president, or officers of the security services, may trample on
the law. And in order for this to be possible there must be brave men like
Ki-s am Kim who are willing to stand up and put a halt to unfettered
ambitions.
As we read the often complicated details of this book, we must never
lose sight of the fact that sometimes illegal actions slowly slide down the
slippery slope, one after the other, to culminate, in some instances, in
putting the whole country at risk. Once this happens, it becomes
increasingly difficult and dangerous for any individual to take a stand, and
too many democracies fall, bit by bit, into autocratic rule. While many
hesitate to reveal such illegal actions because they believe it tarnishes the
image of the country, Mr. Kim is one of those rare individuals who have
dared to speak out because he hopes to strengthen democracy in his
country.
In reading this book, I would like the readers to value the courage of
Mr. Ki- sam Kim. Second, I would like to express my gratitude to all
immigration judges who, like Judge Honeyman, have an insight into
political
FOREWORD xi
realities as well as an extensive knowledge of immigration law. Finally, I
hope that this book will inspire others to challenge their governments to
become true democracies with checks and balances for curbing the most
ambitious of politicians. This book, therefore, should be read even by
those with less knowledge of Korean internal politics. It has a lesson for
all.
Janet
HinshawThomas President, Prime- ECR, immigration
advocate
Preface
The authors have been working on the topic of Kim Dae-j ung’s payoffs
to North Korea, all in his bid to win the Nobel Peace Prize, since 2006
when Kim Ki- sam heard that Donald Kirk was researching a biography
of the former Korean president. Ki-s am, living in central Pennsylvania
with his family while seeking asylum in the United States, got in touch
with Don in Washington. He wanted to tell him what he knew about the
payoffs that preceded the June 2000 North-S outh Korea Summit at which
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong- il hosted Kim Dae- jung in Pyongyang.
In a coffee shop in northern Virginia, we had the first of many meetings.
Kirk’s biography was initially intended as the usual paean to the
accomplishments of the former president. As Kirk went on in research,
however, he discovered facts and views that contradicted the conventional
encomiums of academicians, missionaries, and others enamored of Kim
Dae- jung, emotionally and intellectually, from his days as a crusader for
democratic reforms in South Korea. With new information from Kim Kis am, Kirk finally completed his book, Korea Betrayed: Kim Dae Jung
and Sunshine, published soon after Kim Dae- jung’s death on August 18,
2009.
Shortly before the first anniversary of his passing, Kim Dae- jung’s
voluminous postmortem biography came out at the end of July in 2010. In
response, Kim Ki- sam managed to find a publisher in Korea who was
willing to risk reprisals from Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS)
and the bereaved family and servants of Kim Dae-j ung. In his book,
published in August 2010, Kim Dae-j unggwa Daehanminkukeul
Malhanda (My Testimony on Kim Dae Jung and the Republic of Korea),
Kim Ki-s am recounted his eight years’ experience in the agency as well
as the revelations that he already had disseminated through the Internet
and the media.
Within the morass of information that Kim Ki-s am provided to Kirk,
significant portions remained untouched and waiting for exposure. These
ranged from the confidential files of the NIS, the possession for which
Kim Ki- sam had toiled as a young officer, to internal NIS memos showing
DJ’s extraordinary ego- driven quest for the Nobel that consumed not only
much of his own energies but also those of the NIS and eventually the
whole country. On the basis largely of this material, news articles about
xiv PREFACE
Korean politics and diplomacy, open source materials, and our own
analysis and judgment, we have collaborated on this account of DJ’s
pursuit of Nobel glory and the ramifications for the two Koreas and the
world.
In order to avoid confusion, we refer to ourselves in the third person,
notably in the first and last two chapters. And, since so many Korean
surnames are the same, we tend to repeat full names. Kim and Lee, the
latter sometimes transliterated as Rhee or Yi, are the most common. They
are followed by a dozen or so others, including Park/Pak, Baek/Paek, Han/
Hahn, Chang/Jang, and Lim/Im. (Transliteration from the Hangul may
vary depending on personal and family wishes and whims.) Exceptions are
Kim Dae-j ung, referred to as “DJ,” and Kim Young-s am, “YS,” the
Western initials by which they are often known among Koreans and
foreigners alike. Also, to avoid confusion, we capitalize the word
“Summit” in all references to the June 2000 North- South Korea Summit
between Kim Dae- jung and Kim Jong- il.
Here is another style point: Korean surnames precede given names, and
Korean given names usually consist of two syllables. The general rule is
either to hyphenate them or to write them as separate words. In the interests
of consistency, we have chosen to hyphenate them except in quotations or
titles where they were not originally hyphenated as in the authors’ previous
books. As another style point, we have italicized names of publications
and foreign words and, for emphasis, several paragraphs of quotations.
Lastly, we have converted the Korean “won” to the US dollar in the
approximate ratio of 1,000:1 for the sake of convenience—t hough the
actual exchange rate has fluctuated from around 900:1 to 1,300:1 since the
1997–9 8 economic crisis, when the won plummeted sharply.
Finally, but far from least, we wish to extend our deepest thanks to
many friends, contacts, and family members to whom we are most grateful
for their patience, support, and understanding. Janet Hinshaw- Thomas not
only reviewed the manuscript but provided eight years of legal assistance
for Ki-s am on a pro bono basis in order to gain asylum in the United States
for him and his family. Equally important, we wish to acknowledge with
gratitude the information provided by “a few anonymous good men” in the
NIS, whose assistance was essential in forming this book. Although we
cannot name them, we salute them for their honesty, conscience, courage,
and patriotism for exposing the truth about the pursuit of an honor
achieved at great cost to the people of both Koreas and to the safety and
security of Northeast Asia and the rest of the world.
Washington, Seoul
April 2013
1
Asylum at Last!
O
n December 11, 2011, Kim Ki-s am, a former junior intelligence
officer of the Republic of Korea, finally ended his long- lasting battle
against the prosecutor of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
That was the day Judge Charles M. Honeyman, sitting in the immigration
court of the US Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration
Review in Philadelphia, issued his final ruling granting political asylum
to Ki- sam along with his wife and two teenaged children. Kim’s family
had applied for asylum in December 2003 after Kim had revealed the
manipulations and machinations preceding the June 2000 North- South
Korea Summit (hereafter “June 2000 Summit” or “Summit”) and the
awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the South Korean president, Kim
Dae- jung (DJ), in December 2000.
With that legal victory, the ex- agent for the multitentacled NIS
defeated an intensive US government bid to have him extradited to Seoul
and imprisoned for revealing the payoffs, among other acts of corruption,
and suspicions of North Korean espionage within Kim Dae- jung’s
government. The decision was extraordinary for two reasons: First, Kim
Ki- sam was not a refugee or defector from an oppressive regime. Rather,
he was a patriotic Korean who saw his exposé of Kim Dae- jung’s
relentless pursuit of the Nobel as his duty to his country. Second, the
United States had invested the time and resources of a top attorney from
the Department of Homeland Security to fight Kim Ki- sam’s application
in a prolonged process lasting eight years before ending in a humiliating
court- ordered rebuff.
In fact, Judge Honeyman’s decision marked the second time that Kim
Ki- sam had won the battle in court. The same judge approved Kim’s
application for asylum on April 15, 2008. During those initial
proceedings, many people extended helping hands. Among them were
Chuck Downs, former senior official at the Pentagon and the State
Department; Suzanne Scholte, North Korea human rights activist and
president of the Defense Forum Foundation; Nam Sin- u, Korean
American human rights activist, and Yun Hong- jun, Korean American
2 KIM DAE- JUNG AND THE QUEST FOR THE NOBEL
businessman, all of whom wrote affidavits or testified on Ki-s am’s behalf.
Also, many church colleagues and Korean Association members in the
Harrisburg area signed a petition for him and his family.
At that time, the judge had already shown his impatience in Ki- sam’s
case. The long delay on the prosecutor’s part, he said, “suggests to this
Court a curious logjam in this family’s efforts to obtain protection from
the U.S., or at least have their claim seriously considered by the security
agencies.”1 Judge Honeyman described Ki- sam as “essentially the classic
defector”— a view the prosecutor vowed to appeal.2 The judge’s
comments on the prosecutor’s opposition to asylum for Ki- sam sounded
almost like a reprimand. “Despite repeated orders to submit an opinion
from the U.S. government, there has not been an individualized opinion
from the Department of State, nor any comments apparently from any
security agencies,” he wrote at the time. Incredibly, he added, the
government had not answered that request “despite the zealous efforts of
many of its trial attorneys over the course of this case.” 3
One week after Judge Honeyman rendered his first decision, Donald
Kirk, who had been a correspondent for forty years in Asia, encountered
Kim Dae-j ung and his top aide, Park Jie-w on, at a luncheon on April 22,
2008, at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in
Medford, Massachusetts. The luncheon was hosted by Stephen Bosworth,
dean of the school, who had been ambassador to South Korea when DJ
was president. After the lunch, Park Jie- won, at a press conference for the
South Korean media, flatly denied, as he had been doing for many years,
all of Kim Ki-s am’s allegations. “It is an absurd and groundless
accusation,” Park told South Korean reporters. “It is not worthy of
response.”4
Spurning the impassioned pleas of the US government, however, Judge
Honeyman rejected the last appeal of the US prosecutor and ordered
asylum in the United States for Kim Ki-s am and his family. In his final
ruling, the judge found “a reasonable possibility” that Kim Ki-s am would
“suffer the alleged persecution upon his return to South Korea” and that
he was “statutorily eligible for asylum based on his well-f ounded fear of
persecution by the South Korean government and the NIS, based on his
political opinion.”5 This time, however, the US prosecutor wisely chose
not to appeal again, and Kim Ki- sam became the first Korean whistleblower ever granted asylum in the United States or, for that matter,
anywhere else.
The ruling carried Kim Ki- sam and his family from one country,
society, and culture to another. Like Alice, they had gone through the
ASYLUM AT LAST! 3
looking glass, from one world to another. Unlike her, they were not
dreaming and would not wake up where they had begun. The signature of
the judge ended years of uncertainty. Although they had been in the United
States for around ten years, they could never be sure, until Judge
Honeyman’s decision was final, how long they could stay or when they
would suddenly have to leave. Having transported themselves through
time and space, they now had made the transition in the eyes of the law,
enabling them to settle down permanently in Pennsylvania, where they
had arrived for the first time in 1997 and lived continuously since 2002.
Kim Ki- sam and his family left South Korea for the United States in
March 2002, and Kim requested asylum in December 2003 after revealing
much of what he knew to the Korean media. The bottom line of his
revelations was that a huge amount of money, allegedly $1.5 billion, had
illegally flowed into North Korean coffers to grease the path to the June
2000 Summit. At the same time, the NIS and other agencies, expending
countless resources and precious time that might have been used for
picking up intelligence information on North Korea, plotted the operation
for the Nobel Peace Prize that Kim Dae- jung finally won in December
2000 after years of trying to wangle the trophy.
Before moving to the United States with his family, Kim Ki-s am had
resigned from the NIS two weeks after the Norwegian Nobel Committee
announced DJ as the winner. Ki- sam’s resignation from the NIS on
October 28, 2000, was an almost unheard- of move for any young man
inculcated with the belief that service for the agency was a sacred trust
that he would keep for the rest of his career. “It was in a commuter bus in
the evening that I heard the news from the radio that [the] Norwegian
Nobel Committee in Oslo had announced that DJ would receive the award
in December 2000.” Kim recalled. “They eventually succeeded in their
mission. So many emotions crossed my mind.”6
Kim Ki- sam, knowing what he did, had no desire to stay on through
all the cheering and back- patting around the agency while DJ went on to
accept the award to worldwide acclaim. DJ was “doing terrible things for
the sake of his own vanity . . . I just could not serve him any more . . . I
could not stand what the Kim Dae-j ung government has done to my
country,” he told Monthly Chosun, South Korea’s leading magazine, with
sales at that time of around 100,000 copies per issue. “As an NIS officer,
I had a sense of shame to serve a president whom I cannot agree with. I
felt ashamed of the facts that I would lower my head only for salary.” 7
From that day on, Kim Ki- sam began digging up evidence of the
connections of Kim Dae- jung’s regime, tracing the footsteps of DJ’s
people as closely as possible. “I feel emancipated after I revealed all that
matters. It seemed to me that now my heart, not just my body, resigned
from the NIS.”
His presence in the NIS office at the outset of the Nobel Prize Project, the
name of the special operation team organized to pursue the Nobel Peace
Prize for Kim Dae- jung, gave him an understanding of the basic facts. “I
wanted to let the truth be known to the people in my country as well as in
the world,” he said. “The NP Project was run in extreme security. The
facts I revealed were only part of it.”8
One could hardly blame the NIS for having brought charges against
Kim Ki- sam for revealing its innermost secrets. Nor could one necessarily
blame Kim Dae-j ung for having wanted to bring about North-S outh
rapprochement by meeting Kim Jong-i l. He may have had no idea that
untold millions, if not billions, would finance a nuclear program in which
North Korea was to conduct two underground nuclear tests while planning
a third one as a sure way to show that Kim Jong- un, his late father’s
chosen heir, would be a strong leader like his father and his grandfather,
the long- ruling Kim Il- sung, who died in 1994. What better way for the
youthful Jong- un to assert himself than at the behest of the coterie of
aging generals who held the real power?
Kim Ki-s am’s view, of course, was that his countrymen, and the world
at large, had a right to know the truth: the Summit was bought at enormous
cost in terms of money and, finally, the security of a region facing a rising
danger of nuclear holocaust. Journalist Donald Kirk got involved in the
drama when Kim Ki- sam poured out his notes for Kirk’s book, Korea
Betrayed: Kim Dae Jung and Sunshine, published shortly after Kim Daejung’s death in 2009. Ki-s am thus provided a unique perspective on
modern Korean history that was sorely lacking in previous research on
DJ’s life and times. The sad paradox was that DJ battled heroically for
democracy in South Korea while glossing over, totally ignoring, or in a
sense possibly encouraging North Korea’s strategy for dominance over
the Korean Peninsula.
Shortly after Kim Jong-i l died on December 17, 2011, The Workers’
Party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, cited the nuclear program as the
“greatest legacy” of 17 years of tyranny by the man the North Korean
media called their “Dear Leader.” Kim Jong-i l could not have nurtured
that program as he had without tremendous funding from South Korea—
funding he should have invested in food and medicine for his people, who
were suffering from hunger and disease on an unimaginable scale. In view
of the information and insights from Kim Ki- sam, Kirk was glad to testify
ASYLUM AT LAST! 5
as an “expert witness” at his immigration hearing before Judge
Honeyman. The judge summarized Kirk’s testimony in his ruling, saying
that Kirk believed “Korean authorities were most angered that a former
NIS member betrayed the Service by revealing state secrets.”9
Officials did not blame Kirk “as an enemy of the state,” the judge noted
in his summation, but “objected to the fact” that Kim Ki- sam had
“provided secret information to Mr. Kirk.” 10 Moreover, the judge noted,
Kirk had “provided testimony that individuals sympathetic to North
Korean refugees in China have been targeted by North Korea.” There was,
said the judge, “at least a ten percent chance” that Kim Ki-s am “[would]
be targeted by North Korean agents for his highly public criticism” of the
North Korean regime.11 The judge concluded, “Therefore, Respondent
meets his burden of demonstrating that the persecution he fears is on
account of a statutory ground, namely his political opinion.” 12
One puzzling aspect of the case was the intensity with which the US
government fought against asylum for Kim Ki- sam. Pamela Ransome, a
veteran “assistant chief counsel” for the Department of Homeland
Security, was deputized to contest the application. Kim had an equally
experienced “accredited representative,” Janet Hinshaw-T homas, who
had stood by hundreds of asylum applicants. Besides calling Kirk as a
witness, she also called on Suzanne Scholte, president of the Defense
Forum Foundation in Washington, whom the judge quoted as saying that
“anybody who speaks out for the human rights of North Korean people
becomes an enemy” of the North Korean regime. “Kim Ki- sam,” Scholte
said, “would be a credible danger to the North Korean government
because he exposed the flow of money” from South to North Korea. 13
Why, then, did the US government pour such resources, over such a
prolonged period, into a vain attempt at denying asylum to Kim Ki-s am
and his family? Judge Honeyman, in his summary of Kirk’s testimony,
said that Kirk believed “the United States government objected” under
“political pressure from the South Korean government.” 14 Several weeks
after the judge had rendered his decision, Ransome, whom HinshawThomas describes as “highly competitive,” said the government would not
be filing another appeal. “You won this one,” Hinshaw-T homas recalled
Ransome as telling her good- naturedly, but “please don’t crow about it.”15
Clearly, South Korean officials, while Kim Dae- jung was president,
wanted to go after the person who had done the most to expose the dark
side of his sunshine policy of reconciliation. They appeared to have had
no trouble enlisting the support of their friends in the US Embassy in Seoul
and the State Department.
Judge Honeyman wrapped up his summary of Kirk’s remarks by saying
that Kirk had “testified” that he was “not being paid to testify.” Nor did
Kirk pay Kim Ki- sam for the wealth of information he supplied for Kirk’s
book or articles. Kirk was glad to have done all that was possible to
support his case. Kim’s material, the judge quoted from Kirk’s testimony,
“gave a whole point” to the book.16
“Surprisingly,” as retired Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel and
Vietnam veteran James G. Zumwalt noted, the decision “received little
attention.” Zumwalt, younger son of Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, former
chief of naval operations, who had commanded US naval forces in
Vietnam, believed “the decision is big for two reasons.” Not only was the
asylum seeker from Korea, but also, he wrote, “the underlying facts as to
why he sought asylum puts the lie to what supporters of South Korea’s
decade- long appeasement policy toward North Korea hail as its greatest
moment.” Zumwalt summarized Ki- sam’s dilemma: “The concern for his
safety stemmed not from persecution at the hands of a vengeful North
Korea but a vengeful South. For a citizen of an ally to be granted asylum
by the U.S. is highly unusual in its own right. But Kim had reason to fear
for his life—f or he had gone public with evidence of major fraud
perpetrated by Seoul upon the international community. It was done solely
in the interests of furthering the legacy and wealth of one man— at great
cost to his fellow countrymen.”17
In fact, Kirk was the first to have exposed the payoffs over the Summit.
In an article published by the International Herald Tribune (IHT) on
January 31, 2001, Kirk revealed the transfer of several hundred million
dollars to persuade Kim Jong- il to agree to receive DJ in Pyongyang in
June 2000. The article, which Kirk wrote at the request of IHT editor
David Ignatius, focused on Lim Dong- won as the central operative in
forming DJ’s sunshine policy of reconciliation. “The South Korean Spy
Chief Who Paved the Way for Thaw with North,” ran the headline across
the top of page two of the IHT. The spy chief in question was Lim Dongwon, whom DJ had appointed as director of the NIS in order to bring about
the Summit and also to promote his campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize.
“Although the payoff remains unconfirmed,” Kirk wrote, “it was believed
that it was necessary in a society where bribery, often in the guise of giftg iving, is a longstanding tradition in both Koreas.” 18
The mere mention of a huge financial transfer to North Korea was
deeply upsetting to Korean officials. A Blue House spokesman said
menacingly, “We take extra care when dealing with inaccurate and
misleading articles appearing [in] foreign mass media because they are
ASYLUM AT LAST! 7
guests,” but the IHT article “went too far” and “we are considering all
options.” The local media saw the case as a test of “how far the
government is willing to go in order to correct what it thinks are wrong
reports in foreign press,”19 In the end, Kim Myong- sik, assistant minister
in charge of the Korean Overseas Information Service (KOIS), called Kirk
into his office and told him, politely, that he was “making a lot of trouble.”
Kirk officially was viewed as “distinctly skeptical” and “hard to
persuade,” but Kim said he did not believe in the old system of expelling
or denying visas for correspondents.20 Instead, he wrote a lengthy letter to
the IHT, which published it without apology or retraction, denying any
such deal. (Kim Myong-s ik, saving face, would later say that the
publication of the letter was “tantamount to a retraction.”)
The mystery, though, was what the South Koreans were telling their
American friends about Kim Ki- sam. Had the NIS gone to contacts at the
US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) asking them to block Kim’s asylum
application? Or was the State Department, in the interest of preserving
relations with a military ally, responding to a request by the South Korean
foreign ministry? Who among the Americans had pressed to have the case
heard in an immigration court, where the US government rarely loses?
The answers to those questions were as elusive as the exact amount that
South Korea gave the North to get Kim Jong-i l to invite Kim Dae-j ung
to Pyongyang.
No South Korean government has commented on the significance of
the asylum granted to Kim Ki-s am. For more than a decade, South Korean
authorities have avoided saying a thing about Kim Ki- sam’s struggle for
asylum. One powerful politician and tycoon, however, expressed his
concerns in a column published by Dong A Ilbo, a leading newspaper.
Chung Mong- joon, former chairman of the Grand National Party (since
renamed Sae- nu- ri or New Frontier Party) ranks as one of Korea’s
wealthiest men thanks to his ownership of a controlling stake in Hyundai
Heavy Industries, the shipbuilder founded by his legendary father Chung
Ju- yung. He was characteristically blunt in his remarks about the case.
“The U.S. court decision makes us face an ‘inconvenient truth’ on our
North Korean policy, which we had kept undiscovered,” he wrote. “I
cannot help but ask how our government behaved in the court process and
why this disgraceful ruling came out.” Chung was dumfounded. “Political
asylum,” he noted, “is in itself a big problem between strong allies such
as
South Korea and the U.S.”21
Chung Mong- joon’s indignation mounted as he considered the
implications of the ruling. “The problem is that we are avoiding discussing
these issues,” he wrote, “Our reality is that the person who raises these
issues has to go abroad for asylum. Mr. Kim said he would come back any
time if the government investigates correctly. However, our government
denied his passport renewal two times, and the charge of violation of the
NIS personnel law is still pending for many years.” Considering the
circumstances, said Chung, “further testimony and investigation might be
inevitable.”22
Chung saw the entire case as a lesson for further study. “We have not
made any in- depth and objective discussion or assessment on the effect
or influence of the Sunshine policy,” he went on. “Mr. Kim’s case urges
us to adopt a more responsible posture on North Korean policy, on which
our national fate is at stake.” He concluded in an emotional tone, quoting
“Mr. Kim Ki- sam’s voice” as having said, “We have to pay any sacrifice
in confronting the cruel North Korean regime, while embracing our
wretched North Korean brethren at any cost.” Those words, Chung wrote,
“still echo in my ears.”23
The sensitivities of Korean leaders and bureaucrats were clear after
Kim Ki-s am went to the United States in 2002 and began to expose the
link between the payoffs and the Nobel Peace Prize. Until Judge
Honeyman’s ruling, Ki-s am had been an asylum applicant who had given
up a promising career at the NIS for which he had worked hard for eight
years after graduating in 1993 from the law school of Seoul National
University. His last job in the agency was foreign press coordinator in the
Office of External Cooperation Aid (OECA). Despite its fancy name, the
office was a cover for the secret team that was organized to hunt for the
Nobel— to carry out “the NP Project,” the “Nobel Prize Project,” or the
“S Project” (with “S” standing for “Special”).
Kim Ki-s am had begun work for the special team in February 1999,
one year after DJ’s inauguration. “DJ had ordered his final push to win the
Nobel Peace Prize, building the team under the aegis of NIS Director Lee
Jong- chan in August 1998,” Kim Ki- sam recalled in vivid detail.24 NIS
Director Lee Jong-c han was ironically a conservative who had fallen out
with the conservative Grand National Party but had dreams of running for
president. “He knew the best gift for DJ was this tiny little piece of metal
called the Nobel Peace Prize,” said Kim.25 Ra Jong-i l, deputy NIS
director, a former professor in London and Seoul, in cahoots with Lee and
close to the foreign press, loved the idea of a Korean winning the Nobel.
ASYLUM AT LAST! 9
Between them, Lee and Ra worked together to form the team that included
Kim Ki- sam as a junior member.
“At the time, the Office of External Cooperation Aid was an
undercover tool for the secret mission of the NP Project even though I had
no idea when I was first assigned to the office,” Kim Ki-s am recalled,
“The size of the office was about ten members, and its sacred mission, led
by a skillful expert on Northern Europe, was conducted in extreme secrecy
within the agency. The chief of the office was Lee Jong- hun, one of the
top experts when it comes to Norwegian issues and the Nobel Peace Prize.
However, for some reason, Lee Jong- hun was too cautious in pushing the
project, and he was gradually edged out of the secret mission. Not long
after, Kim Han- jung took complete control of the clandestine project and
rapidly consolidated resources for the campaign.” 26
Understandably, Lee Jong- chan, the NIS director who got the idea of
setting up the office, was nonrevealing in his accounts after losing his job
in May 1999. “When I was assigned to the NIS, I found that there was a
lot of information in various fields but no economic information,” Lee
Jong- chan told Monthly Chosun. “The role of an intelligence organization
is to foretell future crises to the consumer of the information”— that is,
the president. Lee reminded Koreans that the government had asked the
International Monetary Fund for a $58 billion bailout during the financial
crisis of 1997– 98: “The so- called IMF crisis was caused when the
intelligence organization did not pay appropriate attention to economic
information. Thus I recruited several scholars who had studied
international economics and installed them in the Office of External
Cooperation Aid.”27 Members of the office had backgrounds in law and
politics, while Kim Han-j ung, the pivotal figure of the team, had majored
in international economics as an undergraduate and international politics
in graduate school.
The organization had yet another mission. A government official
described the purpose of OECA in detail for the article in Monthly Chosun
in March 2003. “The purpose was to install an international human
network, in particular in four super- power countries around the Korean
peninsula”— that is, the four countries with most impact on Korea: the
United States, Japan, China, and Russia. The office focused mainly on the
United States, according to the official. “We planned to contact an
influential person in the U.S. and pursue good relations through that
person,” the official was quoted as saying. “In order to have good relations
with George W. Bush while he was governor of Texas, the office asked a
major South Korean company to set up a branch office in the state. We
also planned a public relations program through which President Kim was
mentioned in the foreign press as frequently as possible.”28
While studying at Seoul National University, Kim Han- jung had
earned his credentials as a democracy activist by getting jailed for two
years for violating the Law on Assembly and Demonstrations after he and
13 students had barged into the American Chamber of Commerce in Seoul
on November 4, 1985, and tried to set it on fire. A native of Haman, a
remote village near the industrial center of Masan and the port of Busan
in southeastern Korea, Kim Han- jung might have logically not wanted to
affiliate himself with Kim Dae-j ung, the populist leader from the port city
of Mokpo in the restive Cholla region of southwestern Korea. People from
the southeastern Kyoungsang region tended to think of DJ as ppal- gangyi (“the Communist”) or ger-j it-m al-j aeng-y i (“the liar”), while those
from the southwest saw him as a veritable messiah. DJ, however, was
known to
11
prefer to recruit certain non- Cholla people in order to show that he was not
just a regional figure.
Sublimating deep historic differences between the Kyoungsang and
Cholla regions, Kim Han-j ung, after getting out of jail, had begun working
for DJ as his press secretary when DJ was leader of the opposition
Democratic Party. “DJ had me clipping the newspapers for six months,” he
said in an article in Monthly JoongAng, published by JoongAng Ilbo in July
2003. “Later I took notes as dictated by DJ for his speeches and
commentaries.” By the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the introduction of
word processors, “I typed fast and clean,” he said, and “DJ was amazed.” 29
His four- year tenure as DJ’s press secretary ended in the 1992 presidential
election, in which DJ was defeated by Kim Young- sam (YS) after YS, once
a liberal foe of dictatorial military rule, had aligned with conservatives in
pursuit of victory.
As for Kim Han- jung, after that defeat, he went on to graduate studies
in international politics at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, in
New Brunswick, but again saw his future with DJ after DJ’s election as
president in December 1997. When he returned to Korea in early 1998,
however, he found the Blue House, combining the functions of the White
House and Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, already
occupied by newly hired brains. Instead, he settled down at the NIS in May
1998— a career move that seemed somewhat surprising since he had been
a member of a leftist group as a student. Entering the agency, he received a
most unusual favor from NIS Director Lee Jong- chan. Seeing he had almost
no money to rent an apartment, Lee let him lodge in an NIS safe house. Lee
recognized, as those who knew him noted, that he was indeed a “very
brilliant guy,” “superb at planning”— though known to “display a hot
temper” in pursuit of what he wanted.30
For a year or so in the NIS, Kim Han-j ung plunged into projects on DJ’s
behalf, secretly moving ahead on numerous missions in the hunt for the
Nobel Peace Prize. One of his interests while at the NIS was to hold a
“Peace Concert” in the DMZ (the demilitarized zone that has divided North
and South Korea since the Korean War) at which world- renowned singers
would perform. His other covert operations included publication of books
and pamphlets to promote DJ and his sunshine policy, all of which focused
on portraying DJ as a leading democratic activist and great statesman in the
midst of the financial crisis that swept much of Asia in 1997 and 1998. He
also worked hard, albeit unsuccessfully, to persuade the South African
antiapartheid hero Nelson Mandela to come to Seoul in order to project DJ
as a global figure.
ASYLUM AT LAST!
Fired from the NIS in May 1999, Kim Han- jung worked still more
closely for DJ, taking charge of the Forum of Democratic Leaders in the
Asia Pacific (FDL- AP), a cover- up group set up for the sole purpose of
winning the Nobel for DJ. Later in the year, Kim Han- jung skillfully set up
a connection with East Timor that he saw as another device to promote DJ
for the Nobel. After he had made a connection with East Timor, he was
appointed by DJ on December 14, 1999, as chief of the first attachment
chamber in the Blue House, giving him a channel to the top in the all-i
mportant role of gatekeeper for DJ. This appointment amazed people
because he was only 36 years old and completely unknown to the public. It
was known that First Lady Lee Hee- ho loved him; she gushed, “He is my
son, gained without the labor of childbirth.”31 DJ saw him as “a capable
young man who [was] competent for the job.”32
Kim Ki-s am, who had worked beside him in the NIS for four months,
saw Kim Han- jung in a more disturbing light. He aspired to being “the
shadow of Kim Dae-j ung or maybe his alter ego,” Ki-s am recalled. “He
never exposed himself and never left a trace of what he had done for DJ. He
was a perfectionist through and through.” Kim Han-j ung’s service in the
Blue House culminated a long relationship. He was “a definite shadow man
for around ten years altogether, four years as press secretary before the 1992
election, one year or so in the NIS in 1998– 1999, more than two years in
the Blue House in 2000– 2002, and more than two years as DJ’s secretary
after his retirement.” His penchant for secrecy was so perfect, “No Blue
House correspondents knew what he was doing in the Blue House as the
Chief of the First Attachment Chamber,” according to Ki- sam. “Only a few
had a glimmer of an idea.”33
As the key vehicle for the secret operation, OECA had another important
duty— publicizing inter- Korean cooperation, DJ’s “Sunshine Policy” to
the North, to the foreign press. Members of the NP Project team, as
“propaganda warriors,” strategically strove for favorable publicity from
foreign correspondents. Buying dinners, giving briefings—t he reason for
all such events was to take advantage of foreign journalists in the campaign
for good news stories, needed to arouse sympathy and emotional support
for DJ. “Orchestrating the foreign media was our basic trade,” Ki- sam
recalled. “The goal was to create as many dramatic events as possible, to
keep the news flowing for foreign journalists.”34
At OECA, Kim Ki- sam’s job was “to deal with the foreign press to
create a favorable atmosphere.” As a junior press coordinator, Kim Ki- sam
assisted NIS foreign press spokesman Kim Young- jun in arranging
briefings for the foreign press, among other duties. Kim Young-j un had
just returned from England after eight years studying at the London School
13
of Economics, from which he had received a doctorate, when he was
recruited by deputy director Ra Jong- il in August 1998. As foreign press
spokesman of NIS, he was in charge of monitoring and coordinating all NIS
policy toward foreign journalists in Seoul. A routine responsibility was to
report major articles to Ra Jong-i l daily. Other responsibilities included
providing news film of North Korea or introducing North Korean defectors
to the foreign media.
As a close colleague of Kim Han- jung at the NIS, Kim Ki- sam “looked
over his shoulder at what Kim Han- jung was doing to hunt for the Nobel.”
Gradually he began to wonder. “I had no idea about the mission at the time
I joined the office. I knew it was secret, and then I got to know the purpose
was to win the Nobel Peace Prize for DJ.”35 As time went on, Ki-s am
realized that the sunshine policy was a means toward an end, the Nobel, and
that DJ was sacrificing national interests for that special purpose.
Disturbing questions began to arise in the junior NIS officer’s mind: For
all its enormous international prestige, was the Nobel really worth such a
massive diversion of resources, time, and talent? What meaning or
relevance did it have for the Korean people or the interests of the country?
The real question was whether the “sunshine policy” had warmed the
desperate lives of the mass of North Koreans— the same flesh and blood as
their brothers and sisters in South Korea. Or did it not help the North Korean
dictator fortify his grip over his people and prolong their pain? And did this
diversion not finance the North’s nuclear and missile programs,
endangering not just the Korean Peninsula but the region and the world?
Gradually, Ki- sam’s skepticism turned to outrage.
2
Norwegian Base
K
won Young- min seemed the perfect choice when Kim Dae- jung
named him first protocol secretary before his inauguration as
president in February 1998. The designation, as Kwon explained nearly a
decade later in his memoir, Ja- ne Chulse Haetne (You became a success),
was short- lived, The quotation was from Choi Kyu- ha, who had served
eight months as president of Korea after the assassination of Park Chunghee on October 26, 1979. Kwon, secretary of Choi Kyu-h a when Choi
was prime minister (before he automatically became president), had been
consul-g eneral in Atlanta when Jimmy Carter hit upon the idea of settling
the first nuclear crisis in 1994 by calling on the presidents of both Koreas.
Kwon had the delicate task of arranging for Carter, from his base at
Atlanta’s Carter Center, to meet South Korea’s President Kim Youngsam in Seoul before going to Pyongyang for his historic meeting with Kim
Il- sung.
In June 1994, the United States and North Korea were embroiled in the
first nuclear crisis. At one stage, President Bill Clinton was seriously
weighing the possibility of attacking the North’s nuclear complex. Told
that Carter would enter North Korea on June 12, 1994, at the peak of the
crisis, Kwon met Marion Creekmore, Carter’s assistant at the Carter
Center in Atlanta. In his book, Kwon recalls his anger at Creekmore’s
refusal “to give details about Carter’s visit to North Korea” while asking
the South Korean government “to arrange a meeting with President Kim
Young- sam, to provide briefings by the foreign and unification ministers,
and to get South Korea’s ambassador to Washington, Han Seung- soo, to
receive him before he took off for Seoul.” More importantly, however,
Kwon said that “Carter’s people wanted special permission for his
motorcade to enter North Korea at the truce village of Panmunjom,”
generally closed to North- South Korean traffic.1
“When I met Creekmore, I got the impression that Carter did not think
of South Korea as an ally and only took advantage of the whole occasion
for his own pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize,” Kwon wrote. “I found that
Carter was not well acquainted with Korean affairs.” In his judgment,
NORWEGIAN BASE 15
“Carter was dealing with humanitarian issues without knowing anything
about matters on the Korean peninsula. He was packaging the North
Korean nuclear issue in a plausible manner in order to win the Nobel.” 2
South Korean authorities granted Carter all of his requests after June 13,
when North Korea announced its intent to withdraw from the Treaty on
the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapon (NPT). On June 15, Carter
entered the North via Panmunjom.
Carter and Kim Il-s ung talked intensively about North Korea’s
returning to the regime of the nonproliferation treaty and the possibility of
a deal in which North Korea would receive light- water nuclear reactors
to be financed by its longtime foes, including the United States, Japan, and
most of all, South Korea. When Carter returned to Seoul on June 18, he
was able to promise a huge gift for YS— namely, the prospect of a summit
with Kim Il-s ung. “It was an unexpected bonus of the trip,” Kwon wrote,
but the death of Kim Il- sung on July 7 not only precluded any chance of
a North- South summit at that time but opened a new period of North-S
outh hostility.3 Nonetheless, YS still yearned for affirmation of his
greatness as a president in search of North- South reconciliation, and
Kwon would be drawn into the quest for the Nobel on his behalf.
After YS’s five- year term as president ended in 1998, a series of
articles in Dong A Ilbo about his presidency said YS had tried to win the
favor of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, delegating a “Mr. C”— Choi
Jong- heup, from the National Security Planning Agency (NSPA) as the
NIS was then known— to run the campaign beginning in October 1993.
Choi, 15 years later risen to deputy NIS director, was highly qualified. He
had studied at the University of Oslo for 2 years, then served the agency
for 3 more years in Oslo in the 1980s and had numerous Norwegian
contacts.4
“He tried hard to create a favorable atmosphere for President Kim
Young- sam,” said the Dong A Ilbo article. “His activities were completely
secret . . . No one in the Korean embassy in Oslo knew what he was doing.
His activities for the Nobel Peace Prize lobby created conflicts for Korean
diplomats in the embassy.” A highranking official in the foreign ministry
said the rumor was that the NSPA representative in Norway, “Mr. C.,”
frequently cabled intelligence reports saying that “Ambassador C”— Choi
Dae- hwa— “[was] not paying sufficient attention to winning the Nobel
for YS.” Receiving the report from Oslo, the NSPA contended that “a
senior NSPA official had to be posted as ambassador to Norway.” Those
who were pressing for the Nobel Peace Prize for Kim Young- sam
contended that “a man with excellent intelligence [and] judgment should
be assigned as ambassador for effective lobbying.”5
Foreign Minister Han Sung- joo was pressed several times to switch
ambassadors in Norway during Kim Young-s am’s presidency. Han
contended that a sudden change in ambassadors would have an adverse
impact on the quest for the Nobel for YS, but pressure to appoint a new
ambassador intensified after North Korea suspended its withdrawal from
the NPT and signed the Geneva Framework Agreement with the United
States in October 1994. The deal called for North Korea to give up its
nuclear program in exchange for twin light- water reactors and shipment
of heavy oil from the United States to fuel North Korean power plants,
most of which were no longer operating. The group in charge of winning
the Nobel for YS decided “now was the time to bring in an ambassador
who would actively work for the prize . . . Reduction of tension on the
Korean peninsula, as a result of the Geneva agreement, might give a
chance for the Nobel,” said
Dong A Ilbo. “The time was now ripe for full- scale lobbying.”6
As a result, Ambassador Choi Dae- hwa was recalled to Seoul in
January 1995 after having served only one year of what was to have been
a normal three- year tour in Oslo. Norwegian officials were not happy.
“They strongly protested the early recall of the ambassador,” said Dong A
Ilbo. They “could not understand what had gone wrong in KoreanNorwegian relations” to force the early termination of the ambassador’s
tenure. The article also said that the incident would have an adverse impact
on Korea’s efforts someday to host the World Cup soccer finals.
Chung Mong- joon, president of the Korea Football Association, was
embarrassed by the response of a Norwegian member of FIFA, the
International Federation of Association Football, when he contacted
Chung asking “for a favor”— that is, support for South Korea’s World
Cup bid. The man, said Chung, responded by protesting the early recall of
the Korean ambassador! The Norwegian view was that premature
replacement of an ambassador was a diplomatic insult. For Chung, “It was
an embarrassment for me when I was in dire need of a vote.” 7
Suddenly, from his base with the consulate-g eneral in Atlanta, Kwon
Young- min seemed like the logical choice as Choi Dae- hwa’s
replacement in Oslo. While in Atlanta, besides getting to know people at
the Carter Center, Kwon had had close ties with the Martin Luther King
Jr. Human Rights Foundation. Indeed, he had somehow persuaded the
foundation to give Kim Young- sam its coveted “Martin Luther King Jr.
Non- Violence Peace Award” in January 1995. Thus YS, the eighteenth
NORWEGIAN BASE 17
person to receive the award, joined an illustrious group of previous
winners that included not only Jimmy Carter but also South African
Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the
Soviet Union, and Corazon Aquino, the former Philippine president. In
return for all that he had done, Kwon received his own reward in the form
of the ambassadorship to Norway, to which he was appointed a month
later.
“I wondered why I was assigned to Norway,” Kwon recalled. “I asked
the foreign minister and deputy foreign minister why I got the
appointment, but they didn’t tell me. I asked myself many times, and I
couldn’t find the answer.” Over several days of pondering, it dawned on
him: “It was the Nobel Peace Prize.” After the annual ambassadors’
conference in Seoul, Kwon confirmed YS’s eagerness to win it. “I was
suddenly confused because of the gravity of the job,” he wrote. 8 In view
of all his experience in expediting Carter’s mission to North Korea, Kwon
was well aware of the importance of the Nobel— and had some ideas of
how a Korean president might get it. His main mission was to see what he
could do about promoting YS for the prize.
Before Kwon went to Norway, a senior ambassador confided that Kim
Dae- jung also “has the greatest interest in the Nobel Peace Prize.” The
ambassador, not named, advised Kwon to be extremely careful not to
“create any misunderstandings” regarding his mission to Oslo. The
veteran ambassador’s advice also reminded Kwon that “one of Kim Daejung’s men, a member of the National Assembly, had been lobbying for
the Nobel Peace Prize” while Kwon had been a consular officer at the
Korean embassy in Bonn, Germany, several years earlier. 9
As ambassador to Norway for nearly three years, Kwon became known
as the main player in the campaign to earn the Nobel Peace Prize for Kim
Young-s am. Understandably, considering all that he had been doing for
DJ’s archrival, YS people were shocked by the announcement in January
1998 that he would be protocol secretary after DJ’s inauguration in
February. No one forgot that YS had easily defeated DJ in the 1992
presidential election even though Hyundai founder Chung Ju- yung had
waged a hard- fought “third- party” campaign that had taken votes away
from YS.
Kwon got into deep trouble with DJ when his association with YS fully
surfaced. He had to withdraw after his activity in Norway as ambassador
was reported to have included negative campaigning against DJ in which
he had purportedly said that DJ was “not a true leader in the democracy
movement” and “did not deserve the prize.” Kwon insisted he had not
lobbied for YS to win though he acknowledged perhaps mentioning YS
as a candidate during his normal duties as ambassador. He adamantly
denied, moreover, having ever bad- mouthed DJ. All that he had tried to
do, he said, was to ascertain if YS had a chance. Nor, he said, had he had
anything to do with YS winning the Martin Luther King Jr. award. 10
Rumor had it, however, that YS, when he realized he was out of the
running, had told the National Security Planning Agency to do everything
possible to keep DJ from walking away with the honor. Understandably,
Kwon might have had difficulty switching loyalties and priorities at short
notice and was less than enthusiastic about having to transfer the
machinery, the bureaucracy hitherto dedicated to YS beating out DJ. In
his book, Kwon was careful to recognize the allegations of Kim Ki-s am
regarding DJ’s pursuit of the Nobel but was just as careful to reserve
judgment. The fact that he cited Ki-s am’s charges without criticism,
however, suggested that he believed them to be true.
Just as South Korea was plunging into the economic crisis sweeping
Asia in late 1997, Yang Se- hun was promoted from the plush job of
consul- general in Honolulu to succeed Kwon as ambassador to Norway.
Yang looked forward to a pleasant three years in a second-t ier capital
even as South Korea was about to appeal to the International Monetary
Fund.
Like his predecessor, Yang, years later, published a book that
concluded with a chapter about all that he had gone through after realizing
that his main duty was to pursue the Nobel for DJ. In his book,
Changchunesuh Oslokkaji, meaning From Changchun (the large city in
Manchuria where he was born) to Oslo (where he concluded his career),
he wrote that he had received a call after DJ’s election in December 1997
from a close friend, Wang Dong-u n, the CEO of a trading company in
Seoul. Wang, Yang wrote, boasted of a rather curious link to DJ. The vice
president of his company, said Wang, was the brother of a female activist,
Lee Woo- jong, one of DJ’s closest supporters. “If there’s anything that
you cannot communicate via the official channel,” Wang reassured Yang,
“I can convey your message to the new president.” 11
First off, as ambassador, Yang paid a courtesy visit to the Norwegian
Nobel Committee, meeting its chairman and director-g eneral. As a result,
he “got to know that DJ for many years had been a strong candidate for
the Nobel Peace Prize,” and he also discovered that “to earn the prize for
DJ, the human rights record is not good enough.” DJ, he learned, would
have to “make a breakthrough in North- South relations.” At the time,
Yang found that many people in Norway— not only in government but
NORWEGIAN BASE 19
also in commerce, in the media, and on university campuses— were
“extremely excited about DJ.” Indeed, Yang understood that “even in the
Nobel committee, some people are personally enthusiastic about Kim
Dae- jung.” Yang proposed “a number of ideas for how to create favorable
circumstances for the new president to earn the Nobel Peace Prize.” As he
told his good friend Wang, “A breakthrough in North-S outh Korean
relations is the key.”12 Yang’s proposals, Wang later confirmed, were
passed on to activist Lee Woo- jong.
Yang, after that, made a habit of distributing documents to the
Norwegians in a wide range of fields, giving biographical material about
DJ to members of the Nobel Committee and promoting DJ’s policies as
president in private conversations and meetings with the mass media in
Norway. In an interview with a Norwegian television station, Yang
credited DJ with having conquered the economic crisis in South Korea
and offered details on DJ’s heroic struggles against human rights abuses
both in and out of Korea.
After attending the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in December 1997 at
which the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, led by Jody
Williams, got the award, Yang told his people in the Korean embassy,
“Among Koreans, our president is the closest ever to winning the Nobel
Peace Prize.” Although he had different views from DJ “on national
security and North Korea issues,” he said, “I want DJ to win the prize.”
He promised, “As long as I am in this post, I will do my best within the
scope of my discretion.” He assured his colleagues, “I want you to
understand my thinking”— though clearly he was not enthusiastic about
DJ’s policies.13
At the ambassadors’ conference in Seoul after DJ’s inauguration in
February 1998, Yang shook hands with Kim Jung- kwon, DJ’s new chief
of staff. Kim Jung- kwon had been political adviser to President Roh Taewoo in the early 1990s and had also been known as the delivery man of 2
billion won, approximately $2 million, from Roh to DJ in 1990.
Recognizing Yang’s name from the tag on the chest, he whispered, “You
are in charge of a very important venue.” Yang smiled without answering.
Before dinner, as Kim Dae- jung shook hands with each and every
ambassador, he appeared extremely exhausted. “He seemed to have
difficulty lifting his eyelids,” Yang recalled. DJ perked up, however, when
Yang’s name was called.14
After the ambassadors’ conference, Yang was introduced by Wang to
the activist Lee Woo- jong. She told Yang that she had personally
presented the document in which he had outlined the conditions under
which he could receive the Nobel Peace Prize. “The president nodded
from time to time as he read the documents,” she told him, indicating that
DJ was much impressed. Yang, however, realized that he was in a difficult
position when the woman added, “The foreign minister is annoyed that
the documents had gotten to DJ without going through the regular
channel”—a n omission that would soon cost Yang his job. The deputy
foreign minister, Sun Jun- young, when he met Yang some time later,
criticized his suggestion for inviting Norwegian Nobel Committee
members to Seoul as “not realistic.” Ominously, Sun warned, “Do not
report such unrealistic ideas.”15
After he came back to his post in Oslo, Yang encountered unexpected
problems in his relations with a number of high-l evel visitors from Seoul.
His bitterness was evident as he recalled the nasty comments they made
about him. He could not help but feel alienated from other Korean
officials. Take, for instance, the ingratitude of the minister of industry and
resources, Park Tae-y oung, who had visited Norway in July 1998. Park
led a trade delegation and paid a courtesy call on Kjell Magne Bondevik,
then prime minister of Norway, at which he conveyed DJ’s best regards—
another gesture to bring Norway and Korea close together for the sake of
the prize. Yang was highly disappointed, however, to learn that Park had
bad- mouthed him to DJ when he got back to Seoul. Yang’s reward was a
reprimand from the foreign minister, who told him, “You must explain
why you are not enthusiastic about attracting Norwegian investment to
South Korea in a time of economic crisis.”16
Similarly, another high- level visitor, Kim Sang- woo, a former
member of the National Assembly from DJ’s political organization and
president of the FDL- AP, came to Oslo to attend the award ceremony in
December 1998 when John Hume and David Trimble won it for their
efforts to bring peace to Northern Ireland.17 While there, with Yang’s
assistance, Kim met Erik Solheim, president of the Worldview Rights
Foundation; Rune Hersvik, the foundation’s general secretary; and Jan
Egland, a former deputy foreign minister. To his shock, however, Yang
discovered that Kim Sang-w oo had also bad-m outhed him on his return
to Seoul. “I don’t know the reason,” said Yang. “I saw him off at the
airport, and he smiled.”18
Yang encountered still more difficulty from Lee Young-j ak, statistics
professor and nephew of DJ’s wife, Lee Hee- ho, whom Yang describes
as having been quite peremptory in demanding to see all documents
relevant to DJ’s Nobel Prize quest. After having done what he could to
appear cooperative, Yang was still more disappointed when activist Lee
NORWEGIAN BASE 21
Woo-j ong conveyed her worries, saying, “You should not have given
documents to such visitors.” Clearly, Yang was caught in the middle of a
power struggle for DJ’s favor. 19
In the meantime, the NIS representative in the Korean embassy in Oslo,
Park No- yong, reported all of Yang’s activities, including two television
interviews. NIS Director Lee Jong-c han sent him a complimentary letter,
and the NIS representative informed Yang that another young aide of the
president would be visiting. That aide turned out to be Kim Han- jung,
who was then with the NIS and later would be running the whole NP
Project in the Blue House. Kim Han- jung told Yang, “I read with great
interest your document, in which I found many good ideas.” Kim said he
had come to Oslo “to see on the spot and to hear directly from you the
situation on the scene.” As far as Yang was concerned, Kim was totally
on his side. “Let us,” Yang quoted Kim as saying, “work together in the
future.” Kim in turn assured Yang that he would recommend that Yang
remain in his post in Norway “for a long time.”20
After the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in December 1998, Yang made
his bid for inviting a Norwegian mission to Korea, suggesting that two
Norwegian Nobel Committee members come to Seoul. He sought to
appear unbiased when he cited the advance of North- South Korea
relations, as seen in the opening of Mount Kumgang, to tourism from
South Korea, and the gift of 1,001 cows to North Korea by Hyundai
founder Chung Ju-y ung. Here was information that he believed the Nobel
people should know about.
One of the two, whose name does not appear in Yang’s book, Francis
Sejersted, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee from 1991, said
he was about to retire from the committee and had no desire to go to South
Korea again. Sejersted, however, had already indicated his hope that
Korea might produce a worthy recipient. In a visit to Seoul in September
1992 he had gone to the truce village of Panmunjom and, in a lecture at
Korea University, had said, “I hope to see a person or organization who
contributes to overcoming the division and conflicts on the Korean
peninsula.”21
The other, whose name also does not appear in the book, the bishop of
Oslo, Gunnar Johan Stålsett, showed a keen interest in going to Seoul.
When Yang learned that Stålsett was scheduled to visit the United States,
he advised him to stop by Seoul on the way back home. Stålsett agreed.
Yang passed this information to the intelligence office in the embassy,
Park No- yong, who cabled the long-a waited news to Kim Han-j ung at
NIS headquarters. Here was an opportunity not to be lost.
Kim Han-j ung had a clear understanding that chances of winning the
Nobel would soar if there was a way to cooperate with the Norwegian
Nobel Committee. Infiltrating the committee became the highest priority.
As soon as Kim Han- jung heard the news of Bishop Stålsett’s desire to
visit Seoul, he knew that here was the bait with which to hook the Bishop
and reel him in. Having been recruited by the NIS in 1998 for this special
mission, Kim was thrilled to have the chance to confer with Stålsett, the
most influential figure behind the Nobel Peace Prize selection.
The ostensible purpose of Bishop Stålsett’s visit to Seoul was to attend
a seminar called “democracy and market economy”— a field that would
not have appeared relevant to his activities as a bishop— and, of course,
to meet President Kim Dae- jung unofficially. The invitation letter, dated
February 3, 1999, inviting Bishop and Mrs. Stålsett, was couched in the
most sanctimonious language on the letterhead of the Academy of Korean
Studies, a prestigious research center funded by the government. Kim
Han-j ung asked Han Sang-j in, director of the academy and former
professor at Seoul
National University, to write the letter. “Considering the long distance
between Norway and Korea, and the rare opportunity to visit this country,”
wrote Han, “we hope that you could extend your stay in Korea for a few
more days.” The wording was duly flattering: “Your visit would be much
anticipated, and we wish to hear your perspective on the human rights
issue with respect to religion in modern society.”22
Kim Han- jung secretly handled all arrangements for the bishop’s stay
in Seoul from February 25 to March 3, 1999. At Kimpo International
Airport, Kim Han- jung and his NIS team guided Bishop and Mrs. Stålsett
to the VIP lounge for state guests. As expected, the trip gave Kim Hanjung a chance to build up rapport with the bishop. After a cursory seminar,
Kim Han-j ung and Han Sang-j in escorted the Stålsetts to the exotic Jeju
Island for the best sightseeing in South Korea. It was winter when the
yellow rape flowers blossom beneath the palm trees against the
background of snow- covered Mount Halla, South Korea’s highest peak.
Stålsett, after returning from Seoul, expressed his special thanks “for all
the consideration” that Yang had paid him. He also wrote a thank you
letter to Kim Han-j ung on March 12, 1999, saying, “Of course, the
audience with the President and the First lady was the highlight of the
tour.”23
Much to Yang’s chagrin, though, at the midpoint of what was to have
been a three-y ear posting, after having engineered Stålsett’s visit, he was
suddenly recalled to the foreign ministry when the government abruptly
NORWEGIAN BASE 23
advanced the retirement age for ambassadors. In his parting remarks to the
embassy staff in Oslo, Yang showed his disgust with the whole charade.
“The incumbent president is too willing to appease North Korea,” he said,
whether “because of his own beliefs or his desire to gain the Nobel Peace
Prize, or maybe as rumored he is actually supported by the North.” Yang
was still more outspoken as he warned, “In the near future this policy may
shatter the identity of the Republic of Korea.”24 On this bleak note, Yang’s
diplomatic career ended.
Yang, however, was by no means finished. One late spring day in 1999,
only two months into retirement, Yang got an unexpected call from an
NIS contact while enjoying his newly earned life of leisure in a suburb
south of Seoul. When told the reason for the call, he was even more
amazed. The NIS officer asked him to return to Norway on a special
mission. “Since I have already retired,” Yang responded, “it would not be
natural to visit Norway.”25 To avoid any political misunderstanding,
however, Yang agreed to return to Oslo. The whole purpose of the trip
was to meet Kim Han- jung for a dinner conference at Stålsett’s home in
order to confirm Kim’s role as the mediator in place of Yang for dealing
Stålsett.
Over dinner, Yang asked Stålsett how he was doing— a passing
question that gave Stålsett an opening to explain what the Norwegian
Nobel Committee was up to. “As always the committee has reviewed the
candidates in an objective way,” Yang quoted Stålsett as saying. “If all
members agree objectively, then the recommended candidate will be
nominated.” He did not specifically mention Kim Dae-j ung but said,
“Many people think the circumstances of your country are getting
positive,” and “I believe the incumbent president will make a
breakthrough in North- South relations.” Yang responded, “I am already
retired, and I want you to bestow the same favor on this young man sitting
beside me as you have done for me.” Yang was aware the bishop had met
Kim Han- jung in Seoul but hoped to cement the relationship. “That is the
reason why I am here,” he said. “This is my last mission.”26
In the middle of 1999, however, the Norwegian base went into tentative
hibernation due to a power shift at headquarters. NIS Director Lee Jongchan and Deputy Director Ra Jong-i l were suddenly forced out of their
positions on May 22, 1999. Lee was informed of his removal while
playing golf on a Sunday afternoon just as he was planning to go to the
Blue House the next day for endorsement by the president of his plan to
reshuffle the agency. Seeing the plan, DJ and those around him suspected
that Lee was establishing a personal power base and decided to cut him
out early. Soon afterward, Kim Han-j ung also had to leave the NIS—o n
his way not into oblivion but to power and influence in the Blue House.
After Yang left, the Norwegian base quickly adjusted its role in the
hunt for the Nobel with a new ambassador, Park Kyung- tae. Unlike most
of his predecessors, Park had been extremely supportive of his real
mission. According to an article in Dong A Ilbo, Park was so enthusiastic
that the foreign ministry in Seoul warned, “A diplomat is not supposed to
be involved in such things.”27 However, there would be no huge shift of
mission until Kim Han- jung surfaced as the center of the project at the
end of the year.
After departing the NIS, Kim Han- jung set his eyes clearly on Norway.
He made multiple visits to Oslo in the ensuing months to check on the
atmosphere. Accompanied by his former boss, the ex- director of the NIS,
Lee Jong-c han, Kim again saw Bishop Stålsett in September 1999. This
time they had a special mission that would take them to Stockholm as well
as Oslo. The excuse for the junket was to celebrate the publication,
financed by the NIS, of the Swedish translation of DJ’s book, From Prison
to President.
3
Softening the Swedes
T
he whole country was in dire straits when the Office of External
Cooperation Aid (OECA) at the NIS took charge of the NP Project in
August 1998. The primary agenda was to enhance Korea’s national credit
before the rest of the world. The country was still recovering from the
1997– 98 economic crisis in which the government had had to go to the
International Monetary Fund to piece together a $58 billion rescue
package. People were volunteering to give up their gold jewelry in order
to shore up the nation’s finances. More than 3.5 million patriotic Koreans
participated in the campaign; a total of 227 tons of gold, worth around
$2.2 billion, was collected.
Within the inner circle, one way to elevate Korea’s image was to
advertise newly elected President Kim Dae- jung as an ardent advocate of
peace, democracy, and human rights. DJ’s efforts to foster reconciliation
between the two Koreas were key to a positive influence over the Nobel
decision as well as economic recovery. Kim Han-j ung was at the core of
all activities to enhance these goals. The issue of whether the NIS was the
proper agency to be carrying out such missions, if discussed at all, was
not taken seriously. In the drive for the Nobel Peace Prize, as far as Kim
Han- jung was concerned, all that mattered was what worked.
Kim Han- jung was full of ideas for peace concerts and books, first at
the NIS and then, after moving to the Blue House, by way of the Forum
of Democratic Leaders in the Asia Pacific (FDL- AP). While at the NIS,
he conceived of a book of DJ’s writings geared specifically for the
Scandinavian audience and managed to publish a quickie picture book
featuring DJ in order to project his image before a broad foreign audience.
After ascending to his aerie at the Blue House, as chief of the first
attachment chamber, he grasped the levers of power needed to manipulate
all activities of the NP Project team.
From the beginning, the Scandinavian book project loomed as one of
the highest priorities. Lee Jong-c han wanted to make sure the book, From
Prison to President, was properly published and distributed in a timely
fashion to the three Scandinavian countries, Sweden, Norway, and
Denmark. A confidential NIS internal memo from Lee Byung- chun,
intelligence officer in Stockholm from 1996 to 1999, explained his “secret
mission” beginning when Director Lee in September 1998 told him to get
a Swedish house to publish the book by October 1999. NIS officer Lee
was to have returned to Seoul in 1999, but Director Lee, before leaving
his post in May 1999, ordered him to overstay six months for completion
of this special operation.
Lee Byung- chun worked extremely hard on the project, riding herd on
a translation team in Stockholm that included Choi Byung- eun, a
longtime fan of Kim Dae-j ung; his wife, Park Kyong-j u; and their
daughter, Choi Seo- kyung. “They’re all experts in foreign languages,”
Lee cabled his boss at NIS headquarters.1 The translation, he said, “would
be reviewed by Hans Berggren”— a “most fortuitous choice,” since he
had translated into Swedish the work of the Portuguese novelist, poet and
playwright, José de Sousa Saramago, winner of the Nobel Prize for
Literature the previous year, 1998.2 In view of that background, Berggren
was likely to offer his own insights into the qualities to emphasize for a
potential Nobel Prize winner.
Translator Choi, according to the same cable, contacted an
acquaintance in Seoul, Ji Seung- lim, press secretary of Samsung
Chairman Lee Kun- hee and personal friend of DJ’s second son, Kim
Hong- up, asking if Samsung would underwrite the project. Informed by
his second son of Samsung’s possible role, DJ said it was “not a good idea
to relate the book project to a specific company.” The reason was believed
to be that “DJ did not want others to learn of the involvement of the Blue
House or the NIS.”3 Later, Kim Han- jung drew from the NIS budget to
cover the cost, approximately $200,000, while saving Samsung for other
much bigger favors.
At the same time, Lee Byung- chun persuaded Torbjorn Loden, director
of the Asia- Pacific Institute of Stockholm University, to agree to the use
of the name of the institute as the publisher and to review the book.
Luckily, the innocent scholar never picked up the scent of the “special
operation” behind the publication campaign waged by the intelligence
agency in Seoul. Lee also got a renowned printing company, Nosted, to
print the book before August 15, 1999, the anniversary of the Japanese
surrender in 1945, a date celebrated by both Koreas as Independence Day.
NIS scheming also had other unseen considerations. The real reason
for setting that deadline was that the Norwegian Nobel Committee would
soon make its selection for 1999. Lee Byung-c hun contacted the Palme
Foundation, named for the assassinated Swedish Prime Minister, Olof
Palme, and got his widow, Lisbet, to write a flowery preface. The Burmese
SOFTENING THE SWEDES 27
democratic hero, Aung San Suu Kyi, contacted by the NP Project team in
Korea, probably by Kim Han- jung himself, contributed a second preface.
Torbjorn Loden threw a book party at his Asia-P acific Institute on
September 10, 1999. Among the guests were Lisbet Palme and Inge
Johansson, former president of Stockholm University, along with former
and current foreign ministry officials.
Loden, in his speech, said it was “a huge personal honor” to publish the
book. “We will see President Kim Dae- jung’s love for mankind and
family and his sincere religious belief, which forms the spiritual
background to overcome tremendous difficulties,” said Loden. “We will
have direct understanding of his thought and philosophy,” he declaimed,
proposing a toast to DJ’s health and the friendship of Korea and Sweden. 4
Once the book was published, Lee Byung-c hun distributed gratis 2,000
copies, all cloaked in the respectability of Stockholm University’s AsiaPacific Institute, and got journalists to write favorable reviews. A report
to the NIS director proudly stated that the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet
had published a review of the book on November 8, 1999, along with a
photograph of Kim Dae- jung. The preface by Ms. Palme called it a
“notable book by one who led a dramatic life,” and the review soared to
still greater heights of praise. “His life was as dramatic as that of Nelson
Mandela of South Africa,” it said. The reader “will find Kim Dae-j ung
not just the leader of a country but a man with tremendous convictions . .
. This book gives an impression that it was written not by a political
prisoner but by a Christian martyr.”5
There was talk of a second book. Lee Byung- chun cabled the NIS on
December 6, 1999, saying the KOIS in Seoul was planning to publish a
DJ book in Swedish called, My Life, My Way. However, said Lee, the
Korean embassy in Stockholm was “vehemently against” the idea. “Since
From Prison to President was published only a few months ago,” said
Lee, “the embassy believes another book will cause unnecessary
misunderstanding in Sweden and would highly likely have the reverse
effect” of promoting DJ for the prize. “If the embassy gets involved as a
participant in the project,” Lee warned, “it will trigger a potential problem
in Sweden.” Indeed, “dissident Swedish-K oreans could involve
opposition parties in Korea in political controversy.” 6
In other words, Korean conservatives, always eager to go after DJ,
could pounce on the second book for what it was, a self-s erving
promotion that had no legitimate purpose other than to pursue the Nobel
Peace Prize. Lee Byung- chun also worried that “some unidentified
Korean might try to obtain information on the background of From Prison
to President”— and perhaps expose the role of the NIS. “The second
publication will generate more negative rather than positive results,” said
Lee, attributing that analysis to the ambassador, Son Myung- hyun. “Even
if the publication is necessary,” he said, “It has to be done after
considerable time,” and a respectable nongovernmental organization, not
the government and certainly not the NIS, should “appear as the main
force behind the project.”7
When Kim Han- jung and Lee Jong- chan visited Stockholm in
September 1999, they confirmed their promise of a promotion for Lee
Byung- chun. In early 2000, however, Lee Byung- chun not only failed to
win the promotion but also faced the end of his career due to the agency’s
policy of compelling career people to retire at their last rank if they failed
to advance. He complained to the new director, Lim Dong- won, one of
Kim Dae- jung’s highest officials engrossed in setting up the June 2000
Summit and marshaling forces for the Nobel, that he was passed over. “If
I am not promoted,” he messaged, “I will go to the media to spill all the
material before the general election for the National Assembly in April
2000.”8 It was up to Lim, as NIS director, to entice him to back down with
whispers of postretirement contracts.
Lee Byung-c hun’s successor in Stockholm, Park Jong-j ae, now had
the mission of explaining in a cable at the end of March 2000 how and
why My Life, My Way, was killed. “The Korean Overseas Information
Service (KOIS) decided to publish the second book in Swedish but had to
find a translator and publisher in Sweden,” said Park. The new press
attaché in Stockholm, Jang Gil-n am, assigned on February 25, 2000, “was
diligently continuing the second book project and reported his detailed
planning to the headquarters of KOIS on March 23, 2000,” Park cabled.9
The idea was for a version of My Life, My Way, already published in
German, to form the basis for the Swedish translation, and the search
began for someone to translate the book from German to Swedish. The
targeted publisher was again Stockholm University or “some other
renowned Swedish publisher” with publication envisioned in February
2001. After talking over the scheme, however, the KOIS at the behest of
Kim Han- jung decided to postpone publication entirely in order to avoid
excessive attention.10
The NP Project team was looking for still more possibilities for
softening up the Nobel people in Stockholm. More important than the
book project was another approach in which Samsung money could
definitely play a role. The Nobel Foundation in Stockholm envisioned an
international exhibition in 2001 marking a century of Nobel prize-g iving
in all categories. The foundation would produce an exhibition in
Stockholm for four years beginning April 1, 2001. The theme would be
“cultures of creativity,” and the title, “The Centennial Exhibition of the
Nobel Prize, 1901–2 001.”11
A flossy brochure published by the Nobel Foundation enthused over
the possibilities: “These exhibitions will draw on the unique knowledge
that exists in the larger ‘Nobel system’ with its many international experts
as well as the many Nobel Symposia that are arranged each year in
Sweden and Norway for the discussion of the latest developments and
current problems in science, literature and efforts for peace.”12
The idea then was to stage the exhibition in a number of capitals
beginning in Oslo in August 2001 and moving on to Tokyo from February
to June 2002, Seoul from August to October 2002, then San Francisco,
Chicago, and New York, and finally Berlin. The purpose of the exhibition,
according to an NIS internal memo of December 3, 1999, was to
“encourage the creativity of mankind.”13 Items to be shown would include
“photographs of Alfred Nobel and about fifty Nobel laureates as well as
displays of their books, laboratory equipment and personal items of many
of them, including the clothes they wore.” The reason South Korea was
on the itinerary for the exhibition was that “Swedish companies, including
Volvo, Ericsson, and ABB, told the foundation they wanted to expand
their South Korean trade and investment.”14
The brochure described the purpose of the exhibition in high- minded
terms, promising “rich material that can be appreciated and enjoyed in a
meaningful and educational way by audiences of all age.” A final page on
“finances” was more circumspect, almost coy. “The Swedish corporate
sponsors have agreed that local sponsors might be able to participate at
each location”15—a none-t oo-s ubtle hint of eagerness for handouts. The
Nobel Foundation was quick to request financial support from South
Korea. Svante Lindqvist, museum director, visited South Korea in
November 1999, meeting people at the Samsung Cultural Foundation, the
foreign ministry, and Kyunghee University. The initial estimate of
expenses to stage the exhibition in Korea alone was for about $1.35
million, not counting the cost of the actual exhibition hall.
Lee Byung-c hun, the hardworking NIS officer in Stockholm, was
confident. “The exhibition in Korea will be a good stimulus for the Korean
people and will considerably boost the cause of creativity development in
education,” he said in a cable in October 1999. “Rather than get private
support for the event, the government has to provide support for a
successful exhibition. It is desirable for the government to support the
exhibition in order to upgrade relations with the Nobel Foundation.” 16
Reporting the outcome of Lindqvist’s visit to Seoul, Lee said Lindqvist
had met the director of the cultural bureau of the foreign ministry, Kim
Seung- eui, explaining the whole scheme of the exhibit and requesting
Korean participation. Kim had made clear, said Lee, that “the Korean
government had no intention to support the exhibit in Seoul”—b ut he
carefully left the door open for donations from private companies. 17
“The Korean government,” Kim Seung-e ui promised, “would not
interfere with private- level donations.” Lindqvist replied, “I fully
understood the position of the South Korean government” and “would
keep informing the progress of the exhibition though the Korean embassy
in Sweden.” Most importantly for his mission, Lindqvist met the vice
president of the Samsung Cultural Foundation, Han Young- ae, on
November 24, 1999, and outlined the exhibition plan. Ms. Han said that
Samsung was interested in the exhibition and would inform Lindqvist of
the prospect “after a full review.”18
Hearing from Lindqvist, Lee Byung- chun conveyed his resentment via
cable: “The South Korean embassy in Stockholm was disappointed by the
outcome of the meeting in the foreign ministry,” especially since the
embassy had “strongly recommended that governmental support is
necessary rather than on a private level.”19 The ambassador, Son Myungh yun, complained about the decision of the foreign ministry. His opinion
was that the government should cover part of the expense just as other
countries were doing.
By January 2000, however, around one month after Kim Han- jung got
his job next to DJ’s office, the atmosphere in the Blue House changed
drastically. Kim was now in charge of the NP Project, and everyone in the
government was vitally aware of the need for total cooperation. The
change of course happened before Michael Sohlman, director of the Nobel
Foundation, visited Seoul in February 2000. It would be his second visit—
the NIS director had hosted him on his first in March 1998 at the beginning
of the campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize. This time, however, the NIS
sensed the Blue House was manipulating Sohlman in ways not known to
the agency. On January 20, 2000, Kim Han- jung told Han Young- woo,
the Korean- Swedish doctor who was serving as intermediary between the
NP Project team and the Swedes, “President Kim has personally endorsed
government support for the exhibition.”20 He asked Han not to inform the
NIS.
Lim Dong-w on, appointed NIS director at the end of December 1999,
drafted talking points on what to say to Sohlman in his first meeting with
this tall, nice- looking, blue- eyed gentleman. Lim said that he would tell
Sohlman that “the Hoam Foundation, an adjunct of the Samsung Empire,
had agreed to finance the exhibition” and “I look forward to the success
of the exhibition in Seoul.” He also promised that the ministry of culture
and tourism and the ministry of science and technology would provide “all
possible support” for the sake of “expansion of mutual exchange and
cooperation between South Korea and Sweden.”21
With these new developments, the visit of Sohlman and the SwedishKorean Dr. Han Young-w oo to Seoul in February 2000 was a total
success and great pleasure—a key event in the climactic phase of the
Nobel campaign. “The Nobel Museum will do its utmost to produce an
exhibition which— using the latest in museum design and multimedia
techniques— can be appreciated and enjoyed in a meaningful and
educational way by audiences of all ages,” said the letter of intent,
repeating the wording of the brochure, signed on February 28 by Sohlman
and Lee Shil, executive managing director of the Hoam Foundation. “The
Hoam Foundation will assist the Nobel Museum in this to the best of its
abilities”—w ith full awareness that “there are some costs that must be
met in order for the Nobel Museum to balance the project budget, i.e.,
rental cost as well as the actual costs of transportation, translation,
insurance, construction and so forth.”22
The Hoam Foundation had a long history of fronting for Samsung
interests. Hoam, whose Chinese characters literally mean “Lake Rock,”
was the scholarly name for Lee Byung-c hul, the founder of Samsung,
who started Samsung as a rice-t rading company during the Japanese
colonial era and passed on the empire to his third son before dying in 1987.
Lee’s passions ranged far beyond normal commerce, encompassing
cultural activities as well as mass media, notably JoongAng Ilbo, Korea’s
second biggest-s elling newspaper, founded in 1965. His hobby was
collecting art works, many of which he donated to the Hoam Art Museum
in the vast Everland resort that Samsung built south of Seoul, and to the
Hoam Gallery in Seoul. The Hoam Foundation zeroed in on the Nobel
Foundation as a device to gain prestige for the Hoam prize, first awarded
in 1990 for “excellence in scholarship, art and the welfare of mankind.” 23
A delegation from Hoam had visited the Nobel Foundation in August
1995, meeting the foundation’s press secretary and a staff member
responsible for medical awards. In December 1995, the Nobel Foundation
invited Kwon Yi-h yuk, former president of Seoul National University, a
member of the Hoam board, and two Hoam staff members to the
ceremony at which Nobel Prizes were awarded in Stockholm. The next
year, the Hoam Foundation invited Nobel Foundation committee member
Jan Lindsten, dean of the Karolinska Institutet, where the Nobels for every
category but the Peace Prize were selected annually, to the Hoam awards
ceremony in Seoul.24
The relationship between Samsung and the Nobel people had
blossomed when Michael Sohlman, on his first visit to Seoul in March
1998, met the CEO of Samsung Electronics, Kang Jin- ku. Then, a year
later, in March 1999, the Nobel Foundation asked Hoam to “participate”
in the Centennial Nobel Exhibition.25 It was, therefore, on the basis of the
Hoam connection that the Nobel Foundation got the money from the
“cultural” tycoon, Samsung.
The pledge to put up the funds, however discreetly worded, represented
a milestone on the way to the Nobel. On the Korean side, the inner contact
was Dr. Han, who had introduced Sohlman, the primary Nobel mover and
shaker, to the Blue House. At Han’s urging, the NIS financed and set up
a detailed schedule that had Sohlman arriving on February 26, 2000,
checking in at the Hyatt Hotel on the slope of Namsan, the promontory
with a view of all of Seoul, and attending a “welcome dinner” that
evening. After a Sunday touring Jeju, the scenic island south of the Korean
Peninsula, he was off to the Hoam Gallery on Monday, then to the
Samsung Electronics plant south of Seoul in the afternoon. 26 Those were
the highlights of the visit, the chance to sell Sohlman on the Nobel
program— the ultimate aim, of course, being to win the Nobel Peace Prize
for DJ.
An internal NIS memo described Sohlman’s visit to Seoul. “The
outcome of Sohlman’s visit was that the Nobel Foundation and the
Samsung Cultural Foundation exchanged their letter of intent, and
Sohlman and Park Jie- won confirmed their positive support for the
exhibition.” They tentatively agreed to have the exhibition between
August and December 2002. Most importantly, said the NIS memo,
Sohlman paid a “courtesy visit” to the Blue House on February 29, 2000,
that began at 4 p.m. and lasted around fifty minutes— far longer than the
normal “courtesy call.”27
At the courtesy call, Sohlman said he had “deep impressions of
President Kim from their direct meeting.” Topics for discussion, said the
NIS memo, included “development of North- South relations and
diplomatic development between South Korea and Russia”— possibly a
reflection of Sohlman’s Russian background— and “cooperation between
South Korea and the European Union.” Sohlman said he had twice read
DJ’s book, From Prison to President, as translated into Swedish, and
expressed his “deep impressions of Kim Dae- jung’s efforts to impose
democracy in South Korea and to solve the problem of North- South
relations.” In that meeting Hwang Won- tak, national security adviser;
Cho Koo- hyang, education and cultural adviser, and Kim Han- jung
joined Sohlman and Han Young- woo.28
The total NIS budget for the Han-S ohlman visitation was
approximately $25,000, a trivial sum in the overall context of all the funds
invested in the quest for the Nobel. The figure covered airfare, hotel bills,
and sightseeing expenses not only for Han but also for Han’s family,
including his wife and son. Dr. Han, his wife, and eight- year- old son got
their tickets upgraded to first class. Sohlman, in a show of Nobel
independence and objectivity, charged his airfare to his organization, but
the NIS bought him a suit costing about $900. The NIS also presented Han
with a “gift” that cost about $500 as well as a flat $10,000 cash “donation”
for Han— all from a “special activities” budget quite separate from the
basic cost of the trip.29 That budget was set up specifically to cover
unavoidable expenses in paying people off, under one guise or another,
for the sake of the Nobel for the president.
Ten months later, right before the Nobel award ceremony for Kim Daejung, the Nobel Foundation asked the Blue House to provide the original
manuscript of DJ’s letters from prison, DJ’s prison uniform, and the bible
DJ had read while in prison for the Centennial Exhibition. Kyunghyang
Shinmun, a liberal daily in Seoul, said, “The Nobel foundation had decided
on December 7, 2000, to select some thirty Nobel laureates out of more
than 700 for the exhibition, and DJ was one of the four Peace Prize
laureates along with Nelson Mandela of South Africa.”30
One year after winning the historic award, DJ made another trip to
Sweden, December 4– 11, 2001. This time he participated in the Nobel
Prize Centennial anniversary, the biggest event ever staged by the Nobel
Foundation. More than two hundred laureates got together to celebrate the
anniversary during which the Centennial Exhibition was held. Samsung
Electronics gave extended aid to the Nobel Foundation by providing more
than one hundred sets of state- of- the- art digital devices including the
Thin Film Transistor Liquid Crystal Display (TFT- LCD) and the Digital
Video Disk Player (DVDP). Samsung, of course, was invited by the Nobel
Foundation to display its own products at the exhibition, including the
MP3 Player “CD- Yepp,” an icon of the digital era just as the Sony
Walkman was an icon of the analog era.31
From August 23 through November 3, 2002, the Centennial Exhibition
was held at Rodin Gallery in downtown Seoul. DJ’s prison uniform,
glasses, walking stick, letters, and award certificate and medal were
displayed along with Madame Marie Curie’s ionization chamber,
Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen’s X-r ay tube, and Alexander Fleming’s
penicillin bottle, as well as photos of seven thousand- plus laureates and
videos. The exhibition was promoted as a great educational opportunity
for children. Nobody knew or cared about the twists and turns that had
brought the exhibition to Seoul.
Michael Sohlman, visiting Seoul for the exhibition, said, “We had kept
the authority of the Nobel Prize for the last 100 years by transparency in
the course of selection.” If anyone suspected a lobby was trying to
influence the selection of any recipient, he vowed, “We exclude the
candidate or proceed much more meticulously.” Thus, he stressed, “The
lobby, if found, is detrimental to the prospective candidate.” 32 For his
many years of success in the foundation, on August 23, 2002, Sohlman
proudly accepted an honorary doctorate in politics from Sunggyunkwan
University in Seoul— owned by the Samsung Cultural Foundation.
4
Spreading the Net
M
ichael Jackson staged the biggest performance of his career in
Seoul’s
Olympic Stadium on June 25, 1999, before fifty thousand people
and millions more who saw it televised in real time in South Korea and all
around the world. Billed as “Michael Jackson and Friends,” the concert
started at 6:30 in the evening and lasted five hours. It was so grandly
designed that the Korean media praised it as “the very last spectacle on
earth in the 20th century.”1 Equipment for the concert weighed more than
five hundred tons.
The concert reached its climax when two pieces of an iron bridge
emerged from below and one descended from above. While Jackson was
singing on the center piece of the bridge, the two side bridges gradually
converged, symbolizing the reunification of Korea. The center bridge,
where Jackson was performing, linked the other two bridges representing
North and South Korea. With special thanks to President Kim Dae- jung
for supporting the concert, Jackson vowed “to come back to Korea to hold
another concert at the time of reunification.” Ten years later, after Jackson
died, Kim Dae- jung prayed for his soul, saying, “I lost a good friend.” 2
Some people knew that the concert was originally planned at the truce
village of Panmunjom on May 5, Children’s Day in South Korea, perhaps
the perfect time and venue for a singer who had displayed such a wellpublicized if peculiar love for children. Lack of cooperation from North
Korea, however, ruled out that idea. Almost no one, aside from a few
insiders, knew that the hidden hand behind Jackson’s performance was
Kim Han- jung. Why, however, was he involved in this cultural event?
The answer was simple. The main reason was the event was to boost the
image of peace and reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula. The NP
Project team understood the power of culture and the need to exploit
cultural events. They were convinced that concerts and arts exhibitions
were needed to popularize the cause— and enhance DJ’s chances for the
Nobel Peace Prize.
SPREADING THE NET 37
Few knew, however, that two special guests from Norway attended the
concert. Their names were Rune Hersvik and Erik Solheim. According to
NIS internal memo, they were invited to Seoul by Kim Han-j ung to join
in what he dubbed the “Garden Project,” a frivolous name that made it
seem like a fun way to spend a few days. They were supposed to
participate in a conference in Seoul put on by the Forum of Democratic
Leaders in the Asia Pacific (FDL- AP) at which human rights in Myanmar,
a.k.a. Burma, would be the central topic. The title of the conference, which
ran from June 23 to June 26, 1999, was “New NGO Strategy for
Democratization of Burma.” The impresario behind the conference,
inevitably, was Kim Han- jung as vice director of the FDL- AP.
These two, Hersvik and Solheim, were among the “peripheral” contacts
in Kim Han- jung’s scheme for the Nobel. He was well aware of the
importance not merely of those identified as “core targets” but also of a
wide range of lesser figures, among whom Hersvik ranked at the top.
Solheim was seen as an influential figure as leader of the Socialist Left.
The NIS covered airfare and lodging for Hersvik and Solheim, spending
about $7,000 for their visit, including $1,000 for sightseeing on Jeju Island
plus excursions to Namsan Tower, which is set on a small mountain in
central Seoul with a view of the entire capital. They were also invited to
tour the war memorial, a spacious museum at the Yongsan military base
with elaborate displays on all of Korea’s military history, notably the
Korean War. The budget included another $2,000 for “miscellaneous
expenses” not otherwise specified.
An NIS cable explained why Hersvik was held in such esteem.
According to the cable, Hersvik “had a long background of concern for
human rights and was a source of ideas and inspiration for both the NIS
and the Nobel committee.”3 As general secretary of the Worldview Rights
Foundation, headquartered in Stavenger on Norway’s southwestern coast,
Hersvik claimed the support of the United Nations (UN) Conference on
Environment and Development. He was also active in “PD Burma,” an
organization of human rights advocates for “promoting democracy” in
Myanmar. It was Hersvik, according to Dong A Ilbo, who gave Kim Hanjung the idea of espousing the causes of East Timor and Myanmar. “He
was hooked up with Kim Han- jung when invited to South Korea in
December 1998,” said the paper. Discovering that they shared the same
outlook, “they began to have a close relationship.”4
On that first visit, Kim Han-j ung escorted Hersvik to Panmunjom, a
standard stop for visitors to Korea, said Dong A Ilbo.5 Claiming a special
relationship with the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Hersvik, after
checking out Panmunjom, proposed a North- South Korean peace concert
in the demilitarized zone as well as support for democracy movements in
East Timor and Myanmar. The inference was that leaders of these
struggles would pay close attention to DJ’s policies as long as they were
sure of South Korean support.
Hersvik was at the hub of Norwegian and foreign activists concerned
about human rights everywhere. Among friends and contacts, said the NIS
cable written by the industrious Park No- yong, an NIS officer in Oslo,
were UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan, Nelson Mandela, whose
personal suffering and antiapartheid crusade in South Africa made him the
icon of the human rights movement, and José Ramos- Horta, then the
foreign minister of East Timor.6 The fact that Mandela and Ramos- Horta
had already won the Nobel Peace Prize made Hersvik all the more
important. Hersvik, said Park, “is not only a human rights activist but a
friend of Korea,” “a leading member of international human rights
campaigns,” and “is actively involved in the democratization of Burma as
secretary-g eneral of the Norwegian branch of PD Burma.”7
Most importantly, Park went on, Hersvik supported “Nobel Peace Prize
laureates when in political difficulty,” as in the cases of Mandela, Aung
San Suu Kyi, and Ramos- Horta.8 Making sure to include all celebrity
human rights activists in his net, Hersvik also gave his support to Tibet’s
spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. In July 1999, he made much of Kim Daej ung as a figure in the global human rights struggle when he met RamosHorta at a Myanmar conference in Bangkok. Hersvik’s network had once
included the late Yun I- sang, the Korean composer in Germany and
longtime devotee of Kim Il-s ung, who died in 1995. So profound was
Yun I-s ang’s allegiance to North Korea that the North’s only Westernstyle orchestra was named after him—t he “Isang Yun Orchestra.” Inside
Norway, Hersvik’s contacts included Prime Minister Bondevik as well as
Solheim.
To grease the way to Nobel glory, Kim Han-j ung placed special
emphasis on NGO projects in both Norway and Korea. From early 1999,
the Worldview Rights Foundation promoted a “peace concert” as well as
a sculpture exhibition in Panmunjom. Kim Han- jung supported this
proposal behind the scenes. The Worldview Rights Foundation had
already established a contact channel in North Korea through Hersvik,
who had gone to North Korea a number of times. The goal of the
foundation was to stage the concert and exhibition by the end of 2000.
Hersvik visited Seoul three times in 1999. The purpose of the first visit in
February was again to discuss a peace concert at Panmunjom in
cooperation with North as well as South Korea.
Hersvik and Solheim served a larger purpose in developing a rapport
with people who might influence the selection for the Nobel Peace Prize.
It was after Kim Han- jung and Hersvik had discussed the idea of a concert
at Panmunjom that Kim invited Hersvik to the Michael Jackson concert
and the Myanmar conference. On the final day of the visit they went
shopping, looking for bargains in the labyrinthine alleys of the famous
Namdaemun Market near Namdaemun or “South Gate,” a historic portal
into old Seoul.
There was one more invitee of the “Garden Project”— Jan Ramstad,
then deputy director and later the director of the Rafto Foundation. Unlike
Hersvik and Solheim, however, Ramstad made a show of flying at the
expense of his own foundation. Besides participating in the conference,
he had his own agenda— to meet Hwang Jang- yop, the most highly
profiled North Korean defector to South Korea, former president of Kim
Il- sung University, chairman of North Korea’s Supreme People’s
Assembly, and international affairs secretary of (North Korea’s) Workers’
Party of Korea (WPK). While passing through Beijing in February 1987
on his way home from Tokyo, he and his aide, Kim Duk- hong, entered
the South Korean embassy and declared themselves defectors. The
Chinese finally let them fly on to Manila and then to South Korea.
No sooner had they arrived in Seoul than Hwang publicly professed his
complete disillusionment with North Korean- style communism after a
career in which he had taught Kim Jong- il and was also credited with
coming up with the concept of juche, meaning “self-r eliance” (elevated
to the level of a state ideology). One reason Hwang decided to defect, as
confirmed in books and articles by him, was that Kim Jong-i l did not like
his suggestions that North Korea move closer to Chinese-s tyle
communism with its limited tolerance of privately owned enterprises.
Ramstad’s eagerness to meet Hwang showed a refreshingly different
view from that of the liberal thinkers who dominated the Norwegian Nobel
Committee. Ramstad’s outlook also conflicted with the current thinking
of Kim Dae-j ung’s topmost advisers. Fearful of offending the North
Koreans, they set tight limitations on Hwang’s freedom to speak out in the
South. He wrote numerous books and served as chairman of the
Unification Policy Research Institute, funded by the NIS, but the minds
behind the NP Project deemed him a liability in the quest for the Nobel.
Confined for much of the time to a residence inside the NIS compound,
Hwang was denied the chance to go on speaking out as he wished in Korea
and abroad. He was glad to pour out all he knew to NIS analysts but also
wanted a broader audience. It would not be until well after DJ’s term as
president had ended in February 2003 that Hwang would begin to talk
openly as he wished. He displayed his full fire in an impassioned
denunciation of the North Korean regime that Donald Kirk attended at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington on
March 31, 2010, shortly before he died on October 10 at the home that the
NIS had given him in Seoul.
Before flying to Seoul for the Myanmar conference in June 1999,
Ramstad asked Park No-y ong of the NIS to arrange for the meeting with
Hwang “and anyone who can help me to understand the problems of North
Korean escapees.” The reason Ramstad wanted to meet Hwang was “to
assess the human rights situation in North Korea and introduce Hwang’s
testimony to the Norwegian foreign ministry, international human rights
organizations and the media.” Ramstad also had the idea of using this
testimony “to conduct a human rights campaign against North Korea,”
said an NIS memo, and hoped to see others who knew about North Korean
escapees in order to have his own agents contact them directly in China
and Russia. Ramstad, said the memo, wanted “advice from anyone who
could give information for a direct approach to escapees.” 9
With that goal in mind, Ramstad asked to see one other celebrity critic
of the conditions in North Korea—K ang Chol-h wan, the defector who
was raised in the infamous Yodok concentration camp after his entire
family was imprisoned there. Kang’s father, a member of the large Korean
community in Japan, had been so impressed by North Korean communism
that he had taken his family to live in Pyongyang. Like most other
similarly mesmerized Korean- Japanese who had gone to live and work in
North Korea, he grew disillusioned and was finally imprisoned along with
his wife and children. Kang’s parents died in the camp, but Kang himself
was eventually released, escaped to China, and wound up in South Korea
working for the conservative Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s biggest- selling
newspaper.
In collaboration with French author Pierre Rigolout, Kang had written
Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag, one of
the best known books about the cruelties of the North Korean prison
system. The fact that Ramstad wanted to see this famous defector, whose
experiences were so different from anything the NP Project wanted known
and publicized about North Korea, put him in an altogether different
category from the other characters courted by the NP Project team.
Why had Kim Han- jung included Ramstad among invitees to the
Myanmar conference? The answer was that Ramstad and the Rafto
Foundation, named for economist Thorolf Rafto who died in 1986, seven
years after Communist police had beaten him in Prague, had tremendous
prestige for his work on human rights. Many people in Norway held the
Rafto Memorial Prize, given annually to a hero of the human rights
movement, in higher esteem than the Nobel Peace Prize. The NIS
supported the foundation’s research on human rights in North Korea,
North- South Korean relations, and South Korea’s North Korea policy
from 1999 through 2000.
At the urging of the NIS, the foundation, affiliated with the Norwegian
School of Economics in Bergen, proposed holding a seminar on
“Circumstances on the Korean Peninsula” in Norway in late 2000, around
the time DJ would again be up for the Nobel.
The NIS exercised the same cunning in researching Ramstad’s
credentials as it did all the others in the cast of characters whose influence
was needed in the hunt for the Nobel. Ramstad had been a lecturer at the
Norwegian School of Economics from 1979 to 1986 while Rafto slowly
regained his strength from the injuries inflicted in Prague. A companion
of Rafto in his final years, Ramstad, a founding member of the Rafto
Foundation, was vice director from 1986 to October 1999 and then
became director. According to the NIS memo, Ramstad participated in
human rights campaigns from Russia and Eastern Europe to Myanmar and
East Timor. “He is the most influential figure in the foundation and the
only founding member still with the foundation,” said the NIS memo. 10
Clearly Ramstad had to be handled with the utmost care if he was going
to persuade the Rafto Foundation to deviate from its original intention of
awarding its prize to one who had worked on behalf of human rights in
North Korea. The conclusion of the NIS was that “the Rafto Foundation
is extremely friendly to South Korea while having an extremely negative
view toward North Korea”— a conflicting outlook that placed Rafto well
outside the whole philosophy of the sunshine policy of reconciliation with
the North.11 “Rafto’s position is they will initiate a campaign for human
rights and democratization in North Korea with our advice,” said the NIS
memo. “Rafto also will act on our advice with close cooperation with the
Norwegian foreign ministry.”12
The NIS assessment was that the NIS “can take advantage of this
opportunity without any risk.” For that reason, the memo said the NIS
“can positively accommodate Ramstad’s request”— and agreed to arrange
the meeting with Hwang and also introduce him to Kang Chol- hwan.13
As a sure sign of Ramstad’s importance, moreover, he got an unexpected
audience with Kim Dae- jung, who shrewdly sensed the need to win the
support of one whose tough outlook toward North Korean problems might
be at variance with the sunshine policy.
On June 26, after the Myanmar conference, an NIS memo said that
Ramstad had met Hwang at an NIS “safe house in Seoul at 14:30 on 23
June.” Ramstad’s questions covered North Korea’s human rights and the
obstacles for escapees from there. First, he asked, “How does North Korea
convert international donations to military purposes?” He also wanted to
know, “What is the desirable direction of activities of NGOs to enhance
North Korean human rights?” Hwang said North Korea’s “totalitarian
regime does not allow any human rights issue to permeate the North
Korean people.” Though “around 200,000 North Korean had escaped to
China during Kim Jong- il’s regime,” he said, “pursuit by North Korean
agents and surveillance by the Chinese and Russian governments limited
their anti-N orth activity.” Moreover, he added, “Relief supplies by
international organizations are of such high quality that the army has
priority for them, and international relief goods are rarely distributed to
the common people.”14
Ramstad also asked Hwang what would happen if Rafto dispatched
agents under the cover of the International Red Cross “to infiltrate North
Korea in order to raise human rights activities among Red Cross and
religious people in North Korea.” In a polite understatement, Hwang said,
“it would be difficult to achieve anything that way because all members
of the North Korean Red Cross and religious groups are puppets of Kim
Jong-i l.” Hwang also commented that he believed “unification of the
Korean people will not come true for four or five years.” The North
Korean “political situation,” Hwang surmised, was “very similar to Russia
in the 1930s” at the height of purges instigated by Josef Stalin.15
Ramstad met Kang Chol- hwan in a less austere setting— in the Lotte
Hotel in central Seoul “at 17:30 on 25 June,” said the NIS memo. The
memo was quite detailed: “Kang explained life in a concentration camp in
North Korea for one hour, the size of the facility, the diet and size of
servings of food, the hours of work, living conditions, surveillance system,
torture.” He also explained how the North Korean regime controlled the
people and the motives and means for North Koreans to escape. Ramstad
responded, “It is quite shocking to confirm that executions by firing
squads are widely carried out in the camps and there are no exceptions
when it comes to human rights abuses.”16
The NIS memo noted that “Ramstad appreciated the NIS advice and
cooperation in confirming the human rights situation in North Korea.” The
NIS promised to “cooperate with Ramstad’s organized activity on behalf
of human rights in North Korea” and also to link Rafto to other
international human rights organizations, including Rescue the North
Korean People (RENK), a Japan- based citizens’ group, and the Citizens’
Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, a well- known organization led
by Rev. Benjamin Yoon in Seoul.17 Ramstad also made sure to meet Yoon
during the visit and was much impressed by all he had done in a long
career as one of South Korea’s most effective crusaders against the horrors
of life in North Korea. Had it not been for a quite different crusade, Kim
Dae- jung’s pursuit of the Nobel, Yoon would undoubtedly have been
awarded the Rafto in 2000.
Back in Seoul in October 1999, his third trip of the year, Hersvik joined
yet another FDL- AP conference. In his meeting with Kim Han- jung, he
talked about not only the human rights issue but also cultural approaches
to conveying a positive impression to the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Presumably he and Kim Han- jung discussed ways to persuade North
Korea to cooperate in a concert at the DMZ. Hersvik’s organization had
staged many concerts at international events, including the annual Nobel
Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo. Clearly Hersvik had a special relationship
with Lundestad, whose Nobel Peace Prize Institute arranged for the
concerts. Hersvik had gotten to know North Koreans while discussing
possibilities for concerts at Panmunjom and a concert by the Isang Yun
Orchestra to be staged in Norway.
Park No- yong, while in Oslo, busied himself with numerous
suggestions for Hersvik on what to do and how to behave in North Korea.
“North Korea will be monitoring your every move and every word,” he
warned. “Be extremely cautious while in North Korea. Refrain from
criticizing the North Korean regime. Be careful in dealing with any
material that has the picture of Kim Il- sung or Kim Jong- il.”18 His advice
was quite detailed— he also advised Hersvik to take as many photographs
as possible and to prepare such gifts as whiskey, Marlboro cigarettes,
scarves, stockings, and neckties.
As an intelligence officer, Park wanted Hersvik to return with
information, requesting a briefing on whatever Hersvik observed and
heard in North Korea. Hersvik said he personally knew the Norwegian
ambassador in Beijing, and the ambassador also wanted to see him on his
return. Park urged Hersvik not to reveal full details about the trip to the
ambassador in Beijing. He did not want word to get around that South
Korea was working so diligently to bring the Nobel to DJ, and the whole
purpose of the concert and exhibition was to promote the campaign for the
Nobel. Hersvik agreed completely, saying, “I will not go into details with
him.”19
Hersvik visited Pyongyang from January 8 to January 11, 2000. The
agenda included invitations to bring the Isang Yun Ensemble, a reduced
variation of the orchestra, to Norway on an itinerary that would take the
group from Bergen and Stavenger as well as Oslo in late May 2000. In
Pyongyang, he discussed such details as the number of musicians and the
expenses, none of which would be borne by the North Koreans.
Also on the agenda was the idea of a peace concert as well as a
sculpture exhibition in Panmunjom. Hersvik suggested staging the concert
in August 2000 to raise funds for such high-m inded purposes as donations
of food for North Korea, reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula, and
enhancement of human rights in North Korea. The timing was obvious—
t he concert to take place just as the Norwegian Nobel Committee was
reaching its final decision on the prize in 2000. A lesser item on the agenda
would be an exhibition of sculpture on the theme of symbols of peace in
Panmunjom, where Hersvik proposed displaying works by British
sculptor Antony Gormley.
After Hersvik got back to Oslo on January 13, Park sent NIS
headquarters another lengthy cable summarizing Hersvik’s trip to North
Korea. According to the cable,20 Hersvik fully briefed Park, almost as if
he were functioning as his personal envoy. Hersvik said that he was
accompanied on the trip by Nils Henrik Asheim, a Norwegian composer
and former president of the Norwegian Composers’ Association, and Yun
Jong, the daughter of Yun I- sang, who resided in New York. When they
got to Pyongyang, one of the first people they met was Lee Su-j a, the
mother of Yun Jong and widow of Yun I-s ang, who was living in a lavish
villa in Pyongyang that Kim Il-s ung had bequeathed to Yun I- sang in
return for his lifetime contributions to North Korea.
Hersvik visited the Yun Isang Music Institute and Kim Il-s ung
Memorial at Mount Myohyang, the scenic and cultural attraction north of
Pyongyang. A museum in the park at the base of the mountain displayed
numerous gifts to Kim Il- sung and Kim Jong- il ranging from Russian
railroad cars to silver plates that the Cable News Network (CNN) had
presented while courting the North Koreans for visas for numerous visits
by its correspondents, producers, and cameramen. It was in his villa on
Mount Myohyang that Kim Il- sung died from a heart attack on July 7,
1994.
Park No- yong said in the cable that Lee Su- ja had invited Hersvik to
her villa, treating him very nicely while boasting that Kim Il-s ung had
personally set her up in her comfortable surroundings. “The outcome of
the discussion,” Park reported, was that Hersvik and the North Koreans
agreed that North Korea would send an ensemble of about 14 members at
the end of May 2000.21 His idea of making the truce village of Panmunjom
the venue for the concert and the sculpture exhibition, however, was not
discussed in detail. Hersvik instead briefed Lee Su- ja, leaving her to
deliver those proposals to North Korean authorities. North Korea
officially invited Hersvik to Pyongyang again in April 2000 for the annual
Spring Festival surrounding the anniversary of the birth of Kim Il- sung
on April 15. Hersvik tried but was not able to meet Kim Yong-s un, Kim
Jong-i l’s right arm, close enough to the Dear Leader to be North Korea’s
intelligence chief— the job that gave him the authority to set up the
North’s Asia- Pacific Peace Committee soon after Kim Il- sung died.
Having failed to meet Kim Yong- sun in Pyongyang, Hersvik did see
Workers’ Party (WPK) aides—p resumably all intelligence officials. One
of them was simply introduced as “Mr. Kim.” In January, Hersvik also
met Choi Chang-i l, director of the Yun Isang Music Institute, and Kim
Hee- suk, department chief in the culture ministry. “Overall the North
Koreans treated Hersvik extremely well,” said Park No-y ong.
“Surprisingly, they gave him considerable freedom.” 22 Clearly they were
secure in the view that he would stick to their rules, see only those whom
they wanted him to see, and abstain from making his own contacts under
any circumstances (given the tight controls of the system and the severe
penalties meted out to anyone caught in an unauthorized meeting or
conversation with a visitor).
North Korea ascribed tremendous importance to the performance in
Norway of the Yun Isang Ensemble. “They showed it would be acceptable
to them to receive nominal payment for their performance as long as all
the costs are covered,” said Park No- yong. North Korea was taking no
chances. North Korea asked the Norwegians to cover airfare from
Pyongyang to Norway as well as all hotels and meals and wanted the
Worldview Rights Foundation to record the concert in Bergen,
presumably to bring the disc back to Pyongyang for Kim Jong- il and
North Korean state television.23
As for the concert at Panmunjom, Lee Su- ja promised to discuss it
personally with Kim Yong- sun himself. “The reason for this strategy,”
said Park’s cable, is that “Yun Jong, the daughter, advised that if Hersvik
made too many proposals at a time, North Korea would feel burdened.”
“This time,” Yun Jong suggested, “why not focus on the performance by
the Yun Isang Ensemble?” The daughter was somewhat skeptical about
holding the concert and exhibition in Panmunjom, but her mother showed
“huge interest and intention to promote the idea.”24 According to the cable,
Yun Jong believed Pyongyang might be a more appropriate venue for the
exhibition.
North Korea extended unusual hospitality and courtesy to Hersvik
during his trips to Pyongyang. Inviting Hersvik to Pyongyang again in
April, the North Koreans promised to cover expenses, including airfare
and lodging—a sure sign of his special importance. The North Koreans
gave him a late model Mercedes- Benz and guides who spoke fluent
English, and he was allowed to use the VIP entrance at Sunan International
Airport outside Pyongyang. He was shown around wherever he wanted to
go in Pyongyang with no apparent limitations on talking to people and
taking pictures— though the guides would make certain nobody said
anything remotely negative that higher- ups did not want him to hear. Nor
was Hersvik about to make embarrassing requests to visit poor people in
hospitals, much less to see a prison. Hersvik met Bondevik right after his
January visit to explain his trip to North Korea in person and presented
another report separately to Norway’s foreign ministry.
The January trip was of incalculable importance, at least to judge from
Park No- yong’s cable of January 13. “Through Hersvik’s trip to North
Korea, the connection channel and the cooperative relations were
established,” said Park. “The North Korea performance team’s visit to
Norway is almost confirmed. There were many achievements.” Park told
NIS headquarters it was “a favorable time to approach North Korea” and
encouraged Hersvik to accept the invitation to return in April. “Through
that opportunity, he will be able to tighten relations with North Korea and
more progressively discuss the Panmunjom concert and sculpture
exhibition.”25
In February and March, Hersvik and Park No-y ong, looking ahead to
the April meeting, talked a great deal about Hersvik’s visit to North Korea
and the Yun Isang Ensemble’s visit to Norway, scheduled for late May
2000. Park also “made an effort to get Hersvik to promote the idea of the
Panmunjom concert and sculpture exhibit.”26 The series of NIS cables
said, “Hersvik had already raised funds to cover two thirds of the
ensemble’s performances, estimated at more than $100,000, while
Hersvik still needed to dig up $30,000 to $40,000 from Korean
sponsors.”27
At the end of February 2000, however, Hersvik got disappointing news.
The first violinist had slipped on ice and broken an arm, meaning the
performance would have to be delayed two weeks. It was a slight hint that
North Korea might deviate from the discussion. Still “diligently planning
his April visit,” Hersvik met Park in Oslo on March 17 for lunch, during
which they talked about Hersvik’s telephone conversation with Lee Su-j
a in Pyongyang.28 She regretted the delay in the performance but said the
ensemble could not make the trip without its first violinist. The “accident”
that befell the violinist was probably a story made up to put off the trip in
the run- up to the Summit in June, not yet confirmed but in the final stages
of planning.
Hersvik also talked to Park No-y ong about whether the state-o wned
Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) would be able to televise a
Panmunjom concert if North Korea cooperated. Hersvik said the president
of KBS, Park Kwon- sang, a longtime follower of DJ, whom DJ had put
in the job, had been appointed as the Worldview Rights Foundation’s
honorary president representing Asia. In a sanctimonious letter to Park on
April 29, 2000, Hersvik said he was “looking forward very much” to
meeting him in Seoul in late May or early June to “update [him] further
on [their] overall activities.”29
Park No- yong did not have to say that the FDL- AP would be covering
all his expenses. That was assumed. At the Oslo lunch, Park introduced
Hersvik to his successor, Kim Nam-y ong, as the “NIS man” in Oslo. Park
would return to the NIS headquarters in a desk position from which he
could continue to deal with Norwegian operations, all of which now were
dedicated to the feverish hunt for the Nobel Peace Prize. After the lunch,
Park stressed in his cable his efforts to get Hersvik “to enhance the channel
to North Korea and to promote the truce village of Panmunjom for the
concert.”30
On April 7, Kim Nam- yong, successor of Park No- yong, eager to get
on with his mission, cabled the NIS about a meeting he would have with
Hersvik on April 10 when Hersvik would go to Oslo to meet the vice
deputy foreign minister. In his cable, Kim Nam- yong told his
headquarters how he proposed to manipulate Hersvik at what would be
his first meeting alone with him.31
First, Kim Nam- yong said he would stress to Hersvik that “it will be
helpful to promote everything in North Korea to have a direct contact
channel with high-r anking North Korean officials, notably Kim Yong-s
un, the intelligence chief, with Lee Su-j a as the go-b etween.” The NIS
cable stated that if Hersvik developed rapport with Kim Yong- sun, the
NIS might take advantage of him as a secret channel toward contacts in
North Korea. Intelligence agencies, both the US CIA as well as the NIS,
had been notoriously unsuccessful in getting through to the North Korean
elite. Kim Nam-y ong said he would “urge Hersvik to be patient” in trying
to persuade North Korea to agree to co- staging a concert in the truce
village of Panmunjom.
The cable suggested Hersvik’s use in a dual mission— first, to win
North Korea’s assent to the concert and, second, to infiltrate North
Korea’s intelligence at the highest level. Thus Lee Su- ja could be the bait
for hooking Kim Yong- sun. “Through cultural exchange, all of these
things will contribute to creating an atmosphere of peace on the Korean
peninsula,” as Kim Nam- yong put it in his cable.32 The underlying
message was that this gesture would solidify the impression of Kim Daejung as the man of peace whom the Norwegian Nobel Committee would
finally reward with the prize that had eluded him for so many years.
When Kim Nam- yong met Hersvik for an early lunch at Oslo’s Grand
Café on April 10, 2000, he explained to Hersvik all he had communicated
with NIS headquarters. Hersvik said he was “well aware” from experience
that it took “huge patience to deal with North Korea, in particular to blaze
a direct channel to Kim Yong- sun”— the “critical point” in dealing with
the North. He would “keep in mind” in the next visit the need to get
through to him. Kim Nam-y ong, like his predecessor Park No-y ong,
found Hersvik “in full agreement” and advised him “to proceed with
contacts in North Korea with patience even if there is no noticeable
achievement.”33
However, the NIS also found that Hersvik was “more or less
disappointed” by the fact that his visit to North Korea had produced little
progress on the other issue, the Panmunjom concert, while the Yun Isang
Ensemble’s visit to Norway had been delayed for months. Kim Nam- yong
said he would not be “too deeply involved” in Hersvik’s North Korean
connections. Kim wanted to be cautious, to appear to distance himself
from anything to do with Hersvik’s dealings with the North Koreans, but
concluded, “Still I will cooperate with him and pay close attention to what
he is doing.”34
After the announcement of the Summit on the same day, much of the
intimate planning that had gone into the hunt for the Nobel was delayed if
not derailed. On April 26, Hersvik made a phone call to Kim Nam- yong,
explaining what he had gleaned from a recent telephone conversation with
Lee Su- ja in Pyongyang. He said that he had failed to have a concrete
discussion with her on his trip to North Korea about getting the Yun Isang
Ensemble to perform in Norway. Hersvik and Lee Su-j a agreed to
continue their talks while watching all that might emerge from the
Summit. In a telephone conversation, Hersvik told Kim Nam-y ong that
“things are developing in a different direction” from the original plan. He
guessed that North Korea at this juncture did not have “a firm position
about those projects.”35
On May 4, Kim Nam- yong and Hersvik met again, this time at Oslo’s
famous Blom Restaurant, where they continued their discussions. “I
talked to Lee Su- ja, and she did not give confirmation,” Hersvik said of
both the Yun Isang Ensemble’s coming to Norway and the Panmunjom
concert. Hersvik changed his plan at once, saying he would go to Seoul at
the end of May or early June and visit Pyongyang in August or September.
At this point Hersvik discussed all his North Korean connections by
telephone with Kim Han- jung in the Blue House. That did not necessarily
mean that Hersvik no longer was communicating with Kim Nam-y ong of
the NIS. Rather, Hersvik was eager to conduct all of his Korean activities
with both North and South via the direct channel in the Blue House as
well.
On May 24, after receiving another invitation from Kim Han- jung to
come to Seoul as the guest of the FDL-A P, Hersvik informed Kim Namyong over lunch of his plan to visit Seoul from May 29 through June 1. In
Seoul, Hersvik would see Park Kwon-s ang, the president of KBS, whom
he had thoughtfully named an “honorary president” of the Worldview
Rights Foundation. He would also see Kim Sang- woo, newly appointed
president of the FDL- AP, and, of course, Kim Han- jung. Hersvik,
meanwhile, had to postpone his North Korea visit in view of all the frantic
preparations for the Summit coming up in just two weeks.
5
Eyes on the Prize
T
he cover of a book of Kim Dae- jung’s speeches and interviews,
Philosophy & Dialogues: Building Peace & Democracy, published in
1987
in Hangul and English, proudly stated that in January 1987 DJ “was
honored by being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of
his three-d ecade-l ong struggle for democracy and human rights.” The
cover blurb said the nomination was “a tribute to Kim Dae- jung and an
honor for the Korean people he has so proudly served.” 1 The blurb might
also have added that DJ was the hero of the American intellectual
establishment, a figure comparable to South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, as
popular in the groves of American academe as he was on the campaign
trail in his native Cholla region.
DJ’s relentless pursuit of the Nobel grew out of his years as a dissident,
an opposition figure, beginning with his criticism of Rhee Syngman, the
president of the Republic of Korea from its founding in 1948 until his
overthrow in the student revolution of April 1960. DJ had been imprisoned
or placed under house arrest many times during the regimes of both Park
Chung- hee, president from May 1961 until his assassination in October
1979, and Chun Doo- hwan, the general who rose to power after Park’s
death. Through all those years, he burnished his role as a democratic
reformer.
The saga of DJ’s quest for the Nobel Peace Prize dates from 1986. Until
he finally achieved his goal in 2000, he tried 14 times, more than once
coming close to winning. The leftist Internet site in Seoul, PRESSian,
carried an article on March 8, 2011, headlined “DJ was already a strong
contender for Nobel Peace Prize in 1987.” 2 The article clearly was
designed to protect DJ from the allegation that he had been hunting for the
Nobel for all those years without a real chance of getting it. In the article,
the former Human Rights Ambassador Park Kyung- suh, a long time DJ
follower, explained how he exerted efforts to earn the award for DJ.
Park Kyung- suh, who was staying in Geneva as a member of the World
Council of Churches (WCC), had befriended Bishop Stålsett, at the time
the director- general of the World Lutheran Federation and one of five
members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee since 1985. Park,
introducing DJ’s books to his friend, diligently campaigned for DJ that
year as a Nobel Peace Prize candidate. As a result, the committee put DJ
on its final short list in 1987 on the condition that DJ would not be
advancing his quest for the presidency at the same time. The committee
wanted to be sure that Korean politics was not a consideration.
Park flew to Seoul and, over breakfast with DJ, explained the
committee’s position. After pondering seriously whether he would prefer
the Nobel or the presidency, DJ chose to delay the Nobel process for the
sake of his presidential race. Park, after confirming DJ’s intention,
“conveyed DJ’s position, via his friend Stålsett, to the committee on
August 14, 1987.”3 The Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 was awarded to Oscar
Arias Sánchez “for his work for peace in Central America, efforts which
led to the accord signed in Guatemala on August 7 [that] year.” 4
From then on, DJ and his people made an extraordinary effort to reenter
the race for the prize. Every year, they got recommendation letters from
all around the world. Among the well-k nown letter writers, according to
ShinDongA, a monthly magazine affiliated with Dong A Ilbo, were Jeffery
Thomson, president of the New Zealand National Party; Garry Woodad,
professor of Melbourne University; Den Hideo, a member of the Japanese
Diet; Tom Foglietta, elected eight times to US Congress as a
representative from Philadelphia and a former US ambassador to Italy,
and George Totten, professor at the University of Southern California,
who had edited and overseen translation of several of DJ’s books. 5
In 1993, chances for DJ to win the Nobel were again quite good. At the
time, DJ had “retired” from politics after having finished behind Kim
Young- sam in the presidential election in December 1992 and had exiled
himself to England for half a year. Nobody knew what DJ was doing in
the hunt for the Nobel while he was ostensibly a visiting scholar at
Cambridge, but he was known to have been one of the finalists that year.
Other strong contenders, however, were in the running. The Nobel Peace
Prize in 1993 was awarded jointly to South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and
Frederik Willem de Klerk “for their work for the peaceful termination of
the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic
South Africa.”6
There was a hint that DJ had strong aspirations for next year’s award.
At the end of January 1994, right before the deadline of recommendation
on February 1, DJ took a ten- day trip to the Scandinavian countries. Little
is known about what he did there, but he did meet several Nobel people in
EYES ON THE PRIZE 53
Norway. That year, however, DJ again faced a strong adversary. The
Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 was awarded jointly to the Palestine leader
Yasser Arafat and Israeli leaders Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin “for
their efforts to create peace in the Middle East” in talks leading to the Oslo
accord on Palestinian rule.7
In 1995, while Kim Young- sam still nursed his own hopes for winning
the prize, DJ and his people started to get recommendations from political
friends at home through the Asia- Pacific Peace Foundation, affiliated
with the Forum of Democratic Leaders in the Asia Pacific (FDL- AP).
This time, however, the experience was downright miserable. An
anonymous source interviewed by ShinDongA had Geir Lundestad,
director of the Nobel Institute, asking “whether DJ was really corrupted
by bribery from the chaebol”— that is, the huge conglomerates that
dominate the South Korean economy. “It was so embarrassing to hear
that,” the source, presumably Lee
Young- jak, nephew of DJ’s wife Lee Hee- ho, was quoted as saying.8
Ever since rising to political influence as a critic of the central
government, Kim Dae- jung had gained credibility and celebrity among
foreigners, especially Americans, who saw him embodying the
democratic ideal of a crusader against entrenched dictatorship. The Nobel
Peace Prize would reaffirm this recognition. Showing up at a talk show on
Seoul Broadcasting System on September 1, 1997, well before the
presidential election in December, he boldly announced, “I did not give
up on the Nobel prize.” Rather, he said, “After becoming president,
through the achievement of trail- blazing toward unification, I will win the
Nobel Prize for the people of the nation.”9 As a candidate for the prize
from 1987 onward, DJ in 1998, his first year as president, had the power
and the machinery at his disposal for a full- scale assault.
Now the question was how to reach the ultimate goal. What agency was
better qualified to discover how to go about it than the NIS, staffed by
some of the country’s best young analysts, with resources at home and
abroad to draw upon, all cloaked in utmost secrecy? The NIS had a highly
detailed concept of what to do. NIS agents had gathered inside information
with the same skills with which they might analyze the ins and outs of a
foreign government or a shift in the power lineup in North Korea. NIS
documents showed the agency was, if anything, far more concerned about
winning the Nobel for DJ than about discerning goings-o n in the corridors
of power in Pyongyang.
The recommendation-a nd-s election procedure for the Nobel Peace
Prize, said an NIS document drafted in 1998, was carried out by a five-
member committee elected by the Norwegian parliament. The committee
was a totally independent body free of interference from either the
government or the parliament. The term of each member would be six
years, and a member could be elected for a second term. Members did not
have to be Norwegian, but most of them were Norwegian citizens. The
director of the Nobel Institute served as secretary of the committee, and
the committee had an advisory group made up of experts on international
law, history, and political economics.
From 1980, the four adviser members were history and politics
professors at the University of Oslo. Applications for the Nobel were to
be postmarked before February 1 of each year in order to be processed
that year. Applications received after that date automatically rolled over
to the next year. More than one hundred applications were normally
received every year, said the NIS study. From among the one hundred
applications, the Norwegian Nobel Committee selected a “short list” of a
dozen or so finalists. Besides research for the short list, the most important
sources of information were reports from numerous “advisers” and
accumulated information already on file.
NIS inside information revealed that recommendations were most often
made by Norwegian Nobel Committee members themselves and their
advisers. Members of the Permanent International Peace Bureau in Berne,
the Institut de Droit International of legislative bodies, governments,
international courts, professors, and well- known journalists were also
likely to recommend candidates. Finally, most important for Kim Dae-j
ung, Nobel Peace Prize laureates could make recommendations. Thus DJ
needed to court such famed prize winners as Nelson Mandela of South
Africa, Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar, and José Ramos- Horta of East
Timor.
In the search for recommendations, as “one of his acquaintances” told
Monthly Chosun, “East Timor was where President Kim paid special
attention”— no doubt because East Timor seemed vulnerable to
inexpensive payoffs in the guise of support for its struggle for survival. 10
DJ’s government in 1998 began to offer regular donations to East Timor,
otherwise of little strategic or economic interest to South Korea, providing
$250,000 for “humanitarian purposes” in 1999 and another $700,000 for
“economic restoration and development.”11 On February 5, 2003, the
respected Dong A Ilbo, one of Seoul’s “big three” conservative dailies,
along with Chosun Ilbo and JoongAng Ilbo, quoted an anonymous source,
evidently former foreign minister Lee Jong- bin, as saying, “Despite
opposition, Kim Han- jung battled to finance an independence memorial
building in East Timor
at a cost of $600,000 in order to win the Nobel.” 12
The same anonymous source also said that Kim Han-j ung had been
“running around for the prize,” visiting Norway many times. “The Nobel
prize cannot be won by lobbying,” the source opined, charging “such
dangerous activities” were “creating concern among high Korean
officials.”13 The same year, Korea sent soldiers to East Timor as part of a
UN peace- keeping force and began inviting key figures from East Timor
to Seoul, including Xanana Gusmão and Ramos- Horta, who were to
become East Timor’s first and second presidents in 2002 and 2007,
respectively. According to Dong A Ilbo, since East Timor was not served
at the time by any regular commercial airline, Kim Han- jung went at least
once on a military plane— a totally useless journey in terms of Korea’s
military priorities.14
Why was it that South Korea suddenly found strategic interest in such
a distant corner of Southeast Asia? The reason East Timor was singled out
was obvious. José Ramos- Horta and Bishop Carlos Belo, spiritual leader
in the struggle in which East Timor was to gain independence from
Indonesia in 2001, had received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 “for their
works toward just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor”—
the fight for freedom from Indonesian rule. 15 In September 1999, at the
summit of the Asia-P acific Economic Cooperation group in New
Zealand, Kim Dae-j ung proposed measures for ending the bloodshed. DJ
insisted on “democracy and human rights” for East Timor before Korean
soldiers joined the UN force. At the same time the FDL-A P, urged on by
Kim Han-j ung, “donated” $200,000 to aid East Timor independence
leaders.
José Ramos-H orta was much impressed by Kim Han-j ung, whom he
described as “honest and extraordinarily smart” after hosting him in East
Timor in December 1999 at the height of the revolution.16 Kim said that
he had taken part in Kim Dae- jung’s “human rights diplomacy”— an
exercise that he called “the most valuable thing in my life.” 17 RamosHorta, Xanana Gusmão, and Gusmão’s wife Kusti were invited to Seoul
at the end of January 2000, right before the deadline for submission of
applications for that year, by the newly formed Korea- East Timor
Friendship Association, all crucial to the campaign for the Nobel. Kim
Dae-j ung saw them all at the Blue House. Amazingly, DJ at the meeting
eulogized Saemaeul-u ndong, the “new village campaign” pushed during
the 1970s by his worst political foe, Park Chung- hee.
Gusmão was the easy winner in 2000 of the first Gwangju Prize for
Human Rights presented by the May 18 Memorial Foundation set up to
honor the victims of the Gwangju massacre twenty years earlier. The
cynical opportunism of establishing this prize in May 2000 during the runu p to the June 2000 Summit and the final sprint for the Nobel was all too
plain. The Gwangju prize was just another device in DJ’s campaign for
the Nobel. In an interview with Monthly Chosun in January 2004, RamosHorta described himself as “the godfather for Kim Dae- jung to get the
Nobel Peace Prize” after having recommended him first in 1999 and again
in 2000.18 He strongly denied having made any promises to DJ but amply
repaid the courtesy lavished on him by signing a recommendation letter to
the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Much later Kim Han- jung said the foreign ministry was reluctant to
engage in East Timor for fear of upsetting the Indonesian government. His
own hand in all these dealings was not always apparent. He maintained
tight security while making the transition from the NIS to the FDL- AP in
mid-1 999 to the Blue House by the end of the year, all the while he
coordinated the Nobel Peace Prize attack.
While at the FDL- AP, before migrating to DJ’s side at the Blue House,
Kim Han- jung performed one other signal service. He enlisted the support
of the Democratic Party congressman from Philadelphia, Tom Foglietta,
who had espoused DJ’s cause when he was in exile in the United States.
Foglietta and another Democratic congressman, Edward Feighan of Ohio,
accompanying DJ on his return to Korea from the United States in
February 1985, claimed they were beaten by security guards as they
arrived with DJ at the head of a huge delegation at Seoul’s Kimpo
International Airport.19 Foglietta and DJ remained fast friends. Named
ambassador to Italy in 1997, he got the National Constitution Center in
Philadelphia to award its Liberty Medal, along with $100,000, to DJ on
July 4, 1999.20 Foglietta, meanwhile, was flown to South Korea to receive
a human rights medal.21
Considering that Nelson Mandela, Poland’s Lech Walesa, and Shimon
Peres of Israel had all won Liberty Medals before going on to take the
Nobel, the Korean team figured DJ needed to get one too. The tradition
carried on beyond DJ. Five months before DJ was to win his Nobel in
2000, Jimmy Carter was awarded a Liberty Medal (and went on to Nobel
glory in 2002).22
For all the progress Kim Han- jung made in these gambits, he was
transferred from the Office of External Cooperation Aid (OECA) in May
1999 just as the new NIS director, Chun Yong- taek, was deciding the
team’s operations were too dangerous and might get the agency into
trouble if its real purpose were revealed. Chun was not at all enthusiastic
about the risks that the NIS was taking for the sake of a Nobel for DJ.
Such blatant exploitation of government resources was clearly unlawful.
Kim Han- jung’s utility in the quest for the Nobel was unquestioned, but
controversy smoldered after he took over as vice director of the Forum of
Democratic Leaders in the Asia Pacific, affiliated with Kim Dae- jung’s
Asia- Pacific Peace Foundation. The purpose of the FDL- AP was to
maintain close contact with international luminaries who might put in
good words for DJ with the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
After several months of behind-t he-s cenes activities in East Timor and
elsewhere, Kim Han-j ung surfaced inside the Blue House at the end of
1999. The position of the chief of first attachment chamber meant that he
could meet ministers who might rank above him in the hierarchy but were
well aware that he could cost them their jobs if they went out of line. Most
of all, he had a certain power over the NIS through his undisputed central
role in the hunt for the Nobel. The ambassadors to Norway and Sweden
along with NIS intelligence officers in both of those countries, operatives
at NIS headquarters, and officials in the foreign ministry in Seoul were at
his beck and call— and at his mercy.
In that capacity Kim Han- jung had much to do with the concept behind
the NIS Nobel campaign strategy. The prize is given on the basis of
perceived “western ideology, value and interest,” he wrote in a secret
memo. “More important than “objective achievement” was “perception of
that achievement,” his memo argued. “The initial hypothesis was the
campaign should be waged in Washington rather than Oslo,” provided the
United States “takes the lead in world peace.” That assumption broke
down as the NIS began to focus largely on Oslo connections. “Selection
of a specific topic and concentration on that topic is desirable,” the memo
added. “Considering the timing, a systematic approach is crucial.
Considering domestic political conditions, we have to select core issues
every year from 2000 and wage a systematic campaign. It is necessary to
conduct research on possible rivals for the prize. It is important to have a
coalition with a prominent nongovernmental organization.”23
Often the FDL- AP, as a nongovernmental organization (NGO), was
the right choice to cover Kim Han- jung’s secret activities. Among
members of the organization were several former Nobel Peace Prize
laureates and other prominent international luminaries such as Corazon
Aquino, former president of the Philippines; Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of
Myanmar’s National League for Democracy; Desmond Tutu, Anglican
Archbishop of South Africa; Mikhail Gorbachev, the last head of state of
the Soviet Union; Richard von Weizsaecker, former president of
Germany; Sonia Gandhi, chairwoman of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation,
and Oscar Arias Sanchez, former president of Costa Rica.
The strategy came up with five possible areas on which to focus. First
would be arms reduction between North and South Korea. Second would
be arbitration in Myanmar in which Kim Dae- jung played the role of
peacemaker. “A more realistic approach to achieve peace in Myanmar
might be needed,” said an NIS internal memo. One possible winning
gambit might be that of “compromise between the military regime and the
opposition party to establish a temporary coalition government.” Third, an
intriguing suggestion was to “invite a powerful military figure from
Myanmar to Seoul to maximize the political effect.” Fourth, “Engage in
the North Korean refugee issue and make noticeable efforts to give them
refugee status”— a reference to China’s refusal to view refugees from
North Korea not as refugees but as economic migrants, and return them to
North Korea. The strategy called for “theorizing global democracy” while
proposing “an alternative solution” based on reality. Lastly was the
suggestion for building up a “peace cooperation system,” mediating such
difficult issues as Sino- American and Sino- Japanese relations.24
The strategy was constantly evolving. More diverse and detailed ideas
and schemes were added in the quest for the Nobel. The final version was
incorporated in an NIS document dated April 21, 2000, titled
“Circumstances and Prospects for this Year.” The document, a report to
President Kim Dae- jung, drew up a detailed plan that outlined exactly the
steps needed to win the prize. The timing was interesting—j ust one week
after disappointing results in elections for the National Assembly in which
DJ’s Millennium Democratic Party failed to win a majority of seats. DJ’s
strategists had firmly expected a majority since the bombshell
announcement of April 10, three days before the election, that DJ would
meet Kim Jong-i l in June for the first ever North- South Summit. DJ was
so depressed by the results of the National Assembly elections that the
NIS rushed through the plan for winning the Nobel simply to brace up his
spirits.
The title of the NIS plan for the Nobel, “Circumstances and Prospects
for this Year,” was deceptively bland, with no hint of its contents. The 12page document began with a “recent assessment of the circumstances”—
again, with no indication of the exact topic. The assessment purported to
cover 150 different recommendations of candidates for the Nobel Peace
Prize in 2000 but concluded there was “no hot issue that can attract the
grave attention of the Norwegian Nobel Committee except for the NorthSouth Summit.” Therefore, said the NIS plan, “If there is no other special
occasion, our candidate will rise to the top thanks to the Summit.” The
authors of the document, referring to the Nobel Committee as “NB” for
“Nobel,” wrote, “In view of the standards of the NB side, this Summit is
a big event that can be seen only once every few years.” Indeed, said the
plan,
“for the first time the situation is fully matured.”25
The NIS recognized, however, that DJ faced possibly formidable
competition. “Peace negotiations between the Sri Lankan government and
Tamil rebels will be agreed on early,” said the NIS assessment, since the
Norwegian government had been “promoting the talks from the beginning
of the year.” If the talks ended successfully, the NIS was implying, they
might produce a rival for the Nobel. Yet another issue would be the degree
of emphasis that the “NB side” would want to place on the Korean
Peninsula. “NB recognizes that a Korean can be awarded if someone
brings permanent peace between the two Koreas” since “the Korean
peninsula remains a disputed area and the peninsula is still divided.” In
particular, said the plan, “the conditions for awarding the prize to our
person is contingent on noticeable achievement in North- South relations”
or “a huge breakthrough in North- South relations.”26
However, said the NIS plan, “The VIP’s effort to boost democracy in
Korea or to promote human rights in the Asia- Pacific area would be
insufficient even if the judges recognized these achievements.” 27 The
Norwegian Nobel Committee must “reject lobbying activity” while giving
“objective assessment and discriminate against external influence,” the
NIS plan observed. “If a candidate appears to be likely, the NB is very
sensitive to rumors about lobbying.” In the third round of selection, it said,
the committee “would reduce the number of candidates to ten, and prepare
documents individually on each candidate.”28
The NIS returned to the need for any decision to reflect bilateral
relations between the two Koreas. In 1973, the Norwegian Nobel
Committee had voted to give the prize to Henry Kissinger and North
Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho for reaching an agreement in Paris for ending the
Vietnam War.29 Le Duc Tho turned down the prize while North Vietnam
fought for another two years to defeat the US- backed South Vietnam
regime and unite Vietnam, but the decision set a precedent for selecting
leaders of opposing forces as cowinners if they came together for peace.
Was there a possibility that the Nobel Committee might consider
cowinners in 2000— DJ and Kim Jong- il? Officially, the NIS did not like
the idea at all. One reason doubtless was that Kim Jong-i l was so reviled
in South Korea, and around the world, that for DJ to share a prize with
him and then to appear on the same dais with him in Oslo, gratefully
accepting the trophy, would undermine the public relations value of the
whole effort— and might actually have a rebound effect against him.
How could anyone imagine that Kim Jong- il should win a prize for
“peace” when he was personally responsible for a gulag system in which
tens of thousands were imprisoned, left to die from torture, overwork,
disease, famine— or execution? And why would anyone believe Kim
Jong- il merited such an honor when he dedicated the energy and resources
of his country to a huge military establishment as well as nuclear and
missile programs while his people suffered so terribly? Still, the NIS could
not entirely rule out the danger of a cowinner— a prospect that the NP
Project had to combat. “We have to stress that achievement is unilateral,”
the NIS plan advised, but “we have to prepare for the possibility of co-w
inners from each of the two Koreas.”30
Summarizing what had been done so far, the NIS cited contacts with
“relevant NB personnel by the embassies in Oslo and Stockholm.” 31 The
Korean ambassadors in both Norway and Sweden hosted a high- level
meeting approximately once a month. The main targets included the vice
chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Bishop Stålsett; the
administrator of the committee and director of the Nobel Institute, Geir
Lundestad; and occasionally the former chairman of the committee,
Francis Sejersted.
The plan was quite precise with details for wining and dining these
people. In the case of luncheons, they should be held in restaurants in
Oslo. The ambassador, however, should host dinners at his residence and
invite wives too. Dialogue and explanation would center on information
about the Korean Peninsula, with intelligence officers sometimes joining
the discussion, providing relevant material to NB personnel. “Whenever a
main event arises on the Korean peninsula, material should be prepared
and delivered to the NB in a timely manner,” said the plan. “Objective,
open source material such as The Korea Herald and Yonhap should be
selected and provided.”32 The NIS also focused on cultural events,
beginning with a visit to Oslo in October 1999 by a four- member
percussion team.
How should the NIS approach its goals in the future? That was the
question raised in the critical portion of the report. The basic approach
would be to act in secrecy with no hint as to the underlying purpose, much
less the NIS role, by reducing the numbers on the team and simplifying
the chain of command, while focusing on “[their] efforts of relieving
tension on the Korean peninsula and promoting the Sunshine policy.”33
The embassy in Norway would take the main role in contacting relevant
people on the Nobel Committee and carrying out public relations. The idea
was to distance the campaign in Oslo from the NIS and the Blue House in
Seoul. Caution and care were always emphasized. “Excessive activities
would have a reverse effect,” the NIS warned. The timing of contacts was
slyly calculated in order to avoid giving an impression that anything like
an all-o ut campaign was under way. Limits were placed on how much
promotional stuff to distribute. Less might be preferable to more. Nobody
wanted the Norwegians to go around saying, “Those Koreans are really
going after us.”34
Specifically, the Korean ambassador continued his efforts to contact
the relevant Nobel figures while planning to open new contact channels to
Gunnar Berge, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, and Inger
M. Ytterborn, a new committee member from the Progressive Party. The
purpose was “to deepen rapport and develop favorable emotions toward
Korea,” to “[provide] counsel and explanation on the circumstances of the
Korean peninsula,” “to boost interest in the Korean peninsula among NB
people,” and also to “[provide] material on the development and outcome
of the North- South Summit.”35
The question was “how to deliver and disseminate propaganda
material.” The ambassador and intelligence officers had the mission of
public affairs officers. “It is desirable that such material seems natural and
objective and not artificial to the extent as to avoid any impression of a
campaign,” said the NIS plan. “Select key materials carefully and deliver
cautiously,” the NIS advised. “Material explaining the Summit and
Sunshine policy is the priority.”36
The plan suggested Bishop Stålsett as the major recipient while
Lundestad should get material “on a more selective basis.” The NIS
worried about giving the Norwegians more than they could digest. “If too
much is provided, it will give some burden to the NB and give an
impression that a campaign is going on,” said the NIS internal report. The
material had to be provided every quarter. “While Bishop Stålsett actively
welcomes it,” the NIS noted, Lundestad, as director of the Nobel Institute,
“is very cautious about accepting such material.”37
Also, material should be sent to “peripheral” people, including
members of the Norwegian parliament and “opinion leaders” with human
rights organizations, governmental institutes, research centers, and
universities. Peripheral targets included Rune Hersvik, the Worldview
Rights general secretary; Erik Solheim, former Socialist Party leader; Jan
Ramstad, director of the Rafto Foundation; Sven Ullring, chairman of a
Korea-N orway economic group; Helge Hveem, professor of politics at
the University of Oslo; Sverre Lodgaard, president of the Institute of
International Affairs; Dan Smith, president of the International Peace
Institute; Bjarne Lindstroem, deputy foreign minister, and Jan Simonsen,
member of parliament from the Progressive Party. Contacts with them
were made mainly by ambassadors and sometimes NIS officers accredited
as diplomats. Two or three times a month, over luncheons and dinners,
they developed rapport and explained circumstances on the Korean
Peninsula.38
Yet another avenue toward influence would be an experienced scholarbureaucrat who “took charge of domestic scholar and foreign press.” In
April 1999, a prominent Yonsei University professor, Moon Jung- in,
visited Norway and held a seminar at the University of Oslo on the
recovery of the Korean economy— a perfect chance to broaden
understanding of Korea. Moon, noted for his close ties to Kim Dae- jung,
presided over another seminar at the Institute of International Affairs on
South Korea’s sunshine policy. He also met Lundestad at the Nobel
Institute and again explained “circumstances on the Korean peninsula.”
At the same juncture, Moon “schemed for several events in order for the
foreign press to report on President Kim.” He concocted the idea of a
seminar on “peace and human rights” all “to induce the foreign press to
report favorably on the president and the government.” 39
The NIS also took note of the potential influence of Norway’s
ambassador to South Korea, who was known to send two reports a year
on conditions in South Korea and had two long vacations every year back
in Norway. He too had to have briefings from the NIS and Korean
embassy people in Washington to ensure as much as possible that his
thinking was fixed in the right direction before going home. 40
Last but by no means least, the plan discussed how to deal with the
press. The NIS believed it might be possible to persuade Norwegian
journalists to write favorable “special reports” if invited to South Korea.
“The NB Committee tends to refer to the Norwegian press,” the plan
indicated. “It is necessary to make efforts to win over the Norwegian
press.” Recently, said the NIS plan, Aftenposten and Dagbladet had
expressed their hope to cover the Summit. “We will take advantage of
those two newspapers. Through the special reports on the Korean
peninsula, our situation will be introduced to Norway in a natural
fashion.”41
Everything had to appear spontaneous, in no way artificially contrived.
Continuous subtle massaging of the Worldview Rights Foundation and the
Rafto Foundation and special treatment for Norwegian visitors to Korea,
including politicians and opinion leaders, were essential. “When they visit
Korea, we will arrange a meeting with officials of the unification ministry
to update on North- South relations,” said the plan.42 The unification
ministry was crucial— more so than the foreign ministry— in view of its
role in the nuts and bolts of inter- Korean relations, including visits to the
North, North- South trade, and, if possible, North- South talks.
6
Shielding the Deeds
W
ithin the vast stone- walled NIS headquarters, surrounded by hilly
mountains in southern Seoul, skilled operatives analyze and try to
mastermind each and every political activity in both Koreas. Inside the
heavily guarded compound stretches a vast campus, magnificently
landscaped, surrounding giant grim-l ooking buildings that convey mixed
images of oppression and fear, mystery, and dignity. Sheathed by thick
cold- gray stone and opaque glass windows, the headquarters buildings
form a half circle plus five or six wings, all of which accommodate a
majority of the agency’s seven thousand people. When the present
headquarters was opened in 1995, it was one of two “intelligent” buildings
in the country—m eaning that everything inside runs automatically. The
other “intelligent” building was the headquarters of POSCO, Pohang Iron
and Steel Corporation, the government- invested steel manufacturer.
The NIS, the only consolidated intelligence agency in South Korea, is
a fearsome organization as much involved in suppressing internal dissent
as in collecting intelligence on North Korea. As ordered by Park Chungh ee, the general who seized power on May 16, 1961, and ruled with an
iron fist until his assassination on October 26, 1979, not by a wild- eyed
radical but by his own director at the Korean Central Intelligence Agency
(KCIA), the KCIA (as the NIS was formerly known) had cracked down
on foes ranging from North Korean saboteurs and pro- North agitators to
ardent advocates of democracy. The latter included Park’s most prominent
political enemies, Kim Dae-j ung and Kim Young-s am, briefly DJ’s ally
but finally his political opponent. The KCIA changed its name to National
Security Planning Agency in 1981 and in 1998 adopted its present name,
NIS—a more accurate and less repressive- sounding description of its real
mission.
Besides engaging in mundane intelligencegathering activities at home
and abroad, playing hide-a nd-s eek in search of spies and counterspies,
the NIS also takes charge of all “security” matters inside the country.
Security means “secrecy,” vital in any intelligence agency. The first rule
for new recruits is, “Do not let other people know what you are doing.”
SHIELDING THE DEEDS 65
The maxim, “Don’t let your right hand know how your left is helping
others,” does not apply here. Rather, the line should be rewritten to say,
“Don’t let your index finger know what your little finger is doing.” In this
weird “wilderness of mirrors,” as all young NIS officers were
indoctrinated, “secrecy is the alpha and omega.”1
“Everybody must act in complete silence,” the NIS paper warned.
“There can be no overt action or overt achievement, and no excessive
attempt to contact NB people.”2 The idea was to refrain from anything that
would look like undue pressure or a concentrated campaign. An
appearance of calm and helpfulness would be essential. Koreans had a
reputation for openly battling for recognition, for business success as seen
in the miraculous rise of the Korean economy from the ashes of the
Korean War. The single- minded purpose of the NP Project needed to be
shrouded, camouflaged.
“There should be no excessive provision and dissemination of
materials, no excessive propaganda or advertisement and no explanation
of Korean issues from our viewpoint, no excessive visits by our people to
Norway,” said the NIS “Report to the President.” Those responsible for
the whole project had to control visits so there would not appear to be too
many of them. Excessive enthusiasm, a flood of propaganda and
visitations, might arouse suspicions. “All contact and public relations
activities have to be carefully weighed and completely prepared and
performed in the scope of not giving any impression of a campaign,” said
the paper.3
All was to be in the realm of DJ’s ongoing efforts to reduce tension and
boost reconciliation. “Kim Dae- jung should be seen as aloof from the
Nobel Peace Prize process while he continues his efforts at settlement of
peace,” the paper urged. The government and politicians “also must act
aloof toward the Nobel Prize and must refrain from any comment on the
prize.” In particular, as the possibility of earning the prize increased, said
the plan, “we must be more cautious and strictly refrain from making any
remarks.” The ambassador’s contacts with Nobel people should be within
the framework of “normal diplomatic activity.” There should be “no
rivalry” or sense of “competition, jealousy and animosity among the
relevant people on the NP Project team.”4
In that context, “the relevant people” had to understand their exact
roles. People at NIS headquarters had to “prepare updated material on the
Korean peninsula and deliver it to the Norwegian embassy.” They also
had to “pass on propaganda from open sources for the NB committee and
peripheral contacts.” The NIS headquarters had to “provide cooperation
and facilities for Norwegian journalists visiting South Korea.” At the same
time, the NIS had to “gain complete understanding of the atmosphere and
circumstances in Norway, developing counter-m easures and analyzing
international circumstances and media reports.”5
The role of the Korean ambassador to Norway was to contact the most
influential Nobel VIPs as well as those seen as peripheral but important
characters to explain the circumstances on the Korean Peninsula,
persuading them all to be friendly toward Korea while heightening their
interest in the country. In that spirit, the ambassador also had to take care
of the media in Norway while arranging important meetings when
Norwegians came to Seoul. The intelligence was more specifically
defined. He had to report “circumstances and atmosphere” along with all
media mentions of Korea.
The NIS officer, in the guise of a diplomat, had to manage and
disseminate material from headquarters and, if necessary, accompany the
ambassador in meetings with Nobel people. His orders went far outside
the boundaries of intelligence-g athering. The order to engage in “local
security activity” had nothing to do with security in the conventional
sense. Rather, it carried the meaning of “prevention of unnecessary
misunderstanding” and “suppression of any rumors about the Nobel Peace
Prize among Korean diplomats and visitors.”6
The Blue House and its large media office also had the duty to “block
any comment on the Nobel Peace Prize among politicians” and “deter any
pursuit, follow-u p revelation or any of those kinds of things pertaining to
the Nobel Peace Prize.” The plan called for the Blue House and its media
office to discourage, if not deter, Korean journalists from visiting Norway.
Lastly, the unification ministry and the psychological warfare office in the
NIS had the job of meeting Norwegian visitors, including both VIPs and
journalists, “explaining [their] Sunshine policy and economic cooperation
between the two Koreas, providing updated material on development of
North- South relations.”7
The NIS plan concluded with a proposal to the president. “Any person
involved in this project directly or indirectly, in the Blue House,
government, or in politics, has to have the attitude of aloofness and
keeping their mouths shut.” Silence was golden. “In 1998 and 1999, some
politicians revealed their private activity on behalf of the Nobel to the
press,” said the NIS report. “The result was follow- up articles”— all of
which could be embarrassing in the final decision- making process of the
Nobel Committee.8 “Any atmosphere that links the Sunshine policy and
summit to the Nobel Peace Prize must be destroyed,” said the same NIS
report, “so that the achievements of the president should not be tarnished
by appearing to be part of an intentional plan.”9 In exchanges of people
between Norway and Korea there should be “no comment on the Nobel
prize.” Before and after the Summit in June, “we should invite a team of
journalists to Korea, including Aftenposten and Dagbladet,”10 the two
leading Norwegian newspapers.
The NP Project team came up with a sophisticated scheme around the
time that Kim Dae-j ung was preparing to go to Pyongyang for the NorthSouth Summit. An “internal handout” titled “Master Plan,” drafted right
before the Summit, described the basic strategy for the climactic push to
Nobel glory. The plan carefully dissected the time frame, breaking it into
three phases, “pre-S ummit, post-S ummit, and Summit aftermath,” setting
“goals and directions” for each phase. They focused on “quick and precise
conveyance of the situation,” “solidifying relations with the core and
peripheral targets in both Norway and Sweden,” and “creation of a
favorable environment”— all basic strategies in the hunt for the Nobel.11
More specifically, the NIS outlined the methodology. Shifting gears,
accelerating the quest for the Nobel, the NIS strategy was to zero in on
members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. At the same time, the NIS
began paying less attention to the Nobel leadership in Stockholm, no
longer seen as vital for winning the prize. Never before or since has
Norway, home to slightly less than five million people, had such attention
from a country at the other end of the Eurasian land mass.
The NIS listed six key ways to achieve its goals: 1) Updating
information on “the current situation on the Korean peninsula” to the
committee; 2) Providing a “continuous stream of information on Korea”
to local influential opinion leaders; 3) Holding seminars and conferences
to explain the Korean situation in Oslo; 4) Inviting “people from Oslo,
especially journalists,” to Korea; 5) Getting the Oslo media to “publish
special reports” on
Korea; 6) Establishing “a support system” in the NIS headquarters. 12
Moving to “concrete suggestions,” the NIS plan called for “field
activities” in which the ambassador to Norway would “exclusively
contact” members of the Nobel Committee, talking up Korea in pleasant
conversations while providing all manner of written material. The
ambassador would maintain close contacts with people whom he already
knew, notably Bishop Stålsett and Geir Lundestad, the Nobel Institute
director. He should try to see each of them around twice a month while
courting “peripheral” members ranging from VIPs to lower- level types
who might have influence.
The name of Solheim, the former Socialist party leader, led that list,
which also included Sverre Lodgaard, head of the Norwegian Institute of
International Affairs; Dan Smith, head of the Peace Research Institute of
Oslo; Helge Hveem, professor of politics at the University of Oslo;
Wegger Stommen, deputy foreign minister, and businessman Sven
Ullring. The intelligence officer in Norway would be responsible for
contacts with three others who would be of utmost importance in
influencing the final selection. These included Jan Ramstad of the Rafto
Foundation, Rune Hersvik of Worldview Rights, and Frank Jansen of
Omega Television, a private educational channel. How to deal with the
foreign media also fell under the rubric of “field activity.”
The Master Plan called for an “efficient support system with a
minimum of personnel and a separate command and reporting channel.”
The system for bringing the Nobel Peace Prize to DJ was more advanced,
tightly run, and goal-o riented than any other project in NIS history.
Responsibilities ranged from “guiding activities in the field,” “keeping the
communications channel,” “understanding the atmosphere and situation
in the field,” “preparing material to deliver to the field,” “establishing
planning and executing and providing convenience for invitations to those
in the field,” including VIPs and journalists, and “checking on [their]
people in the field.” Last but probably not least, the NIS headquarters
should be “assessing any international peace movement”—n ot with a
view of ferreting out enemies of
South Korea, but in order to size up all possible competition for the prize. 13
The Master Plan reiterated that it was “not desirable” to “form an
artificial special team” in addition to the NP Project team, basically an
informal grouping led by Kim Han- jung. However, the Master Plan called
for a small “shadow team in the appropriate place to follow up on all field
activity,” the kind of unit that should ordinarily gather much needed
intelligence, not information, on the president’s lust for the prize. 14
The NIS Master Plan was equally careful in deciding who should
definitely not know a thing about what was going on from other ministries
and agencies. The exclusive NP Project team regarded all Koreans outside
the team as “foreign” to the program. “All activity and mechanism have
to be protected,” said the plan. “The more possibility for our person, the
more cautious approach must be made.”15 Most diplomats in the foreign
ministry and Blue House staffers, other than Kim Han- jung and an
assistant or two, should remain out of the loop. Certainly no one in the
unification ministry, responsible for South Korea’s dealings with North
Korea, or members of the National Assembly, filled with quarreling,
gossiping, talkative politicos from far right to far left, should be privy to
details of the hunt for the Nobel.
Kim Dae- jung personally ordered NIS directors to rev up the
campaign. Lim Dong- won, the architect if not the missionary of the
sunshine policy, the driving force behind the June 2000 Summit, whom
DJ made director of the NIS in December 1999, presided over the Nobel
campaign in its climactic phases. The background of Lim Dong- won
spoke volumes about his utility in DJ’s goal of fulfilling his self- image as
the greatest leader in Korean history. In the years before DJ’s election in
1997 over the archconservative Lee Hoi-c hang, few expected that Lim
would play such an important role. As far as North Korean policy was
concerned, he came to wield enormous unchecked power beginning as a
security adviser in the Blue House; unification minister; then director of
the NIS, and again as unification minister.
In the early days of Kim Dae-j ung’s presidency, NIS Director Lee
Jong- chan and Deputy Director Ra Jong- il had shown signs of skepticism
about DJ’s sunshine policy before they were completely removed. After
getting rid of them, Lim Dong- won implemented sunshine with the power
to name senior officials even before he took over as NIS director. Lim had
the complete confidence of his contacts in North Korea. Before Lim
became NIS director in December 1999, the North Korean intelligencegathering division in NIS frequently obtained intelligence from North
Korean sources about the North’s hopes for Lim. North Korean authorities
believed that Lim should hold a post that would enable him “to resolve
relations between the two Koreas.” The North’s confidence in Lim was
shocking. It was well known that North Korea preferred “to deal with
someone, originally from the North, like Lim,” rather than a genuine
South Korean, but Lim’s rapport with the North Koreans was still more
extraordinary than even his North Korean origins would indicate. 16
The great mystery was why and how Lim was held in such high esteem
in the North. What made him so special for North Korea? Born in North
Pyongan Province, north of Pyongyang in 1934, son of a Presbyterian
pastor, Lim had graduated from high school in Sunchun County in 1950.
Then aged 16, Lim had fled south after the onset of the Korean War in
1950 and entered the Korean Military Academy in March 1953, four
months before the signing of the Korean War armistice in July. Lim’s
early background is shrouded in mystery, not just obscure but almost
opaque. He has never said how or why he went south though it’s believed
his father was executed by communists in their campaign to exterminate
all Christian leaders. It’s also known that he left a brother and a sister in
the North— a powerful reason for him not to want to offend North Korean
sensitivities.
In his military career, known as a scholarly officer, Lim did not hesitate
to appear as a tough- minded member of an elite group dedicated to
providing the overall framework for strong defense against the North. In
his early career, as a professor at the military academy, he wrote papers
showing his strong anti-C ommunist sentiment. His books included such
topics and titles, in English translation, as Revolutionary War, CounterCommunist Strategy, How to Defeat the Communists, Export of
Revolution, People’s Liberation War, and Guerrilla Warfare.
Lim Dong- won went on to take over the army’s program for
modernizing weapons systems— a noncombat- type role in which he was
able to display his keen intellect and understanding of the army’s needs.
He was never, however, on close terms with Chun Doo-h wan, the general
who seized power after the assassination of Park Chung-h ee in October
1979. For Lim, the smartest way out of any relationship with Chun was to
retire as a major general in October 1980, five months after the bloody
suppression of the Gwangju revolt, for which Chun was widely held
responsible. After 26 years of military service, Lim slipped into a high-l
evel diplomatic career— first as ambassador to Nigeria and then to
Australia.
As during his military career, Lim’s intellect placed him on a level
beyond that of most of his Foreign Service colleagues. In July 1988,
shortly before the Seoul Summer Olympics, when Lim was president of
the Institute for Foreign Affairs and National Security, an adjunct of the
foreign ministry, Chun Doo-h wan’s successor, President Roh Tae-w oo,
who had persuaded Chun amid rioting in June 1987 to agree to Korea’s
“democracy constitution” and presidential elections every five years,
initiated Nordpolitik. That odd Germanic word, absorbed into Korean
from “Ostpolitik,” the West German policy of looking east, to East
Germany, before the two were reunited, provided the basis for pleas for
relations with Communist countries, including North Korea. Lim joined
talks with the North in December 1988 in which North and South began
exchanges of delegations led by their respective prime ministers. He
emerged quickly as a key figure in attempting to bring about
reconciliation. These talks culminated in the signing of the North- South
Basic Agreement that took effect in January 1991 calling for
“denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula.
The question, after this meteoric record as a soldier and diplomat, was
how Lim Dong- won in subsequent years came to adopt the role of
compromiser in his dealings with the North. One reason may have been
that North Korea basically held his long- lost sister and brother as
hostages, leaving no doubt that they would suffer if he failed to press for
acceptance of North Korean demands. In the course of high- level
conferences, Prime Minister Kang Young-h un, a retired general who, as
president of the Korea Military Academy, had opposed Park Chung- hee’s
military coup in May 1961, led a delegation to North Korea in October
1990. The delegation included three people who had originally come from
the North—K ang himself as well as Hong Sung- chul, the unification
minister, and Lim Dong- won, now deputy unification minister and
spokesman for the delegation.
According to Dong A Ilbo, the three delegates had the chance to meet
their family members living in the North at the Paekhwawon guest house
on October 19 at 1 a.m. for one hour. Kang Young-h un, leader of the
delegation, had vehemently opposed any contact between members of his
delegation and their family members in the North. At the end of the visit,
however, under persistent pressure from the North Korean side, all three
had brief meetings with relatives. Lim saw his brother and younger sister,
Lim Dong- Youn, for less than an hour, according to the paper. 17
Nambuk Jungsang Hoidam 600 Il, “600 Days for North- South
Summit” by Choi Won- ki and Chung Chang- hyun, journalists with the
newspaper JoongAng Ilbo, provides colorful material on Lim Dongwon’s meeting his sister. At the meeting, sadly, they could hardly
recognize one another after a separation of forty years. Lim and his sister,
however, shared a memory that only they would have known. When his
sister had entered elementary school during the Japanese colonial era, they
recalled, their father tried to tell her what Japanese words to use when
asked her birthday, October 10. The words in Japanese were jugas dokka
desu, meaning “It’s October 10,” but the whole family burst into laughter
when instead the little girl had said, “Jugas dokkaebi desu”- do- kkae- bi
meaning “devil” in Korean.18
This incident gave reason for many conservatives in South Korea to
suspect Lim’s North Korean connection. Interestingly, this weird event
was relayed to the public by members of the North Korean delegation in
South Korea two days later while the prime minister’s office was trying
to cover it up. Why did North Korea force the South Korean delegates to
meet their relatives in the North and then let the news be known to South
Koreans? What message did the North want to deliver to South Koreans—
especially to the South Korean delegates? The only rational answer was
that the North wanted to blackmail members of the delegation.
It was known that Kang Young- hun had strictly ordered all the
delegates not to engage in any private activity. On the same day, however,
it was also known that Lim Dong-w on was summoned for another
meeting in the hotel where they were staying A North Korean intelligence
agent was explicit about the possible fates of his brother and sister. If you
do not cooperate with us, your sister and brother will be terminated, was
the message. If you do cooperate, Lim purportedly was told, they would
be assured of comfortable lives in Pyongyang— a tactic routinely
employed by the North Korean security agency.
In 1992, during more North- South negotiations, Lee Dong- bok, the
conservative leader of the delegation and a veteran of more than twenty
years with the NIS, was forced to step down. The reason was that Lim
Dong- won leaked to the Korean media the word that Lee had distorted a
Blue House order not to adopt a tough position in the talks. Lee was clearly
the “hawk” on the delegation and Lim the “dove.” The point was to get
rid of Lee as an eloquent, powerful negative force in talks with the North.
The incident marked the first time that Lim had aided North Korea in
negotiations, a sure sign of cooperation.
In January 1994, Lim became director-g eneral of Kim Dae-j ung’s
Asia- Pacific Peace Foundation. He was not, however, the only one
interested in the job. According to Kim Dae- jung OeiHok (Kim Dae- jung
Suspicions) by Lee Do-h yung, publisher of a right-w ing magazine, Cho
Young-h wan, a professor at the University of Arizona, also craved the
title. Cho, in the summer of 1994, met Chon Keum- chul, deputy chief of
North Korea’s Asia- Pacific Peace Committee, in Beijing. Chon told Cho
that the establishment of the Asia- Pacific Peace Foundation by Kim Daejung was “a brilliant idea.”19
Around that same time Kim Yong- sun, as Kim Jong- il’s intelligence
chief, established the Asia-P acific Peace Committee in the North and
openly asked for cooperation with DJ’s foundation. Lim Dong- won and
Kim Yong- sun developed close relations from 1995 through 1997 in their
respective “Asia- Pacific Peace” positions, forming a bond that would be
instrumental in promoting the June 2000 Summit and then the Nobel for
DJ. Cho moved from Arizona to Korea to teach at Sogang University in
Seoul but lost his title with the foundation. In a conversation with Lee Dohyung, Cho said that he felt that “someone was following” him. On the
evening of April 16, 1999, Cho was found dead in a bathtub in his
apartment in Seoul.20
Lim’s sensitivity on security matters began creating uneasiness. Very
soon after Kim Dae- jung’s election as president, strangely, as Kim Kisam explained in his book, My Testimony on Kim Dae Jung and the
Republic of Korea, “he did not choose to share his opinions with other
ministers at security-r elated meetings in his position as DJ’s security
adviser at the Blue House.” By no coincidence, the chief of the CounterN orth Strategic Division at the NIS, Kim Bo- hyun, “started to deal
directly with Lim rather than go through his superiors at the NIS.” 21
Incredibly, Kim Bo-h yun got away with busting channels in an
organization that normally places extreme emphasis on order and
discipline within the chain of command.
After his appointment as unification minister, Lim visited the United
States in August 1999 to meet William Perry, the former defense
secretary, whom President Clinton had asked to coordinate policy on
North Korea. Before leaving, Lim ordered his secretary not to disclose
information about his activities in the United States and intentionally cut
out the NIS officer. When he got back to Korea, Lim said the United States
was willing to “relax economic punishment” and expand relations with
North Korea if North Korea did not test- fire Taepodong- II, the longrange missile that had alarmed leaders in Washington and Japan when first
fired on August 31, 1998, in a trajectory over Japan. The missile had
landed harmlessly in the Pacific, well south of Vladivostok, but
theoretically could reach Hawaii or Alaska— or even the US West Coast.
North Korea’s promise on September 12, 1999, not to test-f ire the missile
that time was a personal triumph for Lim.
At this propitious juncture, the Blue House and the NIS went through
a game of musical chairs ordered by Kim Dae-j ung in the run-u p to the
historic events of the next year. First, most importantly, Kim Han- jung
was named in mid-D ecember as chief of the first attachment chamber
next to DJ’s office. One week later, just as significantly, Lim Dong- won
was named director of the NIS. Lim at once plunged into the quest for a
North-S outh summit and the Nobel for DJ. He really had no other priority.
Concerns about North Korean military movements, infiltration of spies
into the South, the rise and fall of people within the North’s ruling
structure, and the prison system under which around 200,000 foes of the
regime were sentenced to spend the rest of their abbreviated lives— all
these traditional issues were deemed mundane, secondary, and irrelevant.
Kim Ki- sam, in his book, described what happened next. Lim’s first
major order was a “Special Request of Information” for all officers abroad
to develop a secret contact point with the North. “He was furious when he
learned that a unification ministry official in Beijing was trying to
establish a secret contact with the North without notifying the NIS.”22 The
unification ministry official was dealing with a counselor of North
Korea’s Asia- Pacific Peace Committee through a North Korean broker.
Lim’s angry response was shocking considering that the same official a
month earlier had been working for Lim when Lim was still unification
minister.
The lesson here was that Lim demanded total, tight control over
anything to do with North Korea. The personnel of the North Korean
intelligence analysis division at the NIS suffered the most while Lim was
at the NIS. Whenever they came up with negative reports on North Korea,
no matter how balanced or objective, Lim rebuked them. As long as Lim
was running the NIS, the North Korean division could not produce any
valuable reports. After bringing about the Summit by skillful negotiations
and transferring of funds, Lim had a ringside seat at the meetings between
Kim Dae-j ung and Kim Jong-i l. Unlike Park Jie-w on, who had had so
much to do with the funding but did not attend the talks, Lim was
constantly at DJ’s side. He played the mediator between the two, doing
much of the talking as though he were presiding over the meeting.
The real nature of Lim’s utility to North Korea emerged after he
resigned from the NIS on March 27, 2001. Relations between North and
South Korea quickly soured. Lim’s removal from the NIS triggered the
complete disconnection of the two Koreas. Lim’s opposite number in
North Korea, Kim Yong- sun, was arrested— and died two years later in
a mysterious car “accident.” Word spread among NIS people that Lim had
ordered the deputy chief of the Counter-N orth Strategic Division to
destroy the tapes of the Summit. Subordinates protested, saying, “We
cannot take the responsibility.”23 Lim apparently did not want a precise
record of whatever was really said.
The period from March through August 2001 was significant in terms
of the connections between Lim and the North. At Lim’s urging, Kim Daejung rushed to see newly inaugurated President George W. Bush at the
White House in March 2001 when the Bush administration was not yet
prepared. The result was a catastrophic diplomatic failure, however, when
Bush expressed “some skepticism” about Kim Jong- il. Bush asked how
an agreement with North Korea on its nuclear weapons could work
without “verification” of compliance, and he seemed incredibly
patronizing when he remarked, standing beside DJ, “how much I
appreciate this man’s leadership in terms of reaching out to the North
Koreans.”24 Koreans found Bush’s use of the term “this man” deeply
offensive. The United States, in the interests of maintaining the KoreanAmerican alliance, eventually fell into line behind “this man’s” sunshine
policy after much hesitation, but Kim Jong- il called off ministerial- level
talks with the South.
In early April 2001, DJ ordered the NIS to report on “why the North
disconnected the relationships with the South.”25 The chief of the general
analysis department in the Counter-N orth Strategic Division prepared a
report but was dismissed because he was suspected of having leaked key
information on the North to a US official.
DJ, however, must have known why Kim Jong- il cut off talks. He
knew full well that Kim Jong- il had already obtained the money, as
secretly agreed on, to host the Summit and had no more reason for dealing
with the South while investing this windfall in his nuclear and missile
programs. DJ also fully understood that Kim Jong- il was disappointed by
his inability to persuade the United States to agree on forming relations
with North Korea. NIS personnel, however, were never informed of what
was going on. Lim Dong- won, since he was no longer NIS director, made
sure to keep the NIS out of the loop while aiding and abetting DJ in
governing the country.
The United States saw diplomatic relations with North Korea for what
they were— a way for North Korea to go on avoiding talks with the South
while demanding the United States withdraw all its forces from South
Korea as a prerequisite for a peace treaty replacing the armistice that had
ended the Korean War on July 27, 1953. DJ often claimed that Kim Jongi l had said at the Summit that he would not object if some American forces
remained, but there was no evidence to support that claim. North Korea
went on repeatedly demanding that all United States forces go home.
One provision of the treaty would be for “foreign troops” to leave. It
was for that reason that North Korea wanted a peace treaty to replace the
armistice. While the Americans retreated, the Chinese would always have
forces just above the North Korean border, ready to preserve their North
Korean protectorate if the regime were to collapse or foreign armies were
to try to intervene to protect the South in the event of the dreaded “Second
Korean War.” The clear North Korean intent was to destroy the US
alliance with South Korea, again exposing the South to attack or invasion.
7
Courting the Bishop
T
he morning of December 14, 1999, must have been special for Kim
Han-j ung as he strode into his new office in the Blue House, the
first attachment chamber, the closest spot to the president. Proudly he sat
in his seat of power— a dark- suited, white- shirted, latter- day
reincarnation of the ornately costumed courtiers whom Koreans loved to
see in television dramas prostrating themselves before the kings of all
Korea.
The Yi dynasty kings, in their elaborate finery, had sat on the throne
almost next door, at the Kyongbok Palace, now restored to its former glory
on spacious grounds in front of the Blue House. Behind the complex of
the palace and the Blue House, the rocky slopes of Mount Pugak soared
above grounds manicured for martial arts competitions during the dynastic
era.
Lieutenant- General John Reed Hodge had chosen this very setting for
his headquarters when he took over as US military governor of South
Korea several weeks after the Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945.
Hodge “ruled” from there until South Korea’s first president, Rhee
Syngman, installed by the Americans soon after World War II, made it the
site of his government and residence after the formal founding of the
Republic of Korea three years later. Forced to flee the capital when North
Korea invaded the South in June 1950, Rhee served as president through
the Korean War. After the Chinese vacated the capital in early 1951, he
ruled from the Japanese governor- general’s enormous capitol building in
central Seoul until forced to flee again—t his time on an American plane
to Hawaii in the student revolution of April 1960.
The Blue House had its own magic lore as the modern center of power,
so near to the former power center of Yi dynasty kings. They had ruled
for more than five hundred years, the last of the line forced out by the
Japanese in 1910. The “annexation” of Korea marked the beginning of 35
years of humiliating Japanese rule, during which the Japanese built a
ponderous granitic capitol building that totally obscured the view of the
ancient palace. Rhee’s immediate successor, the fiery Yun Bo- sun, had
COURTING THE BISHOP 77
been the first to call the newly constructed office and residence of the
president, dominated by a blue-t iled roof, the “Blue House.” The name
itself may have been the most enduring legacy of President Yun, who fell
from power in Park Chung-h ee’s coup of May 1961. The current Blue
House, constructed in 1995 while Kim Young- sam was president, has an
imposing central building and two wings surrounded by immaculately
trimmed gardens— a fitting successor at last to the Kyongbok Palace that
became one of Seoul’s top attractions after the obnoxious old capitol
building was torn down by President Kim Young- sam.
Within these grand quarters, Kim Han-j ung had the most privileged
position of any of those sharing in the refracted glory of the president. His
office was designed to serve only the president. This post gave him the
authority to check and control all the information flowing to and from DJ’s
desk. Nobody got to see DJ without going through him. “Door-k nob
power,” so similar to the American term “gatekeeper,” was the way
Koreans described Kim Han- jung’s exalted new title for the position that
was closest both physically and psychologically to the center. After one
and a half years of working for the cause, Kim was anchored inside the
control tower in the hunt for the Nobel Peace Prize.
With New Year’s Eve two weeks away, excitement filled the air for the
approach of the new millennium. The streets were full of people,
Christmas carols wafting through the chill skies. The whole society
seemed to have regained its vitality after two years of economic and
psychological malaise. The silly media, which spent so much time and
energy looking for problems and complaints, was clamoring about the
dangers of Y2K—t he impact that the turn of the year from 1999 to 2000
would have on computer programs. Nobody other than DJ himself and
those on his inner team seemed to know what DJ had been doing for the
last few months. It was the right time to act, to move quickly in the quest
for the Nobel.
A long history of planning, scheming, analyzing, and informing by the
NIS preceded the final reward for all the efforts of Kim Han-j ung. It was
an extraordinary tale of subtle and not- so- subtle pressure and flattery on
all levels in which finally the Nobel prize givers in Stockholm and Oslo
decided he was the one. The NP Project team was especially adept at
massaging the giant but gullible ego of Bishop Stålsett, seen as the man
with the deciding vote.
The NIS record on Stålsett showed a detailed “curriculum vitae”
outlining his steady progress from heading local parishes to holding such
prestigious posts as secretarygeneral of the Norway Ecclesiastical
Council, secretary-g eneral of the Norway Bible Society, and general
secretary and then chairman of the World Lutheran Federation in Geneva.
The bishop was esteemed for conducting “practical and theological
seminars,” a record that, on top of all else, led to his appointment as rector
of the University of Oslo and finally, in 1998, to the post of bishop of
Oslo, in charge of the Church of Norway. From 1985, while on the way to
that august post, he had been a member of the Norwegian Nobel
Committee. All the while, politically, he was above reproach— a member
of the Oslo Centre Party, for which he had served as chairman for five
years in the 1970s, and a member of the World Council of Churches and
human rights movement.1
After Yang passed the baton in the race for Stålsett’s vote to Kim Hanjung, the level of Kim’s attention to the bishop escalated sharply. His
approach was mainly through the ambassador, Park Kyung- tae, who,
unlike his predecessors, turned extremely cooperative in this special
mission. Kim Han- jung frequently issued orders to Park without
bothering to go through the formal channel of the foreign ministry. Kim
Nam- yong, NIS officer in the embassy, was constantly at Park’s side
during briefings for the bishop. Such appointments were arranged with
extreme caution. They had to be neither too frequent nor too rare— not
too many, and not too few.
NIS cables written by Kim Nam- yong in Oslo reveal the vividness of
those meetings. Topics seemed to have no limit. For instance, the five
pages of Kim Nam- yong’s cable on March 31, 2000, show they talked
about the reshuffling of members of the Nobel Committee. According to
the cable, the bishop noted reassuringly that everyone on the committee
was managing to adapt despite what he described as “sensitive issues in
management.”2 Asked to chair the committee, he declined in view of his
“responsibilities” as a bishop even though physically he said he was “up
to the job.”3 Similarly, he said he had turned down offers to sit on the
panels of the Templeton Prize in the United States and the Seoul Peace
Prize in South Korea— the offer of the latter clearly another ploy by the
project team to court his favor.
The same cable also carried the inauguration of Jens Stoltenberg as
prime minister of Norway, Archbishop Tutu’s visit to Norway, Tutu’s
diagnosis of prostate cancer and other tidbits, plus a lengthy description
of Abdurrahman Wahid, president of Indonesia from 1999 to 2001.
Stålsett adored Wahid “as much as President Kim Dae- jung,” said Kim
Nam- yong, reporting that the bishop had asked solicitously about DJ’s
health. Stålsett was well aware, said the cable, that DJ had “played a
leading role in Myanmar as well as East Timor.” In the cable, Stålsett was
quoted by Kim Nam- yong as sanctimoniously describing Wahid’s
selection of Megawati Sukarnoputri as his successor as “godly.” She was
best known as the daughter of Sukarno, the president who rose during
Indonesia’s struggle for merdeka, freedom from Dutch rule, and then was
deposed in 1967.4
Kim Nam-y ong also was glad to be able to report that Stålsett had
shown “extensive interest” in South Korea, asking about student unrest,
the economy, and “the revolution of the chaebol”— a line of questioning
that revealed how easily he’d been led to believe that South Korea’s
mighty industrial empires were seriously reforming in the wake of the
1997–9 8 economic crisis. Stålsett also asked about all of “the biggest
issues” facing South Korea, “political, diplomatic, and economic.”5
“Last but not least,” Kim Nam- yong reported, “Stålsett hoped from the
bottom of his heart that President Kim Dae- jung makes a breakthrough in
North- South relations in his tenure”— a sure sign that DJ would win the
prize if he managed to make a show of progress with the North. Stålsett in
particular wanted to know about DJ’s “Berlin Declaration” of March 9,
2000, at the Free University of Berlin, during which DJ had said South
Korea was “willing to provide infrastructure” for North Korea if the North
showed signs of opening up to the outside world. Stålsett, said Kim Namyong, was “eager for material on the exact contents of the declaration and
the response of major nations.”6
On April 14, 2000, Ambassador Park met Stålsett for a dinner hosted
by the former Norwegian ambassador to Seoul, a woman named Ragne
Birte Lund. Park, according to a cable from Kim Nam- yong, was eager
to spread the word about all DJ had said in Berlin. He and Stålsett
“exchanged opinions on the Berlin declaration, South Korea’s national
security law, longtime leftist prisoners and other critical issues.”
Significantly, Stålsett said he had “very carefully” read the Berlin speech
and “expressed his appreciation for the material.” He hailed it as “a
masterpiece” on how the South viewed North- South relations in detail.
He added that he hoped DJ would “achieve tremendous results from the
Summit” as shown in the speech.7
Stålsett also showed “deep concern about the unconverted longterm
prisoners”— that is, political prisoners held in South Korean jails who
refused to renounce their communist beliefs. “Even if I read Amnesty
International reports,” Stålsett was quoted as saying, “I cannot understand
the reports.” He asked Park what “longterm unconverted prisoners”
really meant, how many were held, and what was South Korea’s position
on them. Ambassador Park, asked to provide relevant material, assured
him he would be only too glad to do so. Stålsett, meanwhile, saw no reason
to inquire about the hundreds of South Koreans held in North Korea. Nor,
for that matter, did Park.8
The conversation was perfect for the Koreans in the hunt for the Nobel
Peace Prize. That same day, Ambassador Park’s wife called on Stålsett’s
wife with a jar of kimchi, the spicy pickled Korean national dish. “Mr. and
Mrs. Stålsett both like kimchi,” said Kim Nam-y ong.9 Stålsett seemed to
have been warmed to perfection by all the pleasant chitchat, food, and
drink. The Koreans had played the bishop perfectly with gentle flattery
and fine- tuned cordiality. The bishop would never know, of course, that
his every word would be relayed back to Seoul by an NIS officer posing
as a junior diplomat.
Ambassador Park Kyung- tae and Bishop Stålsett met again in the
Blom Restaurant on June 5, ten days before the North-S outh Summit.
Stålsett asked how preparations for the Summit were going and what
people in Seoul were saying. “The Summit is the biggest event for the
world, right on the threshold of the new millennium,” the bishop told the
ambassador.10
Stålsett was heartened by word that DJ’s wife, Lee Hee- ho, a devout
Methodist and mother of DJ’s youngest son, would accompany her
husband to Pyongyang. DJ had become a Catholic in 1957 in order to
ingratiate himself with Chang Myun, a.k.a. John Chang, leader of the
Minju- dang, Democratic Party, whom he asked to be his godfather.
Chang had become prime minister after the student revolution of April
1960, serving together with Yun Bo- sun, the president, until both were
deposed by Park Chung- hee 13 months later. DJ meanwhile had married
Lee after the suicide in 1960 of his first wife, Cha Yong-a e, mother of his
first two sons. Unlike Cha, daughter of a businessman in Mokpo who had
gone to an all- girls high school and worked as a hairdresser, Lee was from
a well-k nown Seoul family, a graduate of Seoul National University, an
executive of the Young Women’s Christian Association, and a constant
companion and adviser through DJ’s rise from dissident to president— the
perfect wife for such an occasion.
Stålsett was overflowing with optimism. He said that he had read an
article in Aftenposten that day saying “Kim Jong- il would pay a return
visit to Seoul in August”—a positive sign of North Korea’s position, he
enthused, that “keeps the contact channels between the two leaders at the
Summit.”11 As matters of minor interest, Stålsett was also curious about
the size of the delegation going to Pyongyang for the Summit and how the
foreign press would cover it. “That’s very well done,” the munificent
bishop declared in patronizing solemnity, as if giving a blessing. “That’s
quite something.” Yes, he expected a good outcome. “I have the
impression that North Korea will extend every courtesy at the Summit,”
he predicted— surely a sign of his support for DJ.12
Pressure was quickly mounting for Kim Dae- jung to get the Nobel
Peace Prize. The race was gaining in intensity by the day. The Summit
would undoubtedly be the clincher. DJ’s primary adviser, NIS Director
Lim Dong- won, had engineered the historic meeting after Hyundai
founder Chung Ju-y ung and his fifth son, Chung Mong-h un, negotiating
for trade and investment, returned from Pyongyang in December 1998
with word of North Korea’s interest. Lim’s trusted aide, Kim Bo- hyun,
had been talking to North Koreans in China since January. Kim and
Culture and Tourism Minister Park Jie-w on met North Korean officials
in Singapore from March 9 to March 11, as Donald Kirk later reported in
the International Herald Tribune, to arrange a secret payment to Kim
Jong- il.13 On March 17, a week after Kim Dae- jung’s Berlin Declaration
of the willingness to jumpstart the North’s collapsed economy, Park Jiewon flew to Shanghai and then to Beijing on March 23 and again on April
8 to work out more details.
On June 13, 2000, Kim Dae- jung flew to Pyongyang from Seoul Air
Base, a noncommercial facility south of Seoul used primarily for military
planes, on the first flight from Seoul to Pyongyang since the brief period
in the fall of 1950 when US troops had rolled back the North Koreans and
held Pyongyang before the Chinese drove the Americans and their allies
back again in November. Kim Jong- il greeted him at Sunan Airport, and
cheering crowds lined the streets as they drove into the city on a beautiful
balmy day. The welcome was exquisitely organized— right down to the
personal greetings of well-w ishers as the limousine stopped and DJ
paused to shake hands. The next day, the two leaders held their first
Summit meeting, and on June 15 they pledged, according to the five- point
North- South Joint Declaration, “to solve the question of the country’s
reunification independently by the concerted efforts of the Korean nation
responsible for it.”14
The declaration also pledged to work for “reunification” and resolve
“humanitarian issues,” including reunions of millions of families divided
by the Korean War and the return of political prisoners. Koreans in both
the North and the South witnessed scenes on television of Kim Dae- jung
and Kim Jong-i l shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries. They did
not, however, address the issue of manufacture and export of missiles
capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction, much less utter a word
in reference to the nuclear program. Nor was there a passing nod to human
rights—a topic that the North abhorred and rejected as hostile
propaganda. DJ returned in a motorcade, crossing the normally closed
North- South line at the truce village of Panmunjom, symbolic of the
possibilities for opening the border to regular traffic. The optimism of the
Summit would soon fade, but the June 15 declaration, signed by DJ and
Kim Jong- il, was viewed in the immediate aftermath as a historic
document that the world would interpret as a huge step toward ending
North- South Korean animosity.
From that seemingly unalloyed triumph, the hunt for the Nobel went
into high gear. Ambassador Park hosted yet another dinner for Bishop
Stålsett on August 20, to which he invited Ragna Birte Lunde, about to
report to her new posting as Norway’s ambassador to Thailand. One of
her main tasks in Thailand would be to promote democracy and human
rights in neighboring Myanmar. Lunde, who had not been accepted as
ambassador by Myanmar, would carry on her crusades for Myanmar from
Thailand. At the end of the dinner, Stålsett requested a “personal meeting”
with Park at which he asked to be updated on post- Summit “measures and
developments.”15
Ambassador Park invited Stålsett to his residence for dinner on
September 5. The title of his cable suddenly changed from “contact” to
“interview,” reflecting the seriousness of the meeting. It was a last-m inute
chance for the NP Project team to ensure the glory of the Nobel that year.
In their final meeting before the announcement of the winner of the prize
in October, Park delivered English material, which Stålsett had wanted to
see. Stålsett did not know who had written the pamphlets, but all of them
were the handiwork of the energetic intelligence officer, Kim Nam- yong.
The pamphlets explained the details of all that had gone on since the
Summit, focusing on what was claimed to have been the “turning point of
dismantlement of the Cold War system on the Korean peninsula, the last
remnant of the global Cold War.”16
The Summit, it said, had “prevented a second Korean War by easing
tensions.” Also, the Summit had “established the system to support North
Korea in a way that helped the North Korean people from a practical point
of view.”17 The statement did not explain how the Summit had really
helped the North Koreans, but Kim Nam- yong carefully made all three
points in order to give a convincing basis for Stålsett to throw his
considerable weight behind DJ’s candidacy for the prize. Here was the last
chance to win over the bishop before the big announcement. The
ambassador had to make his points as coolly, carefully, and deliberately
as possible. He could not appear overly eager. Nor could he omit any
details.
Stålsett was definitely ready to be impressed. At the beginning of the
meeting he raised questions about the impact of the Summit on Kim Jongil. What had led him to “alter his position?” And, the bishop asked in all
seriousness, was there “any change in his ideology?” The ambassador’s
answer gave an impression of realistic insight— far preferable to blatant
salesmanship. “Even if we cannot know if Kim Jong-i l has changed his
ideology at this phase,” he said, “we understand that North Korea has
responded to South Korea’s approach.” The North Koreans “realized,” he
said, “the core of sunshine is not for reunification but to help North Korea
from the depths of the hearts of their people as well as to respond to North
Korea’s accumulated economic difficulties”— a clue, although no one
breathed a word of it at the time, of the enormous sums that South Korea
had transferred to bring about the Summit and, of course, the Nobel Peace
Prize.18
Stålsett pressed the question of “change in Kim Jong- il as perceived
by South Korea,” comparing pre- Summit and post- Summit attitudes.
Ambassador Park’s response was studiedly cautious. “At this moment it
is too early to comprehensively assess Kim Jong-i l,” he said, “but Kim
Jong-i l showed many positive aspects through the Summit and meetings
after the Summit with Korean people”— a reference to the stream of leftist
professors, clergymen, and politicians now going to North Korea as well
as one highly publicized reunion of several hundred families divided by
the Korean War.
Stålsett also wanted to know, “What is the direction of the Sunshine
policy after the Summit[?],” and “What is the position of the Koreans
about that policy[?]” The ambassador told him, “Some people are
concerned about the scope and speed of the Sunshine policy.” He said,
however, that “most Korean people give full- scale support to the direction
of Sunshine.” Stålsett then pointed out that South Korean economic
cooperation with North Korea might be “too speedy” or “too radical” and
wondered if “it will continue at that pace.” He also wondered about the
economic situation in South Korea, finally recovering from the 1997– 98
“IMF crisis.” The ambassador answered, “South Korea is never in a hurry”
and would “proceed gradually with economic cooperation with North
Korea.” The South Korean economy, even if economic reform were not
yet completed, he was certain, “is successfully recovering from the foreign
exchange crisis and economic distress.”19
Stålsett was most obsessed, however, by the question of “longterm
unconverted prisoners” held in South Korean prisons. “Are there other
long-t erm prisoners in South Korea beside the sixty-t hree already sent to
North Korea”— that is, the ones who had been returned in a blaze of
publicity three days earlier on September 2, he asked. The ambassador
responded, “South Korea returned to North Korea all the long-t erm
prisoners who wished to go there.” He was sure that “not a single longterm prisoner who wanted to go to the North” was still in South Korea—
a nuanced response that suggested that some wanted to stay in the South.
Stålsett was appropriately happy with the answer. “That’s good,” he
pronounced, as if he were giving his blessing.
Ambassador Park made excuses for the fact that some Korean people
were “passive to the problem” of hundreds of Korean War prisoners,
fishermen whose boats were captured by the North and a number of
abductees spirited to North Korea. “It is not true that South Korea is
negative about measuring that problem,” he said, clearly sensitive that DJ
had not asked for the return of any of them in exchange for sending back
the long-t erm prisoners. “The South Korean government in a broad sense
negotiated with North Korea to solve the problem of all separated families.
It is not a passive but a strategic approach. We will have a good outcome
after some period”—t he rationale that DJ always offered when asked
about anything to do with his failure to raise the issue of human rights in
North Korea. Stålsett had no qualms or doubts. The bishop “totally”
agreed with this explanation.20 The message was clear: Game over.
After covering all of those basic points, Ambassador Park and Bishop
Stålsett moved to what might have appeared as secondary issues that also
had important implications for the Nobel. Cleverly, the ambassador
reminded the bishop of how deeply Kim Dae- jung’s government was
involved in drumming up sympathy for Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese
icon for democratic movements everywhere. Park did not have to say that
Kim Han- jung had also contacted Aung San Suu Kyi, who was under
house arrest in Myanmar for her long struggle on behalf of freedom and
democracy against the country’s military rulers. Rather, he explained that
the South Korean foreign ministry had recently denounced the manner in
which Myanmar’s military government was dealing with her.
Stålsett revealed that in his latest visit to New York he had seen Richard
Holbrooke, US ambassador to the UN, and talked about the same set of
“human rights” issues. Stålsett went so far as to venture a personal view
on American politics and diplomacy. If Vice President Al Gore were to
win the US presidential election in November, he forecasted, Holbrooke
would become secretary of state and would undoubtedly perpetuate “the
foreign policy of President Clinton.”21 That would be good news for Kim
Dae- jung since Clinton had supported the sunshine policy— though he
would be a rival possibility for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Most importantly, Stålsett introduced the opinions of influential figures
in the Nobel process— the kind of intelligence that the NP Project team
needed to have. Clinton, he said, would be “highly evaluated for his efforts
at arbitrating the Middle East peace process.”22 Indirectly, Stålsett hinted
that the outcome of Middle East negotiations would be influential in the
selection for the Nobel— a comment that could not have been all that
pleasing to Ambassador Park, whose sole concern was showing what he
could do to get the prize for DJ. Stålsett dropped the news that the
Norwegian Nobel Committee would be meeting the next day to talk about
the selection. Just one more meeting after that, he said, would be needed
for the committee to make its final decision. Park accepted these
portentous words in good grace, thanking the bishop for all of his insights,
always avoiding any sign of pressure for DJ.
One of the “core targets” of the NIS, ranked right after Bishop Stålsett,
was Nobel Institute Director Geir Lundestad, a person of power in the
Nobel selection. Lundestad did not actually have a vote on the committee
but as committee administrator wielded tremendous influence. On at least
three occasions in 2000, according to NIS cables, Park met Lundestad. All
of these meetings, as recorded by the NIS, showed mounting tensions in
the hunt for the Nobel.
Lundestad was no mere bureaucrat. He was not only the person closest
to Stålsett in the process but also an old- time acquaintance of DJ, whom
he had known since DJ’s American exile. As Lee Young- jak, nephew of
DJ’s wife, explained, “DJ and Lundestad have known each other well for
a long time. When DJ was at Harvard in 1983, Lundestad was also staying
there as an exchange professor. It seems that Lundestad developed his
fetish for DJ after he heard DJ talk at Harvard.” Lee also confessed his
own role in promoting DJ’s candidacy with Lundestad. “I met Lundestad
to figure out how the nomination procedure goes and to provide new
materials related to DJ,” he wrote. “He took these activities for granted
since he was well aware that I am DJ’s nephew.”23
Against this background, Ambassador Park was almost as solicitous of
Lundestad as he was of Stålsett. Over a lunch on February 3, 2000,
Ambassador Park deliberately contrived an easy- going atmosphere. The
two chatted casually about their New Year’s break with their families.
Lundestad said he had “visited Milan recently to participate in a seminar
and give a lecture on relations between Europe and the U.S. since World
War II.”24 Discussing a book that he was writing about the economic crisis
in Asia, he worried that he might have exaggerated on the depth of the
crisis considering how quickly the region had recovered. He said that he
was revising his book— and asked about the background of South Korea’s
rapid recovery.
Park was happy to give three reasons, always bestowing the primary
credit on DJ rather than on the astute economic planners who were mostly
responsible. First, as the ambassador would be expected to say as he
assiduously promoted the image of DJ as an all- around figure, was “the
great leadership and concentration by Kim Dae Jung.” Second came “the
worldwide effort, orchestrated by the United States, to overcome the
crisis” in which international finance officials agreed “the risk was huge
for the global economy.” Third came a host of South Korean companies,
notably the chaebol, the vast groupings that had contributed to the crisis
by accumulating wildly excessive ratios of debt to equity, all of which had
finally “understood and followed President Kim’s economic policy.”25
Lundestad showed complete surprise when he heard from Park that
South Korea had recorded negative growth in 1998 and then jumped to 9
percent growth in 1999. The ambassador added, however, that the South
Korean economy was still suffering in the financial sector, to which
Lundestad responded that Norway had similar problems. From there the
conversation turned to North Korea. “How do you see the situation in
North Korea,”26 Park asked, to which Lundestad responded politely that
he wanted to hear the ambassador’s assessment. Astonishingly, Park
quoted not a Korean view but the testimony of the US CIA director,
George Tenet, before a US Senate committee the day before, February 5,
on the possibility of a North Korean crisis. Park shared the view that North
Korea was expanding its diplomatic approach toward North America, the
European Union, and Japan in order to gain maximum support from the
international community.
As a result of North Korea’s own limitations and internal controversies,
Park believed Kim Jong-i l’s options were limited. North Korea,
moreover, was selling midrange missiles to the Middle East and elsewhere
in Asia that would break the “strategic balance” in the region, the
ambassador warned. North Korea and India, building up their stockpiles,
said Park, might be sources of nuclear weapons in the future. Park insisted
on ascertaining Lundestad’s opinion about politics in South Korea.
Lundestad would have known nothing about Korean politics, but Park
wanted to sound him out to see where he stood on the question of who
should get the prize— and gradually, subtly, to bring him over to DJ’s
side. Lundestad, it seemed, was ready to give his support. “I completely
agree with South Korea’s North Korea policy,” he said. “In present
circumstances there could be no alternative. Even if North Korea’s
response was not so positive, President Kim has to push his Sunshine
policy.”27
Park broached the question of whether Lundestad would be able to visit
South Korea that year— no doubt on the same type of first- class, allexpenses-p aid, wining-a nd-d ining junkets enjoyed by Bishop Stålsett
and Michael Sohlman, executive director of the Nobel Foundation in
Stockholm. Lundestad said that he had visited South Korea in September
1997 at the invitation of the Korea International Exchange Foundation.
Next time, he said, he would want time to look around the country—a nd
not just attend a short seminar. In fact, Lundestad confessed, his aunt had
gone to South Korea as a member of the Norwegian Medical Corps in the
Korean War. She was grateful to the South Korean embassy, he said, for
inviting her to its annual party for Korean War veterans. The ambassador
again invited Mr. and Mrs. Lundestad to his official residence for dinner
in mid- March, and Lundestad gladly accepted the offer.
On June 19, four days after the Summit, Park again saw Lundestad at
the Nobel Institute. He found him quite well informed. According to the
NIS cable, Lundestad asked questions that indicated a strong interest in
both the Summit and DJ: Did South Korea anticipate the outcome of the
Summit before DJ flew to Pyongyang? What was the background on Kim
Jong-i l’s changing position? And how did South Korea assess the
outcome of the Summit?
As Lundestad noted, the second clause of the Joint Declaration signed
by the two Kims seemed most critical. The wording was portentous. “For
the achievement of reunification, we have agreed that there is a common
element in the South’s concept of a confederation and the North’s formula
for a loose form of federation,” said the declaration, and “the South and
the North agreed to promote reunification in that direction.” 28 How,
Lundestad asked, might that process work out? Were there any agreements
between the two Koreas in the past, and what position would Kim Jong il
take in terms of North- South relations? How serious were demands in
South Korea for withdrawal of US troops, at that time about 37,000 based
in Korea? Was there any easing of tensions after the Summit in the
demilitarized zone (DMZ), the four kilometer- wide strip that stretched
250 kilometers across the peninsula? Does China, in a genuine sense,
retain influence in North Korea?
The elementary nature of the questions revealed an extraordinary lack
of understanding of the confrontation on the peninsula. It was highly
unlikely that Kim Jong-i l would change his position, and anyone who
knew anything about recent Korean history would be aware of the
impossibility of a confederation agreement in which commanders on both
sides would be willing to share or yield authority. Lundestad, moreover,
seemed unaware of the existence of the “Joint Declaration on the
Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” signed at the end of 1991— a
deal that was rendered meaningless when North Korea was found very
soon afterward to be well on the way to development of nuclear devices
at its complex at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang. Kim Jong-i l, as would
be revealed, was only interested in receiving hundreds of millions of
dollars from South Korea for his nuclear program— all thanks to DJ’s
single- minded desire to go down in history as the Nobel Peace Prize
winner who brought “peace” to the Korean Peninsula.
Lundestad was not concerned about such matters. He no doubt believed
his questions, inspired by his subservient relationship to Bishop Stålsett,
were shrewd and pointed. A true convert to the cause, he showed no sign
of skepticism. Given Lundestad’s eagerness to believe that DJ had
accomplished miracles, Park knew just how to parry whatever he asked in
a low-k ey style bereft of emotionalism or fanatical zeal that might make
his quarry hesitate to take the bait. Professorially, diplomatically, the
ambassador answered as best he could in rational, analytical tones. When
Lundestad showed keen interest in DJ’s health, asking if Kim Dae- jung
still suffered “some inconvenience” in his legs, Park responded with a
summary of all the suffering that DJ had endured over the years:
•
•
•
First, there was the motor vehicle accident that DJ liked to call an
“assassination plot,” from which he was severely injured when his
speeding car was hit from behind by a truck four weeks after the 1971
presidential election, in which he had shocked Park Chung-h ee by
winning 45 percent of the votes. Actually, the accident was proven not
to be a terrorist plot, but that did not deter DJ from describing it as
such.
Then there was the kidnapping from his hotel room in Tokyo on
August 8, 1973, in which he was tied up in a boat and spirited back to
Korea. The prompt intercession by the US ambassador, Philip Habib,
and the station chief of the CIA, Donald Gregg, was needed to
persuade President Park not to dump his body in the sea.
Finally, there were the years during which he was imprisoned after the
bloody Gwangju revolt of May 1980 before he was finally able to go
into “exile” in the United States in December 1982. “Because of
political terrorism,” said Ambassador Park, his legs had indeed been
badly injured, but Park insisted that none of that affected his “general
health.” Lundestad responded as if he had confirmed a new set of facts,
all of which would doubtless be taken into consideration by the
Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Ambassador Park hosted Lundestad at their final meeting on July 6 in
the fashionable Blom Restaurant, as carefully recorded by the NIS. Taking
his cue from Stålsett, Lundestad was eager to know about post- Summit
follow- up. Patiently, Park talked about the agreement reached in the
meeting of representatives of the Red Cross organizations of North and
South Korea from June 27 to June 30 at the resort at the base of Mount
Kumgang, the cluster of thousands of granitic peaks near the east coast, a
few miles north of the line between the two Koreas. In three days of
talking, the two sides had agreed on the first reunion of families divided
by the Korean War and the return of the “unconverted longterm
prisoners”— “the first noticeable example of post- Summit joint
cooperation,” Park assured Lundestad.29
Asked whether the family reunions would be a “one- term event” or
“continuous,” Park said, “If a special facility for meetings between
separated families were built, then meetings could be held continually.”
Lundestad estimated the number of unconverted longterm prisoners
could reach several hundred, but Park told him the total was less than
ninety.
South Korea, said Park, would repatriate to the North, on a humanitarian
basis, all those who wanted to go. Lundestad’s next question again
betrayed his ignorance of realities in the North. “Because Kim Jong- il got
so popular after the Summit,” he speculated with extraordinary naiveté,
“it could be difficult for him to return to the past.” Lundestad also asked
if there was any news regarding Kim Jong-i l’s promise to pay a return
visit to Seoul. Park avoided the question other than to note that a return
visit was agreed on in the joint declaration. “Even if there is no concrete
itinerary,” he said, “it’s expected that he will visit sometime this year.” 30
Like Bishop Stålsett, Lundestad wanted to know about the future of US
forces in Korea. They would be “desirable as a balance- keeper even after
unification,” Park responded. “There is no conflict between Korea and the
U.S. on that issue.” Happily, Lundestad remembered that US Defense
Secretary William Cohen had said much the same thing. Turning to South
Korean affairs, he asked about the policy of the opposition conservative
party in South Korea, to which Park responded with an almost laughable
lie. “No serious opposition or other opinion has so far been discovered,”
he seriously assured his eager interrogator. However, Park said, his
government would definitely discuss how to fulfill “the mythology of the
Summit.”31
Lundestad seemed to have been spurred on by Stålsett, with whom he
served on the Norwegian Nobel Committee, to demonstrate the probing
depth of his questions in his quest for the real truth and nothing but. Were
any new facts found about Kim Jong- il’s motivations to agree to the
Summit, he asked. Were there any details that might honestly have been
divulged in terms of “bribes” paid for the Summit? Oh no, of course not,
Park knew of none. During their dialogue, Lundestad told Park of plans
for an international history conference to be held in Oslo from August 6
to August 13, in which thirty Nobel Peace Prize laureates would be asked
to participate. The next year, for the hundredth anniversary of the Nobel
Peace Prize, the same thirty laureates would be invited. Park smilingly
expressed enthusiasm for the idea. He did not need to show how earnestly
he hoped DJ would by then be a “laureate”— just like all the others.
8
Scaling the Summit
C
hoi Won- ki and Chung Chang- hyun in their book, 600 Days for
North- South Summit, describe in minute detail the opening
scene of the drama leading to the first summit between the leaders of North
and South Korea:
On November 28, 1998, a JS1—5 2 airplane of Air Koryo, a version of the
Soviet Air Force TU1— 54, touched down at Beijing Capital International
Airport. As the door opened, a man in his 50s, with slicked- back hair,
wearing double-b ridge glasses, in a dark blue suit, stepped out followed by
a younger man in his 40s, apparently an attaché.
The two men met a third man who seemed to know them very well. After
exchanging brief greetings, the three moved to the “diplomat only” line at
the immigration counter. Glancing at their passports, the officer from the
foreign affairs section in the ministry of state security let them through right
away. They strode quickly out of the terminal, climbed into the MercedesBenz 280 awaiting them and slipped away from the airport. Seeing them
leave, the MSS officer picked up the phone and announced, “The two
middle school students from Pyongyang just arrived.” The voice on the
other end answered with a single word, “Dui,” meaning “Yes.”
An hour later, the two showed up at the tenth floor of a five- star hotel
in downtown Beijing. Waving to signal, “We’re here,” the attaché opened
the door. A man from Seoul, middle- aged, short, with a square face, greeted
them, shaking hands and smiling. “It seems we have known one another for
a long time,” he said. “I know you well even though you don’t know me.”
One of the two responded, “Even though you know me well, I know more
than you when it comes to South Korea.” They chuckled politely, hands
clasped in an extended handshake.1
As soon as he won the presidential election in December 1997, Kim
Dae- jung vowed to meet Kim Jong- il for the Summit. Fulfilling that
ambition, however, would take time. A secret rendezvous of two highranking intelligence officers of North and South Korea was not a common
occurrence.
Although the atmosphere surrounding the meeting seemed amicable, it
would take another year and a half to come to terms on the Summit.
Negotiators needed that much time before both North and South were
ready to make the official announcement in April 2000 of plans to hold
the Summit in Pyongyang in June.
There were numerous ups and downs between the two Koreas in the
course of pre- Summit negotiations, many hurdles and obstacles to
overcome. Disbelief and animosity, going back more than five decades,
were not easy to dispel. The presence of US forces in the South obviously
made any agreement difficult. On August 31, 1998, after North Korea testlaunched the Taepodong- I, a ballistic missile theoretically able to reach
Hawaii or Alaska or even the US West Coast, tension between the United
States and North Korea rose abruptly. When US spy satellites revealed
suspicious underground facilities in a huge cave in Kumchang- ri, North
Korea, tensions soared higher. Even after North Korea admitted US
inspectors to check out Keumchang- ri in March 1999, the nuclear issue
undermined any signs of progress in talks between the United States and
North Korea.2
Reconciliation slowly advanced, however, thanks to Chung Ju- yung’s
“cow diplomacy”—h is grand gesture of sending a total of 1,001 cows to
North Korea in June and October 1998 on flatbed trucks moving through
the truce village of Panmunjom. At the same time, the Hyundai founder
fostered the program for opening up the Mount Kumgang region, south of
the village where he was born in North Korea, to tourism from the South.
Beginning in November 1998, Hyundai Asan, a satellite company set up
by Chung for dealings with North Korea, ran trips by boat from Donghae
on the east coast of South Korea up to a port built by Hyundai Engineering
and Construction, “mother company” of the Hyundai empire, near the
base of Kumgang.
Intermittent bloodshed, however, showed that reconciliation might be
an illusion. At least forty North Korean sailors were killed when their ship
was sunk in a navy battle in the Yellow Sea on June 15, 1999. Then, on
June 29, 2002, just as the World Cup soccer tournament was winding
down in South Korea and Japan, North Korea gained a measure of revenge
with the sinking of a South Korean patrol boat, Chamsuri 357, in which 6
sailors were killed, including the skipper, Yoon Young-h a. Nonetheless,
serious secret talks were going on between the two Koreas in the second
half of 1999. Nobody outside a select few insiders knew who was doing
the talking, when or where they were meeting, or what, exactly, they were
saying, but the talks were probably between Kim Han-j ung and Kim Jong-
SCALING THE SUMMIT 93
n am, Kim Jong- il’s first son. In a meeting in Japan, they were believed
to have agreed that the South would pay the North the grand sum of $1.5
billion for the privilege of kindly hosting the Summit in Pyongyang. 3
As the new millennium dawned, signs of change were unmistakable.
Within the Blue House and the NIS, rearrangement of positions was
underway. On December 14, 1999, Kim Han- jung took charge of the first
attachment chamber in the Blue House, and on December 24, 1999, Lim
Dong- won took over as director of the NIS. Then, startlingly, Kim Daejung, in a rare interview with a Tokyo television network on February 9,
2000, pronounced Kim Jong-i l “a man of good knowledge and
judgment”— surely an odd comment for a South Korean president to
make to a Japanese journalist.4
DJ no doubt wanted to get a message across to Kim Jong- il and
believed the North Koreans would take special notice of such a comment
via a Japanese network. Next, in his historic address in Berlin in March
2000, DJ declared his willingness to help North Korea. The message this
time was still more clear and specific in terms of his offer to aid the North
in reconstruction. Significantly, he made his “Berlin Declaration” without
prior consultation with his American ally, much to the annoyance of US
President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
While DJ was making these public moves, North and South Korea
resumed their secret talks in January 2000. Kim Bo- hyun, righthand man
of Lim Dong-w on, frequently traveled abroad, blazing the way to the
Summit in negotiations focused largely on the payoffs needed to satisfy
Kim Jong-i l. On March 9, Park Jie-w on, Kim Dae-j ung’s public voice,
accompanied Kim Bo-h yun and Suh Hoon, both from the NIS, on a threed ay mission to Singapore where they met Song Ho- Kyung, righthand
man of Kim Yong- sun, the North’s intelligence chief. Donald Kirk, in his
article in the International Herald Tribune on January 31, 2001,
mentioned the Singapore meeting, but it was not formally acknowledged
until investigation by a special prosecutor in 2003. Park and Song resumed
their negotiations in Shanghai on March 17, then in Beijing on April 8,
before reaching final agreement on the Summit.
On April 10, 2000, the skies over Seoul were darkened by the infamous
Hwangsa, gray- yellow dust blown from the Gobi Desert. With the general
election for the National Assembly three days away, the public’s attention
was on whether the ruling New Millennium Party would win a majority
of seats. It seemed like another ordinary spring day when at 10 a.m., Park
Jie- won, culture and tourism minister, announced that Kim Dae- jung
would be going to Pyongyang in June to meet Kim Jong- il. At a press
conference in the integrated government building in downtown Seoul,
Park gave a bare- bones explanation of how he had reached an agreement
with Song Ho- kyung two days earlier in Beijing.
The Blue House was abuzz with preparations for the Summit all
through May and the first 13 days of June before DJ and his large
entourage took off for Pyongyang. A critical question was whether Kim
Jong- il would actually be the person whom DJ would meet or whether
the titular head of state, Kim Yong-n am, chairman of the presidium of the
Supreme People’s Assembly, would be greeting him at Sunan Airport.
Lim Dong- won secretly visited North Korea three times in May and June
to be totally sure that Kim Jong-i l would indeed be DJ’s personal host.
He was much relieved by a message from Pyongyang in early May asking,
“Will we have the chance to taste the royal cuisine?”—a reference not to
ordinary food sold in restaurants but to the delicacies enjoyed by Korean
kings during the
Yi dynasty that ended with the Japanese takeover in 1905. 5
First Lady Lee Hee- ho personally took charge of preparations for a
dinner fit for a king, making sure that South Korea’s chefs dedicated all
of their skills to a sumptuous historic meal that would go through
Panmunjom aboard two South Korean refrigerator trucks. The tenmember cooking team was led by Han Bok-l eo, president of Seoul’s
Gourmet Food Research Center, owner of a restaurant in Seoul’s National
Theater, and daughter of a legendary Chosun dynasty food expert, Hwang
Hye- song. Han was not acknowledged as a member of the official South
Korean delegation and never recognized publicly for her culinary
achievement.
Still, officials in Seoul were not quite certain that the Summit would
really happen since North Korea simply would not confirm all details until
almost the last moment before DJ was to take off on June 12. Nonetheless,
the Blue House wanted to be fully prepared. In a rehearsal for the Summit
in DJ’s office on June 6, NIS Director Lim Dong-w on, national security
adviser Hwang Won- tak, economic adviser Lee Ki- ho, and Kim Bohyun, NIS chief of the Counter- North Strategic Division, all played the
roles that they might assume at the Summit.
Choi Won-k i and Chung Chang-h yun, in 600 Days for North-S outh
Summit, described how the rehearsal featured stand-i ns for the North
Koreans, including a man identified as “K” for Kim Jong-i l.6 He was
made up to look like Kim Jong-i l, with his hair in a swept-u p bouffant,
steel-f rame spectacles, short eyebrows, and a puffy face. The only flaw,
perhaps, was that he was in his early fifties, slightly younger than Kim
Jong-i l, aged sixty. DJ looked serious, sitting straight up in his chair as he
confronted the kagemusa, the shadow warrior who played the role of the
shogun in old Japan in order to fool potential assassins. The deputy
unification minister, identified as “J,” assumed the role of Kim Yong- sun,
Kim Jong- il’s righthand man. The actor playing Kim Jong- il was
already experienced in mimicking North Korean leaders, having played
Kim Il- sung during a rehearsal for a summit that never happened— the
summit that Carter had promoted with Kim Young- sam shortly before
Kim Il- sung’s death in July 1994.
The atmosphere was tense. Lim Dong- won gave the cue for the mock
conference. Everyone was jotting down notes to be sure of what to say
and how to respond. The highlight of the argument between DJ and “K”
was why each of their countries pressured one another. “We don’t have
any alliance with any country,” said K, repeating North Korea’s claim that
it had no military allies, including China. “Why does South Korea
maintain an alliance with the U.S. and close ties with Japan?” K noted that
37,000 US troops remained in South Korea. “I do not believe in the
Sunshine policy,” he said. “You have said the Sunshine policy is the
policy to help us, but in reality it is the policy to kill us.” He denounced
the sunshine policy as a wily attempt “to crush us.”7
DJ’s response was spontaneous, unscripted. “Don’t you think you
worry too much about getting crushed,” he asked. “Did all the capitalist
countries try to crush you? Think about China and Vietnam.” DJ’s point
was that North Korea was not the only Communist country that had faced
such a threat—a nd not the only target. “Capitalists also tried to crush
China and Vietnam as well as North Korea,” he said. “However, look at
China. They not only kept their regime but also got more prosperous. They
took advantage of capitalism, and now the United States and Japan fear
China. You don’t have to worry about being crushed.” 8
DJ gave the impression that he was able to improvise in his upcoming
meetings with the North Korean leader. His core concept of the Summit
was peace. South Korea expected that North Korea’s key strategy would
be to press for unification. Lim Dong- won’s NIS would be responsible
for masterminding the Summit on DJ’s behalf; the schedule was not easily
decided. Kim Jong- il at this late stage had not totally confirmed that he
would agree to the Summit.
On June 10, two days before DJ’s scheduled departure, South Korea
got an urgent message from North Korea delaying the Summit—n o one
knew how long— “due to a technical problem.” The moment was
traumatizing. Kim Eun-s ung, one of the deputy directors, described the
immediate response in an interview with Monthly Chosun. Lim Dongwon and his top aides were watching an athletic event marking the
anniversary of the founding of the NIS when Kim Bo- hyun, chief of the
Counter- North Strategic Division, hurried across the field clutching a
piece of paper, a cable from North Korea. “They refused the Summit,” he
blurted out. In a couple of sentences, the North said the Summit had to be
postponed “until the arrival of the remainder of the money” but did not
say for how long. After Lim summoned his deputies to his office, Kim
Eun- sung suggested “announcing that the North requested a delay due to
security and communications matters.” Lim responded, “Good idea,” after
which the Blue House announced a one- day delay due to “technicalities.”9
By June 13, with all such “technicalities” resolved, DJ arose at 5 a.m.,
checked the South Korean news reports as usual, dressed in a dark suit
with a silver- striped red tie, and got into a limousine at 8:15 a.m. for an
enthusiastic send- off by the Blue House staff. At 8:56 a.m. around 1,000
people were awaiting him at Seoul Air Base, the military airport southeast
of the capital, to bid farewell to a delegation that included 130 business
leaders, politicians, and bureaucrats plus 50 journalists. At 9:18 a.m., the
plane took off, landing one hour and seven minutes later at 10:25 a.m. at
Sunan Airport. It was the first flight directly from Seoul to Pyongyang
since the brief period when American and South Korean troops had held
Pyongyang in the early fall of 1950.
Nobody knew beforehand that Kim Jong- il would greet DJ at the
airport, but there he was, wearing his beige- colored Mao suit, holding
hands, and hugging the South Korea leader for photographs of a historic
moment in Korean history. After the reception at the airport, the two
summiteers climbed at 10:48 a.m. into one of the two Lincoln Continentals
that North Korea had acquired in the early days of Kim Il- sung’s rule.
In a bewildering and humiliating rebuff, however, no South Korean
security guard was allowed to get into the limousine with DJ. Thus it’s not
known what the two leaders talked about as they slowly moved past
600,000 North Koreans lining the six- mile route to the Paekhwawon
Guest House. Could it be that Kim Jong-i l banned any South Korean
guard from the car so he could intimidate DJ in total privacy with
innuendoes about DJ’s rumored Communist Party affiliations as a young
rabble- rousing politico in Mokpo in the turbulent years after the Korean
War? And did he wish to remind DJ of financial assistance that DJ was
rumored to have received from Kim Il-s ung? Amid such speculation,
what is obvious is that Kim Jong- il had DJ all to himself for a significant
chunk of time before the real talks could begin.10
The crowd response, meanwhile, was captured for television audiences
worldwide— the women dressed in traditional hanbok, cheering and
waving flowers and flags, men and children also cheering, waving flags.
For all the world to see, the motorcade wended its way past the Supreme
People’s Assembly, the War Memorial, and the bronze statue of Kim Ilsung atop Mansudae, the promontory with a sweeping view of the capital,
arriving at Paekhwawon at 11:45 a.m.
Kim Jong-i l paid Kim Dae-j ung a backhanded compliment after
alighting from the limousine and posing with DJ, Lee Hee- ho, and senior
officials from both camps for the arrival photograph. “You have been
taken on this frightening route, and you are to be complimented,” he said.
“Communists also have morality. We will treat you very well.” DJ’s
response was simple. “I was not afraid at all from the beginning,” he said.
“Let us make history together.” Kim Jong- il talked of the significance of
their meeting. “The eyes of the world are upon us,” he said. “We have to
answer all the questions about why Kim Dae-j ung visits the North, and
why Kim Jong-i l allows this visit.”11
Behind the scenes, however, Kim Jong- il was playing his usual game
of blackmail. “I cannot help starting with some sorry comment,” he said
in their first meeting at Paekhwawon. “This morning I watched South
Korean television. South Korean students were carrying North Korean
flags, and South Korean prosecutors vowed to find who was responsible
for the flag and bring them to judicial procedure. While we were holding
a Summit, why is this possible?” Kim Jong- il added, however, that the
presence of the South Korean president in Pyongyang showed “we respect
one another,” and he professed not to mind if all members of DJ’s
delegation had South Korean flag pins on their chests. 12
DJ was clearly embarrassed. Nobody in his entourage was aware of the
flag incidents at several universities in Seoul. “We cannot go forward in
this atmosphere,” said Kim Jong- il. “I want you to return to South Korea
satisfied with the welcome here. You also mentioned that the meeting
itself is the most important. By meeting, we have achieved everything. Go
back to Seoul after you’ve had a full rest.”13
Was the Summit on the brink of failure before it had even begun? After
Kim Jong- il had departed, Kim Dae- jung and Lee Hee- ho dined together
by themselves for their first lunch in Pyongyang. At 3 p.m. they visited
Mansudae as guests of Kim Yong-n am at the Supreme People’s Assembly
for a performance by the Pyongyang Symphony Orchestra accompanied
by a traditional dance. Kim Yong-n am hosted the dinner that first night
at the People’s Cultural Palace. Kim Jong-i l did not bother to attend—a
tactic for taking advantage of the weakened position of the South Korea
leader as punishment for the flag episode in Seoul. That night, Kim Daejung and Lee Hee-h o encountered another unexpected problem. The
bedroom at Paekhwawon was too cold. Lee Hee- ho could not find the
switch to turn off the air conditioner. As an emergency measure, they
opened their trunk and put on thermal underwear.
In the meantime, Lim Dong- won and Kim Yong- sun worked all night
to find a solution to the seeming impasse. Kim Jong-i l’s attempt at
embarrassing DJ was clearly a performance intended to intimidate him on
the eve of the Summit, which, at this stage, he had no intention of
canceling. On the morning of the second day, Kim Dae-j ung had a
conference with Kim Yong-n am, whose position as chairman of the
Supreme People’s Assembly was basically symbolic. Kim Dae- jung and
his entourage lunched by themselves at Okryukwan, a famous restaurant
overlooking the Daedong River. DJ was silent as he dined on cold noodles,
wrote Choi Won-k i and Chung Chang- hyun, looking as if he were
“chewing sand.” At the end of the lunch, the North Koreans announced
that Kim Jong-i l would meet DJ at 2 p.m. and was ready to discuss “all
issues.” The atmosphere suddenly changed, wrote Choi and Chung, “from
hell to heaven.”14
The Summit— the real Summit— began at 3 p.m. in Paekhwawon.
South Korean participants included Lim Dong- won, NIS director; Hwang
Won- tak, security adviser; and Lee Ki- ho, economy adviser. On the
North Korean side of the table, Kim Jong- il was joined only by Kim
Yong- sun. The central issue was how to bring about reunification of the
two Koreas. For many years, North Korea had been calling for a “Koryo
federation” under which ministers and political representatives of both
Koreas could hold discussions on how to establish a central government.
South Korea responded with a proposal for confederation, or national
union, under which the two Koreas could advance step by step gradually
to reunification. Neither of these plans bore any relationship to the realities
of the confrontation since neither North nor South would concede control
by the other.
Other topics included establishment of a peace regime for the Korean
Peninsula, the presence of US troops in South Korea, South Korea’s
national security law, return of longterm North Korean prisoners held in
South Korea, visits of members of families divided by the Korean War,
and a return visit to Seoul by Kim Jong-i l. While Kim Jong-i l reluctantly
may have recognized the role of the United States on the Korean
Peninsula, as DJ later claimed, both parties went through the motions of
promising to revise their national security laws. The two agreed to
exchange the first family visits two months later, and, after the Summit,
DJ made good on his promise to order the return of 63 longterm political
prisoners. Kim Jong- il, of course, would never go to Seoul considering
the impossibility of getting huge crowds to cheer him on the way to the
Blue House, as he had ordered his own people to do after DJ’s arrival in
Pyongyang. On top of all else, the risk of megaloud- speakers hurling
choice epithets rendered a return visit out of the question.
After meeting for three hours and fifty minutes, the South and North
Koreans held a joint dinner at which the ten South Korean chefs joined
twenty North Korean chefs to dish up the palace dinner that the North had
asked about beforehand. Aides, meanwhile, fine- tuned the declaration,
which was finally agreed upon and signed that evening, June 14, but
postdated to June 15 when it was formally announced to the world. Why
the postponement? Koreans did not like the number four, “sa,”
pronounced the same as “sa,” meaning death in Korean.
On day three, Kim Dae- jung was up at 7 a.m. in time to watch a report
on the Summit via Seoul’s Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), banned
in the North but beamed by satellite for the occasion. After a small
breakfast with Lee Hee- ho, DJ took a thirty- minute walk, exchanged
views with members of his entourage, and then rested. At the last moment,
the night before, Kim Jong-i l abruptly invited the South to a farewell
lunch before bidding farewell at Sunan Airport at 4:05 p.m. The plane took
off ten minutes later, arriving at Seoul Air Base at 5:24 p.m.
The Summit was obviously the breakthrough that Kim Dae- jung so
badly needed to bring about success in the quest for the Nobel. Author
Choi Won- ki, North Korea expert at JoongAng Ilbo, noted, however, the
flaws in the communiqué. For one thing, he said, it did not actually
mention “peace” or “reduction of tensions.”15 Realistically, Han Sungjoo, who had served as foreign minister under DJ’s rival, Kim Youngsam, said he believed the Summit had dwelled too much on “matters of
principle” and should be viewed “as a start rather than a finish.” 16
9
Beyond the Summit
T
he scars of the Korean War were laid bare in the Summit. Its most
meaningful accomplishment, as far as the mass of Koreans was concerned, was the agreement on reuniting divided families. The division of as
many as ten million families was an open wound that many years of fitful
talks and occasional attempts at reconciliation had failed to close.
The North Korean ruling dynasty, first Kim Il- sung and then Kim Jong
il, was not concerned with the sheer inhumanity of refusing to make
provisions for reuniting families, whose members had wound up on
different sides of the line that divided the Korean Peninsula with the signing
of the armistice in July 1953. They evinced no interest in the tragedy of
parents who would never see their children again, of couples whose union
would end forever when one of them fled south while the other stayed
behind. The failure to act urgently on reuniting divided families
compounded the greater tragedy of the deaths of more than four million
people killed by the war, half of them civilians, one million of them Chinese
troops, another one million in the North and South Korean armies, and
50,000, including 33,700 Americans in UN forces.
The division of millions of families was all the more frustrating since the
problem could so easily have been resolved. From the day the armistice was
signed, South Koreans talked of their desire to see their relatives north of
the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that divides the peninsula. Nobody knew
what North Koreans were saying to one another, but presumably they were
just as interested in seeing relatives who had gone South a few short years
earlier. These fell into two general catetories— those who had the forsight
to leave the North during the period from the Japanese surrender on August
15, 1945, to the North Korean invasion of the South in June 1950 and many
more who made their way south during the summer and fall of 1950 as the
war spread to North Korea. As far as Kim Il- sung, and then Kim Jong-i l,
were concerned, those who had fled south were traitors—a ll
102
KIM DAE- JUNG AND THE QUEST FOR THE NOBEL
the more reason to ignore the anguished cries of relatives on both sides of
the line.
Except for one brief interlude in September 1985 when members of
about one hundred divided families met in Pyongyang and Seoul, neither of
these dictators had addressed the issue. They were never quoted or heard
worrying about the passing of the years, the inexorable aging of long- lost
relatives who would never get to see one another again before time finally
caught up with them, and they died never knowing what had happened to
their loved ones. If the Summit produced no other meaningful result, to
millions of Koreans the prospect of reuniting some of these families was
the most exciting news they had heard since the Korean War—a nd
certainly the first real dividend of the Summit.
Appropriately, August 15, 2000, observed as a national day in both
Koreas, was the date for the most important event agreed on in the joint
declaration signed by Kim Dae- jung and Kim Jong- il two months earlier
on June 15—p utting into action the reunion of two hundred members of
divided families, one hundred from the North and one hundred from the
South. Incredibly, the leader of the first group of North Korean visitors to
Seoul was Ryu Mi-y oung, widow of Choi Duk-s hin, who had been a South
Korean general in the 1950s, South Korea’s foreign minister in the 1960s—
a nd then a defector to the United States in the 1970s. Finally, in 1986, in
the climactic and most extraordinary move of his life, he defected yet
again— to North Korea where he died three years later. This bizarre choice
of leader of the North Korean delegation of members of divided families
was clearly a crude, transparent attempt at psychological warfare intended
to mock South Korea.
For Kim Dae-j ung, the cynicism of the North Koreans was not a
problem. His immediate goal was not reconciliation with the North but
winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Always with that aim in mind, he got Rune
Hersvik of the Worldview Rights Foundation to return to Seoul in August—
t his time with a big fish on the line, a special target in Korea’s hunt for the
Nobel. That would be former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne
Bondevik, who had once been floor leader of the Christian Democratic
Party in the Norwegian parliament. He was forced to resign in March 2000
after failure at the polls but was now president of the Oslo Center for Peace
and Human Rights. With him was the renowned Norwegian composer, Erik
Hillestad. When they arrived at Seoul’s Kimpo International Airport, they
got a red carpet welcome from Ra Jong- il, former deputy director of the
NIS, and Kim Sang- woo, National Assembly member and former president
of the Forum of Democratic Leaders in the Asia Pacific (FDL- AP).
103
BEYOND THE SUMMIT
An NIS internal memo reported the Norwegian visitors were “extremely
well treated,” almost like state guests, as they were ushered through VIP
rooms at the airport. The Koreans, in quest of the Nobel, knew enough not
to invite those directly involved in the selection from the Norwegian Nobel
Committee or the Nobel Institute. That would have appeared much too
gauche, too obvious a bid for the Nobel. Instead they lavished courtesies on
those whom they hoped would surely carry tales of the wonders of this
occasion to their Nobel friends. Kim Han- jung, naturally, was behind the
secret invitation to visit Seoul at such a propitious moment.1
The schedule for Bondevik and Hersvik on the day of the first family
reunion, August 15, the fifty- fifth anniversary of the Japanese surrender
that ended 35 years of Japanese rule, was meticulously planned. 2 First they
enjoyed breakfast with Lim Dong- won, who briefed them thoroughly on
the success of the Summit. Then Han Sang-j in, director of the Academy of
Korean Studies, guided them to Biwon, the sprawling “secret garden” that
was once the hidden playground of Chosun dynasty kings. At 4 p.m., after
a leisurely luncheon, the distinguished trio was secretly spirited by
limousine, under the guidance of Park No- yong, now an NIS desk officer,
to the newly built COEX, the Convention and Exhibition Center that
dominates the high- tech, high- priced Gangnam district south of the Han
River in Seoul. There, in an isolated room through thick glass, they had a
clear view of scenes of boundless joy and relief, with no one around to ask
who they were, much less who had brought them there and why.
Accompanied by Park No- yong, the Norwegians, after the first few
minutes of isolation, boldly wandered among the deliriously happy
families. These aging people were together at last, however briefly—
husbands who had lost wives, children who had never seen their parents
since childhood, long lost cousins, and aunts and uncles. Donald Kirk, who
was there as well, witnessed the hesitant hugging, the flickering of
recognition of faces last seen half a century ago, and the sadness, too, as
family members discovered their once loved ones had met and married
others. “That’s what I expected,” said one old lady from the South, seeing
the man she had left in the North and hearing he now had another wife. 3
There was no hint to anyone that Kim Han- jung and Park No- yong had
made certain the Norwegians were there too, absorbing the joy of the
evening. For all Kirk knew, the Norwegians he encountered in passing on
the floor were foreign journalists with a dutiful Korean assistant for a
translator.
Bondevik, invited as a private citizen by the FDL-A P to witness these
touching scenes, was seen shedding tears— but well out of sight of the
104
prying eyes of the journalists as the ever-s olicitous Park No-y ong escorted
the
VIP guests from Norway. No one noticed diplomats from anywhere on the
KIM DAE- JUNG AND THE QUEST FOR THE NOBEL
floor. Norway, it seemed, was the only country to which the NIS paid such
close attention at the pathbreaking event. How could one not be moved by
the sight of long- lost relatives embracing as broadcasted live on Korean as
well as foreign networks, including CNN and BBC? Here was a front- page
event that seemed to show the dramatic success of the Summit and the
future path toward reconciliation.
The Norwegian press coverage was euphoric. The next day, August 16,
Trond Bo of the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten began his report with
the sentence, “Kjell Magne Bondevik is convinced that the ties that are now
forming between North and South Korea will in the future lead to one
Korea.” His comments were filled with the emotions that his Korean
handlers wanted to hear: “To be here during this meeting is very strong. I
have been touched by something very strong. Humane and emotional bonds
are now being formed between the North and the South. This will in itself
be very difficult for the politicians to overlook.” 4 Nor, for sure, would
members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee fail to appreciate the
emotions as experienced by the three Norwegians, all amply reported by the
Norwegian media.
As reported by Aftenposten, DJ, over dinner that evening, spread the
word about his fantasy of peace and happiness for Korea. “The President
himself sees a development in three steps, from a federation of two nations
with their own government to a federation with a shared government to full
reunification,” the paper reported. In a passing oblique reference to human
rights in North Korea, DJ was said to have observed, “If North Korea is
open for economic liberalization, it will also lead to political
liberalization.”5
Bondevik was exultant. “What the surrounding world can do is support
the countries politically and morally to go further in the process,” he
enthused. He had still more to say to Erik R. Selmer, a reporter from the
small pro- labor newspaper Dagsavisen, who telephoned him from Oslo.
DJ based his optimism on the power of Kim Jong- il and diplomatic,
economic, and political pressure, Bondevik told the reporter. “Kim Jong- il
is in full control and knows what he wants,” Bondevik quoted DJ as saying.
“He wishes for the process to continue. North Korea doesn’t have a
choice.”6
105
The conclusion, as far as Bondevik was concerned, was obvious. “A
combination of a desperate economic situation, American pressure and Kim
Dae-j ung’s Sunshine policy has gotten the process to where it is today,” he
said. The big fish that Kim Han-j ung wanted to catch, Bondevik, had
swallowed the program— hook, line, sinker, and the fishing pole too.
“What I saw was a strong impression that blood ties are strong,” he told
Selmer.
BEYOND THE SUMMIT
“This also tells us that big politics can ruin lives. Luckily, one finds patient
politicians who back reunification and will be there to heal the pain.”7
On the day of the reunion, the schedule featured one other cultural event
for North-S outh goodwill. That was a concert by North and South Korean
classical musicians for “the celebration of the reunions of divided families.”
Musicians from the North and South combined to play operas from both
countries. Hersvik was there but was not involved in the arrangements.
Instead he would stage a rock festival featuring foreign artists from all over
the world on October 21 at Jamsil Olympic Stadium, a 100,000- seat arena
built for the 1988 Summer Olympics. By this time, he had given up on the
notion of a concert at the truce village of Panmunjom. North Korea simply
was not interested. Much of the coverage, after all, would have made the
South look great while implying that the North was at fault for the
prolonged confrontation across the North- South line.
One week later, on August 23, according to an NIS cable titled
“Bondevik’s Trip to North Korea,” Hersvik telephoned Kim Nam- yong,
the NIS man in Oslo, thanking him for the great time he had had in Seoul.
“Prime Minister Bondevik is also very thankful and satisfied about the
outcome of the trip,” said Hersvik. That afternoon, Hersvik told Kim Namyong that Bondevik would visit Stavenger for a conference with the
Worldview Rights Foundation. “We will discuss our visit to North Korea.”
Bondevik “is hoping to hear advice from the South Korean embassy in Oslo
before he decides to visit North Korea,” said Hersvik, as reported by Kim
Nam- yong. Hersvik also promised to provide a copy of an invitation letter
that Bondevik had received from North Korea.8
Thus Hersvik was really a voluntary confidential source, a de facto
espionage agent for the NIS. Kim Nam- yong and the ambassador, Park
Kyung- tae, planned to advise Bondevik on what to say when he got to
Pyongyang. “By utilizing this chance,” said Kim Nam- yong, “Bondevik
can convey the need for opening North Korea and convey the sense of an
internationally supportive atmosphere needed to improve North- South
relations.”9 Kim Nam- yong and Park would also advise on invitations for
106
highranking North Koreans to visit Norway—a ploy on the part of these
South Korean officials that seemed to turn them into functionaries for North
rather than South Korea.
The obvious question was why two South Korean officials should be
concocting schemes to bring North Koreans rather than prominent South
Koreans for a visit to a foreign country. Together, after the reunion,
Bondevik and Hersvik flew to Beijing and then on to Pyongyang, where
presumably they conveyed their optimism surrounding the reunion and
were briefed on the simultaneous reunion in Pyongyang of South Koreans
flown
BEYOND THE SUMMIT 107
there to meet their relatives. Although DJ would receive the Nobel Peace
Prize four months later, he reached the high point of prestige and
popularity at home during those reunions in August. From that time
onward, although the world did not know it, disillusionment would ruin
the image of DJ’s sunshine policy.
Amid all the joy surrounding family reunions, one topic that was totally
taboo at the Summit was that of human rights in North Korea. The topic
came up only in the context of North Koreans held in the South— nothing
to do with the hundreds of South Koreans held in the North, much less the
hundreds of thousands of North Koreans who had been, were being, or
would be incarcerated in the North. Kim Jong- il had demanded the return
of North Koreans imprisoned in South Korea for many years. DJ, as he
had already indicated to Bishop Stålsett, was only too happy to comply if
that’s what it took to get along with the North Korean leader. As for the
bishop, he never for a moment evinced any awareness, much less concern,
over the plight of those South Koreans who had been held in the North for
years.
Appropriately, after that initial post- Summit reunion, the next major
post-S ummit event would be the release of the 63 elderly men who said
they wanted to go “home” to North Korea. So anxious was DJ to please
that he spurned strenuous Japanese complaints about one prisoner, Shin
Kwang-s oo, who had confessed to inviting a Japanese cook, Hara
Tadaaki, to a beach in 1980 and then forcing him to board a North Korean
boat. Shin was arrested after entering South Korea on Tadaaki’s passport,
then convicted and sentenced to life. DJ’s government repeatedly rejected
Japan’s request to at least question him before all 63 were packed off to
the North through the truce village of Panmunjom on September 2, 2000.10
DJ had no desire to risk getting embroiled in controversy that might
compromise his chances for the Nobel just as the committee was meeting
in Oslo to decide on the prize. What would Bishop Stålsett think if he
heard South Korea had refused to return one of the heroically
“unconverted”? Surely the prospect was too awful to contemplate. The
release of the longterm prisoners, all former partisans, spies, and
saboteurs for the North, was no cause for joy in the South, but North
Korean propaganda made much of their “freedom” after their return on
September 2, 2000. On September 11, Pyongyang’s Korean Central News
Agency (KCNA) said that they had received “comprehensive and
intensive medical examinations” after enduring “all sorts of persecution
and sufferings” and would soon be ready for “reunion with their families
and stable life.”11
The minds behind the NP Project believed it would be a marvelous idea
for Lim Dong-w on to host Kim Yong-s un in South Korea while the
Norwegian Nobel Committee was still making up its collective mind.
Normally reticent, Lim, as NIS director, escorted Kim Yong- sun in
September 2000 on a much publicized trip that took them from beautiful
Jeju Island to the Pohang Iron and Steel plant on the east coast. A puzzling
question was why the NIS chief would want to operate so openly with a
North Korean leader; the answer was clear. Kim Yong-s un’s hosts saw
his visit as one more way to show how committed DJ was to peace on the
peninsula and how successful he was in bringing the two Koreas together.
Sadly for this hypothesis, the “accident” in which Kim Yong-s un died in
2003, like other such misfortunes reported in Pyongyang’s state media,
was widely assumed to have been staged to get rid of one who’d been
contaminated by overly close contact with the South, as personified by
Lim Dong- won.
An interesting feature of Kim Yong- sun’s visit to South Korea at the
time was that he was accompanied by a four- star North Korean general,
Park Jae-k yung, who presented three tons of the famous Chilbo Mountain
pine mushrooms as a present from the Dear Leader. In another cynical
twist of North Korean strategy, Park turned out to have been one of the 31
North Korean commandos who had participated in the raid on the Blue
House on January 21, 1968. At the time, only 1 was captured alive, 2 were
believed to have escaped to North Korea, and 28 were killed by South
Korean soldiers and policemen. The decision to send Park, one of the
lucky two who had made it back home, was one more crude way of
mocking the South. (Similarly, the same General Park was to deliver
another gift of pine mushrooms, this time weighing four tons, when he
called on President Roh Moo- hyun in 2007.)
Despite all the courtesies and concessions made to the North Koreans,
however, DJ was still not totally certain that he would win the prize. As
the deadline for the vote approached, he and his advisers waited for the
next sign of success— namely, the decision of the Rafto Foundation on
the winner of its annual “Professor Rafto Memorial Award.” Some
strategists on the NP Project wondered if winning the Rafto might
undermine DJ’s chances for the Nobel. Might the Nobel Committee
respond negatively, deciding one major prize for DJ was enough and
someone else should get it? Although the rest of the world knew nothing
about the Rafto, the prize was well known in Norway, where it actually
carried more moral authority than the Nobel. Among 13 winners so far,
however, only 2 had gone on to Nobel glory— Aung San Suu Kyi and
Ramos- Horta.
A professor of Korean language and literature at the University of Oslo
was optimistic. Park No- ja, a Norwegian who had taken on a Korean
name after studying at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul,
interviewed by Monthly Chosun after chatting with Kim Han- jung on one
of his many trips to Korea, said that Kim had assured him that he had met
“the relevant officials” and had “a good relationship with Bishop Stålsett.”
But how many people knew the story of the NP Project? “Only a few were
involved,” said the professor. “Of course, it’s done in extreme secrecy.
Several highranking government officials and some professors know
about it.” So what were the chances, the professor was asked, of DJ’s
garnering the Nobel if he won the Rafto? “We thought the possibility was
very high”— maybe for 2001 or 2002, the professor was quoted as saying.
“However,
after the Summit, the project advanced very rapidly.” 12
In any case, the Blue House had to wait for word on the Rafto until
after Bondevik was safely back in Norway. In a cable from Kim Nam-y
ong to the NIS, Kim said that Ramstad had called on the South Korean
embassy that day “from 14:00 to 15:30” and talked about seminars that
the Rafto Foundation was planning on “circumstances on the Korean
Peninsula” in November.13 In the three- day event, topics would include
the sunshine policy and North Korean human rights. Ramstad told Kim
Nam-y ong that he was thinking of inviting a couple of North Korean
defectors as well as a traditional South Korean dance team. On November
4, the Rafto Foundation would stage a closed conference on Norway’s role
in enhancing DJ’s sunshine policy and North Korean human rights. The
next day, the foundation would present its coveted human rights award in
Bergen’s National Theater before about six thousand participants.
As far as the award in 2000 was concerned, Ramstad said Rafto would
announce the winner three days to one week before the announcement of
the Nobel Peace Prize on September 13. He promised to let Kim Namyong know the result after the selection on August 25 but asked Kim to
keep the choice confidential until the official announcement. “President
Kim is the most appropriate candidate this year, having already been a
strong candidate in 1993, 1994 and 1997,” Ramstad told Kim. However,
Ramstad noted, since DJ, as the incumbent president, might not have the
time to
visit Norway, “it is difficult to offer him the award.” 14
Ramstad also said that Yoon Hyun, a.k.a. the Rev. Benjamin Yoon,
longtime chairman of the Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human
Rights, at the forefront for many years in helping North Korean escapees
in China, was a strong candidate. Yoon, said Ramstad, would “attract
international interest in the human rights issue of North Koreans hiding in
China.” Yoon was in final contention with another person who, Ramstad
said coyly, had been a strong candidate the year before. When Kim Namyong “naturally asked who was that rival,” according to Kim’s account,
Ramstad “avoided the answer,” saying “no comment.”15 That person could
only have been Kim Dae- jung. He did say, however, that he supported
Yoon.
How, then, could the Rafto Foundation suddenly switch to DJ, who had
done no work at all on behalf of those suffering under North Korean
dictatorship? Ramstad said that he had met Yoon during his June 1999
visit to Seoul, had obtained much information from diverse sources and
was checking “every move of Yoon’s Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean
Human Rights,” but needed to confirm the information. He had heard that
Yoon had once been jailed under a military regime and asked why and for
how long. He also wanted to know Yoon’s “prior and present occupation.”
What, he asked, did “broadcast columnist” in Yoon’s résumé really mean,
when did Yoon first participate in Amnesty International activity, and
what other information about him was available? Ramstad also wanted to
know about other members of the alliance and the reputation of the
organization.
After the discussion in the embassy on August 22, said the cable,
Ramstad suggested a “late lunch” since he had skipped lunch while having
a discussion at the Nobel Institute from noon to 2 p.m. Kim Nam- yong
and Ramstad went to the famed Lafoten Restaurant in Oslo from 4 p.m. to
5:50 p.m., as precisely recorded in Kim Nam-y ong’s cable. Ramstad, after
drinking one bottle of wine and several beers, confessed that when he had
visited Seoul the NIS agent had escorted him wherever he went. “Were
you also dispatched from the intelligence agency,” he asked in an outburst
of naiveté. Kim Nam- yong did not hesitate to dissemble with a standard
cover- up. “All the diplomats in the Korean embassy belong to the foreign
ministry,” he said disingenuously. “There is no other reason for
cooperating with the Rafto Foundation other than we share the same cause
of human rights. Our government’s human rights policy is the same as the
human rights cause of the Rafto Foundation.” Ramstad then expressed his
agreement, assuring NIS Officer Kim that there would be no problem even
if he did turn out to be an intelligence agent. “We are cooperating for a
common goal,” he said.16
Kim Nam- yong’s report on the encounter was detailed in the extreme.
Ramstad, it seemed, may have been overly talkative after drinking all that
wine and beer. Kim reported that Ramstad had told him that he was 185
centimeters tall, weighed 100 kilograms, and “did aerobics among women
a couple of times a week”— just “to keep in shape.” The reason he
preferred aerobics with women, he said, was “he enjoyed the company of
women” and “the smell of women’s bodies.” He also boasted of his
influence in the foundation, saying that even if he resigned he would still
“basically be deciding the critical issues within the foundation.” Moving
to religion, he said he preferred Buddhism to Christianity, possibly
because he might have been “influenced by close friends in Myanmar,”
including Aung San Suu Kyi, the Rafto award winner in 1990, and Preah
Maha Ghosananda, the supreme leader of Buddhism in Cambodia, who
won the award in 1992. Moreover, he boasted, José Ramos- Horta had
accepted the award in 1993 “on behalf of the people of East Timor,” three
years before he and Bishop Belo “together got the Nobel in 1996.” 17
“In today’s meeting,” said Kim Nam-y ong, wrapping up his message,
“Ramstad voluntarily leaked the possibility of Yoon’s winning the Rafto
and requested our cooperation to see our response to his getting the award
and to confirm that he is an appropriate figure for such an award.” Kim
asked the NIS headquarters to come up with answers to Ramstad’s
questions— and let him know if there was any “special opinion at
headquarters” about Yoon.18
It was on the basis of this interchange that somehow Kim Dae-j ung
stole the award from under the nose of Benjamin Yoon, a far more
deserving contender in view of his struggle for human rights in North
Korea. Why, three days later, did the nine- member Rafto Foundation
committee decide that DJ should get such an honor? Clearly the NIS had
conveyed the word that DJ needed the award in the buildup for the Nobel
Peace Prize. Therese Jebsen, executive director of the foundation,
acknowledged disagreement over the choice in a conversation on July 15,
2009, with Donald Kirk, who called her from Washington. The foundation
had wanted to honor someone for work on behalf of North Korea, she said,
but finally settled on DJ. “Yes,” she acknowledged, the choice had been
“controversial.”19
On August 25, as soon as the Rafto Foundation had made its decision,
Ramstad called Kim Nam- yong at 10:30 p.m. and let him know the news.
He also said the foundation would pass the word on to the Blue House in
Seoul via Bondevik, the former prime minister who had been invited to
Seoul by Kim Han-j ung and then had gone on to North Korea. He
promised to let the ambassador know the good news on September 7—
hardly necessary since Kim Nam- yong would have passed on the word
almost immediately.
The official announcement would come on September 28, two weeks
before the Nobel announcement, rather than on October 4, allowing still
more time for politicking to convince members of the Norwegian Nobel
Committee to go for DJ. The president of Norway’s Omega Television,
Frank Jansen, who had been to North Korea a number of times and was a
keen advocate for Kim Dae- jung, called Kim Nam- yong on September 9
to say that Bondevik had advised Rafto of a great rationale for advancing
the announcement. To ensure maximum impact in Norway, Bondevik said
the announcement should precede discussion of the national budget in the
Norwegian parliament in early October.
On September 7, Kim Nam- yong cabled the NIS about the notification
to Ambassador Park Kyung- tae. Ramstad had told him that Kim Daejung was selected in view of his “achievements,” and that giving the award
to DJ was the best way “to support the North Korean people, the North
Korean escapees and the North Koreans who are suffering in
concentration camps and suffering from hunger.” In the past, Rafto had
been known “to dig up less known figures and help them to get in the
international spotlight,” said Ramstad. However, he said, “in the case of
President Kim, because of his efforts on behalf of human rights and the
policy of reconciliation, he was praised as ‘the Mandela of Asia.’” Giving
the Rafto to DJ instead of “the oppressed North Korean people” would
“enhance international awareness of the human rights condition in North
Korea” and was “a good way to support President Kim’s Sunshine
policy.” That’s “why,” Kim Nam- yong reported him as saying, “We
chose President Kim.”20
Ramstad was effusive in his praise for DJ. “President Kim was strongly
nominated for the award in 1993, 1996, 1997, and 1999,” he said. “In 1999
he was the final contender,” and he hoped that “President Kim will visit
Norway for the ceremony.”21 If he could not make the trip, Ramstad
suggested that one of DJ’s sons or one child of a North Korean defector
and one child of a South Korean activist for North Korean human rights
accept the award on DJ’s behalf. Sadly for the Rafto Foundation, after
getting word on October 13 that he had won the Nobel, DJ did not bother
to go to Bergen for the Rafto award ceremony on November 5. What
would be the point? He did not want to upstage his grand Nobel
acceptance speech the next month by holding forth at a talkfest for a
trophy that few people outside of Norway had ever heard of and DJ saw
only as a means to an end.
Having spilled all the information about the award to Kim Nam-y ong,
Ramstad still made a show of keeping it secret until the official
announcement, for what he piously called “the integrity of the award” and
the possible “adverse effect of a premature leak.”22 He was too incredibly
naïve to realize he had already compromised the process by blurting out
all he knew to an NIS operative.
10
Playing the Media
T
he sun shining through the windows of Yongsusan, one of Seoul’s
best known restaurants, atop a scenic slope overlooking the Blue
House, created a warm atmosphere that contrasted with the chill winter
weather. Kim Young-j un, NIS foreign press spokesman, arrived at the
secret rendezvous at noon, January 24, 2000. Guided by a waitress with a
welcoming smile, he got to the corner room on the upper floor where he
found his old NIS colleague, Kim Han-j ung. Ushering him in, Kim Hanj ung introduced Kim Young- jun to two new faces at the table.
The head honcho in the hunt for the Nobel Peace Prize, Kim Han- jung
wanted Kim Young-j un to meet Yun Suk-j ung, the Blue House press
undersecretary, and Kim Myong-s ik, director of the Korean Overseas
Information Service (KOIS). The three whom Kim Han- jung was getting
together had special backgrounds for garnering favorable publicity in the
foreign media. Yun had met DJ’s third son, Kim Hong- gul, at the
University of Southern California around 1995 and had remained one of
Hong- gul’s closest friends. Thanks to Hong- gul’s recommendation, Yun
had joined the Blue House staff as an interpreter for DJ after his
inauguration as president in February 1998.
Kim Myong-s ik, a graduate of the law school of Korea’s top-r anked
Seoul National University, had taken over as chief of the KOIS in
September 1999. He had a wide range of experience in English-l anguage
media in Seoul from his days as a correspondent for Reuters, the British
news agency. Leaving Reuters, he had held top editorial positions on
Seoul’s English-l anguage newspapers, The Korea Times and then The
Korea Herald. Later in his career, he served as director- general of Arirang
television, Korea’s only English-l anguage television channel—a
government-o wned enterprise that broadcasts via cable throughout the
world.
As for NIS spokesman Kim Young- jun, he was a scholar who had
studied international politics at the London School of Economics before
joining the NIS. He was quite friendly with foreign correspondents and
had applied to join the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club (SFCC) as an
associate member— a category reserved for those who wanted to be able
to go to SFCC functions though they were not accredited as
correspondents. After some debate, however, the SFCC had wound up
rejecting his application. Members said they did not want an NIS man
“infiltrating” the Club— though he had openly declared his NIS affiliation
on his signed application as evidence of the government’s new “liberal”
attitude toward the foreign media.
Kim was never again seen at the SFCC where he was viewed as
persona non grata— though not by Donald Kirk, who liked him
personally and saw no reason an NIS man should not be eligible as long
as he declared his real affiliation. In retrospect, however, it was just as
well his application was rejected. The purpose was not to spy on foreign
journalists but to use the SFCC as another avenue for promoting DJ’s
candidacy for the Nobel. The SFCC already had enough members, both
correspondents and associates, who were using and abusing the club for
anything but journalistic purposes.
At the Yongsusan gathering, Kim Han-j ung, as the conductor of the
campaign for the Nobel, decided to hold meetings on dealing with the
foreign media every two weeks. According to an NIS internal memo
drafted the same day, the three discussed “the scope of mission.” The first
duty, they agreed, would be “to collect information and to analyze foreign
media” and “to plan and coordinate overseas relations.” Their major
mission, as they saw it, would be to “advertise President Kim’s role as a
peacemaker, focusing both on efforts to improve North- South relations
and on efforts to enhance human rights on the Korean peninsula, East Asia
and the world”— definitely a tall order.1
They also agreed to “take efficient advantage of President Kim’s
overseas human network,” a reference to his extraordinary range of friends
and acquaintances in just about every imaginable realm from academe, to
politics, to diplomacy, and even to show business. “We have to conceive
this foreign network is an asset of our government and the channel to
public relations,” Kim Han- jung stressed. One critical question was “how
to enhance the capacities of diplomats stationed in foreign embassies.” 2
Whatever else they did, these media officials had to serve a public
relations purpose in the hunt for the Nobel. “The NIS should coordinate
this job,” said the NIS memo, putting together and summarizing all the
reports done separately by the Blue House, the KOIS, the Foreign
Ministry, and the state- run Korea Development Institute. Another mission
of the NIS would be to “approach the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’
Club, checking the perceptions and trends of foreign journalists, providing
PLAYING THE MEDIA 117
material to help them write articles.” As the NIS memo described it, “The
mission of the NIS in this context is to gain an understanding of the tone
of the foreign media, to discern trends in the foreign press and collect and
analyze news articles.”3 At the same time, the NIS had the duty of
producing a daily report on whatever the foreign press was saying about
Korea and its president.
After each meeting, Kim Young- jun would report to the deputy NIS
director in charge of foreign intelligence, the overall person responsible
for coordinating foreign media issues. The NIS placed media duties in
several different categories involving the roles of public liaison officers,
media analysts, and psychological warfare experts. “Due to all the
missions discussed, the NIS planned to establish a small team to carry out
these missions,” said the memo. Kim Han- jung at the Blue House would
be the “control tower” over everything to do with the foreign media. The
foreign ministry, in a distinctly subservient role, would “convey all its
relevant documents on how to deal with the foreign press” as a top
priority.4 The point here was the NIS wanted to make sure the foreign
ministry was not holding back on information and material that its jealous
bureaucrats did not want the competing NIS to have.
The NIS memo said the director and vice director of the NIS needed to
issue an order to authorize the small media team to function as a special
unit directly under their purview. The NIS, said the memo, would “need
additional manpower” equipped with English- language skills and a
thorough understanding of the needs to carry out its mission. Moreover,
for security reasons, “separate independent offices would be needed
within the NIS” and “offices, resources and a special budget” would be
necessary. Last but not least, the whole program had to be shrouded “in
complete security” while “unnecessary channels” for the usual reporting
procedures had to be cut. In this project, all those involved had to be able
to get through to their superiors with minimum hassle and total secrecy,
in which anyone without a clear “need to know” would remain in the dark.
“All support and cooperation had to be under the direct control of the
deputy NIS director,” said the NIS memo.5
The NP Project team saw media influence, both at home and abroad, as
fundamental, closely related to the hunt for the Nobel, and the team
approached the media from all sides. A voluminous NIS report addressed
to DJ in February 2000 focused on “Reality and Counter- Measures on
anti-G overnment Criticism by Korean-A merican Journalists.” Korean
press officials at the embassy in Washington and consulates elsewhere
were told to analyze the 25 Korean American newspapers, 28 Korean
American magazines, 23 television stations, and 19 radio stations. 6
The memo compiled a detailed list of circulation levels and advertising
along with the trend and tone of all these papers and broadcast outlets. The
memo singled out the most critical public relations risks, including the
most negative media sources and journalists, placing an emphasis on how
to deal with them. Among other ideas, they suggested campaigns to
subdue criticism, providing public relations material in support of Korean
policies, contacting owners, editors, and staff members, all in an effort to
build up rapport and consensus. The foreign ministry and KOIS should
demand “corrections in groundless critical reports about the president and
government” and should send letters to the editors about particularly
offensive articles.7
On a more positive note, the KOIS was advised to begin an invitation
program, inviting staff members, owners, and journalists to Korea in order
to elevate their understanding of the domestic situation and create a
cooperative atmosphere. The memo also suggested that the KOIS take
advantage of the state- run Korean Broadcasting System’s (KBS)
convention for international broadcasters and revive the Korea Press
Foundation’s invitation program for “compatriot journalists.” 8
In order to accomplish all of these goals, the NIS said “cooperation”
was essential between the Foreign Ministry and the KOIS, in which they
would provide information on North Korea regularly to the KoreanAmerican media. The scheme extended to supporting the Korean-A
merican media through advertising— a sure way of buying sympathetic
coverage. As for “problematic journalists,” the NIS said they would merit
“special attention.”9
In July 2000, five months after the meeting at the Yongsusan, Yun Sukjung of the Blue House was dispatched to Los Angeles to take charge of
winning over the Korean- American media. Yun also had to deal with the
highly embarrassing case of Yun’s old friend, DJ’s third son, Kim Honggul, involved in legal disputes with former National Assembly member
Lee Shin-b om in Los Angeles. Yun remained the key man for public
relations in the United States, courting journalists as he had done in Seoul,
spending much of his time combating negative views inspired by scandals
surrounding all three of DJ’s sons. Rewarded with the post of ministercounselor for information at the Korean embassy in Washington, he
served there until Roh Moo- hyun stepped down as president in February
2008.
Dealing with the press both at home and abroad was the most important
agenda item for Kim Dae-j ung’s aides. These efforts quite often were so
excessive that DJ’s government was ridiculed by journalists as the
“Republic of Public Relations.” Dealings with domestic journalists fell
under the purview of both the NIS and the Culture and Tourism Ministry.
No sooner had Lee Jong- chan become NIS director than he adopted a
hyperaggressive position toward the media. He reshuffled all PR-r elated
organizations within the NIS, installing the offices of both domestic and
foreign spokesmen directly under his own office. Lee’s successor, Chun
Yong- taek, went further, consolidating all press- related organizations
and personnel and setting up a new press department within the NIS.
Information gathering and surveillance of journalists by wiretapping and
bugging were greatly intensified.
At the same time, other ways of controlling the media by friendly
gestures and gifts were assiduously planned and executed. The culture and
tourism ministry was expert at engineering these approaches, especially
after Park Jie- won, DJ’s press adviser during his campaign for the
presidency in 1997 and then in the Blue House after his inauguration, was
appointed culture and tourism minister in May 1999. Park was an expert
at wining and dining journalists and extending favors to the media.
Meeting with certain especially favored, politically reliable members of
the fourth estate would not be complete without handing over envelopes
called chon ji, literally a token of gratitude, sometimes far greater than the
equivalent in Korean currency of a few hundred dollars that journalists
were accustomed to receiving. Tokens of esteem in artfully targeted cases
were said to exceed the equivalent in won of at least several thousand
dollars. A publisher named Son Chung-m u once criticized Park Jie-w on,
saying, “He bribed to silence virtually all the influential journalists in
South Korea.”10
The foreign media fell into the hands of the Office of External
Cooperation Aid (OECA) at the NIS and the Culture and Tourism
Ministry’s KOIS. Ever since the hunt for the Nobel operation was
launched in August 1998, dealings with the foreign press had been a top
priority as seen in NIS Director Lee Jong-c han’s appointment of Kim
Young-j un as the NIS foreign press spokesman. The creation of that
position was unprecedented in the history of the NIS, going back to its
founding as the KCIA. Nor, for that matter, has the NIS had a successor
as foreign media spokesman since Kim Young- jun was transferred to
another post after DJ won the Nobel Peace Prize.
From the beginning, OECA aggressively approached the foreign
media, often getting in touch through the SFCC. In many cases journalists
were not willing to talk to intelligence agents in an open setting where
prying eyes might see them gathering “exclusive” tidbits—a ll carefully
planted by the NP Project team to create the atmosphere in which DJ might
get the Nobel. Many correspondents preferred to meet in the security of
hotels or traditional Korean restaurants. A steady stream of “information”
flowed from the NIS to the foreign media. Did a foreign media star want
“inside” stuff on North Korea and China, perhaps a “secret” meeting with
a North Korean defector? The NIS was only too happy to oblige for the
sake of the rapport needed in DJ’s quest for Nobel glory. Whatever stories
the NIS had to offer, however, the agency made sure to leave out far more
than it revealed.
World- wise correspondents liked to think they were on to the ways of
the NIS from the days when it was known as the KCIA. Correspondents
prided themselves on being so sophisticated as to be aware that, for
example, NIS officers might be bugging their phones at their luxury hotels
or reading their stories before they appeared in print as the pages flowed
from Seoul to their home offices by telex and cable and news agency wires
in those pre- Internet days. In some cases, they even sensed agents
following them to see whom they were meeting. Savvy though they
imagined themselves to be, however, foreign journalists generally had no
sense that their diplomatic or Blue House contacts were from the NIS or
working with the NIS. Nor did they have the slightest idea that the whole
point of such meetings was to promote Kim Dae- jung for a Nobel Peace
Prize.
The NP Project team monitored foreign articles as soon as they
appeared on wires, in print or on television and radio networks, with a
view to assessing who was friendly and who was less so. KOIS teams
translated foreign news articles pertaining to Korean issues and faxed the
results of their hard work to the NIS. The idea was to prevent unfavorable
news before it spread too far and give morsels of news to certain foreign
journalists who might be helpful. All members of the foreign press
stationed in Seoul, along with those who visited Seoul from their bases in
Tokyo, Hong Kong, or elsewhere, were categorized as ranging from
media deemed neutral, to hostile or critical, to friendly and hospitable.
The Associated Press, Agence France Presse, Reuters, Bloomberg,
BBC, CBS, and CNN were deemed “neutral.” For many of those working
for these establishments, the main concern was the economy. The “hostile
or critical” ones included Sankei Shimbun, the Wall Street Journal, the
Christian Science Monitor, ABC News, and Reporters Sans Frontières.
They were placed in that category due to the personal characteristics of
their reporters and their sentiments as perceived against previous military
regimes and concerns about lack of freedom of the press in South Korea.
The “hospitable” group included many in the Japanese media such as
Asahi Shuimbun, Jiji Press, Kyodo Press, NHK, TBS, Nihon Keizai
Shimbun, Yomiuri Shimbun, and Tokyo Shimbun. American media judged
to be friendly included the Los Angeles Times, the International Herald
Tribune, Time, Newsweek and Voice of America, a US government
operation that targeted foreign audiences, including North Korea and
China. Britain’s Economist and Financial Times were also viewed as
sympathetic.
From around the first anniversary of Kim Dae- jung’s inauguration, the
Blue House began ordering the NIS to contact influential media around
the world to try to persuade them to carry special articles profiling Kim
Dae-j ung. Nightly, the NIS team assiduously got in touch with friends in
the foreign media pleading for articles to be published. The list included
all the usual suspects— such leading publications as The New York Times,
The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, The Times and Financial Times
of Britain, Le Monde of France, and Der Spiegel of Germany.
The KOIS would have the role of orchestrating the media approach,
shrewdly giving news and views while taking care not to make it appear
as part of a campaign for the Nobel. On specific issues, the Blue House
and NIS would together cooperate in imbuing foreign correspondents and
editors with information and interviews. The NP Project team, for
instance, invited the Hong Kong correspondent of the Associated Press
during the June 2000 Summit to get him to write articles on the Korean
Peninsula— all part of the Master Plan. The OECA spokesman tried to
form cordial relations with correspondents, doing everything possible to
appear helpful. Offering tips and inside information were classic stocks in
trade. Interests of foreign journalists, as he knew well, ranged from
sensitive security matters to such issues as the health and sex life of Kim
Jong- il.
The NP Project team realized that overtly aggressive tactics in dealing
with the foreign media could rebound badly. Representatives of these
organizations had to be approached skillfully. When some media
remained uncooperative, all problems were reported to Ra Jong-i l
directly. From time to time, Ra passed on highly sensitive information to
favored correspondents and their editors when they came to visit. The
secret life of the Dear Leader of the North was always a juicy topic. The
point was not to keep the world informed, but to curry favor with the
journalists by entertaining them. One evening, Ra bragged, “We got to
know the dinner menu of Kim Jong- il last night.”11
Once every three months, Ra Jong- il dined with small groups of
foreign correspondents on the theory that regular face- to- face contact
would promote good relations. Never before had the NIS staged such
meetings. Dinners were arranged geographically, some to include
Japanese correspondents, others for Western correspondents. Special
dinners were also arranged for smaller groups of Chinese and Australian
correspondents and for Korean staff members of foreign news
organizations. Japanese correspondents and their Korean staff members
were the most cooperative and vital. Japanese reporters had a keen sense
of interest in Korean peninsular matters.
Usually, foreign media were glad to attend. They loved to ask about the
North Korean food crisis, signs of regime collapse, the reasons why Kim
Dae- jung’s North Korea policy was drastically different from previous
policy—a ll the usual questions. Invariably, the atmosphere was friendly.
Nobody wanted to disrupt the newly built good relationship between the
media and the NIS. Foreign correspondents and NIS officers enjoyed
building up rapport through exchange of insights and information. All the
while, of course, the correspondents were blissfully unaware that the
underlying reason for all the hospitality was to whip up support for the
Nobel Peace Prize.
Another way to manage the foreign press was “to boost competition
among them by providing good information to a favorable press.” 12
Shamelessly, the NIS exploited Hwang Jang- yop, the highest- profile
North Korean ever to defect to South Korea. During the early years of the
DJ government, Hwang was seen as the hottest source on North Korean
issues. Since every member of the foreign media seemed to want to
interview him, the prospect of arranging an interview gave the NIS
powerful leverage in dealing with the media. The NP Project team took
complete control of Hwang’s schedule, extending the favor of access to
those deemed friendly. With diabolical cunning, the NIS sought to trigger
a sense of rivalry among the foreign media in pursuit of interviews with
Hwang. Some hostile media never got to talk to him while others had
multiple opportunities— all seen as a great way to be sure of favorable
media attention and reduce the chances of criticism. No correspondent,
however experienced, was known to perceive the game the NIS was
playing.
Among all of the foreign press, Scandinavian journalists were a special
target. The public affairs officer in the South Korean embassy in Oslo was
in charge of massaging Norwegian media. The Norwegians prided
themselves on journalistic integrity. With some annoyance, the NIS
reported “no noteworthy achievements” and “no achievement in that
area,” if only because they were found to be “independent and
exclusive.”13 No one could have been more diligent than Kim Nam- yong,
the NIS man in Oslo. Besides feeding clippings from the English-l
anguage Korea Herald and Korea Times to the gullible Oslo media, he
assembled documents, including copies of the North-S outh Joint
Declaration of June 15 and DJ’s subsequent “report to the people” of
South Korea, for his many friends and contacts, journalists included, to
study and quote.
As a result of all efforts going back more than two years, the NIS began
to reap a whirlwind of great publicity in Norway as the Nobel campaign
was entering its final phase in June 2000. The NP Project team believed it
might be possible to persuade Norwegian journalists to write favorable
“special reports” if invited to South Korea. “The NB Committee tends to
refer to the Norwegian press,” said an NIS memo. “It is necessary to make
efforts to win over the Norwegian press.”14 As might be expected,
Aftenposten and the tabloid Dagbladet were principal targets.
After that first luncheon in Yongsusan in January 2000, Kim Han- jung
strategically had press attachés appointed to two other locations deemed
critical for the hunt for the Nobel—S tockholm and Johannesburg, the
latter no doubt in view of the potential influence of Nelson Mandela in the
prize selection. Over in Norway, there was no need for a press attaché.
The ambassador and intelligence officer in the Oslo embassy had been
doing a fine job for years of serving the functions of public affairs officers.
The NIS—a nd the Blue House—c ould hardly have asked for more
euphoric coverage than that accorded by the Scandinavian media in its
reporting on the Summit. Bertil Lintner, a well- known journalist and
author who had spent years writing and reporting from Asia, began his
report on June 15 in the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet (not to be
confused with the Norwegian Dagbladet) with the bold declaration, “Fifty
years of confrontation, tense relations and official state of war were buried
in Pyongyang on Wednesday evening as South Korea’s president, Kim
Dae- jung, and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-i l, signed a joint
declaration with the aim to normalize the relations between the two states
on the divided Korean peninsula.”15
Lintner conceded, in a touch of realism that normally permeated his
journalism, that it was “true that the treaty . . . is rather vague and only
states in general terms that the tension on the Peninsula must be decreased
and that the exchange between the two Korean states will be increased.”
Nonetheless, he went on, “In a strongly family- oriented society like the
Korean one, a dream is now starting to become realized: getting to meet
relatives from whom one has been separated since the beginning of the
1950. At least seven million in the South have relatives in the North.” 16
In his report the next day, June 16, Lintner began with the news that
Kim Dae- jung had “left the North Korean capital Pyongyang after a
summit meeting between two states that have been arch enemies for half
a century, that has been called a success by all the parties involved.” Much
of Lintner’s analysis, as befit his reputation as one of the region’s more
reliable commentators, was undeniably true. No one would question the
view, attributed to “Western diplomats in Seoul,” that “A reunified
Korea—a n alliance between the industrialized South and the North, rich
in natural resources, with a population around seventy million— could
become a great power financially.”17
Still, Lintner’s conclusion would not stand the test of time— though
undoubtedly it vindicated the enormous public relations work of the NIS
and the Blue House in promoting DJ for the Nobel Peace Prize. “It would
take a great deal to put an end to the process of reconciliation and
reduction of tension that, without a doubt, the Summit meeting in
Pyongyang has set off,” he wrote. “And even if it will take time, a
reunification of the Korean Peninsula is the ultimate goal, according to the
joint declaration which the two Kims signed Wednesday in Pyongyang.” 18
In the bright afterglow of the June 2000 Summit, however, no one would
have realized the enormity of the failure.
On June 16, an article by Bengt Albons in Sweden’s largest newspaper,
Dagens Nyheter, was exactly what the NIS and Blue House wanted to see.
“The warmth and attachment that the two Korean leaders showed each
other during the three- day Summit tells more and is of greater symbolic
value to their people than the vaguely formulated agreement they signed,”
said the article. “The prediction that the meeting itself was more important
than the substance has therefore been confirmed.”19
The Dagens Nyheter article rambled on in words that could only be
read later with sadness considering the false hopes generated by the
Summit and the broken dreams that again marked inter- Korean relations.
“Even though North-a nd-S outh Korea previously have broken several
agreements to enter the road toward reunification, it is hard to see how the
leaders could evade this week’s promises and the enormous hope for
changes that people have after fifty-f ive years of split,” it said. “But then
previous agreements have never been signed by the leaders of the two
countries. With the personality cult that North Korea has, a document with
Kim Jong-i l’s signature becomes dogma.”20
To the journalist’s credit, however, he did note in ending, “Many
difficult issues remain to be resolved that were hardly discussed at all
during the Summit, such as North Korea’s long-d istance missiles and the
possibility that North Korea is investing in a nuclear weapons program.”
Another difficult issue, he noted, was that of “U.S. troops in South
Korea”— a reference to North Korean demands for withdrawal of
America’s remaining troops as a prerequisite for a peace treaty in place of
the armistice that had ended the Korean War in July 1953. Nonetheless,
he concluded, “peace has become more visible, maybe even possible.”21
Those were just the words needed to garner the ultimate accolade, the
Nobel Peace Prize, which would credit DJ as the heroic figure responsible
for bringing peace to the Korean Peninsula. In subsequent weeks, media
commentary in Norway and Sweden paid unceasing tribute to the Summit
and its aftermath, much of it fed in briefings by South Korean diplomats,
sometimes ambassadors, often NIS functionaries in the guise of
diplomats, never simply as intelligence officers. The propaganda played
directly into the arms of the Norwegian Communist Party, whose
newspaper, Friheten, parroted the line from Pyongyang.
A commentary published on June 30 in Friheten might just as well have
been written in Pyongyang as well. “The Americans still have 37,000
soldiers in South Korea and an enormous weapons arsenal,” said Torstein
Engelskjon and Guri Haagensen, leaders of the Oslo Secretariat of the
Friends of North Korea Association. “Their numerous atomic weapons are
used as military pressure against Korea and its neighbors. An international
opinion for peace and reunification must be built for the future.” 22
The Scandinavian media, especially the press in Norway, where
favorable publicity counted the most for immediate influence on the
Norwegian Nobel Committee, kept up a steady drumbeat of news and
commentary in the weeks and months leading to the final selection. On
June 26, the day after the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean
War with the North Korean invasion of the South, Aftenposten reported
that the days of “lengthy war speeches are over . . . The two Korean state
leaders concluded a Summit in a good atmosphere last month”— the
writer seemed not to know the Summit had taken place earlier the same
month— “and signed a delicately worded agreement for practical
cooperation between Seoul and
Pyongyang.”23
One month later, on July 25, Aftenposten was upbeat about a meeting
of the regional forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) coming up in Bangkok on July 28 at which US Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright would meet Paek Nam- sun, the North Korean
foreign minister. “North Korea is throwing itself into the diplomatic wheel
with much benefit to come,” said the paper, predicting the meeting would
be “historic.” The Americans, it said, “are interested in knowing more
about the North Korean offer concerning their missile programs in
exchange for rewards that can be great for North Korea.” Here would be
a chance for North Korea “to come out” from “self- created isolation.”24
Albright, after meeting Paek, said she did not “glean” much from their
brief conversation, but the encounter did count as a step on the way to
President Clinton receiving North Korea’s second most powerful leader,
Marshal Jo Myong-r ok, vice chairman of the National Defense
Commission.25 Decked out in full military regalia, Jo called on Clinton at
the White House while visiting Washington from October 9 to October 13
and also saw Albright at a State Department dinner. At the same time,
twenty people from the South Korean government and NGOs flew to
Pyongyang aboard a North Korean plane to observe the fifty-f ifth
anniversary of the Workers’ Party.26 These simultaneous events raised
efforts at rapprochement to a new level in the moments before the
Norwegian Nobel Committee would announce the winner on October 13.
The coverage by Aftenposten waxed both silly and serious as the Nobel
Committee approached its decision. “Prior to the meeting the North
Korean leader was considered as a scary mysterious aggressive dictator,”
said one article. “After his historical hug with the South Korean leader at
the airport in Pyongyang, opinions have changed to the extent that many
people hope that North Korea will be on the right path that can lead to
peace and stability and reunification between the two countries.” 27
By this time, Kim Dae- jung had the US government fully on his side.
Albright, for one, was a dedicated fan. In the euphoria surrounding the
announcement, she flew to Pyongyang on October 22 in high hopes of
reaching an accommodation with Kim Jong- il— surely, she believed, a
historic opportunity. Instead, she and her subordinate, Wendy Sherman,
displayed complete ignorance of how to deal with Kim Jong- il when they
accepted his invitation to what he had indicated to Albright would be a
small display. To their shock, they found themselves beside him in May
Day Stadium by the Daedong River in Pyongyang as tens of thousands of
poster- holders in the opposite stands flashed cards portraying the test
launch on August 31, 1998, of the long-r ange Taepodong-I (the missile
that had flown over the main Japanese island of Honshu before falling into
the Pacific, but theoretically, when perfected, could have reached the US
West Coast).
No Korean seemed bothered by the anti-A merican propaganda that
accompanied the campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize as long as it
generated publicity in support of DJ’s bid. “Americans Meet a New Day
Every Day in Korea,” said a headline in Aftenposten on September 9 over
an article by Per Christiansen. “While the South Koreans criticize the
American military presence, it seems the North Koreans accept it.”28
The Aftenposten article picked up on a report by Donald Kirk in the
International Herald Tribune on September 6 for most of the evidence.
Headlined “Byproduct of Korean Rapprochement: Tension in South with
U.S. Forces,” Kirk’s story said the US commander in Korea, General
Thomas Schwartz, and the American embassy had issued warnings for the
benefit of US soldiers and civilians alike. As “anti-A mericanism rises
amid moves toward rapprochement between North and South Korea,”
Kirk wrote, “the presence of GIs, viewed with nationalist suspicion under
the best of circumstances, appears as more of an irritant now than in
previous years.”29
Kirk’s report gave the Aftenposten writer ample chance to spread one
of the myths generated by DJ after the Summit. “The dissatisfaction in the
South stands in direct contrast to the goodwill North Korea has begun to
show toward the presence of American forces on the Korean peninsula,”
Christiansen wrote. “While the regime in Pyongyang has traditionally
considered the American forces an occupying force, recently Kim Jongil has expressed his readiness to accept their presence, this according to a
report from the Summit,” said the article, as DJ had “confirmed in an
interview with the Washington Post.”30 Aside from DJ’s claim, however,
there was never any proof that Kim Jong-i l had said he would accept
American troops on Korean soil. After the Summit, North Korea regularly
called for their withdrawal— evidence indeed that DJ had deliberately
skewed his conversation with Kim Jong- il in his relentless drive to
demonstrate his victory in pursuit of peace and the prize to go with it.
11
Swedish Connection
D
r. Han Young-w oo fit the tradition of the great mystery men of
fiction.
During the entire period of the hunt for the Nobel Peace Prize, he
was the least sighted but most conspicuous player outside the NP Project
team. This brilliant Swedish- Korean physician, who had made his career
in Stockholm after working as a houseboy for a Swedish medical team
during the Korean War, had his finger in virtually every pie in the Swedish
capital.
Born in Seoul in 1932 and a graduate of Seoul’s prestigious Kyonggi
High School, he moved to Sweden in 1953 after one year in medical
school at Seoul National University. He went on to receive the rest of his
premedical training as an undergraduate at Uppsala University, then
earned his medical degree at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden’s leading
medical school. While establishing his own private clinic in Stockholm,
he served as the designated doctor for the Swedish royal family and
foreign ministry from 1970 to 1991. His role was amply recognized in the
form of a medal from the Swedish king for his contribution “to expanding
Swedish exports” and medals from the Korean government in 1972 and
1991.1
For years Dr. Han was president of both the Korean Association in
Sweden and the Korean Culture School. He also established the KoreaSweden Scholarship Foundation, which gave scholarships to Korean
Students in Sweden and Swedish students in Korea. On the way he
received numerous prizes from the Korean government for his cultural
contributions. In Korea he became known as a humanitarian after adopting
an eight- month- old Korean infant suffering from hydrocephalus, a rare
brain disease that had already partially paralyzed him, as reported by Dong
A Ilbo on November 10, 1996. “Dr. Han was the first Korean who ever
studied in Sweden, and he is the best known Korean in Stockholm,” said
the paper. “He’s known for
having been an interpreter in a Swedish field hospital.” 2
Han’s influence as more than a go- between was paramount as a result
of his ties to Karolinska Institutet and to the NIS, where he had many
contacts as an all- purpose informant. One of Dr. Han’s noteworthy
achievements was that of a mediator in securing a $20 million loan to
Sweden for a medical center. In 1993, when the intelligence chief of the
Korea Ministry of National Defense visited Sweden, he arranged a
meeting with the Swedish defense minister, Anders Björck, who later
became a member of the Swedish parliament. In April 1995, he let the NIS
know about a North Korean cardiologist who was studying in Stockholm.
In September 1995, he also briefed NIS officers about the results of a visit
to North Korea by a delegation from Ericsson, the Swedish
telecommunications giant. On a visit to Seoul that month, he sought a
sponsor for building the Nobel Museum.3
Dr. Han’s contacts were all-e mbracing. In July 1995 he was named
“foreign special adviser” in the campaign to bring the 2002 World Cup
soccer finals to Korea. And in October 1995 he introduced Chung Mongjoon, president of the Korea Football Association and sixth son of
Hyundai founder Chung Ju-y ung, who had bequeathed to him the
controlling shares of Hyundai Heavy Industries, to the Swedish king. That
month he informed the NIS officer in Stockholm of all he knew about
Japan’s efforts to get the World Cup bid, and in March 1996 he visited
Seoul to support Korea’s campaign to host the World Cup. He also let the
NIS know how Swedish people were helping North Korea during heavy
floods that were devastating much of the country, which had already sunk
into a famine that would cost two million lives in the mid- and late- 1990s.4
Han was far more than just an informant for the NIS. In January 1997,
according to an NIS internal memo, he explained to Swedish opinion
leaders the causes for labor unrest in the wake of clumsy attempts by Kim
Young- sam, then president of South Korea, to bring about financial
reforms. Han plunged into the quest for the Nobel full force when he
called on NIS Director Lee Jong- chan on May 15, 1998. In June 1998 he
conveyed congratulatory messages to Lee from Michael Sohlman,
director of the Nobel Foundation, and Anders Björck, former Swedish
defense minister and now first vice speaker in the Swedish parliament,
who were praising him for the success of his Democratic Party in local
elections. On September 29, 1998, he secretly met Lee to discuss the
Nobel Peace Prize for DJ, according to an NIS memo.5
Lee Byung-c hun, the NIS man in Stockholm, fired off a cable to the
NIS titled “operational material support” for Han and others in Sweden
caught up in the hunt for the Nobel. Lee suggested sending New Year’s
SWEDISH CONNECTION 131
cards for 1999 in the name of Director Lee Jong- chan and his deputy, Ra
Jong-i l, to four special people: Dr. Han, Ambassador Son Myung-h yun,
Anders Björck, and Michael Sohlman. A somewhat lesser card, in the
name of Ra as deputy director, would go to Ravinder Pal Singh, senior
researcher in the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and
Choi Byung- eun, translator of DJ’s book. Lee asked for a gift for himself,
a cosmetic set for his wife— and “Lucky Number Two” gift sets for the
six recipients of the cards.6
Exactly what “Lucky Number Two” included was not specified, but
presumably those who received it would be grateful to those who handed
them out. Lee Byung-c hun carefully listed other assorted items as gifts:
18 small bottles of Chanel perfume, 10 pieces of what the memo called
“Excellent,” possibly tableware, five cup holders, and two bottles of
“Sting” cologne, all selected from a handy list thoughtfully provided by
the NIS headquarters. Lee Byung- chun’s cable also called for being sure
to provide “convenience at the airport” whenever Dr. Han arrived at
Seoul’s Kimpo International Airport. When Director Lee Jong-c han met
Dr. Han in May 1998 at the NIS, said one cable, he ordered “every
possible convenience” for Dr. Han.7 From then on, Dr. Han was sure to
get VIP treatment immediately on arrival, whisking through immigration
and customs like an important emissary without having to wait in
sometimes long lines to get his Swedish passport stamped.
At a dinner arranged by Dr. Han for four members of the Swedish
parliament at Ambassador Son’s residence, the guest list included the
conservative Anders Björck; Inge Carlsson, a member of the Social
Democratic Party; Kenth Skårvik from the Liberal Party, and Rolf
Abjörnsson, vice chairman of the parliamentary committee of the
Christian Democratic Party. Ambassador Son went to great lengths to
brief his guests on the project for opening tourism to Mount Kumgang,
showing two films titled “Special Report on North Korea” and “TwoFaced Tactics of North Korea.” At the meeting, as Lee reported, Björck
and the others said, “They hoped to exchange parliamentary delegations”
between Sweden and Korea, and they also praised Kim Dae-j ung’s
sunshine policy and his release of leftist prisoners during an amnesty on
March 1, 1999, the eightieth anniversary of the bloody uprising against
Japanese rule on March 1, 1919.8
In just about all that Han Young- woo did, his closest collaborator was
Michael Sohlman. “They stuck together constantly,” said an NIS agent,
“like peas in a pod.” The NIS began tailing Sohlman closely in February
1998 just before DJ’s inaugural. “Nobel Foundation director’s visit to
Korea,” was the title of one message from NIS officer Lee Byung-c hun
in Stockholm giving Sohlman’s résumé to headquarters. The résumé, as
picked up by Lee Byung- chun, showed that Sohlman was born in 1944,
graduated from Uppsala University in 1964 with a major in economics,
and got a master’s degree in politics from Stockholm University in 1968.
From 1972 to 1974, he was in the industrial ministry, and from 1974 to
1976, in the treasury department. From 1977 to 1980, he was Sweden’s
representative to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, and from 1985 to 1987, was director of the budget within
the treasury department. From 1987 through 1989, he was vice minister
of agriculture, and from 1989 to 1991, was vice foreign minister for trade. 9
All of this experience qualified Sohlman to achieve the dream position
of director of the Nobel Foundation in May 1992. From 1995 to 1998, he
was a member of the committee of the Swedish International
Development Cooperation Agency and from October 1997 was a
committee member of the “vision group” of the Asia- Europe Meeting
(ASEM), a forum for members to discuss wide- ranging problems. It was
in that capacity that Sohlman visited Seoul for the first time in March
1998.10
“He is kind of elite,” said agent Lee Byung- chun in his analysis. “He
is a member of the Social Democratic Party, and he lives in an aristocratic
style influenced by his mother, from a Russian aristocratic background,
and his father, a former Swedish ambassador to Russia.” Lee said that
Sohlman liked fine wine, had a “positive and very friendly” outlook
toward Kim Dae- jung and Korea, and had shown “interest in the
economic development of Korea.” Even if he did not have a chance to
meet DJ, said Lee, “he knows about President-e lect Kim from his earlier
Peace Prize recommendations” and “knows about his international
reputation in the democratic struggle.”11
In the same cable Lee said Sohlman, through Han Young- woo, “would
meet Lee Jong- chan, chairman of DJ’s transition committee and about to
become NIS director, and Lee Young-j ak, a statistics professor at
Hanyang University and nephew of DJ’s wife Lee Hee- ho, as well as Lee
Hyun- jae, a former prime minister who now held the influential post of
the chairman of the Hoam Foundation.” Most importantly, said the cable,
“Sohlman would meet DJ before his inauguration through Lee Youngjak.”12
The cable also revealed how Sohlman came to be invited to South
Korea. The director of the policy research center of the foreign ministry,
Kwon Young-m in, asked him to be a guest at an ASEM Vision Group
“preparation conference”— an obvious cover story to bring him to Seoul
and begin massaging him as a target in the hunt for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Kwon Young- min was the person who was nominated as protocol
secretary in the Blue House in February 1998 in the transition period
before DJ’s inauguration on February 25 but was later dumped for
whatever he had said about DJ while trying as ambassador to Norway to
win the Nobel for Kim Young- sam. Kwon’s Blue House appointment did
not last more than one week, but before he was forced out he managed to
perform one signal service for DJ, introducing him to Sohlman on a visit
to Seoul.
In his cable Lee Byung-c hun offered a highly qualified view of what
he believed Sohlman could do. “Even if he can influence Nobel issues at
the Nobel Foundation to some extent, he has no influence in the selection
in the Nobel prizes,” said Lee, since “they are chosen by individual Nobel
prize committees.” The fact that the Nobel Peace Prize was given in Oslo
made Sohlman’s influence even less likely. Lee believed that Sohlman
might be “the core person in managing the foundation” but that
“approaching and manipulating him could not only have no effect but
might have a negative impact.” He warned, moreover, that “the local
atmosphere in Sweden is that no one can win the Nobel Prize by
lobbying.” Therefore Sohlman’s visit, which included a meeting with
President-e lect Kim Dae-j ung, would not only “make him a burden but
also lead him to avoid contact if he thought
that the purpose of the contact is related to the Nobel.” 13
Contrary to Lee Byung- chun’s warning, however, Sohlman, after
getting to Seoul, enjoyed himself thoroughly. He gave two speeches: one
at Hankuk University for Foreign Studies on March 2, 1998, on “The
Nobel prize and the Nobel Foundation” and another two days later at
Kyunghee University on “the role of the Nobel prize.” Asked by a
journalist for Hankook Ilbo, a midsized daily not linked to the university,
about the possibility of a Korean poet winning the Nobel Prize for
literature, Sohlman was carefully evasive. The question was a leading one.
DJ was not the only Korean in pursuit of a Nobel. The poet Koh Eun, a
fan of DJ from the Cholla region, had been a contender for the literature
prize for several years. “This is my first visit to Korea,” said Sohlman. “I
have no knowledge of literature and know nothing about who’s on the
short list for the literature prize.”14
Sohlman did say that about 200 to 250 names were often placed in
nomination for each prize and that they were narrowed down to about 100,
and then to 25, and finally to 5. “All details,” he added, “remained secret
for at least fifty years.” He was defensive about perceived regional
imbalances. “I would like to clarify this,” he said. “The Nobel prize is not
the kind of prize that is decided by opening a map. There is no
consideration on the basis of nation or race.” Asked about the chance of a
Korean leader winning the prize for building up the basis of reunification,
he responded, “Unification of the Korean peninsula is an important issue”
and “of course will be in the scope of the award.”15
In his speech at Kyunghee University, Sohlman was asked a still more
direct and sensitive question: What chance did Kim Dae- jung have of
winning the peace prize? “As director of the Nobel Foundation, it is
inappropriate to answer that question,” he solemnly replied, because “it
could affect the decision”— a response that would seem to indicate he
might have some influence after all. At the same time, he said he had
“many Korean friends in Stockholm”— no doubt including Dr. Han
Young- woo.16
Sohlman was totally polite in giving his view of what he had seen of
Korea so far. “I don’t know much about Korea except for the economic
side,” he said in modest self-d eprecation, but “I have a deep impression
of economic development.”17 That remark strained all credibility among
those in the NP Project. They suspected that Sohlman knew much more
than he cared to reveal. After all, there was no reason to have invited him
to Seoul other than for his influence from Stockholm, indirectly if not
directly, on the deliberations in Oslo.
During the whole period of the hunt for the Nobel Peace Prize, Han
Young-w oo was not only an invaluable source of information for the NIS
and the Blue House, but also a conduit in communication that would lead
to the June 2000 Summit, which in turn would lead to the Nobel. He
showed a tendency not to make definite remarks, avoiding detailed
explanations while dealing with subrosa feuding and differences among
Koreans. In effect, he served as an excellent espionage agent in a project
whose urgency surpassed that of attempting to glean all that North Korea
was doing in its quest for Swedish technology and high- tech products.
Han Young- woo, under the alias of “Han Sang- chul,” according to a
cable classified as chinjon, meaning “open in person,” “for your eyes
only,” from Park Jong- jae, the newly assigned NIS officer in Stockholm,
made sure to be in Seoul whenever Sohlman was there and briefed Park
on what he hoped to accomplish. Park proposed that Kim Han- jung set
up Han Young-w oo’s visit. “It’s understood,” he said in early February
2000, “that President Kim Dae-j ung is fully informed on Han’s
itinerary.”18 At the top of Han’s agenda was a courtesy call on President
Kim, dinner with the powerful new NIS director, Lim Dong- won, and
another dinner with Park Jie- won, the culture and tourism minister who
was the president’s right-h and man. Han would conduct all these
meetings with Sohlman.
“At the end of January 2000 I was asked to keep thorough security on
what’s happening in Stockholm, even to the NIS officer,” Han told NIS
Officer Park Jong- jae. He said that Kim Han- jung and Park Jie- won both
hated “not only NIS involvement in this project, but also the NIS
perceiving what was going on.” Park Jong- jae requested “special security
measures and consideration for the position of the intelligence”— an
extreme remark that showed the split between the NIS and the Blue
House.19 The meaning was clear: the NIS did not have confidence in the
Blue House from the viewpoint of both security and competence even as
Kim Han- jung was taking full control of the NP Project there. That
message was especially strange considering that DJ’s loyal and trusted
servant Lim Dong- won was now in charge of the NIS.
During his visit to Seoul in February 2000, Han would arrange for a
message from Kim Dae- jung to Kim Jong- il pertaining to the need for
improving North-S outh relations with a summit. The Swedish deputy
foreign minister, Jan Eliasson, would be the conduit since he was going to
North Korea. The NIS said that Yu Jong- gun, governor of North Cholla
Province, had probably conveyed the message from DJ to Eliasson, who
carried it on to North Korea and Kim Jong- il. At the same time, Culture
and Tourism Minister Park Jie- won had already opened talks with Song
Ho-k yung, deputy director of North Korea’s Asia-P acific Committee,
and Song may have passed DJ’s message on to Kim Jong- il after meeting
Park in Singapore, Beijing, and Shanghai. Kim Han- jung, Blue House
mastermind of the hunt for the Nobel Peace Prize, was pulling the strings
on every move—a nd may have had DJ’s message transmitted through
both channels, including Eliasson and Song.
Meanwhile, Ambassador Son Myung- hyun, who had just returned
from Seoul after participating in an annual conference of ambassadors,
said that DJ, at a Blue House dinner, had commented on Eliasson’s
forthcoming trip to North Korea. “That man will play a considerable role,”
said the president. Son Myung- hyun assured Park Jong- jae, the NIS man
in Stockholm, that the president was “well informed, completely and in
detail, on Eliasson’s North Korea visit.”20 An internal NIS memo in early
March 2000 urged explanation of the overall South Korean position
toward the North. Ambassador Son delivered to Eliasson a memo in
English titled “The North Korea Policy of the Kim Dae- jung
Administration,” setting forth DJ’s sunshine policy.21
Eliasson went to North Korea from March 18 to March 21, 2000. It was
after he got back to Stockholm that the plan for the Summit to be held in
Pyongyang in June between Kim Dae-j ung and Kim Jong-i l was
announced on April 10. Han Young-w oo called Eliasson to inform him
about the Summit, according to a cable from NIS officer Park. Eliasson
asked Han to visit him at his office at the foreign ministry. Han knew
Eliasson was extremely busy. The president of France, Jacques Chirac,
was in Stockholm on exactly that day. Still, Eliasson had time for a
twenty- minute meeting with Han.
When Dr. Han expressed “appreciation for Eliasson’s cooperation for
setting up the Summit,” Eliasson responded, “This is really good news,
but it seems to be way earlier than expected.” When he visited the North
and advised his hosts of the need “for direct dialogue between the two
Koreas,” he said, “the North Koreans did not articulate yes or no.” Rather,
said Eliasson, as Park quoted Han, “They said the atmosphere was not yet
mature because of U.S. army forces stationed in South Korea, etc.” 22
Eliasson seemed to have expected the Summit might be possible the
next year. “North Korea has credibility in Sweden,” he was quoted as
saying. “Both countries have had mutual embassies for the past 27 years.
We are the only European country to have had an embassy in Pyongyang.”
North Korea “has a plan to step up to approach the European Union for
diplomatic relations while Sweden will be the lead nation as EU chairman
early next year.” For that reason, said Eliasson, “delivering a message to
North Korea through Sweden will have a considerable impact.” 23
Eliasson noted that he was “about to go to Washington on July 1 as
Swedish ambassador to the U.S.” and welcomed contact any time if there
was need for him to assist in dealings with North Korea. Even after
assignment to his country’s embassy in Washington, he vowed to
“maintain his interest in Korean issues through experts whom he had come
to know, including William Perry,” the former US defense secretary
whom President Clinton had asked to do a special report on North Korea. 24
Eliasson served as Sweden’s ambassador to the United States for five
years, from mid- 2000 to 2005, after which he was unanimously elected
president of the UN General Assembly for a year. For six months, in 2006,
he also served as the Swedish minister of foreign affairs and then, in
December 2006, was appointed by UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan as
special envoy on Darfur. UN Secretary- General Ban Ki- moon appointed
him to the UN’s newly formed “millennium development goals advocacy
group” in June 2000 and then, in July 2012, named him deputy secretaryg eneral. The confidence placed in Eliasson by Ban Ki- moon, South
Korea’s foreign minister before he became UN secretary-g eneral in
December 2006, raised the question of his role as a messenger between
the two Koreas in view of his pre-S ummit utility.
Dr. Han, clearly not concerned about the reluctance of Kim Han-j ung
in the Blue House to deal with the NIS, asked the government to write a
thank-y ou letter to Eliasson for his assistance in bringing about the
Summit. In Han’s opinion, the thank-y ou should be written by Park Jiew on, who as culture and tourism minister had announced the Summit, or
by the minister of unification, responsible for dealings between North and
South Korea. Han flew to the United States several days later, staying in
Los Angeles from April 15 to 18 and in New York from April 18 to 21.
He asked the NIS to make special arrangements for himself and his wife
and son. Park Jong- jae, in a cable to NIS headquarters, said Han Youngwoo “has the trait of liking to be treated”— a negative jab at the doctor
who was so vital as a go- between with the Swedes. “Even if assistance
cannot be necessary,” said Park, “the NIS should provide as much
assistance as possible considering his cooperation so far and the special
project in which he’s engaged at the moment.”25
By this time, Kim Han- jung could be sure that Stålsett, from his
vantage on the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo, would exercise his
considerable influence for DJ to win the prize. The relationship between
Kim Han-j ung and Bishop Stålsett was all the more important since the
headquarters of the entire Nobel Peace Prize operation was in the
Norwegian capital. Nonetheless, Kim Han- jung needed to be sure to
maintain close ties with Sohlman at the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm.
Although the Nobel Peace Prize was up to the committee in Oslo, the fact
was that Nobel Prizes in general were administered from Stockholm, and
Sweden had the closest diplomatic ties of any Western country with North
Korea.
It would not be until 2004, meanwhile, that Dr. Han would become
known to Koreans for his hard work in the quest for the Nobel. On
September 4 of that year, he gave an interview to Yonhap, the Korean
news agency, at which he pressed for the Nobel Prize for medicine for
Hwang Woo- seok, the doctor of veterinary medicine who claimed to have
done the stem cell research needed to cure a wide range of diseases until
he was ultimately exposed as having manipulated data.
Somehow, however, Dr. Han appeared in his remarks to be belittling
DJ’s success in winning the Nobel Peace Prize. “Even if President Kim
Dae- jung won the Nobel Peace Prize, it was awarded in Norway.”
Moreover, he acknowledged in a bizarre admission of the real reasons why
DJ had won the award, that it “had a strong political characteristic.” The
campaign for DJ appeared to have left Dr. Han with mixed memories and
impressions. By 2004, nearly four years later, Han wanted “to see a
Korean win the Nobel prize in other fields.”26
Dr. Han also mentioned the 2002 exhibition that Samsung had
financed. “In 2001, the Nobel Museum in Stockholm held an exhibition
for commemoration of the centennial of the Nobel prize,” he said. “The
exhibition was also held in Seoul.”27 He said the Nobel Museum would
hold yet another exhibition in 2007 in memory of Alfred Nobel and his
era. Han boldly asserted that he was looking for a company willing to
sponsor the new exhibition— though probably Samsung had done enough
already. Han was back in Seoul in June 2005, again with Michael
Sohlman, for the annual ceremony, modeled after the Nobel ceremony, at
which the Hoam Foundation gave its own awards.
On that same trip Dr. Han met a reporter for Hankyoreh Sinmun, a leftof- center newspaper in Seoul that had always been totally committed
editorially to DJ and his sunshine policy. Han, in his conversation with the
reporter, pressed for Hwang Woo-s eok with the same passion with which
he had once campaigned for DJ’s Nobel. He said the veterinarian “must
be the most advanced front-r unner in the world in the field of stem cell
research” and strongly hinted that he was working for him to win the
Nobel
Prize for medicine.28
The South Korean Ministry of Science and Technology dispatched a
science attaché to Sweden in 2004 to see about a Nobel for Hwang just as
it had done years earlier on behalf of DJ. South Korean National
Assemblyman Kim Seok-j un said the government had begun a “Hwang
Woo-s eok Nobel Project” similar to that for DJ. An anonymous
government official was quoted in Munhwa Ilbo as saying “the science
attaché in Stockholm” had the mission of “gathering information on the
Nobel prize and finding methods and measures to earn the Nobel Prize.”
The “science attaché” was most likely Park No- yong, who was assigned
to Stockholm to take advantage of the expertise that he had already gained
in the machinations for the Nobel Peace Prize. This time, of course, the
target was “medicine,” not
“peace.”29
A staff member from the Korean Science Foundation was also
dispatched to Sweden in 2005. On January 14, 2006, Munhwa Ilbo said
that Oh Moung, minister of science and technology, was the key person
in the campaign for the Nobel for Hwang, visiting Stockholm in March
2005 and meeting the all- powerful Michael Sohlman. “We are doing our
best to have the first Korean Nobel Science laureate,” said Oh. 30
Meanwhile, said Munhwa Ilbo, it was known that Dr. Hwang had already
met the ever-e ager Han Young- woo several times.
On March 2, 2006, Hankyoreh Sinmun ran an article headlined,
“Professor Hwang’s $500,000 is sounding suspicious.” 31 The money was
believed to have been funneled into the Karolinska Institutet as a thinly
veiled payoff for his influence in awarding the Nobel. Hankyoreh reported
that Karolinska Institutet announced sanctimoniously that the $500,000
was a “fund for public research” but two days later admitted it was “a
contribution from the Korean Science Foundation.” Jan Carlstedt- Duke,
dean of research at Karolinska, told Yonhap on March 2, 2006, that the
Korean Science Foundation had “contributed $505,000 to purchase highpowered equipment.” He said that he could provide a confirmation
document. “We cannot refund the contribution,” he said, “because we
already purchased the equipment.”32
The confirmation document, curiously, was signed by none other than
the ubiquitous Dr. Han on January 5, 2006. After reaching the mutual
agreement on stem cell research with Seoul National University, said
Carlstedt- Duke, the Korean Science Foundation decided to support the
project at Karolinska Institutet. “When the professor at Karolinska said
we need that highpowered equipment, the Korea Science Foundation
agreed to pick up the burden,” he said.33 In January 2006, the Hwang
scandal broke, and he was revealed to have faked his findings in the
journal Science.
Dr. Han and Hwang’s Karolinska connection soon faded from public
scrutiny. Neither South Korea, nor Sweden, nor the Norwegian Nobel
Committee wanted to follow up on another potential scandal. The ruckus
over a possible Nobel for the fraudulent Dr. Hwang evoked many
memories of all the campaigning for the Nobel on DJ’s behalf. Somehow
Koreans had a fixation on the Nobel Prize, just as they might become
fixated on some strange foreign fad or product. As far as Koreans were
concerned, for a Korean to win the award would affirm Korea’s rise as a
powerful nation, a center of culture, of business and industry, a point of
deepest national pride. If Kim Dae- jung had fulfilled the fantasy,
regardless of how he did it, why not Dr. Hwang, in the field of science, or
why not some economist—o r maybe a literary figure like the poet Koh
Eun?
It hardly seemed coincidental that Sweden had been exporting powerful
excavating equipment to North Korea for years. Between July and August
1999, a seven- member North Korean team visited Sweden prepared to
buy the device in cash. “As of that point, North Korea did not pay,” said
Monthly Chosun in November 2004. “Because North Korea did not pay
for the previous purchase, they could not buy the machine other than in
cash.”34 According to intelligence officials, the North Korean team was
invited to inspect an underground facility in Sweden. They agreed to pay
$6 million for five machines—t he machines made by Atlas Excavating—
a ll of inestimable value in digging out underground rocks to a depth of
three hundred meters.
North Korea ostensibly purchased the machines to store grain
underground, said Monthly Chosun, but their real purpose was to dig out
subterranean networks for military use. When Lee Byung- chun, the NIS
man in Stockholm, reported the purchase was for the nuclear program,
NIS headquarters ordered him to revise the report and say the equipment
was for grain storage, forcing him to distort information. Eventually North
Korea bought three hundred such machines of varying sizes for
specialized purposes—d efinitely useful for digging deep in order to stage
underground nuclear tests with appropriate hollows, nooks, and crannies
for directing the blasts, recording data, and analyzing debris.
12
Easily the Winner
Kim Han- jung, in an article in Monthly JoongAng, recalled the moment:
At 6 p.m., October 13, 2000, I was in the official residence in the Blue
House, the inner sanctum of President, watching the hourly news on CNN.
It was an unforgettable day for me. I was in an extremely impatient mood.
My heart froze when I saw Gunnar Berge appear at the Nobel Institute to
make an announcement. When I heard “Kim Dae Jung,” I rushed into the
inner room to find the two dearly beloved, President Kim (and wife, Lee
Hee-h o). They were sitting like defendants awaiting the verdict. I said,
“Congratulations, Mr. President.” My voice was shaking in spite of myself
. . . They burst into smiles. I may not forget the radiant smiles on their faces
for a long time.1
All those involved in the quest for the Nobel were grimly aware that
DJ faced strong rivals. The Blue House and the NIS saw them as foes in a
hard- fought contest. The NIS, by 2000, was totally caught up in the quest.
Its primary mission remained that of an intelligencegathering
organization in search of information on North Korea. The top priority,
however, was getting the award for DJ, and the challenge for NIS officers
was to pick up information on others who might be in the running. The
NP Project took precedence over such mundane concerns as gossip and
innuendo on the comings and goings of the North Korean power elite or
the fates of hundreds of South Korean fishermen, prisoners of war, and
others held in the North for many years.
An internal NIS memo in October 1999 quoted Bishop Stålsett saying
the award to Kim Dae-j ung was “highly likely” in view of his “leading
role in human rights and democratization in Asian nations such as East
Timor and Burma.” Moreover, he expected DJ’s “continuous efforts.” In
the shrewdly calculated NIS assessment, there should have been no
mention of DJ as a Nobel candidate in the local media that year. 2 There
was no need for DJ to appear as a “loser” in previous rounds of
consideration over the years. He might then look like a perennial
contender who had lost his luster in future competition. In 1999 the prize
EASILY THE WINNER 143
went to Médecins Sans Frontières “in recognition of the organization’s
pioneering humanitarian work on several continents.”3 But that news
hardly deterred DJ. He was, by that time, accustomed to losing out while
gearing up for the next year’s campaign.
The going would be tough. It would be difficult in 2000 for DJ to prove
deserving, no matter how assiduously he was secretly promoted for the
award. In early February 2000, Aftenposten noted that the Nobel Institute
would meet on February 23 to consider the first round of candidates,
according to an NIS cable.4 There had been 136 of them the year before,
said the paper, and 139 in 1998. Among 140 or so in contention in 2000
was Bill Clinton, in his last year as US president, recommended by two
Norwegian parliamentarians, Vidar Kleppe, a member of the Progressive
Party, and Steinar Bastesen, the leader of his own small party. The
indefatigable NIS officer in Oslo, Park No- yong, cabled the NIS with a
skillfully realistic assessment of the publicity surrounding Clinton’s
candidacy. “The fact that Clinton’s name is exposed to the media may
affect his chances adversely,” was Park’s perceptive judgment. 5 The
inference was clear. In pressing for DJ, the Koreans should not show their
hand by openly mentioning his candidacy.
There were indeed other quite qualified figures with whom to contend.
Jimmy Carter, having tried to resolve the nuclear confrontation with North
Korea in 1994 in his conversation with “Great Leader” Kim Il- sung in a
boat on the Daedong River in Pyongyang, was an obvious possibility. His
leading role in Habitat for Humanity International made his chance of
winning even higher. Carter would win the prize two years later in a
controversial decision in which Gunnar Berge, chairman of the Norwegian
Nobel Committee, acknowledged the award “must be interpreted as a
criticism of the position of the administration currently seated in the US
toward Iraq.”6 In awarding the prize to Carter in 2002, the Nobel
Committee showed its bias in an overt political slap against President
George W. Bush for “a situation currently marked by threat of the use of
power.”7
Yet another long shot was Richard Holbrooke, the storied American
diplomat who had negotiated the agreement reached in Dayton, Ohio, in
1995, which helped to settle the festering fighting among forces from
Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia. In an article on January 22, 1999, Aftenposten
did its best to shoot down the high- flying Holbrooke, reporting that the
US Department of Justice was accusing him of “having broken federal
ethics laws and regulations in connection with private business
transactions” in 1996, “in which the USA’s embassy in South Korea was
involved.” The paper put on a show of even- handedness intended to make
its sniping all the more credible. No, the article acknowledged, he was
“not supposed to have done anything criminal.” Nonetheless, it said, “in
his work for Credit Suisse First Boston” (after he had left the State
Department in February 1996), “he supposedly broke the rock- hard ethics
rules that applied to all former federal employees.”8
Contenders came from varied backgrounds reflecting many different
achievements. The former Democratic Party leader in the US Senate,
George Mitchell, was recommended for his work in mediating the
Northern Ireland dispute. Bill Richardson, Clinton’s one- time energy
secretary and ambassador to the UN, who had visited both North Korea
and Iraq in the quest for reconciliation in both countries, was another
contender. Also on the short list in 2000: Martti Ahtisaari, the former
president of Finland, who would win the prize in 2008 “for his important
efforts on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve
international conflicts.”9 A few candidates were not only unlikely, but
downright bizarre. A Serbian group, said Aftenposten, was pressing for the
former Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, already indicted for war
crimes by the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal and about to go on
trial the next year in The Hague.
Candidates did not have to be individuals. A serious candidate in 1999
was the amorphous North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)! In a
commentary in the Oslo newspaper Aftenposten on February 25,1999,
Leif Klette, a former employee in the office of the NATO secretarygeneral, observed that the Nobel Institute had “pointed out that the
organization’s work on behalf of individual candidates can easily work
against their purpose”—t hat is, the chances of an individual winning the
award. Klette took pains to shoot down “the myth” that NATO was “a
military alliance dominated by the USA.” Rather, he wrote, “The reality
is that the alliance, as expressed in the treaty’s language, and as NATO
has functioned in practice, has always been first and foremost a political
fellowship of nations bound to defend peace in freedom and promote
common values.” Thus “NATO’s peace- keeping role in the former
Yugoslavia has opened up a new chapter in the alliance’s history.”10
Among other nominees, ShinDongA, a monthly magazine published by
Dong A Ilbo, listed Greenpeace for its antinuclear activities; the Salvation
Army for its long history of humanitarian causes; Human Rights Watch,
an advocacy group headquartered in New York, and the UN’s
International Court of Justice. The Albanian town of Kukës was also in
contention in
2000 for having taken in 450,000 refugees from Kosovo the previous
year.11
However, a more formidable foe was right at home. Chung Ju- yung,
the Hyundai group founder, had been angling for the accolade for years as
a way to crown a career of unparalleled success as a titan of industries
ranging from construction to motor vehicles to shipbuilding to electronics
to finance. In 1998 his creation the Hyundai Asan had initiated tours by
boat, later by road, from South Korea to the Mount Kumgang region in
North Korea, just above the eastern end of the demilitarized zone (DMZ)
that separates the two Koreas. The company was also forging ahead with
development of a special industrial zone at Kaesong, the historic capital
of the ancient Koryo kingdom, above the North- South line by the truce
village of Panmunjom, forty miles north of Seoul. Chung, born in the
village of Asan, midway between Mount Kumgang and the port of
Wonsan on North Korea’s southeastern coast, was in the running thanks
to his efforts at opening up North Korea.
“Between the relevant people,” said the Monthly Chosun in March
2003, Chung “was known as President Kim’s strongest competitor for the
prize.” The magazine, run by Cho Gab- je, who often had exclusive access
to inside material, quoted one anonymous source as saying, “From 1999
to early 2000 the NIS reported to the Blue House that Mr. Chung
frequently traveled abroad to win the Nobel Peace Prize.” The NIS report,
said the article, had it right: “It was Mr. Chung who initiated the
development of North and South relations.” In late 1999, the NIS, in the
spirit of an intelligence organization delivering a vital detail on an
enemy’s movements, reported to the Blue House, meaning Kim Hanjung, that Chung was “moving actively to win the Nobel Peace Prize.” It
seemed, the article concluded, “that Mr. Chung had some goals beside
business in North Korea.”12
Chung’s visit to North Korea with a herd of cattle was seen as “the first
step to enhance the relationship.” On June 16, 1998, Donald Kirk watched
at the Panmunjom border crossing as Chung personally escorted the herd,
along with three of his brothers and two of his sons, the oldest, Chung
Mong-k oo, who was soon to become chairman of Hyundai Motor, and
his fifth son Chung Mong- hun, whom the father named chairman of
Hyundai Asan. They all rode in limousines behind 50 flatbed truckloads,
each holding 10 cows mooing loudly as they crossed the line into North
Korea. Another 501 cows were to go through Panmunjom four months
later, and all the flatbed trucks on which they were riding were to remain
in the North as part of the package deal.
Then there was “Dr. Corn,” Kim Soon- kwon, who had visited North
Korea a number of times introducing new types of fast-g rowing corn as
hundreds of thousands of North Koreans were dying in the severe famine
of the mid- 1990s. A crop scientist, Kim Soon- kwon had experimented in
Africa with developing seeds for corn capable of resisting diseases that
ruined so many crops. As prohibitions on travel to North Korea eased
under DJ’s sunshine policy of reconciliation, Kim Soon- kwon’s
contribution was timely—o f inestimable significance as the North was
getting over the worst phase of the famine that was ultimately responsible
for two million deaths.
DJ had once had close relations with “Dr. Corn” but had turned away
from him after seeing him as a rival. “I was thoroughly dumped by DJ and
DJ’s people,” Kim Soon-k won recalled several years later. Although he
had played a role as an unofficial envoy in opening up North Korea, “They
started to keep their distance from me since I was nominated for the prize
for many years.” Indeed, he said “an NIS official” had asked him “to
cooperate with us” while others advised him to “yield to DJ for the sake
of national reconciliation.” Some of these people sought to soothe his
feelings by suggesting that perhaps DJ and Kim Jong- il would be “colaureates” of the prize—a suggestion so absurd, in view of the latter’s
human rights abuses, as not to have been seriously considered in Oslo. 13
“No matter who wins,” said Norsk Telegrambyrå (NTB), “they can be
glad that the prize’s value has increased so much, also in terms of money.”
Noting “the strong upsurge in the Nobel Foundation’s wealth,” NTB said,
“the prize’s value has increased almost fourteen percent from 7.8 to 9
million Swedish krona,” the equivalent of $1.3 million in American
currency.14 On September 5, 2000, NTB added to the excitement of the
chase with an article by Lars M. Hjorthol headlined, “Nobel Committee
down to the final sprint.” Reporting “a record number” of 144
nominations, NTB listed Clinton and Carter among them but said that
Clinton’s “efforts to achieve peace between the Israelis and the
Palestinians have come up short.”15
None of DJ’s rivals, while plentiful, seemed to have what the judges
would view as DJ’s all- around record of accomplishment vis- à- vis North
Korea and his personal political struggle inside South Korea. This time
around, DJ was clearly the front- runner despite the qualifications of other
candidates. The announcement on October 13, 2000, contained exactly the
words that DJ and members of the NP Project team wanted to hear. The
committee had “decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2000 to Kim
Dae- jung for his work for democracy and human rights in South Korea
and in East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North
Korea in particular.”16
The Nobel announcement could not have been more congratulatory if
it had been written by DJ’s own people. “In the course of South Korea’s
decades of authoritarian rule, despite repeated threats on his life and long
periods in exile,” it said, DJ had “gradually emerged as his country’s
leading spokesman for democracy.”17 As president, it said, he had “sought
to consolidate democratic government and to promote international
reconciliation within South Korea.”18
Skipping over DJ’s failure to criticize North Korea’s well-d ocumented
human rights abuses, the announcement credited him “with great moral
strength” as “a leading defender of universal human rights against
attempts to limit the relevance of those rights in Asia.” Avoiding mention
of North Korea, the announcement claimed only that “his commitment in
favor of democracy in Burma and against repression in East Timor has
been considerable.”19 As a matter of fact, DJ had never condemned or
criticized North Korea regardless of the depth of the dictatorship or the
hardships inflicted on the North Korean people by their leaders. Far from
it, he espoused a “confederation” in which the two Koreas would coexist
and eventually unite on terms that were far from clear.
Not once in dealing with North Korea had Kim Dae-j ung mentioned
South Koreans held in the North. The unification ministry in Seoul said
that 343 of the 19,000 South Korean prisoners of the Korean War were
still living in North Korea. Several thousand more South Koreans, mostly
fishermen whose boats had strayed into or near North Korean waters, were
being held against their will. There were also others, including the pilots
and hostesses of the crew of a Korean Air plane that was hijacked in
December 1969. Most tragically, there were the wife and two daughters
of a South Korean economist, Oh Kil-n am, who had foolishly brought his
family there from Germany. They were never heard from again after the
North Koreans let him go on a mission to find still more defectors in
Germany— and instead he chose to remain there in asylum. Yun I- sang,
the famous composer and husband of Lee Su- ja, was the ideologue
responsible for having persuaded Oh to move to North Korea in the first
place. While Oh’s wife and daughters were detained in a concentration
camp, Lee Su- ja lived in the villa that Kim Il- sung had bestowed on Yun.
Why had DJ failed to raise the issue of South Koreans held in the North
with Kim Jong- il? In his sessions in Pyongyang with the one man who
could have done something for them, he had ample opportunity. What
would have been wrong in asking about them— even if he knew that the
Dear Leader, whom he addressed as “chairman,” in recognition of his post
as chairman of the all-p owerful National Defense Commission (not the
Workers’ Party or the government)— would brush him off? North Korea’s
rote response had always been that all South Koreans who remained in the
North had chosen to do so of their own free will. DJ’s equally rote
response, whenever asked why he avoided any mention of human rights
in the North, was that he first wanted to settle North- South relations.
Still, could Kim Dae- jung not have shown his concern with a passing
question about their health and well-b eing? The idea apparently never
occurred to him. He did not want to pursue the issue of South Koreans
held in North Korea for one basic reason: He was afraid of offending Kim
Jong- il, who he feared would surely reject any criticism or complaints.
No doubt Kim Jong-i l would not have agreed on a summit at all had he
suspected that DJ would surprise him by bringing up the issue. A hero in
the pursuit of democratic rights for South Korean foes of dictatorial
governments in the South, DJ was no hero when facing the North Korean
leader.
It was, however, the June 2000 Summit, and the joint declaration with
Kim Jong- il that totally tipped the scales in DJ’s favor for the Nobel.
“Kim Dae- jung has attempted to overcome more than fifty years of war
and hostility between North and South Korea,” said the committee. “His
visit to North Korea gave impetus to a process which has reduced tension
between the two countries.” Now, the statement went on, there might be
“hope that the cold war will come to an end in Korea” even as DJ also
“worked for South Korea’s reconciliation with other neighboring
countries, especially Japan.” At the same time, the committee expressed
“recognition of the contributions made by North Korea’s and other
countries’ leaders to advance reconciliation and possible reunification on
the Korean peninsula”— a backhanded way of acknowledging Kim Jongil’s role without naming him, much less considering him as “cowinner” of
the prize.20
The wording of the announcement appeared to those who had followed
DJ’s career closely as a cover-u p of details of a long and tortuous life in
which he had risen to power using many of the same techniques as those
whom he criticized. DJ was famous for ordering members of his cabinet
to do his bidding, often firing appointees after several months on the job
if they happened to displease him. His imperial style of leadership was
notorious. There was little discussion of issues among ministers who grew
accustomed simply to taking notes on what he wanted. By the time he
stepped down in February 2003, he had named approximately 150 people
to a cabinet with fewer than 20 positions, appointing and dismissing
ministers with little or no notice.
In a sense, in pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize, DJ was running against
himself. The question was, how could one with a background as such a
political opportunist be a serious candidate? A corollary question was how
the Norwegian Nobel Committee could have been so blissfully unaware
of his life story. In all that he told foreigners, DJ had to cover up his
machinations as a populist politician who had evolved in the maelstrom
of often violent local politics. From early days in his political career, he
had formed what he came to call his “scholarly perception of problems”
and “mercantile sensitivity of reality.” The implication was that he would
adopt a realistic approach beneath a veneer of idealism—a pretext for a
Machiavellian philosophy that formed the underpinning of his outlook as
a politician and leader.
In their research on DJ’s qualifications and background, there was
much that the Nobel Prize committee members never knew. Bereft of any
higher education, DJ had an unquenchable thirst for recognition in the
form of medals and awards. They would, he evidently believed, help to
compensate for his lack of formal education. The surest way to flatter him
was to present him with an internationally recognized prize. In the course
of his hunt for the Nobel, DJ collected at least half a dozen international
awards including the Bruno Kreisky Award in 1981, the Philadelphia
Liberty Medal in 1999, and the Rafto award in 2000, not to mention
another dozen or so after he had already won the Nobel, the greatest of
them all.21 Despite intense lobbying, however, DJ never won the UN
Human Rights Award that he had hoped to get in 1998. Instead, he settled
that year for an award of the same name from the International League for
Human Rights, presented amid much pomp and circumstance at New
York’s Waldorf- Astoria Hotel.22
The fact that DJ had never set foot on a college campus as a student
offers a clue to his lifelong passion for study. He was known as a literary
glutton, both as a reader and as a writer. The joke was that the number of
books bearing DJ’s name as author outnumbered all that his longtime
rival, Kim Young-s am (YS), had ever read. He is listed as the author of
23 books on topics ranging from his personal life to politics, economics,
sociology, and philosophy. People never questioned openly how a
politician as busy as DJ found time to write so many books on such diverse
subjects. The answer is clear and simple: he had plenty of volunteer
ghostwriters and compilers, and he basically fleshed out what they gave
him. His voluminous postmortem biography was the only book that
acknowledged the work of others in its totally laudatory version of his life
story.
Armed only with only a high school diploma, DJ had a serious diploma
complex. With a high- born second wife who had been educated at the
most prestigious college in Korea, Seoul National University, and gone on
to graduate study in the United States., DJ was haunted by a sense of
educational inferiority. The way to make up for the deficit was to collect
honorary degrees as eagerly as he put his name on books and accepted
awards. He wound up with more than two dozen honorary doctorates from
all around the world. Among them were a doctorate in jurisprudence in
1983 from Emory University in Atlanta, home of the Carter Library of his
admirer, Jimmy Carter; a doctorate in politics from Moscow University in
1992; and doctorates in liberal arts from Georgetown in 1998 and the
University of Malaya in 2008.
No matter how he compensated, DJ’s lack of education made him the
target of jokes. In a spacious park beside Daechung Lake, in the heart of
the Korean Peninsula, stands a row of beautifully sculpted bronze statues
of presidents. The statue of DJ shows him holding a thick, hard-c over
book, Suhakui Jung-s eok, “Standard Rules of Mathematics,” a high
school student’s must- read, which has sold around fifty million copies.
DJ’s left hand is shown holding the book upside down— whether by
mistake or deliberate design, nobody knows.23 DJ, however, never had to
bother with the book since it came out long after he had graduated from a
vocational high school in Mokpo. In any case, most of the students in his
school did not have to study mathematics very hard since they would not
be taking the famously difficult college entrance exam.
DJ’s early political and social activities grew out of his sense of social
and educational inferiority. His yearning for political popularity and
acclaim goes back to his upbringing as the son of his father’s second wife
or mistress. The offspring of a fishing and farming family, DJ is believed
to have been born on December 3, 1923. He later claimed to have been
born in January 1925, and, after his death, his family decided on January
7, 1924, as the official date of his birth on the remote Haui Island in the
Yellow Sea, a three- hour ferry boat ride from Mokpo.24
Over the years, however, the date of his birth was never conclusively
confirmed. Nor was there ever any certainty as to who was his biological
father. The first husband of DJ’s mother passed away before he was born,
and her brotherin- law took care of her for some time. It was after she
remarried a man named Yun Chang- eon that she became noticeably
pregnant and gave birth to DJ, whose original name was Yun Sung- man.
DJ’s mother, however, married one more time to a man named Kim Unsik, by whom DJ got the family name. DJ’s family registration was
severely damaged in early 1960 before his third campaign for the National
Assembly. Who did the damage, why, and how? No one knows— DJ’s
exact family origins remain forever shrouded in mystery.
Sent by his father, or stepfather, to study and learn the ways of the
world in Mokpo, DJ began to evolve as a master political manipulator in
the busy port city where his mother ran an inn. DJ excelled as a student
but resented the need to adopt a Japanese name in that era of Japanese
colonial rule. After the Japanese surrender of August 15, 1945, DJ
prospered by marrying the daughter of a moderately well-t o-d o man,
editing the local paper while in his early twenties and running a small
shipping company.
In those early days of marriage and business, DJ as a young radical was
easily drawn into leftist activities. He joined the Communist Youth
League in 1945 for a brief period and gave money to the notorious Bodo
Yeonmaeng, the National Guidance Alliance, set up with government
support to manage and convert leftists. When the Korean War broke out,
thousands of Bodo Yeonmaeng members were killed by government
soldiers and police. DJ, most likely on the death list, was rescued by a
friend but later said North Korean forces had also tried to kill him.25
Unlike many of his peers who risked their lives in war, DJ avoided
military service. DJ would say that he had been a member of a naval
militia unit, but the militia was voluntary, an NGO relegated to local patrol
duties. As North Korean forces stormed the South, overrunning the two
Cholla provinces and the main Cholla city of Gwangju, DJ, like thousands
of others who had fled before the North Korean advance, chose to ride out
the war in Busan, a swarming base and staging area that was never
overrun. While there he participated in study groups critical of Rhee
Syngman, who became the Republic of Korea’s first president in 1948 and
clung to the job through the Korean War and its aftermath until his ouster
in the student revolution of April 1960.26
Kim Dae-j ung got out of business soon after the Korean War,
reentering politics by playing upon deep- seated yearnings among people
in the Cholla region to escape from heavy- handed rule. DJ owed his
success in large measure to his messianic appeal in the Cholla region,
including North and South Cholla provinces and Gwangju, the large
independent city in the middle of South Cholla, whose citizens always
poured out to vote for him. He emerged as the voice of the pent- up
sentiments of Cholla, oppressed by rulers going deep into Korea’s
dynastic history and then by latter- day leaders with roots in the
Gyeongsang provinces to the east. Later, playing upon the Cholla people’s
sense of deprivation and alienation, he won the loyalty of 95 percent of
the voters in the two Cholla provinces and Gwangju.
In the maelstrom of local politics, DJ began his career in politics as a
maverick figure veering between left and right. Famous for his eloquence
as an orator, he spoke for five hours and twenty minutes during a filibuster
in the National Assembly in 1964. That was just one of 13 speeches that
he made during one regular session. For DJ, as a regional politician from
the Cholla provinces, the immediate foes were military leaders and
politicians from the southeastern Gyeongsang provinces, historic
oppressors of Cholla. DJ preferred to rail against them than to worry about
the North Koreans, finally driven from the South by US forces in the early
stages of the Korean War. In those days, DJ led nascent political forces
against the conservative leadership, joining a socialist political alliance
and other groupings often identified with leftists.
For DJ, North Korea was never a real threat. His passion was to protest
against dictatorial regimes— not in North Korea, but in South Korea. As
he advanced to leadership of his party, he came to focus on winning
respect on a global scale. DJ was elected to the National Assembly in a bie lection in May 1961 after two unsuccessful campaigns. He held the seat
for only three days, however, before Major General Park Chung- hee
seized power on May 16, 1961, and dissolved the assembly. Elected again
to the assembly two years later, DJ, as leader of the New Democratic
Party, challenged Park in the 1971 presidential campaign, winning 46
percent of the votes.
DJ liked to list what he said were assassination attempts, beginning
with the accident after the 1971 presidential election in which a truck rearended his car. At the time, DJ was riding in a chauffeur-d riven car from
his native Cholla region to Seoul to campaign for candidates for the
National Assembly, when a taxi cut in front. Two men in the taxi were
killed, and DJ was injured so severely that he walked with a permanent
limp, but there was nothing to support his claim that the accident was an
attempt on his life.27 The truck driver also suffered: he was jailed for
several years, costing him his marriage and life with his family.
From his home in Seoul’s Mapo district, DJ often criticized the
government. His defiance of Park made him a popular hero far beyond
Cholla. Although Park was the decisive victor in the 1971 presidential
election, DJ’s strong showing inspired Park the next year to impose
martial law and a new Yushin “revitalizing” constitution that deprived
South Koreans of direct elections.
In this period DJ began courting US politicians, including two of the
most powerful liberal senators, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and
J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, both of whom he saw in Washington before the
1971 presidential election. After the election, DJ began traveling to Japan,
ostensibly for medical treatment for his leg and nervous system, and while
there organized Hanmintong, the “Korea National Committee to Restore
Democracy and Promote Reunification,” an organization linked to North
Korea that was dedicated to bringing about the downfall of Park Chunghee.28
On August 8, 1973, agents from the KCIA kidnapped DJ from his hotel
in Tokyo while he was on a tour that was to take him to the United States.
Drugging him and spiriting him into a waiting car, they drove him to a
port and bundled him onto a small Korean freighter, the Golden Dragon.
When he woke up, he discovered weights on his legs, presumably, he
believed, to sink him to the bottom of the sea. In his panic, DJ apparently
confused the sounds of the Golden Dragon’s engines with those of a plane,
claiming later to have heard aircraft circling above.
The US ambassador to Korea, Philip Habib, played a critical role in
saving DJ by protesting to President Park. Five days later, DJ was dumped
near his home, free to give interviews to foreign journalists though closely
watched by KCIA agents lurking outside.29 The KCIA chief in Tokyo,
Kim Ki- wan, was kicked out of the KCIA, immigrated to the United
States with his family, including his 13- yearold middle- school son, Kim
Sung- yong. The boy’s surname moved to last in accordance with western
convention, the “yong” in his given name dropped altogether, Sung Kim
adjusted easily to his new surroundings in the large Korean community in
Los Angeles. Entering the US foreign service after college and law school,
he visited North Korea 13 times for negotiations on the North’s nuclear
program.
Finally, by extraordinary historical irony, he was named US ambassador
to South Korea in 2011.30
Although DJ charged that the kidnapping was an assassination attempt,
why would assassins go to such lengths to kidnap him rather than simply
kill him? There’s a more likely explanation: the KCIA wanted to deter his
antistate activities abroad by bringing him back to Korea. Kim Ki- wan
died of cancer in 1994 without ever talking publicly about what really
happened. If Sung Kim knows, he has not discussed it publicly either.
Nearly three years after the kidnapping, on March 1, 1976, the fiftyseventh anniversary of the uprising against Japanese rule in 1919, in which
more than seven thousand Koreans were killed by the brutal Japanese
imperial police, DJ was arrested for signing a Declaration of
Democratization. DJ acknowledged the role of US diplomats, notably
Donald Gregg, station chief of the CIA in Seoul and later ambassador to
South Korea, in winning his release in 1978. Senior US officials had
become sensitive to human rights abuses during the 18- year rule of Park,
whose suppression of his foes, notably DJ, had become a major
embarrassment and a focal point of opposition to the US- South Korean
alliance. The issue of abuses boiled up dramatically during the four- year
presidency of Jimmy Carter, a strong advocate of human rights, elected in
November 1976 in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the Watergate
scandal in Washington.
Although DJ was under house arrest, President Chun Doo- hwan, who
had seized power after the assassination of Park Chung-h ee in October
1979, had him imprisoned, tried, and sentenced to death following the
Gwangju revolt of May 1980. Charged with treason for the uprising for
which soldiers killed approximately two hundred people, most of them
students who had held the city for two weeks, DJ was again rescued by
the US government. The United States persuaded Chun to commute DJ’s
death sentence in return for an invitation to become the first foreign head
of state to call on Ronald Reagan after his inauguration as president in
January 1981.
The stated reasons for bringing DJ to trial and then issuing the death
sentence were his activities in Japan as head of Hanmintong, supported by
North Korea’s organization of Korean residents in Japan. The real reason,
however, was the massive uprising in Gwangju that broke out soon after
DJ’s arrest. From jail, DJ twice wrote President Chun begging for mercy
and swearing not to engage in future political activity. Under US pressure,
DJ was freed from prison and exiled in December 1982 to the United
States, where he alternated between a fellowship at Harvard and his
headquarters in a northern Virginia suburb before returning to Seoul in a
blaze of publicity on February 8, 1985. By that time the mood was
changing. After enormous demonstrations shook the capital, Chun was
persuaded by his military ally Roh Tae- woo to agree in June 1987 to a
“democracy constitution” and the first election under that constitution in
December— a sequence that owed its success in part to encouragement
by influential Americans both in and out of government.
Roh easily won with 36.5 percent of the votes after YS and DJ failed
to agree on a single candidacy against him. In the end, YS won 28 percent
of the votes, 1 percent more than DJ. After the defeat, both of them bitterly
protested Roh’s victory, claiming large- scale corruption and declaring the
results “null and void.”31 DJ again said he would drop out of politics and
abandoned his usual rhetoric in the prelude to the 1988 Summer Olympics,
a coming- of- age party that recognized the country’s extraordinary rise
from the ashes of the Korean War.
Returning to politics and facing YS in the presidential election of
December 1992, DJ was again soundly defeated. YS won 41.4 percent of
the votes, becoming Korea’s first civilian president in 32 years. Despite
the inroads of Hyundai founder Chung Ju- yung, who got 16.1 percent, DJ
won barely one- third of the votes and announced his retirement from
politics in January 1993. Many Koreans were moved by his emotional
response until he conveniently changed his mind two years later. Accused
of misleading the public, he glibly responded, “I never told a lie in my life,
only failed to keep a promise.”32
In the presidential election of December 1997, DJ was not to be denied.
Having often railed against Park Chung- hee’s economic policies, he had
nothing to do with Korea’s economic success. At the same time, nobody
could blame him for the “IMF crisis” after the International Monetary
Fund came up with a rescue plan. Nor was he responsible for the split in
conservative ranks that tore votes away from Lee Hoi- chang. With victory
now possible, DJ had no compunctions about forming an alliance with
Kim Jong- pil, the conservative who years earlier had been the first head
of the KCIA, which DJ had often accused of abusing him.
In his zeal for victory, DJ allied with numerous other conservatives,
including Park Tae- jun, founder of Pohang Iron and Steel (POSCO) and
former chairman of the conservative party Jaminreyn (Alliance for
Freedom and Democracy). He appointed Lee Jong- chan, former president
of the New Korea Party, predecessor of the conservative Grand National
Party, as vice chairman of his own party, as well as Park Chul- eon, righthand man of Roh Tae-w oo and middleman in the delivery of political
funds. Ignoring the 1987 and 1992 elections, in which DJ had lost first to
General Roh Tae- woo and then to Kim Young- sam, the Norwegian
Nobel Committee proclaimed DJ’s election in 1997 as having “marked
South Korea’s definitive entry among the world’s democracies.” 33
13
Sunshine Exposed
O
n January 30, 2003, two years after the International Herald Tribune
published Donald Kirk’s story alluding to pre- Summit payoffs, Kim
Ki- sam revealed many of the details. Until then, the scope of the quest
had been a tightly guarded secret. No one other than top- level insiders
had a clue as to the enormous price paid to bring about the Summit. No
one saw the Summit as one giant step toward DJ’s goal of winning the
Nobel Peace Prize. And certainly no one imagined that those payoffs
would help to cover the costs of a fast- growing nuclear program that
would enable North Korea to construct a dozen or so nuclear devices,
exploding them in underground tests in 2006, 2009, and 2013— and
possibly conducting another that had somehow escaped immediate notice.
Until October 2002, no one, except specialists within the intelligence
community in the United States and probably China, was aware that North
Korea was working on an entirely separate program for building nuclear
warheads from highly enriched uranium (HEU) and also perfecting the
missiles to carry these weapons of mass destruction to targets near and far.
North Korea, in the “framework agreement” reached with the United
States in Geneva in October 1994, had promised to halt its nuclear
program. The first step had been to shut down its fivemegawatt
plutonium reactor at Yongbyeon, the nuclear complex north of
Pyongyang.
The secret of the hunt for the Nobel began to surface when a female
Korean journalist, Lim Do- kyung, writing for the Korean edition of
Newsweek, exposed what was going on in an exclusive article published
on October 9, 2002. Lim got hold of two documents titled “M Project”
and “Blue Carpet Project” plus relevant email communications after
breaking into the office of lobbyist Choi Kyu- sun in August 2002.1 At the
center of a bribery scandal involving DJ’s third son, Kim Hong-g ul, Choi
was in jail at the time. His driver aided Lim Do- kyoung in the break- in,
in which Lim came up with a treasure trove of documents showing the
systematic approach adopted by DJ’s people in their zeal to win the prize.
SUNSHINE EXPOSED 157
Choi’s materials turned out to be explosive. He had been one of the key
players in the operation before Kim Han- jung took over in 2008. It was
Choi who invited Nelson Mandela’s daughter to South Korea at the height
of the 1997 presidential election campaign and got her to present
Mandela’s watch to DJ. Choi had persuaded billionaire investor George
Soros and Saudi prince Al Walid to visit Seoul in early 1998 while Korea
was in the throes of the “IMF crisis.” And it was also Choi who had invited
Michael Jackson to DJ’s inauguration in February 1998. Before he was
ousted from the inner group in the middle of 1998, Choi and Lee Youngj ak, nephew of DJ’s wife, Lee Hee-h o, were the pillars in the early phase
of the hunt for the Nobel Peace Prize. The reason for getting rid of Choi
was that he was loud- mouthed about his role in the Nobel shenanigans
and too much entangled in financial scandals.
One interesting revelation in the article was Choi’s connection with
Kofi Annan, then UN secretarygeneral. According to the documents
turned up by journalist Lim, Choi made a deal with a man named Khalid
Abdullah Tariq al-M ansour, a close aide to Annan. The trade-o ff would
be the UN Human Rights Award for DJ and the Seoul Peace Award for
Annan. Though DJ never received the UN accolade, a photograph of DJ
with Annan created the impression that he had won it. Annan won the
Seoul Peace Award on October 22, 1999, plus, for good measure, an
honorary doctorate from Kyunghee University. Having done favors for
each other, both would go on to garner the Nobel Peace Prize: DJ in 2000,
Annan in 2001.2
Lim Do- kyung’s exposé drew widespread public attention in the 2002
presidential campaign in which the crusading former labor lawyer Roh
Moo-h yun, DJ’s politically adopted protegé, promised, if elected, to carry
on DJ’s policy of reconciliation. The atmosphere was rife with suspicions
about South Korea’s payoffs to North Korea and DJ’s drive for the prize.
Park Jie- won, Blue House chief of staff, strongly denied South Korean
involvement. “It is an international shame to report private documents that
have nothing to do with Blue House as facts,” he said at a press
conference. “No more attempts to undermine the authority of the Nobel
Peace Prize, nor further politically motivated usage of it, have to be
allowed.”3
Geir Lundestad, as director of the Nobel Institute, routinely denounced
any claims that might impugn the integrity of the Norwegian Nobel
Committee and the selection process. “There was a lobby,” he said, “but
it consisted of piles of letters bad- mouthing DJ to prevent him from
winning the prize.” His tone was full of self- righteous indignation. “I
oppose any contention hinting that President Kim won the Nobel Peace
Prize in 2000 through illegitimate methods,” he said. “Allegations that the
Norwegian Nobel Committee might be paid for the prize are extremely
rude. They also show an ignorance of the assessment procedure in the
Committee.”4
The conservative Grand National Party, sensitive to the backlash that
severe criticism of DJ’s maneuvering might create, did not want to pursue
the issue. Kirk’s IHT article on January 31, 2001, said bluntly, “The U.S.
administration was now unreservedly on the side of almost anything Mr.
Kim might do in the quest for reconciliation.”5 The article focused on Lim
Dong- won, not DJ, as the target of suspicions about money. The topic of
transfer of funds to North Korea, however, would not go away during the
2002 presidential campaign.
More than one year later, on March 25, 2002, Larry Niksch of the
Congressional Research Service, citing “informed sources,” wrote that
“Hyundai has made secret payments to North Korea, which may bring
total payments closer to $800 million.” Later, facing vehement opposition
from Hyundai, Niksch’s report was revised to say, “According to
informed sources, Hyundai made additional secret payments to North
Korea,” but “Hyundai denies making secret payments.” Nonetheless,
Niksch wrote, “The U.S. military command in Korea and the Central
Intelligence Agency reportedly believe that North Korea has gained
greater financial flexibility to make military purchases because of the
nearly $400 million it has received from the Hyundai Corporation during
1999– 2001 for the right to operate a tourist project at Mount Kumgang in
North Korea.” Niksch added that “Hyundai had made additional secret
payments to North Korea”— all denied by
Hyundai.6
Niksch noted that the conservative Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s biggest
selling daily, had reported on February 25, 2001, that US officials had
voiced their concerns to South Korean intelligence chief Lim Dong-w on
during his visit to Washington in February 2001. The Chosun Ilbo article
stated that the CIA had delivered a secret report to Seoul “containing a list
of weapons North Korea had purchased overseas and the source of funds
necessary for this.”7 Also, Niksch noted, the English- language Korea
Herald around the same time had quoted a spokesman for the US
command in Korea as saying that “military experts at home and abroad
are concerned about Pyongyang’s possible diversion of the [Hyundai]
cash for military purposes.” Niksch said that Hyundai payments, “both
public and secret,” totaled more than $1 billion in the 1999– 2000 period.
North Korea, he wrote, “reportedly was accelerating its foreign exchange
expenditures overseas to procure components and materials for its secret
highly enriched uranium.”8
The money issue surged to the fore again in a meeting of the National
Assembly at the end of September 2002, two months before the
presidential election, when National Assemblyman Eom Ho- sung called
the former president of the Industrial Bank of Korea, Eom Nak- yong, as
a witness. As usual, the ruling party and Kim Dae-j ung’s government
denied all allegations. Park Jie- won, in the Blue House, issued the most
emphatic denial. “Not a single dollar was sent to the North,” he said. 9 His
strong denial made it obvious that money had actually flowed from South
to North, but nobody had the answers to “how” and “how much?” Efforts
to verify the allegation faced a dead end.
The full implications of the North’s deception would emerge toward
the end of DJ’s presidency, in October 2002, when the US envoy on North
Korea, James Kelly, assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the
Pacific, visited Pyongyang with a delegation of senior US diplomats and
experts. On October 4, accompanied by his retinue, Kelly remarked to
North Korea’s first vice foreign minister, Kang Sok-j u, that the United
States was aware of North Korea’s HEU program.
Kang was heard to acknowledge the program—t hough he later denied
having said any such thing. News of the existence of the HEU program,
released after Kelly and company got back to Washington, detonated the
Geneva framework. In November, the United States stopped shipping
heavy fuel oil to North Korea. Then the North retaliated by expelling
inspectors from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency who had
been going there to make sure the five-m egawatt reactor was shut down
and locked up.
The sunshine policy was dead.10
In the presidential election of December 19, 2002, the conservative
candidate, Lee Hoi- chang, whom DJ had defeated by a margin of 1.7
percent of the votes in 1997, lost more heavily, this time by 2.3 percent of
the votes. Roh gained votes after Chung Mong-j oon, the Hyundai Heavy
Industries magnate and president of the Korea Football Association,
endorsed his candidacy. Chung, a conservative who had also had designs
on the presidency, withdrew his support the night before the election—t
oo late to have any impact on the outcome. Chung’s last-m inute
disaffection, far from diminishing Roh’s chances, enhanced Roh’s image
as a man of principle.
Another factor behind Roh’s victory was the deaths of two 13- yearold schoolgirls run over by a 48-t on US Army armored vehicle returning
from a military exercise on a narrow road north of Seoul. For weeks
crowds demonstrated nightly in central Seoul, protesting the acquittal by
a US military court of the two sergeants in the armored vehicle and
demanding their trial by a Korean court. Lee Hoi-c hang attempted to
demonstrate empathy by attending a rally several days before the vote but
was unable to reverse the tide of anticonservative, anti- American fury
engendered by the girls’ deaths.
After his election, President-e lect Roh Moo-h yun, in the transition
before his inauguration on February 25, 2003, refused to address the
payoffs that had brought about the Summit and the Nobel. His top aides
grumbled about the previous government’s failure to act, implying it was
not their concern, but the topic burst into the headlines on January 29,
2003, when OhmyNews, a popular leftist news website, quoted a highranking Blue House official as saying, “There was a $200 million money
transfer to the North before the Summit.”11 That leak was believed to have
been a clever trick on the part of Park Jie- won, who had denied publicly
any wrongdoing, to admit there had been a transfer but to minimize its
size. The point was to deflect attention by giving out a number that was
far smaller than the sum suspected by those who wanted to expose all the
details.
The next day Kim Ki-s am, from his perspective as a former NIS
officer, disseminated a lengthy article on the Internet titled “Plastered
Mask, Portrait of Devil” and subtitled “Kim Dae-j ung’s Nobel Operation
and Treasonous Bribe to Kim Jong- il.” The allegations were grave. “The
fundamental reason why President Kim Dae- jung had driven forward
with such an unreasonable North Korean policy, for such a long period of
time, and so consistently and wrongfully, is that he was blinded by his
extreme greedy desire for the Nobel Peace Prize,” wrote Kim Ki-s am.
“President Kim Dae- jung mobilized the National Intelligence Service for
foreign operations and paid the North Korean dictator Kim Jong- il about
$1.5 billion in order to win the Nobel Peace Prize.” 12
In his Internet article, Kim Ki- sam described in detail how the two
Kims and Hyundai collaborated in a triangle of treason:
In 1999, as soon as South Korea had overcome the economic crisis that had
engulfed Korea and most other Asian countries, DJ opened his climactic
campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize by advertising his achievements and
experiences. The campaign began in earnest on the American Independence
day, July 4, 1999, when he won the Liberty Medal in Philadelphia. Since
six of eleven recipients of the medal at the time had also won the Nobel
Peace Prize, DJ was confident that he too could join this elite grouping if
he could make a significant breakthrough in North- South relations.13
Against this backdrop, DJ reached the deal with Kim Jong- il for
bargaining an invitation to Pyongyang in exchange for the riches needed to
finance the North’s nuclear and missile programs. In December 1999, when
the world was ushering in the new millennium, the two Kims completed
their secret money deals. DJ promised to send Kim Jong- il, by diplomatic
pouch,
two trillion won in Euro, equivalent to $1.5 billion. 14
Hyundai sponsored the money delivery. Its reward was a loan of 34
trillion won, equivalent to around $26 billion, including exclusive
opportunities in both the Kumgang tourist zone and the Kaesong special
economic zone . . . For Kim Dae- jung, the reward was the Summit— and
the Nobel Peace Prize thanks to the Summit, and for Kim Jung- il, the
reward was hard currency, which he used to revitalize his reign of terror.
What a perfect triple win!15
The conclusion was inescapable. Kim Ki-s am wrote, “Kim Jong-i l
helped Kim Dae-j ung win the Nobel Peace Prize by extending a disguised
gesture of peace, which was bargained for the bribe.” As a result, “The
South Korean national security interest was severely undermined in the
process.” Kim Ki- sam summarized his chagrin in terms of what he saw
as betrayal of the Korean people of both the North and South: “The proud
Nobel Peace medal that Kim Dae-j ung wears is the crystallization of the
bloody tear drops and painful outcries of the North Koreans and the
sweaty taxation of South Koreans.”16
Demanding a full investigation, Kim Ki- sam embellished on Abraham
Lincoln’s dictum, “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some
of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the
time.” When it came to deceiving Koreans about payoffs to North Korea,
he wrote, “It might be possible to deceive all the people for a moment. It
also might be possible to deceive some people forever, but I believe it is
not possible to deceive all the people forever.”17
The media jumped on Kim Ki- sam’s revelations. Asked about an
article by Kim Ki- sam that ran in Dong A Ilbo on February 5, 2003, Kim
Han- jung had to admit that he was indeed the “Mr. Kim in the Blue
House” who was cited as “the key person” in the Nobel operation. Kim
Han-j ung boasted of his relationship with Kim Dae-j ung and his efforts
to win the prize for DJ, who had died more than two years earlier in 2009.
Not surprisingly, he again denied inappropriate activities in the quest for
the prize, saying only that he had “some assistance from Norwegian
friends.”18
Kim Han- jung was not, however, the one who had actually nominated
DJ for the prize. That onerous chore went to Namkung Jin, who had been
at DJ’s side as a top aide in DJ’s long years of political struggle, had served
as his political adviser at the Blue House, and then was rewarded with the
post of culture minister. Namkung—u nlike most Koreans (he had a twosyllable surname and a single- syllable given name)— had the task not
only of filing the formal nomination, as he did annually for 14 years, but
also of gathering mountains of accompanying material. He fervently
denied the existence of a Nobel lobby or the relationship between the June
2000 Summit, and the prize that went to DJ six months later. “It is not
worthy of notice to relate the Summit to any Nobel Prize lobby,” he told
Monthly Chosun. “It is silly.”19
Namkung preferred to see the prize as a proud achievement for the
country. “The Nobel Prize is helpful in terms of national interest,” he was
quoted as saying. “It is not a thing that a lobby can buy. President Kim
earned the prize by contributing to the peace system of the two Koreas.”
He saw any relationship between the Summit and the prize for DJ as
“simple coincidence”—a nd was not happy about the tendency to view
them as part of a continuum. “The Nobel Prize is the Nobel Prize, and
Summit is Summit,” he said. “To link these two seems great at a glance,
but it will hurt the national interest.” If people were going to do that, he
asked, “How can we earn the Nobel Prize in the future?”20
Namkung explained his own role as that of a faithful bureaucrat doing
his duty for his boss. “I recommended President Kim to the Nobel
Committee,” he said. “I checked if the recommendation was delivered or
not. If it was not delivered, I sent it again.” He said he had included “much
material such as tapes” gathered by DJ’s public relations people, clippings
from foreign newspapers and magazines, and documents verifying DJ’s
“activities for peace and human rights.”21
Namkung’s account may well have been true. Donald Kirk had been in
touch with him a number of times over the years when requesting
interviews with DJ during his days as a dissident. It was Namkung, Kirk
remembered, who had lined up Kirk’s first meeting with DJ at his
residence in Dongkyo- dong in Seoul’s Mapo district in April 1972 when
Kirk first visited Seoul as a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune based
in Tokyo. Again, it was Namkung who arranged another interview for
Kirk after the 1973 kidnapping. And it was Namkung who took calls from
Kirk in June 1987 as rioting roiled the capital against the dictatorial rule
of Chun Doo- hwan. DJ was under house arrest when the government
finally adopted the “democracy constitution” that provided for the election
of a new president every five years— with the proviso that none could
serve more than a single term. Chun’s Korea Military Academy classmate,
General Roh Tae- woo, had won the first election in December 1987 after
YS and DJ insisted on running their own separate campaigns. DJ had lost
to YS five years later— and then in December 1997 had defeated Lee Hoichang when another conservative ran a strong a third- party campaign.
Through all these ups and downs, Namkung had been DJs faithful, most
trusted personal assistant. Undoubtedly Namkung knew more than he was
telling, though his role was secondary to that of Kim Han- jung as
commander of the NP Project.
Kim Ki-s am had already left Korea in search of asylum in the United
States when in March 2003 Monthly Chosun, the hard-h itting magazine
edited by the venerable conservative critic Cho Gap- je, published
“testimonies that support former NIS officer Kim Ki- sam’s contention
that there was an international lobby to win the Nobel Peace Prize.” What
was “the truth around the allegations of the lobby,” the magazine asked.
The article said government officials had indeed corroborated “concrete
details relating to the lobby activities.” Kim Han- jung “virtually took
charge of all lobbying, and a few government officials supported the
project,” said the article. “It was known that the people who are involved
in this work called the task ‘NP Project,’” but it was “impossible to figure
out the whole picture because only a few persons were involved.” 22
As quoted by Monthly Chosun, Kim Han- jung chose to look with lofty
disdain on the allegations of Kim Ki-s am, with whom he had worked
closely on the NP Project while at the NIS several years earlier. “It is
worthless to respond to such an immoral person’s allegations,” he was
quoted as saying. “I think I don’t have to reply.” Kim Han- jung preferred
to dwell on the charges placed against Kim Ki- sam by the NIS. There
was, he said, “no need to ask and answer questions about such an unethical
person’s comments.” Pressed to explain what he had done when working
at the NIS and then the Forum of Democratic Leaders in the Asia Pacific
(FDL- AP), Kim Han- jung snapped before hanging up, “You may write
whatever you want to write, I won’t answer anything.”23
Monthly Chosun, however, accepted Kim Ki-s am’s version of what
had happened. “Mr. Kim’s writing, which begins with Dear People of
Korea, consists of two parts, the NIS lobby activities for the Nobel Prize
and money delivery to the North. The part dealing with the Nobel Prize is
very detailed. The real names of the relevant officers are mentioned in the
article.” The purpose, as Kim Ki-s am was quoted as saying, was clear: “I
would like to let Korean people know, through this article, the filthy and
hypocritical nature of Kim Dae-j ung,” he wrote. “I declare on my
conscience these inerasable activities committed by the Kim Dae-j ung
regime against
our nation and history for the last five years.”24
In his book, Kim Ki-s am explained in detail how he got the payoff
information. In October 2002, Yun Hong-j un, a young Korean-A merican
businessman in Washington, conveyed the story during a conversation on
North Korea. Before meeting Yun, Ki- sam had spent months looking for
him. He knew that Yun was the personal adviser to Kim Jong- nam and
had been an important NIS informant for years. It was Yun Hong- jun who
revealed DJ’s historic North Korean connection at a press conference
before DJ’s election as president in December 1997. Interestingly, after
he spoke out, he was jailed for one and a half years for violation of the
election law, not for criminal defamation or any other charge.25
“It was early 2000 when I met Kim Jong- nam in Tokyo on a chilly day
and was told by him and his bodyguard, ‘General Hwang,’ about the
money transaction between the Koreas in the end of 1999,” said Yun. “He
showed his passport, which had a record of two visits to Japan in early
2000, in February and in April.” Yun said that he had heard the story just
as passing comments but “now realized that it was the payoff for the
Summit.”26 After several days pondering what he had heard and obtaining
further confirmation, Ki- sam concluded there was no reason for Yun to
have given him wrong information. All things considered, Kim Han-j ung
and Kim Jong- nam were the logical ones to be dealing with one another—
a lter egos of the heads of both Koreas, authorized and able to exchange
such secret deals.
At a Blue House press conference attended by Lim Dong- won and
Park Jie- won two weeks after Kim Ki- sam’s revelation, DJ admitted for
the first time that $500 million was actually sent to the North. However,
DJ persisted in his claim that all the payoffs for the Summit were fees for
doing business. Hyundai Asan and North Korea were on a “payment
schedule,” he insisted, in which the NIS had expedited the movement of
the money. That claim, he said, guaranteed “sovereign immunity” that
made him immune from questioning since he was only acting in the
national interest. Lim Dong- won supported the claim that the payments
were “not a reward for the Summit but economic assistance our
government decided to provide the North in consideration of North
Korea’s difficult situation at the time the agreement was reached to hold
the inter- Korean Summit.”27
Public pressure became so intense that the conservative opposition,
Grand National Party, forced passage in the National Assembly of a bill
calling for a special prosecutor to investigate. Amazingly, since he was
committed to building on DJ’s legacy, Roh endorsed the bill and
appointed Song Doo-h wan, a liberal lawyer, as special prosecutor. A
biography published after Roh committed suicide in 2009 had Roh
explaining that he endorsed the bill since the Blue House controlled only
the special prosecutor but had little control over a regular prosecutor. The
bill also enabled him to limit the scope of the special prosecutor’s
investigation to the procedural illegality of the money transfer to the
North— and as much as possible avoid harming North- South relations.28
After investigating for several months, Special Prosecutor Song
acknowledged that the payoffs were “linked to the Summit” since they
had gone to North Korea beforehand with no attempt at “seeking the
understanding” of the South Korean people. Song, however, cleared DJ of
direct complicity in the payoffs, citing lack of evidence for why DJ was
never summoned for questioning. Moreover, he narrowed the extent of the
bribery, focusing on $100 million of the $450 million transferred to North
Korea.29
The government, Song said at a news conference, had in pre- Summit
talks “promised to provide $100 million to North Korea, and the Hyundai
group was asked to transmit the money.” The government, he went on,
“was involved in secret cash remittances . . . through improper
channels”— but he hoped “there will be no more political wrangling.” 30
The prosecutor’s record shows that North Korea had demanded $1.5
billion, to include $1 billion from Hyundai and $500 million from the
South Korean government, but settled after intense negotiation on $500
million, which included $400 million from Hyundai and $100 million
from the government. The record, however, leaves open the possibility
that the reduction in the payoff was postdated by those testifying about
it— and the original figure of $1.5 billion may well have been accurate.
Prosecutors might have delved more deeply had it not been for Roh’s
refusal to request a thirty- day extension of the investigation. Instead, on
June 23, 2003, Roh called for an end to “political wrangling,” as Song had
already demanded, over a scandal that had severely embarrassed the
government and drawn protests from North Korea. Two days later, on
June 25, one week after his arrest for abusing power by having the stateowned Korea Development Bank give funds to Hyundai companies for
transfer to North Korea, Park Jie- won was indicted. Lee Keun- young,
then KDB governor, and Lee Ki- ho, DJ’s economic adviser, were also
awaiting trial. The emptiness of Roh’s pledge to extend the investigation
became clear when, on July 22, he vetoed a bill for appointing another
special counsel.31 The rest of the investigation was left to the regular
prosecutor.
The truth of allegations against DJ and his closest top aides emerged
after the death of Chung Mong- hun, the fifth son of Chung Ju- yung and
chairman of Hyundai Asan, who plunged from his office on the twelfth
floor of Hyundai headquarters in central Seoul on August 4, 2003, in the
midst of the investigation by the prosecutor. As Kirk wrote in Korea
Betrayed: Kim Dae- jung and Sunshine, Chung Mong- hun, at the time of
his death, faced trial for approving alteration of documents disguising the
transfer of approximately $100 million to North Korea before the
Summit—p art of the $450 million that Hyundai Asan claimed to have
paid the North for doing business.32
The timing of the death of Chung Mong- hun strongly suggested foul
play. The deepest suspicion was that he had been about to reveal to the
prosecutor all that he knew about the payoffs to North Korea, that he had
information that would tear the shrouds off the machinations that had led
to the June 2000 Summit and the quest for the Nobel Peace Prize for DJ.
Suspicions deepened as Monthly Chosun carried two articles quoting a
former prosecuting officer saying, “Chung Mong- hun asked my views
and opinion about a framed suicide attempt, showing several pages of a
hand- written will,” before he fell or was pushed from Hyundai
headquarters. The official panicked about what he had seen. “I was so
scared to find that one of the wills had disappeared,” he was quoted as
saying, since it “spoke ill of a former senior aide of DJ.” 33
The indictment and death of Chung Mong- hun reached into DJ’s inner
circle, Kirk wrote, though DJ had stepped down as president at the end of
his term in February 2003. Nearly six weeks before Chung Mong-h un’s
death, DJ’s longtime top aides, Lim Dong- won and Park Jie- won, were
indicted on charges of transferring the $100 million to North Korea. Eight
people— seven after Chung Mong- hun’s death— faced trial for
participation in the payoffs in a case that raised grave doubts about the
sunshine policy.34
During this period the NIS carried out a program of vengeance against
Kim Ki- sam for exposing the payoffs. The NIS “counter- measure was
swift,” as Monthly Chosun noted. On February 4, 2003, Kim Ki- sam was
charged with violating the laws of criminal libel and the NIS Personnel
Law. The NIS charged that he had “fabricated facts and violated the NIS
Personnel Law by revealing information that was gained in the process of
intelligence work.” An NIS press release heaped scorn on Kim Ki-s am
and his revelations. “The NIS has nothing to do with earning the Nobel
Prize,” the press release began. “The NIS did no operation to achieve this
goal.” As for all the names of NIS people cited in Kim Ki-s am’s Internet
article, “those former and incumbent NIS members only did what they
were supposed to do, and they were never involved in the Nobel Prize
Project.” Nor, said the press release, had NIS people “hidden any money
away through diplomatic pouch.”35
The NIS was guilty of lying. Had the NIS been a little more clever, the
agency would have discreetly refrained from comment. Instead, the NIS
chose in its release to insult Kim Ki- sam in the time- honored style of
bully boys under attack by troublesome critics. “Mr. Kim was
psychologically unstable when he was in the NIS and was frequently
moved around in a short period of service, and failed to adapt to
intelligence work,” said the release. “Because he was not in a position to
figure out foreign intelligence, we cannot help but see that his fabricated
story, which says the NIS lobbied for the Nobel Prize and bribed North
Korea, is groundless.”36
Nobody issued a confession or admission about the NP Project. The
only acknowledgement of the existence of the Nobel operation came in
the form of a comment attributed to “a former NIS highranking official”
as quoted in Monthly Chosun. “The key to winning the Nobel Prize was
in the hands of Kim Jong-i l,” the official was quoted as saying. The North
Korean leader “played both the director and protagonist in the movie. The
Summit explains that.” As for the Nobel lobby, if there was one, he said,
“it was a kind of refined one.”37
Kim Ki-s am got a high rating, however, from a person on “a managing
staff level” at the NIS whose judgment was quite different from what the
NIS had said officially about him. “He was a very competent person,”
Monthly Chosun quoted its contact as saying. “The reason he moved a lot
in such a short period was, first of all, he had the ability.” He was “neither
‘psychologically unstable’ nor ‘unfit’ for the intelligence job,” the
magazine was told. “He coped with the task very nicely. And his
personality was not bad.”38
Not surprisingly, Monthly Chosun came up with other views as well
about Kim Ki- sam’s credibility. “The assessments of him were extremely
inconsistent,” said the article. One anonymous colleague dismissed him
as “a betrayer of the organization,” putting him down as “a low- level
officer” who was “not in a position to know the big picture.” That source
cited “a so- called Blocking Principle in the NIS”— meaning that
information was shared only on a need- to- know basis. “It is the
intelligence officer’s basic attitude to try not to know what is happening
in the other office,” said the unnamed colleague. “In fact, it is not possible
to know what the other officer is doing even if they share the room.” 39
Nonetheless, somehow the magazine found “quite a few who highly
esteemed him.” For example, “When I was told that he quit, I could not
understand,” one NIS officer was quoted as saying. “He was a so- called
‘elite officer.’ He was different from the beginning. The first position he
was assigned after training was as aide to the chief of the Anti-C ommunist
Policy Division. He was selected. The position deals with high-q uality
information, which only a few persons in NIS could access. He used to be
elected as chairperson of his peer group. The reason he was transferred to
the newly established Office of External Cooperation Aid was that he was
an able man.”40
14
In History’s Glare
M
artial arts experts battered one another, armored black limousines
roared and screeched, and explosions crackled on cue in front of the
Blue House, the office and residential complex of South Korea’s President
Lee Myung-b ak. Donald Kirk watched as the agency responsible for the
president’s security put on the display of defensive expertise shortly
before the nuclear summit of March 2012, at which leaders of nearly fifty
countries gathered in Seoul to talk about the dangers of nuclear holocaust.
Whether in war, an isolated act of terrorism, or as a result of some
accident such as the earthquake and tsunami that had devastated the
Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan in March 2011, a year earlier, the
horrors of the nuclear age hung like a dark cloud over the Korean
Peninsula. All the while, thousands of US and South Korean troops
continued military exercises, including Ulchi Focus Lens, simulated war
games conducted every August to the din of strident rhetorical blasts from
North Korea.
It was as though nothing had changed since Kim Dae- jung had his
minions pursuing the Nobel Peace Prize while appearing to be oblivious
to all the funding the South had provided the North for the June 2000
Summit and the North’s much expanded missile and nuclear programs.
The continuity of North Korean policy showed the futility of the hunt for
an emblem that would do little other than to satisfy the ego of its recipient.
As much as ever, the Blue House and the country had to face down threats
from above the 160 mile- long DMZ.
That much was tragically clear from two incidents in the Yellow Sea in
2010 that shocked the world, most especially South Korea’s “puppet”
government and its “imperialist” ally, the United States. The first was the
sinking of the South Korean navy corvette, the Cheonan, on March 26,
2010, by a torpedo fired by a North Korean midget submarine, which
resulted in the loss of the lives of 46 sailors. The second was eight months
later, on November 22, the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, five miles off
North Korea’s southwestern coast, by North Korean shore gunners, killing
two South Korean marines and two civilian contract workers.
Those incidents showed the vacuity of the sunshine policy that had
provided the cover for Kim Dae-j ung’s quest a decade earlier for Nobel
gold. How had DJ gotten into a position in which Kim Jong- il could play
him so easily? Why did DJ permit the North Korean leader to hold the
cards that would, if dealt correctly, enable him to win the Nobel? And how
did such a momentous event as a North- South summit turn into an overly
hyped deal, in which the permanent legacy would be a prize for DJ? No
one at the NIS or Blue House wanted to address such questions. It was up
to Kim Ki- sam to dig up what was going on— and to grasp the
motivations and the means of those whose goal was to fulfill DJ’s
overriding ambition.
At the time that Kim Dae- jung was proclaiming his sunshine policy,
North Korea was not only an international pariah guilty of the most brutal
forms of repression but also a failed state incapable of feeding its people.
The assumption was always that North Korea might relent when the
United States and North Korea reached their “framework agreement” in
Geneva in October 1994 on giving up their nuclear program in exchange
for twin light-w ater reactors and heavy fuel oil. Although South Korea
was not a signatory, Kim Young-s am, then president, went along with the
deal, which called for the South to spend at least $4 billion on building the
reactors, Japan another $1 billion, while the United States was to provide
500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil annually for nonnuclear plants.
The framework negotiators, led by Robert Gallucci, a slippery talker
eager to demonstrate his negotiating skills, deluded themselves with the
view that “time was on their side” and North Korea would collapse sooner
or later. The American side, however, severely underestimated the
viability of Kim Jong- il’s regime. Despite the famine that overwhelmed
the North in the mid-1 990s, North Korea not only regained its strength
but equipped itself with nuclear capability and ballistic missile
technology. All the North needed was a fresh infusion of hard currency
from the South to make it happen. DJ’s policies amounted to a rescue
operation on a scale that no one had ever imagined.
No sooner had DJ won the Nobel than disillusionment set in. His face
as a Machiavellian politico was uncovered soon after his glorious day in
Oslo, while polls confirmed his sagging popularity. Once freed of having
to maintain a favorable image for the prize, DJ went after the three biggest
newspapers: the conservative Chosun Ilbo, JoongAng Ilbo, and Dong A
Ilbo, often referred to as “Cho- Joong- Dong.” In early 2001, angered by
their continual criticism, DJ ordered the National Tax Administration, Fair
Trade Commission, and prosecutors to investigate the incomes and taxes
of media enterprises and their owners.
IN HISTORY’S GLARE 171
There was no doubt that the moves against the media were politically
motivated to counter their criticism of DJ’s sunshine policy and their
scornful attitude toward the Nobel Peace Prize. The scale and depth of the
investigation were unprecedented, far beyond the scope of previous efforts
by any Korean president to use the tax law as a means of bringing down
foes. On July 15, 2001, depressed by the investigation, the wife of the
owner of Dong A Ilbo killed herself by jumping from her apartment
window.
In August, the publishers of Chosun Ilbo and Dong A Ilbo, both
hereditary bosses, deeply anticommunist, were indicted and jailed. Hong
Seok- hyun, publisher of JoongAng Ilbo, had already been arrested one
year earlier on tax charges, detained, and given a suspended sentence and
steep fine— enough to get him to tone down his paper’s editorials. The
accused publishers this time were charged with owing around $400
million in back taxes and penalties. The Supreme Court seemed to agree
that much of the case was DJ’s way of retaliating against his enemies. The
court found the publishers guilty but sharply reduced their fines and freed
them on probation.1
Nor were DJ’s assaults on his enemies the only negative aspects of his
presidency. On April 19, 2004, more than a year after DJ had left office,
the privately owned Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS) aired the story of
DJ’s out- of- wedlock daughter. In the investigative program, SBS
reported on DJ’s affair with a waitress in a well- known Korean restaurant
in the early 1970s. Hidden from the public, their daughter, now in her 30s,
had grown up in constant trouble about her identity. In the years before
the June 2000 Summit, her mother persisted in asking DJ to register her
as his daughter, according to the SBS exposé. DJ’s first son, Kim Hong-i
l, worrying about the negative effect on the Nobel campaign, bribed the
mother to remain silent. Mysteriously, however, around ten days before
the Summit she was found dead in a bathtub in her apartment. Her funeral
was held in strictest secrecy by a priest who was a lifelong DJ advocate.
DJ saw no need to comment on the SBS program, much less to take legal
action denouncing it as false.2
It should not have required extensive research on the part of the
Norwegian Nobel Committee to have discovered that after his election in
December 1997, DJ had suppressed criticism that might show he was
anything but democratic. Over a career of going after his critics in legal
cases, DJ had shown zero tolerance to criticism. For example, Ham Yunsik, DJ’s bodyguard in the 1970s, was charged with publishing a book in
1987, Dongkyodong 25 Hours, detailing his long association with DJ. Son
Chung mu, publisher of Inside the World, was jailed for two years for
publishing Kim Dae- jung X- File before the 1997 election. Lee Do-h
yung, publisher of Korea Forum, was the target of lawsuits by DJ’s
political party for organizing a conference critical of his ideology. Lee
finally had to sell his house in order to pay fines and fees. Son Chang- sik,
a former ardent follower of DJ, was found dead on a street after years of
judicial harassment by DJ’s people for daring to trace DJ’s background.
Years later, in January 2006, the issue of DJ’s daughter surfaced again
when Kim Eun- sung, who had been deputy director of the NIS during his
presidency, testified in court about the illegal wiretapping and bugging
committed by his agency. Kim, who was charged in the case, told the court
that silencing DJ’s daughter issue had been one of the agency’s top
priorities. Mother and daughter, he said, were under surveillance aroundthe-c lock. Sadly, Kim found himself one of the biggest victims of the
agency’s activities when his own daughter committed suicide in July
2006. It became known that she was deeply depressed by her father’s
incarceration and failure to participate in her wedding a month earlier.
Kim’s successor in the agency, Lee Su-i l, had taken his own life the
previous year, November 2005, at the peak of the investigation into
wiretapping.
The wiretapping scandal was a compelling reason to question whether
DJ was really a democratic figure. Roh Moo- hyun, DJ’s successor in the
Blue House, ordered a full- scale investigation of illegal wiretapping and
bugging in August 2005 after the scandal surfaced in July. A former NIS
agent, Kong Un- young, produced tapes of conversations between Hong
Seok- hyun, the JoongAng Ilbo publisher, appointed ambassador to
Washington by Roh. The tapes recorded Hong, whose sister was married
to Samsung Chairman Lee Kun- hee, the country’s richest man, chatting
with Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Hak-s oo about bribing both leading
candidates in the 1997 presidential election, DJ and Lee Hoi- chang.
The story was interesting but not surprising in the payoff world of
Korean politics. The bugging caper showed that Samsung bribed less to
DJ than to the ruling party’s candidate, Lee Hoi- chang. In their
conversation, Hong and Lee Hak- soo called DJ neul- geun- yi (“the old
guy”), a demeaning reference that DJ must have found offensive. Hong,
the first target of the campaign against negative editorializing in
newspapers, had been sentenced in 1999 to three years in prison but was
freed on probation for four years while ordered to pay a $3 million fine
for tax evasion. Having learned his lesson, Hong knew enough to
distribute payoffs more equitably before the 2002 election. His
appointment as ambassador by Roh in 2005 came as a reward for this wise
thinking.
Until the wiretapping story broke, Hong had had designs upon a still
greater prize than that of ambassador to the United States. He had dreamed
of becoming secretarygeneral of the UN, the successor to Kofi Annan.
Spurred on by his multibillionaire brother-i n-l aw, Lee Kun-h ee, Hong
had promoted his candidacy in an unabashed public relations campaign
that included the presidency of the World Association of Newspapers. As
a result of the scandal, however, Hong had to resign as ambassador to the
United States in July 2005, one week after getting to Washington. Roh’s
government, after Hong’s fall, instead lobbied for Ban Ki- moon, Roh’s
diplomatic adviser and former foreign minister, for the top UN post; Ban
was duly elected UN secretarygeneral in October 2006.
The greater revelation was that the NIS persisted in eavesdropping
during DJ’s presidency after DJ, in his 1997 campaign, had promised to
do away with all bugging. The investigation into NIS wiretapping was, in
fact, triggered by Kim Ki- sam, then seeking asylum in the United States.
Ki- sam tipped Chosun Ilbo with detailed information on the agency’s
illegal activities, which the paper headlined on July 21, 2005. Two days
later Kim Ki- sam had an interview on “Sisung Jipjung” (“Vision Focus”),
then the most influential radio talk show in Korea, put out by Munhwa
Broadcasting Corporation. The program triggered a full- scale
investigation.3
In late 2005, after six months of intensive digging into the powerful
intelligence agency, the Seoul Central Prosecutor’s Office confirmed the
enormity of the illegal wiretapping conducted by DJ’s government. Using
a device called “R2,” the NIS had put 1,800 influential figures under
surveillance by wiretapping. It was also confirmed that wireless calls were
also widely tapped by using a device called “CASS.” Scores of former and
incumbent NIS people were found guilty. Lim Dong-w on, who was one
of those most responsible, was sentenced to three years in prison but
granted probation for four years in one of the many hidden compromises
of the Roh Moo-h yun presidency.
Other problems also showed the futility of hopes for real North-S outh
rapprochement. At around this time, Lim Dong- won’s star began to set.
Moved back to the unification ministry from the NIS, Lim traveled to
North Korea in mid- 2002 but returned empty- handed. In October of that
year, the sunshine policy went into full eclipse when North Korea’s vice
foreign minister, Kang Sok- ju, acknowledged in his meeting with US
envoy James Kelly in Pyongyang that North Korea did have a program for
enriching uranium for warheads. This program was separate from the
plutonium program that North Korea had given up eight years earlier
under the Geneva framework and was in clear violation of that accord.
At the heart of the HEU program was North Korea’s relationship with
Abdul Qadeer Khan, a nuclear physicist, “father” of the Pakistani nuclear
bomb and mastermind of a nuclear black market that catered to regimes
throughout the Middle East. Having sold the secrets of HEU to the North
Koreans, Khan visited North Korea in 1999 to look over the results of his
dealings. As The New York Times reported in 2004, he was taken to a
secret underground nuclear plant and shown what he described as three
nuclear devices, according to Asian and American officials briefed by the
Pakistanis. Khan “also told Pakistani officials that he began dealing with
North Korea on the sale of equipment for a second way of producing
nuclear weapons as early as the late 1980’s,” said the report. “But he said
he did not begin major shipments to North Korea until the late 1990’s,
after the country’s plutonium program was frozen under an agreement
with the United
States. North Korea has since renounced that agreement.” 4
Earlier, a Japanese newspaper, Mainichi Shimbun, reported that a
centrifuge of the type needed to produce HEU was transferred from
Pakistan to North Korea in June 1998. “On June 7, 1998, a group of
masked gangsters stormed the house of the North Korean counselor in
Pakistan and killed the wife of the counselor,” the paper reported. 5
Mainichi, citing Pakistan intelligence sources, reported that the wife was
under suspicion for providing a Western diplomat with information on
North Korean weapons exports. After the incident, the counselor, husband
of the assassinated wife, reportedly disappeared inside Pakistan. The
Mainichi article revealed one more tidbit of information suitable for a
James Bond 007 film. “A special airplane between Islamabad and
Pyongyang to carry the body of the wife,” it said, “also delivered the
sample and blue print of the gas centrifuge in the coffin.” 6
By 2003, North Korea had resumed producing plutonium with its fivemegawatt reactor at Yongbyon. Lim Dong- won, when he visited
Pyongyang shortly before DJ’s term expired in February 2003, hoped to
revive the June 2000 agreement, perhaps even persuade Kim Jong- il to
visit Seoul as promised, but the Dear Leader refused to see him. Kim Jongil’s refusal to meet Lim added one more detail to the story of the failure
of the Geneva framework and the sunshine policy. Basically, North Korea
wanted the South to pump more money into its coffers while preparing to
test its nuclear warhead— a program that was costing untold hundreds of
millions if not billions of dollars.
In an elaborate scheme to bring in still more funds, North Korea’s
Bureau 39 was responsible for exporting arms, the best quality
methamphetamine and heroin, counterfeit $100 bills called “supernotes,”
and even counterfeit Marlboro cigarettes with most of the transactions
funneled through banks in Macao. Much was suspected but little known
about them until the US Treasury Department in September 2005 imposed
sanctions on tiny Banco Delta Asia, accusing it of serving as a conduit for
millions of dollars’ worth of supernotes printed by a state- of- the- art
Swiss- made press in Pyongyang.
North Korea accounts in Banco Delta Asia totaling $25 million were
frozen by Macao authorities. “BDA,” as US officials took to referring to
it, was spurned and scorned like a black sheep by all other banks
worldwide. North Korea made a huge issue of the sanctions in six-p arty
talks until finally US negotiator Christopher Hill, meeting North Korea’s
negotiator Kim Kye- Gwan in Berlin in early 2007, agreed on a scheme
for transferring the funds to a Russian bank, which in turn made them
available to North Korea. On that note, six- party talks in February 2007
came up with yet another agreement, doomed to fail, for the North to give
up its nuclear program.
Throughout his quest for the Nobel Peace Prize, DJ never evinced
concern about the suffering of the North Korean people whether in natural
disasters or egregious human rights atrocities. Estimates of how many
died vary widely, but beginning soon after the death of Kim Il- sung in
July 1994, about two million people perished—e ither starved to death,
were tortured and executed, or were stricken by illnesses for which
medicine was not available. Considering the horrors that befell his
country, the “Great Leader” was lucky to have died when he did. He would
never have to deal with a problem that son and heir Kim Jong- il
confronted for the rest of his life even if his father, as the country’s
“eternal president,” would surely have to shoulder much of the blame
posthumously.
As to the number of famine victims in North Korea, defector Hwang
Jang-y op once testified, “I worried so much about the situation that I
asked the person in charge of statistics how many people were dying in
the famine.” The response, Hwang said, was that half a million were dead,
including fifty thousand party members in 1995, and another one million
were expected to die in 1996. “If there would be no assistance from
outside,” Hwang was told, “the number would reach two million in
1997.”7
Hwang came up with an interesting comparison: “Lenin worked at the
Kremlin, and his tomb was placed in a small building beside the Kremlin.
Unlike the case of Lenin, the entire workplace of Kim Il-s ung, the Premier
Palace, turned to his tomb. The historical transition from palace to tomb
was approved by ‘Dear Leader Kim Jong- il’ despite the stern
circumstances that massive numbers of people were being killed due to
famine. According to records, this enormous corpse palace cost $890
million to decorate. Where on earth has any dictator committed such a
crime in history?”8
The answer to that question might have been the pharaohs of ancient
Egypt, who built the pyramids to encase their remains and those of wives
and other family members. Or perhaps one might compare the Kumsusan
Memorial Hall, built for the embalmed remains of Kim Il- sung, and later
Kim Jong- il, below a long slope covered by an elaborate red marble
memorial and the busts of “martyrs” in “victorious” wars against Japanese
and US imperialism, to monuments for Mayan kings. The yearning for
immortality, in the form of veritable palaces to enshrine the deceased,
hardly excused the profligacy of the investment. “We could have
purchased more than 6 million tons of corn with the money,” Hwang said.
“Considering that North Korea is short 2 million tons of grain every year,
we could have solved the food problem for three years.” 9
Kim Dae- jung bucked up the fortunes of the North Korean regime
immeasurably by pouring funds into its sorely depleted coffers,
revitalizing a system that was well on its way to the long anticipated
“collapse” that his generosity helped to keep from happening. He did so
in the context of a political culture of corruption in the South in which it
was widely known that all South Korean governments collected what was
known as a “politics fund,” especially before presidential elections. There
was no telling how much money slipped into these funds, but money
moved in strange ways. At a minimal estimate, the cost of getting elected
president might have exceeded a billion dollars in that period.
While in office, South Korean presidents were accustomed to
enormous windfall profits as a traditional reward for holding such power.
The most corrupt in recent times was Chun Doo- hwan, who clung to the
presidency from the turmoil of 1980 until finally forced in mass protests
in June 1987 to agree to a new “democracy constitution” providing for
direct election of a president every five years. Testimony at his trial on
charges of corruption charges and the bloody suppression of the Gwangju
revolt of May 1980 revealed that he had accepted nearly $900 million in
bribes— and possibly much more. Chun’s successor and Korea Military
Academy classmate, Roh Tae-w oo, the general who won the first
presidential election under the democracy constitution in December 1987,
was also accused of accepting hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes.
Both were found guilty for the Gwangju massacre and massive corruption.
Roh Tae- woo, who had defeated Kim Young- sam and Kim Dae- jung
in 1987, said in his memoir that he had supported the campaign of YS to
succeed him in the 1992 election to the tune of nearly $300 million after
YS aligned his party with the conservatives.10 YS found no reason to rebut
the allegation. Lee Do- hyung, a conservative publisher, said in his book,
Kim Dae- jung Suspicions, that one candidate, apparently Park Tae- jun,
founder of POSCO and then president of the ruling party, was surprised
to know how much money the chaebol had donated to his cause after he
announced his own short- lived campaign for nomination for the
presidency. The amount was later confirmed to have been well over $670
million, which he handed over to Roh Tae- woo after his withdrawal.11
Roh later conveyed about half of that sum to YS by a circuitous route.
Immersed in this culture of corruption, DJ said before Chun and Roh’s
trial in 1995 that he had received the equivalent of nearly $2 million from
Roh Tae- woo in 1990 in return for political cooperation. Kim Jung- kwon,
then political adviser to Roh Tae- woo, carried the money to DJ— and in
1998 was appointed his Blue House chief of staff. It was believed that DJ
had actually received ten times more than that amount. YS had to cut short
an investigation of DJ’s secret funds, believed to have soared well above
$130 million, during the economic crisis that overwhelmed Korea just
before the 1997 election. In an atmosphere of enormous payoffs and
bribery in South Korean politics, DJ adopted the same system in building
up his legacy as president.
Kim Dae- jung courted Kim Jong- il in many ways. Overtly, he
authorized payoffs of several hundred thousand tons of food and fertilizer
to North Korea annually along with other forms of humanitarian aid and
rising trade. Secretly, DJ paid for the privilege of the invitation by Kim
Jong-i l to come to Pyongyang by transferring at least $500 million, or $
1.5 billion as alleged by Kim Ki-s am. Thus North Korea owed its survival
in large measure to the generosity of DJ, whose cash injections had created
the nuclear nightmare hanging like the sword of Damocles over the
Korean Peninsula, Northeast Asia, and the world.
In reality, however, we have never been entirely certain how much
money was transferred to North Korea during the decade of the sunshine
policy under Kim Dae- jung and then Roh Moo- hyun. A conservative
member of the National Assembly, Choi Kyung- hwan, once estimated
that “a total of $9 billion was sent to the North during that period, factoring
in the value of hundreds of thousands of tons of rice and fertilizer shipped
annually to North Korea for the sake of the Sunshine policy as well as the
Hyundai investment in tourism to Mount Kumgang, in the opening of the
special economic zone at Kaesong and other gifts.”12 The final sum
eventually sent to North Korea may well have been greater.
So far there’s been no research into the impact of the South’s generosity
on the North Korea. The size of economy in North Korea in that era,
however, could be one barometer. The Bank of Korea estimated on August
26, 1999, that the gross domestic income of North Korea in 1998 came to
$12.6 billion.13 North Korea had suffered eight consecutive years of
negative growth from 1990 after the collapse of the eastern European bloc
of Communist “satellites” of the Soviet Union.
Disaster struck when the Soviet Union finally stopped shipping oil and
other products in return for near- worthless North Korean won. Natural
disasters also played into the tragedy of famine and disease as flooding
and drought alternately laid waste to the land. The North Korean economy
in the mid-1 990s ran at a rate no higher than 15 percent of its potential
due to the extreme fuel and energy shortage. Considering these
circumstances, one can only conclude that the enormous flow of cash from
South to North was a life-s aver that helped to compensate for the loss of
all the generosity of the Eastern Bloc in the days of Soviet rule.
Much of the money, undoubtedly, was spent on the nuclear and missile
programs and on bracing up the regime. Funds also mysteriously made
their way into the secret Swiss bank accounts of Kim Jong- il, his extended
family and favored members of the elite. Millions more dollars in cash
remained in North Korea, stashed away in the homes of generals and top
party officials. There was never an investigation of this flagrant abuse of
funds. Roh Moo- hyun and Kim Dae- jung died in 2009 within three
months of each other. On May 23 at dawn, Roh jumped from an
outcropping known as “Buongyi Baui” or Owl Rock in his hometown of
Kimhae, near Busan, during an investigation into his or his wife’s personal
corruption. DJ passed away at Severance Hospital in Seoul on August 18
after a long bout with pneumonia.
Did it matter if DJ’s sunshine policy had failed, when he had bought
the June 2000 Summit with billions that North Korea would invest in
nuclear and missile programs? More importantly, could North Korea have
reached the level of nuclear success that it achieved without the sums
pumped in during DJ’s presidency? If nothing else, we may be sure that
DJ sped up North Korea’s achievements to the point at which it could
claim to be a real nuclear power— even if the tests of October 2006, May
2009, then February 2013 were relatively small; even if North Korea had
yet to develop a nuclear bomb, much less the means to deliver it to a target.
If nothing else, as a result of DJ’s help, North Korea stood to achieve those
goals sooner rather than later— how soon, no one knew.
While Kim Jong-i l was enjoying the warmth of the sunshine policy
from the South, the man who had included North Korea in an “axis of
evil” extending to Iraq and Iran was experiencing a nuclear nightmare.
The Bush Administration, to which the worst scenario was the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction among terrorists in the
Middle East, vehemently opposed South Korea’s cash injection to the
North. After offending DJ by referring to him as “this man” in March
2001, diplomatic relations between the United States and South Korea
rapidly deteriorated. It was a “disaster,” said UN Secretary- General Ban
Ki- moon, then deputy foreign minister. While the Bush Administration
was reviewing the North Korean policy of the president’s predecessor, Bill
Clinton, as Ban wrote much later, DJ mistakenly pressed Bush to carry on
with Clinton’s policy.14
No sooner had Roh Moo- hyun’s government taken over in February
2003 than relations became still testier. Bush’s men started to call Roh and
his people the “Taliban” and South Korea the “run- away bride.” They
first clashed at a press conference in the ancient capital of Kyongju in
November 2005 after the gathering in Busan of leaders of the Asia- Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) group. The quarrel was over the United
States’ refusal to lift the clamp on dealings with Banco Delta Asia, the
repository for North Korean funds in Macao. Alexander Vershbow, US
ambassador to South Korea, remarked that the meeting between Bush and
Roh was the worst summit ever between US and South Korean leaders.
The discord was again visible during the APEC summit in Sydney in
September 2007. Condoleezza Rice, then secretary of state, recalled a
press conference showing “an erratic aspect of President Roh” in which
“he seemed have no idea how weird the situation was.”15
While Roh was pursuing the last rays of sunshine, Kim Dae- jung, in
his post-p residential years, was increasingly defensive about the policy
that he had fostered. In a lengthy interview with the Financial Times in
mid- 2004, DJ put a deceptively low figure on the amount of money that
had gone to North Korea for the Summit. “When a rich brother goes to
visit a poorer brother, the rich brother should not go empty- handed,” he
said. “We wanted to provide $100m of support.” Since “there was no legal
way to do it,” he argued, North Korea had persuaded Hyundai, negotiating
to develop business in North Korea, “to increase its payment by $100m,
funded by secret loans from the state- run Korea Development Bank.” As
president, said DJ, “I authorized it and I have no regrets.” The Summit,
“together with Hyundai’s business activities, has improved relations and
reduced the risk of military conflict.”16
DJ either did not realize the North Korean nuclear threat or wanted to
gloss it over if not discard it. In an interview in October 2004, marking the
fifty- eighth anniversary of the founding of Kyunghyang Shinmun, a
second- tier Seoul newspaper that had sided with his policies, he scoffed
at concerns about North Korea’s nukes. “North Korea’s nuclear weapons
do not even count as toys in the face of US nuclear warheads,” he said. 17
Two years later, just five days after North Korea’s first nuclear test on
October 9, 2006, DJ, in a conversation with CBS News, mingled still more
rationalizations for sunshine with harsh criticism of Bush. The North
Koreans, he said, had conducted the test “out of their frustration with the
US attitude” in order “to pressure the United States into dialogue.”
Sanctions, he was sure, were useless. “North Korea is threatened,” thus
justifying “this extreme action.” Bush’s hard- line attitude was to blame.
“Pressure,” said DJ, “has resulted in North Korea withdrawing from the
nonproliferation treaty, kicking out the International Atomic Energy
Agency and developing nuclear weapons.”18 Nearly two years later, in
2008, DJ blamed Bush for “wasting five or six years” before “trying to
pursue peaceful negotiations” on the nuclear issue.”19
US-K orea relations did not recover until after Lee Myung-b ak took
office in February 2008. In the aftermath of the passing the next year of
both Kim Dae- jung and Kim Jong- il, many questions lingered. How did
DJ come by this lust for glory in the name of peace and reconciliation?
Did he realize that the Nobel, prestigious though it might be, would be of
little benefit to most of his people? Was he flattered and influenced by the
professors and celebrities who had fawned over him during his years
abroad? Did he really think the prize would bring him supreme recognition
not only from South Koreans but also around the world? How would
Koreans from both North and South in future generations view the payoffs
for the Summit?
For DJ, success was complete when people acclaimed him as a hero for
winning the Nobel Peace Prize, as affirmation that the Republic of Korea
stood tall among the richer, bigger nations that had dominated the region
through history. Koreans were well aware of his approval of wiretapping,
the familiar attempt at spying on critics and rivals adopted by his
predecessors. They also knew about his broken promises, his appeal to
regional animosities, and his intimidation of foes. In the end, DJ’s
presidency was disillusioning to millions who believed in his ability to
“create a nation where justice runs like a river, freedom blossoms like wild
flowers, and hope for unification gleams like a rainbow.” 20
The ultimate test remains: did the sunshine policy really bring rays of
peace and stability to the Korean Peninsula, and how would DJ be
remembered in the relentless glare of history? The sunshine policy began
fading even as DJ begged in vain for Kim Jong-i l to make good on his
promise to pay a return visit to Seoul. Within a decade after his presidency,
sunshine had all but disappeared. In the shadows of sunshine, North Korea
had emerged as a nuclear power too explosive to be in the unsure hands
of the North’s untested young leader.
15
Legacy of Terror
T
he skies were a shade of steel grey as snowfall blanketed Pyongyang
on December 28, 2011, the day of the funeral for Kim Jong- il. North
Korean state television carried images shown around the world of crowds
of people ignoring the freezing cold as the flakes fluttered down, weeping
and wailing incessantly for the panning cameras. Soldiers goose- stepped
in long rows and then bowed in silent tribute. Kim Jong- un, walking
slowly beside the hearse bearing his father’s flag- draped coffin on top,
his left hand resting on the right front fender of the black 1970s-e ra
Lincoln Continental, dramatized his place as the new dynastic leader.
Behind him was Jang Song- taek, primed to make sure the young heir
made no mistakes while carrying on the legacy of his father and
grandfather, to whom he bore a distinct physical likeness.
The setting for Kim Jong-i l’s funeral, picked up live on CNN, BBC,
and all of South Korea’s networks, was so grim and depressing—
downright funereal— that it could have come from a Hollywood drama of
an awful day in Pyongyang. The spectacle seemed to show how
oppressive and overpowering had been the rule of a man who enjoyed
Hennessy cognac and the company of Swedish women even as his
starving people were afraid to speak out for fear of execution or lives lost
in a vast gulag system. Kim Jong- un, the star of the drama, was dressed
to remind people of the legacy of his grandfather, his porcine figure
cloaked in Mao- style garb that closely resembled that of Kim Il- sung, his
hair also styled to evoke memories of the Great Leader.
The high came the day after this East Asian version of an American
gangland funeral in a Godfather film. Kim Jong- un stood somberly in the
middle of a line-u p of the highest ranking leaders in a balcony
overlooking Kim Il- sung Square, named for the Great Leader who had
ruled for nearly half a century before dying in 1994 and leaving power to
Kim Jong-i l. It was up to 86-y ear-o ld Kim Yong-n am, titular head of
state, to proclaim Jong-u n as “supreme leader”—a n event that might be
the equivalent of a coronation or inauguration, though the brand new
leader said not a word.
LEGACY OF TERROR 183
On the basis of these images, analysts played the game of figuring out
who was on top while looking for signs of a power struggle that always
seemed inevitable, later if not sooner. Jang Song- taek, a longtime civilian
senior party hack, married to Kim Jong- il’s younger sister Kim Kyonghui, asserted his supremacy as regent as he preened in the uniform of a
general beside Kim Jong- un at Kim Jong- il’s bier, followed him in the
funeral procession and again stood beside his young protégé at Kim Ilsung Square. Like Jong- un’s aunt Kyong- hui, like Jong- un himself,
Uncle Jang was a four- star general, vice chairman of the all- powerful
National Defense Commission. Kim Jong- il, of course, had been
commission chairman— a post more powerful than even that of his other
top post of general secretary of the Workers’ Party—a nd would remain
“eternal chairman” and “eternal general secretary” while Kim Jong-u n
held the titles of first chairman and first secretary.
None, however, was a real general. Kim Jong-i l, as chairman of the
National Defense Commission, the center of power, had conferred the
rank on Kim Jong-u n as well as Jang Song-t aek and Kim Kyong-h ui at
a rare Workers’ Party conference on October 10, 2010. On the same day,
defector Hwang Jang- yop was found dead in the bathtub of the apartment
in Seoul that the NIS had provided for him—a sacrifice, some said, on
the altar of Kim dynasty rule. From that date onward, son and regent were
to assume the reins of power in Pyongyang while another newly minted
four- star general, Choe Ryong-h ye, longtime right-h and man of Jang
Song-t aek, advanced so quickly as to be a rival for power. Anointed a
general with no military background, Choe was promoted in April 2012
from general to vice marshal, was named vice chairman of the party’s
Central Military Commission, and finally became a member of the
National Defense Commission, which Jang served as vice chairman.
The fanaticism of the North Korean leadership, the depth of control
over the populace, came into dramatic public focus when the death of
“Dear Leader” Kim Jong- il was announced on December 19, 2011, by a
weeping, wailing woman garbed in traditional black hanbok on North
Korean state television. The bulletin, broadcasted after the network told
viewers to await an “important announcement” at noon, touched off a
display of mass mourning seen on television screens worldwide.
The mystique of the Dear Leader, worshipped by the ruling elite around
him, totally obeyed by the hungry multitudes outside the inner circle,
assumed supernatural dimensions as the state media reported rare cloud
formations, bursts of thunder, and flights of birds. Much of the imagery
had to do with Mount Paektu, the Korean Peninsula’s highest peak, on the
North Korean border with China, the mythological scene of some of Kim
Il-s ung’s fiercest battles against the Japanese and the birthplace of Kim
Jong- il in a cabin in a guerrilla camp. In the days after Kim Jong- il’s
death, the Pyongyang propaganda machine flew into flights of fantasy.
“Kim Jong-i l’s autographic writings ‘Mount Paektu, holy mountain of
revolution. Kim Jong- il,’ carved on the mountain, in particular were
bright with glow and flashes accompanied by thunder,” said one report.
“The sky began turning red with sunrise on the horizon” and “layers of ice
were broken” in the lake in the crater of the sacred mountain. Citizens
agreed his demise “was so heart-r ending that even the sky seemed to
writhe in grief. Truly, they said, he was ‘a great saint born of Heaven.’” 1
The idea was to mythologize Kim Jong- il as a godlike figure cast in
the mold of his father, “Great Leader” Kim Il- sung, installed by the Soviet
army in 1945 and the country’s ruler for nearly half a century before his
death in July 1994. Kim Jong- il by that time had already assumed most
of his father’s dictatorial power as chairman of the National Defense
Commission, the apex of the ruling structure for which he propounded the
philosophy of songun, “military first,” a term that came to be used even
more often than juche, “self- reliance.”
The hereditary transfer of power from Kim Jong- il to Kim Jong- un,
however, would not be easy. The trouble was that his two elder brothers
had not measured up. The oldest, Kim Jong- nam, in his early 40s, had
embarrassed his father by getting stopped by Japanese immigration at
Narita Airport in May 5, 2001, when he tried to enter Japan with a fake
Dominican passport. Accompanied by his four- year- old son, his wife,
and a cousin, he had lamely explained that he was en route to Disneyland.
Japanese authorities, after detaining them all briefly, sent them packing to
Beijing.
That incident must have disappointed Kim Jong-i l after a series of
exiles of his mother’s family members to the West. Yi Han-y ong, Jong-n
am’s elderly cousin, studying in Switzerland, disappeared in 1981, then in
1995 reappeared in South Korea and published Daedong River Royal
Family Member’s Fourteen Years of Secret Life in Seoul.2 Yi paid the
price two years later when a team of North Korean killers fatally wounded
him in front of his apartment on February 15, 1997, one week after Hwang
Jang- yop had defected to the South. Lee Nam- sun, Han- yong’s younger
sister, also defected to the West in the early 1990s, and their mother Sung
Hye- rang followed them in early 1995. The psychologically disturbed
mother of Kim Jong-n am, Sung Hye-r im, whom Kim Jong-i l had met
when she was an actress in the movies that he loved to produce in his
younger days, died mysteriously while hospitalized in Moscow in 2002.
Kim Jong- il’s second and third sons, Jong- chul and Jong- un, were
born of the same mother, Ko Yong- hui, who had caught Kim Jong- il’s
eye as a dancer in one of the troupes that performed for, and serviced, the
elite in Pyongyang. There was speculation that second son Jong-c hul, her
own first son, might be groomed for power, but he was deemed too
effeminate. Pleasant and earnest enough at home in Pyongyang, he lacked
the manly airs associated with a head of state. Then he was filmed at an
Erik Clapton concert in Singapore. That did it. He too lost out. That left
Kim Jong- un, the last son standing.
Ko Yong- hui died of cancer in Paris in 2004 before she could follow
through on her idea of doing away with Kim Jong-n am, seen as a rival to
her own sons, by having him “disappear” forever during travels to Europe.
Living in Macao, the former Portuguese colony known for its glittery
casinos on the southeastern Chinese coast across the Pearl River estuary
from Hong Kong, Jong-n am hinted at the lack of confidence behind the
campaign to glorify the new leader. In an email to Japanese journalist Yoji
Gomi, author of a book titled My Father Kim Jong Il and Me, Kim Jongnam wrote in terms that would have cost most North Koreans their lives
had they dared to speak that way even privately.
In a burst of the frankness that he had displayed in earlier encounters
with the Japanese media, Kim Jong- nam said that he expected “the
existing ruling elite to follow in the footsteps of my father while keeping
the young successor as a symbolic figure.” It was “difficult to accept a
third- generation succession under normal reasoning,” he explained. As
for the nature of the regime, Jong- nam believed “North Korea is very
unstable” and “the power of the military has become too strong.”
Communicating in Korean by email and in interviews with Gomi in 2011,
he dared to declare, “If the succession ends in failure, the military will
wield the real power for sure.”3
For the previous three years, since partially recovering from a stroke
that had nearly killed him in August 2008, Kim Jong- il had been nurturing
Kim Jong- un to take over. Several times a week, as he made a public
show of defeating a host of ailments that also included diabetes and
hypertension, he and Kim Jong- un visited factories, farms and, most of
all, military units. The man known as “Dear Leader” in North Korean
propaganda realized that he had to bring his youngest son up to speed in a
hurry after passing over his eldest, Kim Jong- nam.
The announcement on December 19 of Kim Jong-i l’s passing said that
he had died two days earlier, on December 17, inside a train that was
taking him for yet another look at a factory or farm. He had been totally
exhausted, suffering from “overwork” on behalf of his people, the woman
wailed on state television, but the details of his death, like so much else
about him, were assumed to be fiction. In the next few days, critics in
Seoul and Washington wanted to know why the intelligence services of
both South Korea and the United States had not come up with a hint of
Kim Jong- il’s demise before the formal announcement. Intelligence on
trends and moods in North Korea had risen markedly with the advent of
cell phone connections on Chinese networks that cover North Korea
beyond the Yalu and Tumen river borders, but the North Korean
leadership was so opaque, so tightly controlled, that no inside informants
would betray the highest level secrets.
Nonetheless, satellite observation did show no trains moving as
described in the broadcast. In fact, the Dear Leader had probably
succumbed in one of his many villas. The story of his death was clearly
embellished to give an impression of how hard he was working for his
people. There was no doubt that his passing had come as a complete
surprise to foreign intelligence analysts— dramatic proof of how
unconnected they were to the inner workings and lives of the power elite
in Pyongyang. Only the day before—t hat is, on December 16—i n the last
publicly distributed photo of him, Kim Jong-i l was shown on video on an
escalator in a new shopping center, Kim Jong- un behind him, closely
followed by the Dear Leader’s brotherin- law, Jang Song- taek.
Why had North Korea waited two days to reveal that Kim Jong- il had
died? Like many other questions, that one remained unanswered. The
delay, however, was most likely caused by the frantic need to arrange for
the viewing of the body and to figure out the elaborate details of the
funeral. For ten days after Kim Jong- il’s death, aging generals and party
leaders, ministers, and officials showed up to pay homage before the glasse nclosed coffin. The body of the Dear Leader, soon to be shipped to
Moscow for embalming by Russian experts, lay in state in a glass-c overed
bier beside that in which the embalmed body of his father, Kim Il- sung,
also rested in the spacious Kumsusan Memorial Hall by the Daedong
River.
After all the planning, the funeral for Kim Jong- il, as witnessed by
Donald Kirk on South Korean television networks, surpassed even that for
his father in mass weeping by crowds along the route. For Kirk, also in
Seoul on July 8, 1994, when news of the death of Kim Il- sung had flashed
across television screens, the funeral for the son evoked memories of the
mourning on the squares and streets of Pyongyang 17 years and 5 months
earlier for the founder of the dynasty. Whoever did the meticulous
planning for Kim Jong- il’s funeral seemed to have copied the details from
the same playbook.
There were, however, notable differences. Back in July 1994, the skies
had been clear. The trees lining the streets burst with green foliage as the
cortege bearing Kim Il-s ung’s coffin slowly wended its way along the 25m ile route past soaring monuments and Stalinesque apartment blocks to
its final resting place— final, that is, pending the embalming in Moscow.
People along the way wore short- sleeved shirts, looking almost casual
while expressing their deepest grief like Hollywood film extras weeping
and wailing on cue for the state television cameras.
The most significant difference between the funeral for the father and
the son, however, was not the weather or the season but the visible
presence of a successor. For Kim Il- sung’s funeral, son and heir Kim
Jong- il had appeared only briefly on television witnessing the departure
of the Lincoln Continental bearing his father’s coffin for the procession
through the streets of the capital. Otherwise Kim Jong- il was so much out
of sight that people wondered if he really was taking power at all. The
whole charade of confirmation of his ascension had gone on for three
years, the length of time a good son needs to show proper filial piety for
his late lamented father. Then suddenly Kim Jong-i l reemerged, taking
charge as his country suffered through the worst famine in its history.
So why and how was it that Kim Jong- un had popped out of nowhere,
the third son, in his late twenties, rising to such prominence that he had to
be seen before his own people and everyone else as having pride of his
place in the pecking order? The most likely reason was the regime’s need
for security. Kim Jong-i l knew very well that he was in charge after his
father died. He’d been trained as a supreme leader from 1974. He didn’t
have to prove it. He didn’t have old generals, their chests gleaming with
medals, telling him what to do or usurping his power. For ten years before
his father’s death, he had already been in charge of daily affairs while his
father remained in nominal control.
Not yet thirty, however, Kim Jong- un was a rank upstart, a dropout
from schools in Switzerland. He may or may not have studied computers,
physics, and military science as claimed at Kim Il-s ung University and
Kim Il- sung Military University. If he had gone through the rigors of a
higher education, it was in private, in the confines of his father’s
residences or hidden offices on sprawling estates, at the hands of carefully
selected tutors. No one had ever come forward to remember that he either
had taught him or had him as a classmate.
Nor had Kim Jong- un been known to have had a real job. His life
seemed to be heading nowhere until about three years and four months
earlier when his father had suffered the stroke and begun to think seriously
about his dynasty’s future. French neurosurgeon Francois-X avier Roux,
summoned by eldest son Kim Jong- nam despite his estrangement from
power in Pyongyang, had flown from Paris in August 2008. The doctor
said that he had found his patient, then 66, unconscious when he first saw
him. As he awoke, said the doctor, he perked up enough to ask about
French wine and cinema, two luxuries close to his heart. 4 At about that
time, the gravely ill patient realized he had to start grooming a successor.
It was up to Kim Jong- il, in the time remaining for him, to tutor Jong- un
while those around him were still dedicated to seeing that the dynasty
prevailed.
Kim Jong- il’s top priority was to show Kim Jong- un what it took to
govern—a nd to get his highest aides to pledge the same allegiance to his
son as they had to him and to his father before him. Images of father and
son inspecting factories, farms, and military installations became regular
features in the North Korean media. But who would be calling the shots
in Pyongyang? Would it be Jang as “regent?” In the months after Kim
Jong- il’s death, all four of the generals who were guiding the hearse with
Kim Jong- un and Jang had “disappeared.” Who were the real powerholders?5 Were they people already known to hold top positions, including
Jang, or perhaps unseen figures lurking down the pecking order?
Whoever pulled the strings, it was far from clear whether Kim Jong-u
n had the strength and intellect to do anything on his own. He was assumed
to speak English, German, and possibly French after his years of schooling
abroad, but the image of this hefty figure, his girth more pronounced than
a couple of years earlier when he was first seen on camera, did not inspire
confidence. Then again, while those around him played their own petty
power games, he might have proved just the figurehead needed in a time
of internal turmoil in which muscle-f lexing in the form of nuclear- andm issile testing might be the only way to win the respect of disparate
elements within the power structure. For now rhetoric, not reconciliation,
would hold together an elite of uncertain loyalties and a people weakened
by years of hunger and disease.
If any further evidence was needed of the failure of the sunshine policy
and the waste of all those funds sent to the North, it soon came in the form
of the test- firing on Friday, April 13, 2012, of yet another Taepodong- II.
Barely six weeks earlier, on February 29, 2012, the new American North
Korea negotiator, Glyn Davies, and North Korea’s wily Kim Kye- gwan
had signed the “leap year agreement,” in which the North promised a
moratorium on nuclear and missile testing in return for food aid. That the
missile crashed harmlessly into the Yellow Sea did not obscure the fact
that North
Korea had again lived up to its reputation as a “rogue state.”
Nor did the disappointment of the missile failure spoil the lavish
observances on April 15, the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Kim Ilsung on April 15, 1912. Talking for the first time in public, Kim Jong- un
read his maiden address before a crowd of cheering thousands in Kim Ilsung Square. North Korea’s “powerful military,” he assured the throng
and millions more watching and listening on state television and radio
networks, was “capable of waging modern warfare with offensive and
defensive tactics.”6
There was, in this period, no hint of the great power struggle already
under way. General Ri Yong- ho, the armed forces chief, was rumored to
be the country’s most powerful man after Kim Jong- il was gone. Had he
not clasped the left front fender of the Lincoln Continental bearing Kim
Jong- il’s coffin? His days, however, were numbered. Seven months after
the funeral, on a Sunday in July, the Korean Central News Agency
(KCNA) carried a brief dispatch saying that Ri had lost all of his posts in
the Workers’ Party.7 There was no explanation of what had happened or
why, but the assumption was that the inner clique surrounding Kim Jongun, led by Jang and his wife, had wanted to strip the armed forces of its
grip on the military-r un economy. Kim Jong-u n was aware of the need
for reforms that the generals were not at all equipped to handle.
At the same time, Kim Jong- un had to talk up the virtues of songun
(“military first”). At the heart of the structure that he inherited was a
military machine that had more than a million troops as a minimal
estimate, perhaps 1.1 or 1.2, or possibly even 1.3 million, standing as the
world’s fourth or fifth largest military after China, India, the United States,
and maybe bigger than the Russian military establishment. He had already
shown his prowess, his raw nerve, as North Korean propagandists would
have the world believe, by spurring on the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong
incidents in 2010. His most signal accomplishment, his mentors and
handlers were sure, was the role they ascribed to him in testing nuclear
weapons. In an Associated Press dispatch with a Pyongyang dateline
disseminated on January 20, 2012, North Korea’s official website
Uriminzokkiri was quoted as saying he had “frightened” the country’s
enemies by “commanding nuclear testing in the past.”8
The dispatch, presumably filed in raw form from the AP’s newly
opened Pyongyang bureau, whose two North Korean staffers evidently did
not always want their bylines over stories massaged and embellished by
AP editors elsewhere, said that “Kim oversaw” the testing of underground
“nuclear devices” in October 2006 and May 2009. Described as “fully
equipped with the qualities of an extraordinary general,” he was not
believed to have undergone the rigors of North Korea’s notoriously
difficult military training. For good measure, said the AP, the
Uriminzokkiri site “also repeated the North’s claim that he was involved
in satellite launching but didn’t elaborate.”9
Nearly one year after his father’s death, on December 12, 2012, Kim
Jong un lived up to the hype. He was photographed at the Sohae Space
Center, in the northwestern corner of the country, inscribing the order to
fire off the three- stage Unha rocket. This time there was no doubt the
contraption bore a satellite. The North American Aerospace Defense
Command in Colorado put out a terse statement saying that “U.S. missile
warning systems detected and tracked the launch of a North Korean
missile at 7:49 p.m. EST” and that “initial indications are that the missile
appeared to achieve orbit.”10 The success of the launch undoubtedly
bolstered the prestige if not the power of Kim Jong- un. He “expressed
great satisfaction over the successful launch of the satellite by our
scientists and technicians and highly estimated their feats,” the Korean
Central News Agency reported. “He stressed the need to continue to
launch satellites in the future, too, to develop the country’s science,
technology and economy.”11
Certainly, as Kim Jong- un entered his second full year as “supreme
leader” in 2013, he conveyed a unifying image. Behind him as the
figurehead, anonymous strategists escalated the rhetoric while abrogating
the 1953 Korean War armistice, declaring the Korean peninsula “in a state
of war” and threatening to fire nuclear warheads as far as the United
States— even the Pentagon and White House. But who was driving North
Korean policy—A unt Kim Kyong-h ui and her husband, Uncle Jang
Song-t aek, or perhaps the generals who had replaced the four who had
marched along with Kim Jong- un and Jang Song- taek beside the Lincoln
hearse bearing Kim Jong-i l’s coffin? If Kim Kyong-h ui was the ultimate
power behind the throne, then indeed both Koreas were ruled by women,
she in the North, Park Geun- hye as president of the South, both the
daughters of dictatorial leaders,12
Who was really in charge in the North, however, was as uncertain as
the exact nature of North Korea’s third nuclear test of February 12. The
United States, Japan, and China all reported the 5.1- kiloton underground
blast, though the first possible radioactive gases were not detected until
more than two months later.13 North Korea, meanwhile, was sure to be
preparing for a fourth such blast while learning how to miniaturize a
warhead to fit onto the tip of a long-r ange missile. As satellites monitored
the menacing movement of launchers for test shots of missiles, Rodong
Sinmun declared “Our nuclear force is a treasured sword of justice to save
the nation from the U.S. nuclear blackmail that is getting ever more
undisguised as the days go by.” That’s why, said the party newspaper, “we
should steadfastly bolster the nuclear force both qualitatively and
quantitatively . . . a very just measure to safeguard national sovereignty
and dignity.”14
The longing for nuclear recognition had always been of paramount
importance. On the day of Kim Jong- il’s funeral, December 28, 11 days
after his death, the Workers’ Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun, in a
commentary titled “The Revolutionary Heritage of Comrade Kim Jong
il,” cited “the three greatest heritages” of the Dear Leader, beginning with
“nuclear program and satellite”— a reference to claims to have put a
satellite into orbit on two occasions, on August 31, 1998, and again on
April 5, 2009. Second was “the new century industrial revolution,” a
reference to North Korea’s claims to have advanced in Information
Technology. Third, Rodong Sinmun hailed “the nation’s spiritual power”
in overcoming all difficulties, “the pride of the nation that produced and
launched the satellite, coupled with the dignity of becoming a nuclear
power.”15
The article concluded by eulogizing both father and son, old leader and
new. “Kim Jong- un leads the people carrying on the revolutionary legacy
of Comrade Kim Jong- il.” That forecast was firmly rooted in “the
philosophy of continuous revolution of the Mount Paektu family. 16
North Korea showed off its nuclear know-h ow for the first time on
October 9, 2006, while Roh Moo- hyun was building on DJ’s sunshine
policy, and six-p arty talks were more or less stalled. The underground
nuclear blast, less than one kiloton, was so small as to suggest it may have
been a failure. Then, six weeks after test- firing a longrange TaepodongII that plunged into the Pacific, on May 25, 2009, North Korea conducted
its second underground test, four times the strength of the first. Each
device had plutonium, not enriched uranium, at its core.
In between those dates, on February 25, 2008, the conservative Lee
Myung- bak had succeeded Roh as president and refused to go on bribing
the North with massive doses of rice and fertilizer. Lee also cut off tours
from the South to Mount Kumgang in July 2008 after a North Korean
guard shot and killed a middle- aged South Korean female tourist who had
wandered beyond the fenced-i n tour area to look at the sunrise. Lee
adamantly refused to countenance resumption of tours until the North
agreed to permit the South to investigate the tragedy—s omething the
North would never consent to do.
Much else had happened in the two and a half years between nuclear
tests. Kim Jong- il had received Roh for the second inter- Korean summit
on October 4, 2007, while reaching yet another meaningless agreement in
six-p arty talks on conditions for the North to give up its nuclear program.
Those talks, hosted by Beijing and including the United States, Japan, and
Russia, as well as the two Koreas, were the outgrowth of an agreement
reached in September 2005 for yet again negotiating an end to the North’s
nuclear program.
The six-p arty process seemed to have fizzled out in December 2008—
five months before the second nuclear test. The new American president,
Barack Obama, inaugurated in January 2009, backed Lee fully on his
“hard-l ine” policy. North Korea, playing its usual game of
brinksmanship, preferred to remain a member of the nuclear club. Were
North Korea’s enemies not frightened by its nuclear warheads and the
missiles to carry them as far as the West Coast of the United States, the
regime’s propaganda machine reminded everyone, its enemies would
surely invade and destroy the country.
DJ, in his last interview several weeks before he died in August 2009,
was more anxious than ever to dispel the notion that he had bought the
June 2000 Summit. “The South Korean government has never given the
North any cash,” he told the BBC in brazen distortion of the facts. “The
money came from private companies here in the South investing in the
future and taking the risk. The government has only ever sent food and
fertilizer. Do you think you can make nuclear weapons with food and
fertilizer?” DJ denied the South got nothing in return for such largesse.
“That’s a lie,” he said. At the Summit, “old enemies shook hands bridging
the divide between North and South and helping us change the lives of the
North Korean people. That’s something that can’t be measured in
money.”17
For DJ, the Nobel Peace Prize was a badge of honor making him one
of the world’s great leaders. At a press conference at the public library in
Fort Lee, New Jersey, Kim Ki- sam said the prize that “DJ really should
have won was for physics, not peace.” DJ, Ki-s am quipped, had invented,
“a method to reverse- engineer a nuclear warhead from the rays of
Sunshine for the first time in human history.”18 Why and how DJ came to
dream of Nobel glory lay deep in his roots as the child of an oppressed
region in a time of war, revolt, and cruelty on all sides. If the origins of
DJ’s ambitions are obscure, one thing seems certain. In pursuit of the
prize, DJ elevated the dangers confronting his people, his country, and the
region. The funds that he provided would help pay for weapons of mass
destruction with which to terrorize South Korea, Japan, all Northeast
Asia— and someday the United States.
Thus it was that North Korea’s state media proudly proclaimed the
nuclear program, making North Korea the world’s ninth nuclear power, as
Kim Jong- il’s greatest legacy. North Korea, years after Kim Dae- jung
had journeyed to Pyongyang for the Summit and then won the Nobel,
could not have claimed to have joined the global “nuclear club” without
the billions funneled into its coffers from South Korea. DJ may have
believed the cornerstone for “peaceful” reunification would be his legacy,
but he had sold out the dream of a nuclear- free Korean Peninsula.
Epilogue
N
obel Prizes are intrinsically controversial. Prizes for seemingly welldefined achievements in science and mathematics are on occasion
contested by claims that someone else came up with the concept first. Prizes
for literature are still more controversial in view of national, ethnic, and
linguistic differences on top of deep disagreement over the relative merits
of one work versus another even when the candidates are writing in the
same language.
No prize, however, seems more bitterly contested, and more subjectively
decided, than the Nobel Peace Prize. Eisaku Sato, the longest serving prime
minister of Japan since World War II, was awarded a Nobel in 1974 mainly
for having signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty four years earlier. The
Norwegian Nobel Committee acknowledged the decision “was heatedly
discussed” and that he was “a controversial politician,” accused by the
Japanese left “of being an obedient servant of American interests.” 1 The
year before, the selection of US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and
North Vietnam’s chief negotiator, Le Duc Tho, was still more controversial.
Le Duc Tho refused to accept the award, charging violations of the Vietnam
peace agreement reached in Paris in January 1973; two members of the
Nobel Committee resigned in protest against the choice of Kissinger for
having gone into negotiations “while the USA at the same time was putting
North Vietnam under severe military pressure.”2 Meanwhile, India’s
Mahatma Gandhi, a perfect candidate, the greatest icon of nonviolent
defiance in modern world history, never stepped on the Blue Carpet before
his assassination in 1948 at the age of 78.
As these cases suggest, the underlying basis for decisions on the Nobel
Peace Prize vary widely. Increasingly, the Committee has come to reflect
political leanings and yearnings. One reason may be in hopes that the
recipient will later prove worthy, as in the case of President Barack Obama,
who won the accolade in 2009, the first year of his presidency. Al Gore and
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the prize in 2007 for
their work on the environment—a topic that might not seem exactly
relevant to the Nobel Peace Prize, though the mutual goal was global
tranquility and well- being. The sense was that the choice was a rebuke of
President
George W. Bush for waging war in Iraq after defeating Gore as a result of
the infamous “Florida recount” of electoral votes in the 2000 presidential
election. The Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo had scolded Bush
earlier by awarding the prize to Jimmy Carter in 2002 soon after the
invasion of Iraq. The overall outlook of the Committee was clear.
No single figure was more influential in influencing these decisions in
recent years than Gunnar Stålsett, the bishop of Oslo. He served many years
on the committee, from 1985 to 1990 and again from 1994 to 2003. Those
were the periods in which Kim Dae- jung was working most feverishly to
win the prize, which he received in 2000. As in so many other decisions,
this one was politically motivated—a n attack on South Korea for staunchly
standing up against the North and on the United States for its alliance with
the South against the North. Kim Dae- jung, after his presidency, frequently
excoriated the Bush Administration for frustrating his sunshine policy but
never criticized North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong- il. Bishop Stålsett never
evinced concern about human rights in North Korea and the fates of the tens
of thousands held in its sprawling gulag system. Nor did he waste emotional
energy on the hundreds of South Koreans imprisoned in the North for a
variety of reasons—s ome from the Korean War, others whose fishing boats
were captured, and still more from the hijacking of a Korean passenger
plane.
Despite the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s claims of zero tolerance of
such activities, the authors have documented the influence of lobbying in
the Nobel Peace Prize selection process. While we would not preach to a
bishop, much less the entire Nobel Committee, we do hope that the story of
Kim Dae- jung’s quest might serve as a cautionary tale of the ease with
which he and others succumbed to the blandishments of a concentrated
campaign for the Nobel. Bishop Stålsett, however, would not go away.
Although he had already served longer than anyone else on the Committee,
he was back again by 2011, as influential as ever, as an alternate in place of
a member who was ill.3
At the same time, we worry about such figures as the Korean- Swedish
physician, Dr. Han Young- woo. After exerting influence on behalf of DJ
in 2000 and Dr. Hwang in 2005, he let it be known in 2011 that he believed
that a Korean “female politician” might be a candidate for the Nobel—
possibly a reference to Park Geun-h ye, elected to a five-y ear term as
president of South Korea in December 2012. 4 Ms. Park, daughter of the
dictatorial Park Chung- hee, might someday prove to have been an ardent
force for North- South rapprochement, a goal for which millions, including
the authors, pray will happen in the near future. We would hope, however,
that should she follow in the footsteps of DJ, dedicating government
EPILOGUE 185
resources, including the NIS and the ministry of foreign affairs, to winning
a medal for herself. Let us wait and see what role she really plays in the
great Northeast Asian drama—a nd whether in the end she deserves such
an honor on its merits.
When Park assumed the presidency of South Korea, new leaders had
risen in all the surrounding countries. The first was Kim Jong- un, in the
second year in ostensible power in North Korea since the death of his father,
Kim Jong- il, in December 2011. Then, in November 2012, Xi Jinping, took
over as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and chairman of
the party’s Central Military Commission, making him China’s paramount
leader on the way to formally succeeding Hu Jintao as president in March
2013. And in December 2012, the rightist Shinzo Abe, scion of a political
family, who had already served nearly a year as prime minister of Japan in
2006–7 , again became prime minister.
All these changes in leadership have a common denominator. The new
faces at the top are conservatives dedicated to established policies facing
the legacy of the division of the Korean Peninsula at the end of World War
II and the Korean War. In the quest for the Nobel Peace Prize, Kim Daejung poured funds into the North that helped to keep the regime on life
support and pay for its nukes and missiles. DJ’s generosity had a ricochet
effect that haunts both Koreas, the rest of Northeast Asia, and the world in
a balance of nuclear terror for which the Norwegian Nobel Committee must
also share the blame.
ruary 25
ch 3
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gust
Chronology
1998
Kim Dae- jung, at his inauguration as president, pledges
“to actively pursue reconciliation and cooperation
between South and North.”
Lee Jong- chan, director of the NIS, has dinner meeting
with Michael Sohlman, executive director of the Nobel
Foundation, who visited Seoul as a Swedish representative
for the Asia-E urope Meeting, held by the Foreign
Ministry.
Lee Jong- chan meets Dr. Han Young- woo, a SwedishKorean physician for the Swedish government with close
friends at the Nobel Foundation. They discuss how to win
the prize for President Kim Dae- jung.
Yang Se-h un, Korean ambassador to Norway, has dinner
with Helge Pharo, adviser to the Norwegian Nobel
Committee, and explains South Korean government’s
engagement policy.
Yang has dinner with Geir Lundestad, director of the
Nobel Institute. Yang outlines DJ’s achievements in both
domestic and foreign policy.
Yang, over lunch with Francis Sejersted, Norwegian
Nobel Committee director, extends an invitation for him
to visit Seoul, which he politely turns down.
Hyundai Group founder Chung Ju-y ung delivers 500
cows to North Korea on 50 flatbed trucks via the “truce
village” of Panmunjom. Four months later, he sends
another 501 cows to the North.
Lee Jong- chan establishes the Office of External
Cooperation Aid (OECA), set up to win the Nobel Peace
Prize for DJ. Lee Jong-h un, a former case officer in
charge of Northern Europe, is appointed as chief of the
office.
gust
200 CHRONOLOGY
Lee Jong- chan recruits Kim Han- jung, DJ’s former press
secretary. Kim is designated as a special coordinator for
the
August
September
December
operation. Lee also recruits Cho Jun-o h, who as a personal
assistant to Kim Han-j ung.
Ra Jong- il, deputy director of the NIS, recruits Kim
Young- jun, who received bachelor’s, master’s, and
doctorate degrees in international politics from the
London School of Economics. Kim takes charge of
dealings with the foreign press and is designated as NIS
foreign press spokesman.
Lee Jong- chan orders Lee Byung- chun, NIS officer in
Stockholm, to launch special operation to publish a book
in Swedish introducing Kim Dae-j ung for distribution to
the four Scandinavian countries.
Yang invites Bishop Gunnar Stålsett, vice chairman of the
Norwegian Nobel Committee, to Seoul, and Stålsett
accepts.
1999
January 4
Kim Han-j ung meets Dr. Han Young-w oo in Seoul,
discussing the Nobel Prize (NP) Project and providing full
support for the trip.
February 16
Kim Ki- sam, former NIS officer, joins OECA under Kim
Young- jun, foreign media spokesman.
Kim Han- Jung hosts Bishop Stålsett in Seoul, travels to
Jeju Island with Stålsett, and arranges Stålsett’s courtesy
call on President Kim.
President Kim dismisses Lee Jong- chan and Ra Jong il
from their NIS posts, and replaces them with Chun Yongtaek.
Kim Han- jung resigns from the NIS and joins the Forum
of Democratic Leaders in the Asia Pacific (FDL- AP) as
vice director. From then on, all invitations to foreign
figures are in the name of the FDL- AP.
February 25
May 22
May 31
CHRONOLOGY 201
June 23
Rune Hersvik, general secretary, Worldview Rights
Foundation; Erik Solheim, president, Worldview Rights
Foundation, and Jan Ramstad, vice director, Thorolf Rafto
Foundation for Human Rights, attend the FDL- AP forum,
the New NGO Strategy for Democratization of Burma,
June 23–2 6, at the invitation of Kim Han-j ung. All three
call on President Kim. NIS arranges an interview for
Ramstad with Hwang Jang- yop, high- profile defector.
NIS
provides Ramstad with material, including “The Real
Picture of Human Rights in North Korea.”
June 25
Michael Jackson gives a concert in Seoul attended by
Hersvik and Solheim.
July 4
Kim Dae-j ung receives the Philadelphia Liberty Medal
with the assistance of Tom Foglietta, US ambassador to
Italy and longtime friend of DJ. Foglietta and José RamosHorta of East Timor are the only foreigners invited to DJ’s
Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in December 2000.
August 28
Lee Jong- chan and Kim Han- jung visit Stockholm to
celebrate publication of From Prison to President, the
Swedish- language compilation of DJ’s letters written in
prison.
August 31
Lee Jong-c han and Kim Han-j ung visit Oslo, meeting
Bishop Stålsett and other figures believed to be influential
in the Nobel Peace Prize selection process.
September 10 Stockholm University’s Asia- Pacific Institute holds a
book party in celebration of From Prison to President.
September 29 Park Kyung- tae, ambassador to Norway, at a luncheon
with Geir Lundestad, asks who is going to win the Nobel
Peace Prize for 1999.
December 3
NIS decides not to give financial support for the
Centennial Exhibition of the Nobel Peace Prize in Seoul
in 2002, fearing such generosity might trigger a negative
response, including political controversy.
December 14 President Kim names Kim Han- jung as the chief of first
attachment chamber in the Blue House, placing him in
overall command of the NP Project.
202 CHRONOLOGY
December 24
Kim Dae- jung names Lim Dong- won as NIS director
with orders to pursue the Summit with North Korea’s
leader Kim Jong- il.
2000
January 1
Park No- yong, NIS officer in Norway, meets Rune
Hersvik, discussing Hersvik’s plan to go to North Korea
with Yun Jong, daughter of the late Yun I- sang, KoreanGerman composer sympathetic with North Korea.
January 8– 11 Hersvik visits North Korea, meets Lee Su- ja, Yun Isang’s widow, and discusses plans to bring the Yun Isang
Ensemble to Norway.
January 20
January 22
January
February 3
Kim Dae- jung endorses financial support for the
Centennial Exhibition of the Nobel Museum when it’s
held in Seoul in 2002. Kim Han- jung notifies Dr. Han
Young- woo in Sweden, to the astonishment of the NIS,
not informed of the decision.
Kim Han- jung calls for a secret meeting to discuss how
to coordinate foreign public relations. Kim decides to hold
weekly meetings with the Blue House, now in complete
control of the project.
Jan Eliasson, Swedish deputy foreign minister, planning
to visit North Korea in March 2000, asks Dr. Han to form
a clandestine, authoritative delegation through which he
can deliver DJ’s message to Kim Jong- il.
Son Myung- hyun, South Korean Ambassador in
Sweden, says DJ, at the annual ambassadors’ conference
in Seoul, seemed well informed about Eliasson’s visit to
North Korea and mentioned that Eliasson would play a
“remarkable” role.
Park Kyung-t ae, South Korean ambassador to Norway, at
a luncheon with Lundstad, explains the North Korean
situation from the perspective of the US CIA. He says the
so- called IMF crisis could be overcome quickly thanks to
DJ’s excellent leadership and the cooperation of Korean
companies.
CHRONOLOGY 203
February 29
March 9
March 9
March 17
March 18
March 31
April 10
April 11
Kim Han- jung invites Dr. Han to Seoul to discuss how to
convey DJ’s message to North Korea for Eliasson to carry
to the North in March 2000.
Kim also invites Michael Sohlman to join in discussing
the Centennial Exhibition, arranging for Sohlman to visit
DJ at the Blue House. DJ, accompanied by Kim and Han,
spends fifty minutes with Sohlman in order to create a
favorable atmosphere for the prize.
The Nobel Museum and the Hoam Foundation,
affiliated with Samsung, sign the letter of intent
guaranteeing the foundation will pay about $1.5 million to
stage the exhibition in Seoul.
President Kim enunciates his “Berlin declaration,” saying,
“We are willing to provide the infrastructure” for North
Korean economy.
Park Jie-w on, culture and tourism minister, and Kim Boh yun of the NIS go to Singapore to meet deputies on
North Korea’s Asia-P acific Peace Committee and arrange
for the payoff for the Summit.
Park No- yong introduces Hersvik to Kim Nam- yong,
Park’s successor. Park is assigned at headquarters as a
desk chief for the project. Hersvik promises to cooperate
after Park leaves Norway.
Jan Eliasson visits North Korea, meets Kim Yong-n am,
chairman of the Supreme People’s Assembly, and Baek
Nam- sun, foreign minister.
Park Kyung- tae invites Bishop and Mrs. Stålsett for
dinner, explains DJ’s “Berlin Doctrine” and the sunshine
policy. Stålsett asks for all material relating to the Berlin
Doctrine.
North and South Korea announce plans for the first NorthSouth Summit, to be held in Pyongyang in June.
Eliasson briefs Dr. Han on his trip to North Korea,
expresses surprise about the impending Summit since
those he saw in the North had been saying the atmosphere
was not yet mature.
204 CHRONOLOGY
April 14
April 21
May 25
June 5
June 13
June 19
June 22
July 6
July 8
July 22
Park Kyung-t ae sees Stålsett at a dinner held by Ragne
Birte Lund, former Norwegian ambassador to South
Korea. Park talks about human rights in South Korea and
controversy surrounding the National Security Law.
The NIS reports to DJ about its plan for DJ to win the
Nobel Peace Prize. The report discusses how to approach
key members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee and
convey propaganda to targeted individuals.
Kim Nam-y ong and Hersvik discuss Hersvik’s trip to
Seoul. Kim suggests Hersvik meet opera singer Cho Sumi, a close friend of Kim Han- jung.
Park Kyung- tae briefs Stålsett over lunch about
preparation for the Summit and North Korean leader Kim
Jong- il’s recent visit to China.
President Kim flies to Pyongyang for the Summit. He and
Kim Jong- il produce joint declaration on June 14,
announced on June 15.
Park Kyung- tae explains the significance of the Summit
to Lundestad, administrator of the Norwegian Nobel
Committee.
Frank Jansen, president of Omega Television, over lunch
with Kim Nam- yong says it would be a surprise if the
Nobel Peace Prize did not go to the one who had brought
about reconciliation on Korean Peninsula.
Park Kyung-t ae over lunch with Lundestad explains postSummit measures including the conference of the NorthSouth Red Cross committees.
Park Kyung-t ae invites Stålsett and Lund for dinner
interview— his last chance to explain post- Summit
developments between the two Koreas.
Kim Nam- yong meets Jan Ramstad, former director of
Rafto Foundation, to talk about an event to be held in Oslo
in November called the “Human Rights in Korean
Peninsula in 2000,” including an international seminar,
conference, and Rafto Memorial Prize award ceremony.
They also discuss who is going to win this year’s Rafto.
Ramstad hints that Yun Hyun, a.k.a. Benjamin Yoon,
CHRONOLOGY 205
well-k nown South Korean human rights activist, is a
strong contender.
August 1
August 15
August 25
September 2
September 5
September 7
September 8
Kim Nam- yong and Hersvik discuss Hersvik’s upcoming
trip to Seoul to be accompanied by Kjell Bondevik, former
prime minister, and Erik Hillestad, music director and
well- known Norwegian cultural figure.
The reunion of “separated families” is held in Seoul and
Pyongyang. Kim Han-j ung makes all arrangements, and
Park No-y ong guides Hersvik and Bondevik to witness
touching moments. Kim arranges Bondevik’s courtesy
call on DJ and meetings with NIS Director Lim Dongwon and Culture and Tourism Minister Park Jie- won.
Ramstad notifies Kim Nam-y ong that the Rafto
Foundation has decided to give this year’s Rafto award to
DJ. Ramstad asks Kim not to reveal this news until it’s
officially announced on October 4.
The 63 “unconverted longterm prisoners” are returned to
North Korea in keeping with the agreement reached at the
Summit.
Bishop Stålsett, at yet another dinner with Ambassador
Park, asks how Kim Jong- il has changed since the
Summit. He also asks about the transfer of the
“unconverted longterm prisoners.”
Ambassador Park and Kim Nam- yong, over dinner with
Ramstad, talk about the Rafto award. Ramstad says to
expect the announcement on September 28 rather than
October 4.
Frank Jansen of Omega Television asks Kim Nam- yong
to provide background material on the improving human
rights situation in South Korea. He hints that he was asked
to advise the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
206 CHRONOLOGY
October 13
October 28
November 5
December 10
The Norwegian Nobel Committee announces that Kim
Dae- jung is to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for 2000 in
December.
Kim Ki- sam resigns from the NIS.
President Kim wins the Rafto award.
President Kim receives the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.
2001
January
Kim Dae-j ung, targeting conservative newspapers,
announces “reform” of the media. IRS, Fair Trade
Commission, and prosecutors launch investigation
covering overall business of media enterprises.
January 31
Article by Donald Kirk in International Herald Tribune
reveals the transfer of several hundred million dollars
from South to North Korea to persuade Kim Jong-i l to
agree to receive DJ in Pyongyang. The article, headlined
“The South Korean Spy Chief Who Paved the Way for
Thaw with North,” focuses on Lim Dong- won.
President Kim sees newly inaugurated President George
W. Bush at the White House. Bush shocks Kim by
expressing “some skepticism” about Kim Jong- il and asks
about “verification” of previous agreements.
Lim Dong- won resigns as NIS director, is named
unification minister.
Publishers of Chosun Ilbo and Dong A Ilbo are indicted
and jailed.
March 11
March 27
August 16
2002
January 30
President Bush, in his first State of the Union address,
describes North Korea as “a regime arming with missiles
and weapons of mass destruction” and blasts Iran and Iraq
as well as North Korea. He says, “states like these, and
their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil arming to
threaten the peace of the world” and “could attack our
allies or attempt to blackmail the United States.”
CHRONOLOGY 207
February 2
October 4
October 2
November
December 19
December 31
Larry Niksch, a researcher in the Congressional Research
Service, publishes an annual report alleging that Hyundai
sent North Korea $800 million, including $400 million for
setting up facilities for bringing tourists from South to
North Korea.
Kang Sok- ju, North Korea first vice foreign minister,
acknowledges to US envoy James Kelly, leading a
delegation to Pyongyang, that North Korea has a program
for producing highly enriched uranium for nuclear
warheads.
Um Ho-s ung, a member of the National Assembly,
questions the transfer of $400 million to North Korea via
Hyundai Merchant Marines, from the government’s
Industrial Bank of Korea. Um Nak-y ong, former head of
the Industrial Bank, testifies about a suspicious loan to
Hyundai. The former head of Hyundai Commercial
Marine refuses to repay the loan, saying the government is
responsible for the loan. DJ’s government strongly,
repeatedly denies money delivery to the North.
The United States refuses to continue shipping heavy fuel
oil as it was doing under terms of the 1994 Geneva
Framework Agreement.
Roh Moo- hyun, dedicated to perpetuating DJ’s sunshine
policy, is elected as DJ’s successor over opposition leader
Lee Hoi- chang.
North Korea expels inspectors from the International
Atomic Energy Agency from the nuclear complex at
Yongbyon.
2003
January 10
North Korea formally withdraws from the nuclear
nonproliferation treaty.
January 30
Kim Ki- sam publishes an article on the Internet revealing
the entire secret Nobel Peace Prize operation, including
$1.5 billion in payoffs to North Korea to bring about the
Summit.
The Grand National Party passes a bill to name an
independent prosecutor to investigate the illegal money
delivery to the North.
February 4
208 CHRONOLOGY
February 14
February 17
February 25
March 14
April 17
June 26
August 4
President Kim at a press conference acknowledges transfer
of $500 million to the North, says it was to facilitate the
commercial deal between Hyundai and North Korea and
not a payoff for the Summit.
Monthly Chosun reports the international lobby for Kim
Dae- jung to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Roh Moo-h yun, at his inauguration as president, promises
to build on DJ’s policies.
Roh endorses the bill to appoint a special prosecutor
charged with investigating payoffs to North Korea.
The special prosecutor opens an investigation with a
seventy- day time limit.
The prosecutor indicts several former top government
officials, including Lim Dong-w on, Park Jie-w on, Lee
Ki- ho, economic adviser, and Chung Mong-h un,
chairman of Hyundai Asan, responsible for Hyundai’s
dealings with North, for payoffs to the North. The court
finds all of them guilty.
Chung Mong- hun plunges from the twelfth floor of
Hyundai headquarters in central Seoul. His death is
officially called a suicide despite suspicions that he may
have been thrown out of his office to keep him from
revealing secrets of the payoffs.
210 CAST OF CHARACTERS
Cast of Characters
South Korea
Ban Ki- moon, foreign minister; UN, secretarygeneral
Cho Gab- je, Monthly Chosun, editor
Cho Jun- oh, assistant to Kim Han- jung
Cho Young- hwan, University of Arizona, politics professor
Choi Dae- hwa, ambassador to Norway
Choi Jong- heup, NIS, intelligence officer, Oslo
Choi Kyu- ha, president, 1979– 80
Choi Kyung- hwan, National Assembly, member
Chun Doo- hwan, president, 1980– 88
Chun Yong- taek, NIS, director, May 1999 through December 1999
Chung Ju- yung, Hyundai Group, founder; opened business ties to North
Korea
Chung Mong- hun, Hyundai Asan, chairman; fifth son of Chung Ju- yung
Chung Mong- joon, Hyundai Heavy Industries, controlling shareholder;
sixth son of Chung Ju- yung; Korea Football Association, president
Han Bok- leo, June 2000 North- South Korea Summit, chef
Han Sung- joo, foreign minister; Forum of Democratic Leaders in the Asia
Pacific (FDL- AP), president
Hwang Woo- seok, Seoul National University, veterinary scientist
Hwang Won- tak, national security adviser for Kim Dae- jung
Ji Seung- lim, Samsung, press secretary
Kim Bo- hyun, NIS, deputy director
Kim Dae- jung, president, 1998 through 2003
Kim Han- jung, Blue House, chief of the first attachment chamber; NIS,
officer
Kim Hong- up, Kim Dae- jung’s second son
Kim Jung- kwon, Blue House, chief of staff
Kim Ki- wan, KCIA chief, Tokyo; father of Sung Kim, US ambassador
Kim
Myong-s ik,
Korean Overseas
Information
Service (KOIS), director- general
Kim Nam- yong, NIS, intelligence officer, Oslo
Kim Sang- woo, National Assembly; FDL- AP, president
Kim Suk- soo, prime minister, chairman, funeral committee
Kim Young- jun, NIS, foreign media spokesman
Kim Young- sam, president, 1993– 98
Koh Eun, poet
Lee Bong- jo, Blue House, unification secretary
Lee Byung- chun, NIS, intelligence officer, Oslo
Lee Hee- ho, wife of Kim Dae- jung
Lee Jong- bin, foreign minister under Kim Dae- jung
Lee Jong- chan, NIS, director
Lee Jong- hun, NIS; OECA, chief
Lee Ki- ho, Blue House, economic adviser
Lee Kun- hee, Samsung, chairman
Lee Woo- jong, social activist
Lee Young- jak, Hanyang University, professor; nephew of Lee Hee- ho
Lim Dong- won, national security adviser; NIS, director; unification
minister
Moon Jung- in, Yonsei University, dean, and professor of politics and
international relations
Park Chung- hee, president, 1963– 79
Park Jie- won, Blue House, chief of staff; culture and tourism minister
Park Jong- jae, NIS, intelligence officer, Stockholm
Park Kyung- suh, World Council of Churches, member; human rights
ambassador
Park Kyung- tae, ambassador to Norway
Park Tae- young, minister of industry and resources
Ra Jong- il, NIS, deputy director; ambassador to United Kingdom, Japan
Roh Moo- hyun, president, 2003– 8
Roh Tae- woo, president, 1988– 93
Son Myung- hyun, ambassador to Sweden
Song Doo- hwan, special prosecutor
Sun Jun- young, deputy foreign minister
Wang Dong- un, businessman, trading company CEO
Yoon Hyun (Benjamin Yoon), chairman, Citizens’ Alliance for North
Korean Human Rights
Yoon Seok- jung, Blue House, foreign press secretary
North Korea
Choe Ryong- hye, Central Military Commission, vice chairman,
CAST OF CHARACTERS 199
Choi Chang- il, Yun Isang Music Institute, director
Chon Keum- chul, Asia- Pacific Committee, deputy chief
Hwang Jang-y op, Workers’ Party, international secretary, defector
Jang Song- taek, National Defense Commission, vice chairman; brotherin- law of Kim Jong- il; husband of Kim Kyong- hui
Jo Myong- rok, National Defense Commission, vice chairman
Kang Chol- hwan, defector; author; journalist
Kang Sok- ju, first vice foreign minister
Kim Hee- suk, culture ministry, department chief
Kim Gye- kwan, nuclear negotiator
Kim Il- sung, eternal president; known as “Great Leader”
Kim Jong- il, Workers’ Party, eternal general secretary; National Defense
Commission, eternal chairman; known as “Dear Leader”
Kim Jong- nam, eldest son of Kim Jong- il
Kim Jong- un, Workers’ Party, first secretary; National Defense
Commission, first chairman
Kim Kyong- hui, Workers’ Party, politburo member; younger sister of
Kim Jong- il; wife of Jang Song- taek
Kim Yong- nam, Supreme People’s Assembly, chairman
Kim Yong- sun, Asia- Pacific Peace Committee; vice chairman,
Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland
Ko Yong- hui, mother of Kim Jong- un and Kim Jong- chul
Lee Dong- bok, delegate to North- South talks
Yi Han- yong, defector; son of Sung Hye- rang (sister of Sung Hye- rim
and mother of Kim Jong- nam)
Lee Su- ja, widow of Yun I- sang
Paek Nam- sun, foreign minister
Ri Yong- ho, general; armed forces chief
Song Ho- kyung, Asia- Pacific Peace Committee, deputy director
Sung Hye- rim, mother of Kim Jong- nam
Yun I- sang, Korean composer in Germany
Yun Jong, Yun I- sang’s daughter
Norway
Asheim, Nils Henrik, Norwegian Composers’ Association, president
Bastesen, Steinar, politician
Berge, Gunnar, Norwegian Nobel Committee, chairman
Bo, Trond, Aftenposten, correspondent
Bondevik, Kjell Magne, prime minister
Christiansen, Per, Aftenposten, correspondent
Egland, Jan, deputy foreign minister
Engelskjon, Torstein, Friends of North Korea Association, leader
Haagensen, Guri, Friends of North Korea Association, leader
Hersvik, Rune, Worldview Rights Foundation, general secretary
Hillestad, Erik, music director
Hjorthol, Lars M., Norsk Telegrambyrå (NTB), correspondent
Hveem, Helge, University of Oslo, politics professor
Jansen, Frank, Omega Television, president
Jebsen, Therese, Rafto Foundation, executive director
Kleppe, Vidar, Progressive Party
Klette, Leif, NATO, executive secretariat of the Secretary- General
Lindstroem, Bjarne, deputy foreign minister
Lodgaard, Sverre, Institute of International Affairs, president
Lund, Ragne Birte, ambassador to South Korea
Lundestad, Geir, Nobel Institute, director
Park No- ja, University of Oslo, professor
Pharo, Helge, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs; Norwegian
Nobel Committee, adviser
Rafto, Thorolf, economist
Ramstad, Jan, Rafto Foundation, director
Sejersted, Francis, Norwegian Nobel Committee, chairman
Simonsen, Jan, member of parliament, Progressive Party
Smith, Dan, International Peace Institute, president
Solheim, Erik, president, Worldview Rights Foundation
Stålsett, Gunnar Johan, bishop of Oslo
Stommen, Wegger, deputy foreign minister
Ullring, Sven, Korea- Norway Economic Cooperation Association,
chairman
Ytterborn, Inger M., Norwegian Nobel Committee, member
Sweden
Albons, Bengt, journalist, Dagens Nyheter
Berggren, Hans, translator
Choi Byung- eun, translator
Björck, Anders, defense minister; first vice speaker, parliament
Eliasson, Jan, deputy foreign minister
Han Young- woo, Swedish- Korean doctor (NIS alias “Han Sang- chul”)
Lindsten, Jan, Karolinska Institutet, dean
Lindqvist, Svante, Nobel Museum, director
Lintner, Bertil, Svenska Dagbladet, correspondent
CAST OF CHARACTERS 201
Loden, Trobjorn, Stockholm University Asia- Pacific Institute, president
Palme, Lisbet, widow of Olof Palme (prime minister)
Sohlman, Michael, Nobel Foundation, executive director
United States
Albright, Madeleine, secretary of state
Bosworth, Stephen, ambassador to South Korea, US envoy on North
Korea, dean, Fletcher School, Tufts University
Bush, George W., president, 2001– 9
Carter, Jimmy, president, 1977– 81
Clinton, Bill, president, 1993– 2001
Creekmore, Marion, aide to Jimmy Carter
Davies, Glyn, US envoy on North Korea
Foglietta, Michael “Tom,” congressman; ambassador to Italy
Gregg, Donald, CIA, Seoul station chief; ambassador to South Korea
Habib, Philip, ambassador to South Korea
Hinshaw- Thomas,
Janet, Prime- ECR,
president;
immigration representative
Holbrooke, Richard, ambassador to the UN; special envoy
Honeyman, Charles M., immigration judge
Ignatius, David, International Herald Tribune, editor; Washington Post,
columnist
Jackson, Michael, entertainer
Kelly, James, US envoy on North Korea
Kim, Sung, US ambassador to South Korea
Kissinger, Henry, secretary of state
Perry, William, defense secretary
Reischauer, Edwin O., Harvard University, professor; ambassador to
Japan
Scholte, Suzanne, Defense Forum Foundation, president
Tenet, George, CIA, director
Totten, George, University of Southern California, professor
Others
Ahtisaari, Martti, Finland, president
Al Walid, Saudi prince
Annan, Kofi, UN, secretarygeneral
Aquino, Corazon, Philippine, president
Arafat, Yasser, Palestine, leader
Arias Sánchez, Oscar, Costa Rica, president
Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar, opposition leader
Belo, Carlos Filipe Ximenes, East Timor, bishop
Gorbachev, Mikhail, Soviet Union, party general secretary
Gusmão, Xanana, East Timor, president
Hideo, Den, Japanese diet, member
Khalid Abdullah Tariq al- Mansour, UN, adviser to Kofi Annan
Mandela, Nelson, South Africa, president
Ramos- Horta, José, East Timor, president
Soros, George, billionaire investor
Thomson, Jeffery, New Zealand National Party, president
Tutu, Desmond, South Africa, archbishop
Woodad, Garry, Melbourne University, professor
Nobel Peace Prize Winners Cited
in This Book
2009—Barack Obama “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen
international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” 1
2008— Martti Ahtisaari “for his important efforts, on several continents
and over more than three decades, to resolve international
conflicts.”
2007— Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
“for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge
about man-m ade climate change, and to lay the foundations for
the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”
2002— Jimmy Carter “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful
solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and
human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”
2001— United Nations, Kofi Annan “for their work for a better
organized and more peaceful world.”
2000— Kim Dae- jung “for his work for democracy and human rights in
South Korea and in East Asia in general, and for peace and
reconciliation with North Korea in particular.”
1999— Médecins Sans Frontières “in recognition of the organization’s
pioneering humanitarian work on several continents.”
1998— John Hume, David Trimble “for their efforts to find a peaceful
solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland.”
1997— International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), Jody
Williams “for their work for the banning and clearing of anti-p
ersonnel mines.”
1996— Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, José Ramos-H orta “for their work
towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor.”
1994— Yasser Arafat, Simon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin “for their
efforts to create peace in the Middle East.”
1993— Nelson Mandela, Frederik William de Klerk “for their work for
the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying
the foundations for a new democratic South Africa.”
NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNERS CITED IN THIS BOOK
1991— Aung San Suu Kyi “for her nonviolent struggle for democracy and
human rights.”
1990— Mikhail Gorbachev “for his leading role in the peace process
which today characterizes important parts of the international
community.”
1987— Oscar Arias Sánchez “for his work for peace in Central America,
efforts which led to the accord signed in Guatemala on August 7 this
year.”
1984— Desmond Tutu “for his role as a unifying leader figure in the
campaign to resolve the problem of apartheid in South Africa.”
1983— Lech Walesa “stands as an inspiration and a shining example to all
those who, under different conditions, fight for freedom and
humanity.”
1974— Seán MacBride, Eisaku Sato “for having endeavored by practical
means to promote their ideals.” (MacBride for “a great contribution
to the cause of human rights” as president of the international board
of Amnesty International; Sato “as an encouragement to all who
work to ensure that the non-p roliferation agreement will receive the
widest possible support.”)
1973— Henry A. Kissinger, Le Duc Tho as “the two chief negotiators
who succeeded in arranging the ceasefire after negotiating for nearly
four years [to end the Vietnam War].” (Le Duc Tho, North Vietnam
negotiator, declined the award. Kissinger did not attend the
ceremony at which a statement was read on his behalf.)
1964— Martin Luther King Jr. as “the man who has never abandoned his
faith in the unarmed struggle he is waging, who has suffered for his
faith.”
Glossary
Abbreviations and Acronyms
APEC
ASEAN
Asia-P acific Economic Cooperation group
Association of Southeast Asian Nations
218
ASEM
Asia-E urope Meeting
CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
CNN
Cable News Network
COEX
Convention and Exhibition Center
CRS
Congressional Research Service
CSIS
Center for Strategic and International Studies
DMZ
demilitarized zone
FDL-A P
Forum of Democratic Leaders in the Asia Pacific
HEU
highly enriched uranium
IHT
International Horald Tribune
IMF
International Monetary Fund
KBS
Korean Broadcasting System
KCIA
Korean Central Intelligence Agency
KCNA
Korean Central News Agency
KOIS
Korean Oversea Information Service
NATO
North Atalantic Treaty Organization
NGO
nongovernmental organization
NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNERS CITED IN THIS BOOK
NIS
National Intellignece Service
NPT
nonproliferation treaty
NSPA
National Security Planning Agency
OECA
Office of External Cooperation Aid
POSCO Pohang Iron and Steel Company RENK
Korean People
SBS
Seoul Broadcasting System
SFCC
Seoul Foreign Correspondent’s Club
UN
United Nations
WCC
World Council of Churches
Rescue the North
WPK
Workers’ Party of Korea
220
Notes
Chapter 1
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
Charles M. Honeyman, “Oral Decision of the Immigration Judge,” Immigration Court, US Department of Justice, Philadelphia, PA, April 15, 2008, 4.
Ibid., 5.
Ibid., 3.
Yonhap News, “Nobel Prize Lobby Allegation Is Groundless,” April 23, 2008.
Charles M. Honeyman, “Decision and Order of the Immigration Judge,”
Immigration Court, US Department of Justice, Philadelphia, PA, December 11,
2011, 25.
Kim Ki- sam, conversation with Donald Kirk, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, April
2009.
Baek Seung-k u, “The True Picture of DJ’s International Lobby for Nobel Peace
Prize,” Monthly Chosun, March 2003, 257.
Ibid.
Honeyman, “Decision and Order,” 17.
Ibid.
Ibid., 26.
Ibid.
Ibid., 15.
Ibid., 17.
Janet Hinshaw- Thomas, conversation with Pamela Ransome, January 2012.
Honeyman, “Decision and Order,” 17.
James G. Zumwalt,“ For Want of a Prize, a Nation’s Security Is Lost,” Family
Security
Matters,
February
14,
2012,
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/ detail/for- want- of- aprize- a- nations- security- is- lost#ixzz2GCNSe3GG.
Donald Kirk, “The South Korean Spy Chief Who Paved the Way for Thaw with
North,” International Herald Tribune, January 31, 2001, 2.
Oh Young- jin, “NK Bribery Article Likely to Test Gov’t Will,” The Korea
Times, February 5, 2001.
Kim Myong- sik, conversation with Donald Kirk, Seoul, February 2001.
Chung Mong- joon, “Seeing Mr. Kim Ki- sam’s Asylum in the U.S.,” Dong A
Ilbo, February 18, 2012.
Ibid.
Ibid.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
221
Kim Ki- sam, conversation with Donald Kirk, Harrisburg, April 2009.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Baek, “The True Picture,” 271. The financial crisis of 1997– 98 was often
called “the IMF crisis” by Koreans since the International Monetary Fund had
put together a $58 billion loan package to rescue the South Korean economy.
Ibid., 262.
Yun Seok-j in, “Former Chief of the First Attachment Chamber Kim Han-j
ung’s Memoir on 1,200 days of Assistance for DJ,” Monthly JoongAng, July
2003.
Baek, “The True Picture,” 263.
Kim Ki- sam, Kim Dae-j unggwa Daehanminkukeul Malhanda (My
Testimony on Kim Dae Jung and the Republic of Korea) (Seoul: Bibong
Publishing Co., 2010), 22.
Baek, “The True Picture,” 264.
Kim Ki- sam, conversation with Donald Kirk, February 2012.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Chapter 2
1. Kwon Young- min, Ja- ne Chulse Haetne (You Become a Success) (Seoul:
Hyungmun Media, 2008), 156– 58.
2. Ibid., 159.
3. Ibid., 163.
4. Dong A Ilbo, “Nobel Peace Prize Promotion for YS,” July 28, 1998.
5. Ibid. 6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Kwon, You Become a Success, 181.
9. Ibid., 182– 83.
10. Ibid., 200.
11. Yang Se-h un, Changchunesuh Oslokkaji (From Changchun to Oslo) (Seoul:
Kiparang, August 5, 2005), 364.
12. Ibid., 366. 13. Ibid., 367. 14. Ibid., 369. 15. Ibid., 370.
16. Ibid., 372.
17. Nobelprize.org, “The Nobel Peace Prize 1998,” November 23, 2012, http://
www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1998.
18. Yang, From Changchun to Oslo, 372.
19. Ibid., 372– 73.
20. Ibid., 373.
21. Ahn Ki- seok, “President Kim Dae- jung and Nobel Peace Prize,”
ShinDongA, August 1999.
NOTES
222 NOTES
22. Han Sang- jin, invitation letter from the Academy of Korean Studies,
February 3, 1999.
23. Gunnar Stålsett, NIS files, email to Kim Han- jung, March 12, 1999.
24. Yang, From Changchun to Oslo, 379.
25. Ibid., 381.
26. Ibid., 382.
27. Dong A Ilbo, “Blue House Chief Lobbied for Nobel,” February 5, 2003.
Chapter 3
1. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding publication of President’s prison
memoirs, Stockholm, October 1998.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding publication party for President’s
book, Stockholm, September 9, 1999.
5. NIS internal memo regarding Swedish journal that carried President’s book
review, November 9, 1999.
6. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding the plan of President’s second
biography by government information agency, Stockholm, December 6, 1999.
7. Ibid.
8. NIS internal memo regarding former Swedish intelligence officer who lost
chance for promotion due to special operation, January 2000.
9. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding the handling of second book by
government information agency, Stockholm, March 2000.
10. Ibid.
11. Nobel Museum, “The Centennial Exhibition of the Nobel Prize, 1901– 2001,”
pamphlet, 2001.
12. Ibid.
13. NIS internal memo regarding review on the financial support for Nobel Prize
Centennial Exhibition, December 3, 1999.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding hosting of Nobel Prize
Centennial Exhibition in Korea, etc., Stockholm, October 1999.
17. NIS internal memo regarding the financial support for Nobel Prize Centennial Exhibition, January 25, 2000.
18. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding the Nobel Prize Centennial
Exhi-bition, Stockholm, November 26, 1999.
19. Ibid.
20. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding Nobel Prize Centennial Exhibition, Stockholm, January 20, 2000.
21. NIS internal memo regarding talking points reference, February 2000.
22. Letter of intent between the Nobel Museum and the Hoam Foundation, February 28, 2000.
223
23. Ibid.
24. NIS internal memo regarding major history of Nobel Foundation, 1999.
25. NIS internal memo regarding development of relationship between Nobel
Foundation and Hoam Foundation, 2000.
26. NIS internal document, project schedule, February 2000.
27. NIS internal memo regarding Sohlman’s visit to Seoul, March 2000.
28. Ibid.
29. NIS internal document, categorized details on budget, March 2000.
30. Kyunghyang Sinmun, “President’s Prison Letter Will Be Displayed in the
Exhibition,” December 8, 2000.
31. Herald Economics, “Samsung Electronics MP3 Will Be Displayed at Nobel
Museum,” April 16, 2001.
32. Seoul Sinmun, “Stricter Scrutiny, If Lobby Is Suspected, Sohlman Said,”
August 24, 2002.
Chapter 4
1. Kyunghyang Sinmun, “With Michael Jackson,” June 26, 1999.
2. PRESSian, “DJ Prayed over Michael Jackson’s Death,” June 26, 2009.
3. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding Rune Hersvik, Oslo, January
2000.
4. Dong A Ilbo, “Behind the Scenes of Nobel Prize Winning,” March 26, 2003.
5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. NIS memo {AU: Difference between memo and internal memo?} regarding
Rafto Deputy Director requesting an interview with Hwang Jang- yop, June
17, 1999.
10. Ibid.
11. NIS internal memo regarding Rafto Deputy Director’s visit to Seoul, June 22,
1999.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. NIS internal memo regarding outcome of Rafto Deputy Director’s Visit to
Seoul, June 26, 1999.
15. Ibid. 16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding Rune Hersvik’s departure to
North Korea, Oslo, January 2000.
19. Ibid.
20. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable, debriefing of Rune Hersvik’s visit to the
North, Oslo, January 13, 2000.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
NOTES
224
23.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
NOTES
Ibid. 24. Ibid.
Ibid.
NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding outcome of telephone conversation with the director of Worldview Rights, Oslo, February 2000.
NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding outcome of contact with Rune
Hersvik, Oslo, February 28, 2000.
Ibid.
Rune Hersvik, NIS files, letter to Park Kwon- sang, April 29, 2000.
Hersvik, Oslo, February 28, 2000.
NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding list of requests for Rune
Hersvik, Oslo, April 7, 2000.
Ibid.
Hersvik, Oslo, April 10, 2000.
Ibid.
NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding details of Hersvik’s tip-o ffs,
NIS cable, Oslo, April 26, 2000.
Chapter 5
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
Kim Dae- jung, Philosophy & Dialogues: Building Peace & Democracy
(New York: Korean Independent Monitor, August 1987), cover.
PRESSian, “DJ Was Already a Strong Contender for Nobel Peace Prize in
1987,” March 11, 2011.
Ibid.
Nobelprize.org, “The Nobel Peace Prize 1987,” November 23, 2012, http://
Ahn, “President Kim Dae- jung.”
Nobelprize.org. “The Nobel Peace Prize 1993,” November 23, 2012, http://
Nobelprize.org, “The Nobel Peace Prize 1994,” November 23, 2012, http://
Ahn, “President Kim Dae- jung.”
Seoul Broadcasting System, “Current Issues,” September 1, 1997.
Baek. “The True Picture of DJ’s International Lobby,” Monthly Chosun,
March 2003, 263.
Ibid., 264.
Dong A Ilbo, “Relations between DJ’s Nobel Prize and East Timor,” February
5, 2003.
Dong A Ilbo, “Blue House Chief Lobbied for Nobel,” February 5, 2003.
Ibid.
Nobelprize.org. “The Nobel Peace Prize 1996,” November 24, 2012, http://
225
16. Oh Dong-r yong, “Interview with José Ramos Horta, Foreign Minister of East
Timor,” Monthly Chosun, February 2004.
17. Yun Seok- jin, “Former Chief of the First Attachment.”
18. Ibid.
19. Donald Kirk, Korea Betrayed: Kim Dae Jung and Sunshine (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan), 107– 8, 209.
20. National Constitution Center, Philadelphia, PA, “Kim Dae- jung: 1999
Liberty
Metal
Recipient,”
http://constitutioncenter.org/libertymedal/recipient_1999 .html.
21. Kirk, Korea Betrayed, 205.
23. NIS internal memo regarding strategic approach to Nobel Peace Prize, January 1999.
24. Ibid.
25. NIS report to the president, “Circumstances and Prospects for this Year,”
April 21, 2000, 1.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid., 2.
28. Ibid.
29. Nobelprize.org, “The Nobel Peace Prize 1973,” Novemer 24, 2012,
http://www .nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1973.
30. NIS report to the president, “Circumstances and Prospects for this Year,”
April 21, 2000, 1.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid., 3. 33. Ibid., 5.
34. Ibid., 6.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid., 3. 38. Ibid., 7. 39. Ibid., 4. 40. Ibid., 8.
41. Ibid., 7.
42. Ibid.
Chapter 6
1. James Angleton, legendary CIA chief of counterintelligence, described the
frustrations of counterespionage as a “wilderness of mirrors.” The phrase is
from the T. S. Eliot poem “Gerontion.”
2. NIS report to president, “Circumstances and Prospects for this Year,” April 21,
2000, 8.
3. Ibid., 9.
ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS
4. Ibid.
226 NOTES
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., 10.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., 11.
9. Ibid. 10. Ibid.
11. NIS internal memo regarding the “master
plan,” May 2000.
12. Ibid., 1. 13. Ibid., 3.
14. Ibid., 5.
15. Ibid.
16. Kim Ki- sam, Testimony, 43.
17. Dong A Ilbo, “Prime Minister Kang Met Family in Pyongyang,” October 22,
1990.
18. Choi Won-k i and Chung Chang-h yun, Nam Buk Jungsang Hoidam 600 Il
(600 Days for North- South Summit) (Seoul: Kimyoungsa, 2000), 193.
19. Lee Do-h yung, Kim Dae- jung Oeieok (Kim Dae- jung Suspicions) (Seoul:
Korea Forum, 2002), 38.
20. Ibid., 40.
22. Ibid., 46.
23. Ibid., 47.
24. The White House, “Remarks by President Bush and President Kim Dae Jung
of South Korea,” March 7, 2001.
Chapter 7
1. Office of Bishop Stålsett, “Curriculum Vitae,” fax relayed to NIS from NIS
intelligence officer, Korean embassy, Oslo, February 8, 1999.
2. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding outcome of contact with Bishop
Stålsett, Oslo, March 31, 2000.
3. Ibid., 1. 4. Ibid., 3. 5. Ibid., 4.
6. Ibid., 5.
7. NIS intelligence shelling officer, NIS cable regarding outcome of Ambassador’s contact with Bishop Stålsett, Oslo, April 15, 2000, 1.
8. Ibid., 2.
9. Ibid.
10. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding outcome of Ambassador’s
contact with Bishop Stålsett, Oslo, June 6, 2000, 1.
11. Ibid., 2.
12. Ibid.
13. Kirk, “The South Korean Spy Chief Who Paved the Way for Thaw with
227
14. Kim Dae-j ung and Kim Jong-i l, “South-N orth Joint Declaration,” June 15,
2000, copy provided by Chong Wa Dae (Blue House), Office of the President,
Republic of Korea.
15. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding concerns of Bishop Stålsett,
Oslo, August 21, 2000.
16. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding contents of Ambassador’s interview with Bishop Stålsett, Oslo, September 6, 2000.
17. Ibid., 1.
18. Ibid., 2.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., 3.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Ahn, “President Kim Dae- jung.”
contact with the Director of Nobel Institute, Oslo, February 4, 2000.
25. Ibid., 2.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid., 3.
contact with Director Lundestad, Oslo, June 20, 2000, 1.
29. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding outcome of Ambassador’s interview with the Director of Nobel Institute, Oslo, July 7, 2000, 1.
30. Ibid., 2.
31. Ibid.
Chapter 8
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Choi Won- ki, Chung Chang- hyun, 600 Days for North- South Summit, 154.
Kirk, Korea Betrayed, 152– 53.
Kim Ki- sam, Testimony, 26.
TBS- TV (Tokyo Broadcasting System), February 9, 2000.
Ibid., 31.
Choi Won- ki, Chung Chang- hyun, 600 Days for North- South Summit, 16.
Ibid., 21.
Ibid.
Gab- je Cho, “Kim Jong- Il Postponed DJ’s Visit Due to Delay of Money
Trans-fer,” Monthly Chosun, March 2012.
10. Officers of the National Intelligence Service raised these possibilities in
private conversations with Kim Ki- sam while he was on the NIS staff.
11. Ibid., 52. 12. Ibid., 55.
13. Ibid., 56.
228 NOTES
14. Ibid., 69.
15. Kim Ki- sam, interview with Donald Kirk, June 2000, quoted in Korea
Betrayed, 166. 16. Ibid.
Chapter 9
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
NIS internal memo regarding support for former Norwegian Prime Minister
Bondevik’s visit to Seoul, August 10, 2000.
Ibid.
Donald Kirk, notes on the first inter- Korean family reunion, August 15, 2000.
Trond Bo, “Strong Experience, Says Bondevik,” Aftenposten, August 16,
2000.
Ibid.
Erik R. Selmer, “Presidential Meeting and Historical Tears for Bondevik in
Seoul,” Dagsavisen, August 16, 2000.
Ibid.
NIS intelligence officer, “Bondevik’s Trip to North Korea,” NIS cable, Oslo,
August 24, 2000.
Ibid.
“The Growing Severity of the International Terrorism Situation,” Focus 271,
National
Police
Agency,
Tokyo,
2005,
15,
http://www.npa.go.jp/archive/keibi/
syouten/syouten271/english/pdf/sec04.pdf; Kirk, Korea Betrayed, 173.
Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Pyongyang, September 11, 2000,
cited in Kirk, Korea Betrayed, 173.
Baek, “The True Picture,” March 2003, 266.
NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding outcome of meeting with Ramstad, Oslo, August 22, 2000.
Ibid., 2. 15. Ibid., 3.
Ibid., 4.
Ibid.
Ibid., 5.
Therese Jebsen, conversation by telephone with Donald Kirk, July 15, 2009,
in Kirk, Korea Betrayed, 206.
NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding outcome of interview with
Rams-tad, Oslo, September 7, 2000.
Ibid., 2.
Ibid.
Chapter 10
1.
2.
NIS internal memo regarding conference on coordination of overseas public
relations, January 24, 2000.
Ibid., 2.
NOTES 229
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
Ibid.
Ibid., 1.
Ibid., 2.
NIS report to the president, “Reality and Counter-M easures on AntiGovernment Criticism by Korean American Journalists,” February 14, 2000.
Ibid., 4.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Son Chung-m u, interview, Korean television channel, Los Angeles,
September 3, 2006.
NIS official remark to Kim Ki- sam, April 1999.
Ibid.
NIS report to the president, “Circumstances and Prospects for this Year,”
April 21, 2000, 7.
Ibid.
Bertil Lintner, “The Two Kims Break the Ice,” Svenska Dagbladet, June 15,
2000.
Ibid.
Bertil Lintner, “Unified Korea Frightens Japan,” Svenska Dagbladet, June 16,
2000.
Ibid.
Bengt Albons, “Peace Has Become Visible,” Dagens Nyheter, June 16, 2000.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Torstein Engelskjon and Guri Haagensen, “Summit in Pyongyang,” Friheten,
June 30, 2000.
Aftenposten, “Quiet Marking,” June 26, 2000.
Aftenposten, “North Korea Launching Diplomatic Offence,” July 25, 2000.
Kirk, Korea Betrayed, 167.
Ibid., 170– 71.
Aftenposten, “Quiet Marking,” June 26, 2000.
Per Christiansen, “Americans Meet a New Day Every Day in Korea,”
Aftenposten, September 9, 2000.
Donald Kirk, “Byproduct of Korean Rapprochement: Tension in South with
U.S. Forces,” International Herald Tribune, September 6, 2000.
Christiansen, “Americans Meet a New Day,” September 9, 2000.
Chapter 11
1. NIS internal memo, résumé of Swedish-K orean Han Young-w oo, drafted by
NIS, January 2000.
2. Dong A Ilbo, “Baby Suffering from Hydrocephalus,” November 10, 1996.
3. NIS internal memo, summary of activities of Swedish-K orean informant Han
Young- woo, January 2000.
230 NOTES
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding support of operation materials at
change of year, Stockholm, November 1998.
7. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable, request for providing support at airport,
Stockholm, September 1998.
8. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding meeting of Korea- friendly
parlia-mentary members, Stockholm, March 10, 1999.
9. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding Nobel Foundation director’s visit
to Seoul, Stockholm, February 21, 1998.
13. Ibid.
14. Hankook Ilbo, “Interview with Michael Sohlman, Director of Nobel
Foundation,” March 6, 1998.
15. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding Nobel Foundation Director’s
visit to Seoul, Stockholm, February 21, 1998.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding Han Sang- chul’s visit to Seoul,
Stockholm, February 2000. (Han Sang-c hul was an alias sometimes used by
the NIS for security reasons in reference to Dr. Han Young- woo.)
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. NIS internal memo, report on NB Project, March 2000.
22. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding outcome of Han Sang-c hul’s
con-tact with Swedish Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, Stockholm, March
2000. (Han Sang- chul was NIS alias for Dr. Han Young- woo.)
23. Ibid. 24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Yonhap News, “I Want to See a Korean Win the Nobel Science Prize,”
September 4, 2004.
27. Ibid.
28. Hankyoreh Sinmun, “Han Young- woo, Senior Adviser to Nobel Museum,”
June 10, 2005.
29. Munhwa Ilbo, “Feud on Nobel Promotion for Prof. Hwang Woo- seok,”
January 14, 2006.
30. Ibid.
31. Hankyoreh Sinmun, “Increase of Prof. Hwang Woo- seok’s $500,000
Suspicion,” March 2, 2006.
32. Yonhap News, March 2, 2006.
33. Hankyoreh Sinmun, “Increase of Prof. Hwang Woo- seok’s $500,000
Suspicion.”
34. Song Seung-h o, “Back Story on DJ’s Nobel Lobby and NIS’s Involvement,”
Monthly Chosun, October 2004, 190.
NOTES 231
Chapter 12
1. Yun Seok- jin, “Former Chief of the First Attachment.”
2. NIS internal memo, report regarding FDL Project, October 1999.
3. Nobelprize.org. “The Nobel Peace Prize 1999,” November 23, 2012, http://
4. NIS intelligence officer, NIS cable regarding article on Nobel Peace Prize recommendation, Oslo, February 2000.
5. Ibid.
6. Gunnar Berge made the widely-q uoted remark at a news conference, Oslo,
October 11, 2002.
7. Norwegian Nobel Committee announcement, Oslo, October 11, 2002.
8. Aftenposten, “Peace Broker Risks Legal Proceedings,” January 22, 1999.
10. Aftenposten, “Worthy of Nobel Prize,” February 25, 1999. 11. Ahn, “President
Kim Dae- jung.”
12. Baek, “The True Picture,” 267.
13. Ilyo Seoul, “Dr. Corn said, ‘I Was Thoroughly Taken Advantage of by DJ,’”
January 31, 2007.
14. Lars M. Hjorthol, “Nobel Committee Down to the Final Sprint,” Norsk
Telegrambyrå (NTB), September 5, 2000.
15. Ibid.
16. Norwegian Nobel Committee, press release, October 13, 2000;
Nobelprize.org, “The Nobel Peace Prize 2000,” November 23, 2012,
http://www.nobelprize .org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2000.
20. Ibid.
21. United Nations General Assembly, Plenary 1a, Press Release GA/9533, 86th
Meeting, December 10, 1998. The UN Human Rights Award, given every
five years, went in 1998 to Jimmy Carter and four others, from Brazil, the
Czech Republic, Sri Lanka, and Uganda.
22. International League for Human Rights, press release, June 6, 1998. The
award was presented by Jerome J. Shestack, then president of the American
Bar Association, and Patricia Derian, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State
for Human Rights in the Carter administration.
23. Chosun Ilbo, “DJ’s Statue Reading Suhakui Jung- seok (Standard Rules of
Mathematics) Upside Down,” August 13, 2012.
24. Kirk, Korea Betrayed, 1– 2.
25. Ibid., 11.
26. Ibid., 14– 15.
27. Ibid., 37.
28. Ibid., 40– 43.
29. Ibid., 45– 47.
232 NOTES
30. Kim Hyeh-w on, “For New U.S. Ambassador, a Mixed Reception for a Native
Son,” Yonhap News, October 31, 2011. Kim Ki- wan, a former Air Force
colonel, chief of the psychlogical warfare division in the KCIA before going
to Tokyo, had been on a Korean passenger plane that was hijacked to
Pyongyang during a flight from Pusan to Seoul on February 16, 1958. Eight
passengera were held in the North, but the North Koreans apparently did not
know his importance and released him along with the pilot and 26 others. His
oldest son, Kim Joon- yong, Sung Kim’s older brother, was named head of
the Seoul office of Squire Sanders, an American law firm, in 2012.
31. Ibid., 116.
32. Kim Dae-j ung made this famous remark at a debate at the Kwanhun Club, a
Korean journalists association, on October 8, 1997.
33. Norwegian Nobel Committee press release, October 13, 2000.
Chapter 13
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
Lim Do-k yung, “Lay the Blue Carpet,” Newsweek, Korean edition, October
9, 2002.
Ibid.
Dong A Ilbo, “GNP and Blue House Fought Over DJ’s Nobel Lobby
Allegation,” October 10, 2002.
OhmyNews, “DJ Nobel Lobby Allegation is the Result of Ignorance,”
October 14, 2002.
Kirk, “The South Korean Spy Chief Who Paved the Way for Thaw with
Niksch, Larry A., “US- South Korean Relations: Issues for Congress,”
Congres-sional Research Service, June 19, 2002, 10.
Ibid., citing Chosun Ilbo, “US Expresses Concern Over Aid to NK,” February
25,
2001,
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2001/02/25/2001022561173.ht
ml.
Niksch. “Korea- U.S. Relations: Issues for Congress,” CRS, January 12, 2010,
13, citing The Korea Herald, February 5, 2001. The word “Hyundai” was in
brackets in this report and others that Niksch had written since 2002.
Chosun Ilbo, “Feud in National Assembly Over Allegation of Support to the
North,” October 5, 2005.
Kirk, Korea Betrayed, 186. Veteran interpreter Tong Kim, present during the
meeting with Kang Sok- ju, verified Kang’s affirmation of the HEU program.
OhmyNews, “Hyundai Commercial Marine Sent $200 million to the North,”
January 29, 2003.
Kim Ki- sam, Testimony, 19.
Ibid., 26.
Ibid.
Ibid.
NOTES 233
16. Ibid., 31.
17. Ibid.
18. Kim Han-j ung, Naeui Mentor Kim Dae- jung (My Mentor Kim Dae-j ung)
(Seoul: Hakgoje, December 2011).
19. Baek, “The True Picture,” 268.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid., 271. 23. Ibid., 270.
24. Ibid., 254.
26. Ibid.
27. Yonhap News, “Hyundai Sent $500 Million to the North,” February 14, 2003.
Kim Dae-j ung acknowledged this figure at a press conference with Park Jiewon and Lim Dong- won. On January 29, 2003, Ohmynews reported that the
South had sent $200 million. DJ revised the figure upward after Kim Ki- sam
published an article on January 30 saying the figure was $1.5 billion.
28. Ryu Si- min, It’s Fate (Seoul: Dolbegae, 2010).
30. YTN, cable news network, June 25, 2004, cited in Kirk, Korea Betrayed, 194.
32. Ibid., 200.
33. Kim Sung- dong, “Chung Mong- hun’s Path to Death,” Monthly Chosun,
February 2006.
34. Kirk, Korea Betrayed, 201– 3. Lim Dong- won’s sentence for violating the
foreign exchange transactions act was suspended. Park Jie- won was
sentenced to twelve years for masterminding the transfer of cash, but the
Supreme Court vacated that sentence in 2006. He was sentenced to three
years, however, for arranging the payoffs and taking smaller bribes.
35. NIS, press release, February 4, 2003.
36. Ibid.
37. Kim Sung- dong, “Chung Mong- hun’s Path to Death,” 267.
38. Ibid., 256.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
Chapter 14
1.
2.
3.
4.
Kirk, Korea Betrayed, 182– 83.
Seoul Broadcasting System, “I am DJ’s Daughter,” April 19, 2004.
Kim Ki-s am, interview on “Sisung Jipjung” (“Vision Focus”), Munhwa
Broadcasting Corporation, July 22, 2005.
The New York Times, “Pakistani Says He Saw North Korean Nuclear
Devices,” April 13, 2004.
234 NOTES
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
Mainichi Shimbun, “Disguised Carriage of Nuclear Device from Pakistan to
North Korea,” December 29, 2002.
Ibid.
Hwang Jang- yop, Bukhanoei Jinsilgwa Huwui (The Truth and Falsehood of
North Korea), Korea Institute of National Unification, December 1998, 14.
Ibid., 16.
Ibid., 16.
Roh Tae- woo, Memoir (Seoul: Chosun News Press, 2011).
Lee Do-h yung, Kim Dae- jung Suspicions, 32.
Kukmin Ilbo, “How Much Funneled to the North?” October 18, 2006.
Dong A Ilbo, “North Korea, Negative 1.1 Percent Growth Last Year,” August
27, 1999.
Yonhap News, “UN Secretary-G eneral Ban Writes Diary Every Day,”
September 27, 2012.
Dong A Ilbo, “North, South, and the U.S. in Rice’s Memoir,” November 2,
2011.
Andrew Ward, “Lunch with the FT: Kim Dae Jung,” Financial Times, June
19, 2004.
Kyunghyang Shinmun, “North Korea’s Purpose Is to Restore Relations with
US,” October 6, 2004.
Kim Dae- jung, interview conducted by Allan Pizzey, CBS News correspondent, on his first visit to South Korea, Seoul, October 14, 2006. Donald Kirk,
representing CBS Radio, attended the interview.
Kim Dae- jung, at a luncheon at the Fletcher School of Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, hosted by Fletcher dean Stephen Bosworth, April 23,
2008. Donald Kirk attended the luncheon.
Kim Suk-s oo, Kim Dae-j ung’s last prime minister and chairman of the
funeral committee, included these words in his memorial speech at DJ’s
funeral, August 23, 2009. The words, in Korean, are carved on DJ’s
tombstone in Seoul National Cemetery.
Chapter 15
1.
2.
3.
4.
KCNA, Pyongyang, December 22, 2011. Kim Jong- il was born near Khaborovsk in eastern Siberia. Kim Il- sung, having fought the Japanese in
Manchuria before the war, was by then an officer in the Soviet army, far from
combat.
Yi Han- yong, Daedonggang Royal Family Seoul Jamhaeng 14 Nyun
(Daedong River Royal Family Member’s Fourteen Years of Secret Life in
Seoul) (Seoul: Dong A Publishers, 1996).
Yoji Gomi, My Father Kim Jong- il and Me: Kim Jong- nam’s Exclusive
Confession (Tokyo: Bungei Shunju, January 18, 2012).
“French Doctor Confirms Kim Had Stroke in 2008,” Associated Press, Paris,
December 19, 2011,
NOTES 235
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
“Top 4 N. Korean Military Officials Fall Victim to Shakeup,” Chosun Ilbo,
November 30, 2012, http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/
11/30/2012113001209.html.
KCNA, Pyongyang, April 15, 2012.
Ibid., July 16, 2012.
“North Korea Credits New Leader with Nuke Testing,” Associated Press,
Pyongyang, January 20, 2012.
Ibid.
NORAD News, “NORAD Acknowledges Missile Launch,” North American
Aerospace Defense Command, December 11, 2012. The launch was on
December 12 at 9:49 a.m., Korea time.
KCNA, Pyongyang, December 13, 2012.
Donald Kirk, “Both Koreas Are Ruled by Women,” The Atlantic, April 23,
2013.
“Possible Radioactive Traces Found from North Korea Nuclear Test,”
Reuters, Vienna, April 23, 2013.
“Guarantee for National Security and Prosperity,” Rodong Sinmun, April 20,
2013.
Rodong Sinmun, “The Revolutionary Heritage of Comrade Kim Jong-i l,”
December 28, 2011.
Ibid.
“Kim Dae- jung’s Final Interview,” conducted by BBC correspondent John
Sudworth, Seoul, July 2009, broadcast on the day of DJ’s death, August 18,
2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asiapacific/8206767.stm.
New Daily, “DJ Should Have Won Nobel Physics Prize, Not Nobel Peace
Prize,”
September
8,
2010,
www.newdaily.co.kr,
http://www.newdaily.co.kr/news/ article.html?no=55949. Kim Ki- sam held
the press conference at Fort Lee, New Jersey, on September 7, 2010.
Epilogue
1. Norwegian Nobel Committee, “Symbol of Japan’s Will for Peace,”
http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/laureates/laureates- 1974/sato- bio.
2. Ibid.,
“Bombs
and
CeaseFire
in
Vietnam,”
http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/laureates/laureates1973/kissinger- bio.
3. Dag Kühle-G otovac, Head of Administration, Norwegian Nobel Institute,
email to Donald Kirk, January 16, 2013.
4. Sisa Journal, “Korea Missed the Chance of Nobel Prize Three Times—
Interview with Dr. Han Young- woo,” March 11, 2011.
236 NOTES
Nobel Peace Prize Winners
1. Nobelprize.org, “All Nobel Peace Prizes,” December 11, 2012, http://www
.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates.
Bibliography
Note on National Intelligence Service (NIS) sources
The authors made use of numerous secret and confidential documents from
NIS files. These include reports to President Kim Dae- jung, cables from
NIS officers in Oslo and Stockholm, and internal NIS memos. These
documents are cited in the footnotes.
Following are “open” sources cited in the book:
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chogapje.com, 2006.
Choi Won- ki and Chung Chang- hyun. Nambuk Jungsang Hoidam 600 Il (600 Days
for North- South Summit). Seoul: Kimyoungsa, August 13, 2000.
Dong A Ilbo Special Team. Ileoburin Ohnyun Kalkuksueseh IMF Kaj (The Lost Five
Years from Knife Noodle to IMF). 2 vols. Seoul: Dong A Ilbo Publishing, April
30, 1999.
———. Kim Dae- jung Jungkwonoei Heungmang (The Rise and Fall of the Kim
Dae- jung Regime). Seoul: Nanam Publishers, April 5, 2005.
Ham Yoon- sik. Dongkyodong 24 Si (Dongkyodong 24 Hours). Seoul: Woosung,
1987.
Hwang Jang-y op. Bukhanoei Jinsilgwa Huwui (The Truth and Falsehood of North
Korea). Korea Institute of National Unification, December 1998.
Kang Chol- hwan and Pierre Rigolout. Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the
North Korean Gulag. New York: Basic Books, 2002.
Kim Dae-j ung. From Prison to President. Stockholm: Asia-P acific Institute of
Stockholm University, 1999.
———. Prison Writings. Translated by Choi Sung- il and David R. McCann.
Foreword by David R. McCann. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
Reprint, Okjung Seoshin (Prison Letters). Seoul: Hanul, 2004.
———. Philosophy & Dialogues: Building Peace & Democracy. New York:
Korean Independent Monitor, August1987.
Kim Han-j ung. Naeui Mentor Kim Dae- jung (My Mentor Kim Dae- jung). Seoul:
Hakgoje, December 2011.
238
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kim Ki-s am. Kimdaejunggwa Dahanminkukeul Malhanda (My Testimony on Kim
Dae Jung and the Republic of Korea), Seoul: Bibong Publishing Co., August 10,
2010.
Kirk, Donald. Kim Dae Jung Shinhwa (Legend of Kim Dae Jung). Seoul: Bugeul
Books, January 20, 2010.
———. Korea Betrayed: Kim Dae Jung and Sunshine. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2009.
———. Korean Crisis: Unraveling of the Miracle in the IMF Era. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2000.
Kwon Young- min. Ja- ne Chulse Haetne (You Become a Success). Seoul:
Hyungmun Media, 2008.
Lee Do- hyung. Kim Dae- jung Oeieok (Kim Dae- jung Suspicions). Seoul: Korea
Forum, June 2002.
Lee Young-j ak. Lee Young-j ak Report (Kim Dae- jung Campaign Strategy Report).
Seoul: Nanam Publishers, 2002.
Moon Jae- in. Wunmyung (Fate). Seoul: Gagyo Publishing, 2011.
Roh Tae- woo. Hoigorok (Memoir). Seoul: Chosun News Press, 2011.
Ryu Si- min. Wunmyungyida (It’s Fate). Seoul: Dolbegae, 2010.
Son Chung- mu. Kim Dae- jung X- File. Seoul: Saesesang, 1997.
Yang Se-h un. Changchunesuh Oslokkaji (From Changchun to Oslo). Seoul:
Kiparang, August 5, 2005.
Yi Han-y ong. Daedonggang Royal Family Seoul Jamhaeng 14 Nyun (Daedong
River Royal Family Member’s Fourteen Years of Secret Life in Seoul). Seoul:
Dong A Publishers, 1996.
Yoji Gomi. My Father Kim Jong- il and Me: Kim Jong- nam’s Exclusive Confession.
Tokyo: Bungei Shunju, January 18, 2012.
Articles in Magazines, Newspapers, and Websites
Aftenposten. “North Korea Launching Diplomatic Offence,” July 25, 2000.
———. “Peace Broker Risks Legal Proceedings,” January 22, 1999.
———. “Quiet Marking,” June 26, 2000.
———. “Strong Experience, Says Bondevik,” August 16, 2000.
———. “Worthy of Nobel Prize,” February 25, 1999.
Ahn Ki-s eok. ShinDongA, “President Kim Dae-j ung and Nobel Peace Prize,”
August 1999.
Albons, Bengt. Dagens Nyheter, “Peace Has Become Visible,” June 16, 2000.
Baek Seung- ku. Monthly Chosun, “The True Picture of DJ’s International Lobby
for Nobel Peace Prize,” March 2003, 252– 71.
Chosun Ilbo. “All Four Generals Who Guided the Hearse Were Replaced,”
November 29, 2012.
———. “DJ’s Statue Reading Suhakui Jung- seok (Standard Rules of Mathematics)
Upside Down,” August 13, 2012.
———. “Feud in National Assembly over Allegation of Support to the North,”
October 5, 2005.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 225
Christiansen, Per. Aftenposten, “Americans Meet a New Day Everyday in Korea,”
September 9, 2000.
Chung Mong- joon. Dong A Ilbo, “Seeing Mr. Kim Ki- sam’s Asylum in the U.S.,”
February 18, 2012.
Dong A Ilbo. “Baby Suffering from Hydrocephalus,” November 10, 1996.
———. “Behind the Scenes of Nobel Prize Winning,” March 26, 2003.
———. “Blue House Chief Lobbied for Nobel,” February 5, 2003.
———. “GNP and Blue House Fought over DJ’s Nobel Lobby Allegation,” October
10, 2002.
———. “Nobel Peace Prize Promotion for YS,” July 28, 1998.
———. “North, South, and the US in Rice’s Memoir,” November 2, 2011.
———. “North Korea, Negative 1.1 Percent Growth Last Year,” August 27, 1999.
———. “Prime Minister Kang Met Family in Pyongyang,” October 22, 1990.
———. “Relations between DJ’s Nobel Prize and East Timor,” February 5, 2003.
Engelskjon, Torstein, and Guri Haagensen. Friheten, “Summit in Pyongyang,” June
30, 2000.
Hankyoreh Sinmun. “Han Young- woo, Senior Adviser to Nobel Museum,” June 10,
2005.
———. “Increase of Prof. Hwang Woo- seok’s $500,000 Suspicion,” March 2,
2006.
Hankook Ilbo. “Interview with Michael Sohlman, Director of Nobel Foundation,”
March 6, 1998.
Herald Economics. “Samsung Electronics MP3 Will Be Displayed at Nobel
Museum,” April 16, 2001.
Hjorthol, Lars M. Norsk Telegrambyrå (NTB), “Nobel Committee Down to the Final
Sprint,” September 5, 2000.
Ilyo Seoul. “Dr. Corn Said, ‘I Was Thoroughly Taken Advantage of by DJ,’” January
31, 2007.
Kim Sung-d ong. Monthly Chosun, “Chung Mong-h un’s Path to Death,” February
2006.
Kirk, Donald. “Both Koreas Are Ruled by Women,” The Atlantic, April 23, 2013,
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/04/both- koreas- areruled- by women/275204.
———. International Herald Tribune, “The South Korean Spy Chief Who Paved
the Way for Thaw with North,” January 31, 2001.
———. International Herald Tribune, “Byproduct of Korean Rapprochement:
Tension in South With U.S. Forces,” September 6, 2000.
Kukmin Ilbo. “How Much Funneled to the North?” October 18, 2006.
Kyunghyang Shinmun, “President’s Prison Letter Will Be Displayed in the
Exhibition,” December 8, 2000.
240
———. “With Michael Jackson,” June 26, 1999.
———. “North Korea’s Purpose Is to Restore Relations with US,” October 6, 2004.
Lim Do- kyung. Newsweek, “Lay the Blue Carpet,” Korean edition, October 9, 2002.
Lintner, Bertil. Svenska Dagbladet, “The Two Kims Break the Ice,” June 15, 2000.
———. “Unified Korea Frightens Japan,” June 16, 2000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mainichi Shimbun. “Disguised Carriage of Nuclear Device from Pakistan to North
Korea,” December 29, 2002.
Munhwa Ilbo. “Feud on Nobel Promotion for Prof. Hwang Woo- seok,” January 14,
2006.
New Daily. “DJ Should Have Won Nobel Physics Prize, Not Nobel Peace Prize,” ,
September 8, 2010.
NORAD News. “NORAD Acknowledges Missile Launch,” North American
Aerospace Defense Command, December 11, 2012.
The New York Times. “Pakistani Says He Saw North Korean Nuclear Devices,” April
13, 2004.
Oh Dong-r yong. Monthly Chosun, “Interview with José Ramos Horta, Foreign
Minister of East Timor,” February 2004.
OhmyNews. “Hyundai Commercial Marine Sent $200 million to the North,” January
29, 2003.
———. “DJ Nobel Lobby Allegation is the Result of Ignorance,” October 14, 2002.
Oh Young- jin. “NK Bribery Article Likely to Test Gov’t Will,” The Korea Times,
February 5, 2001.
PRESSian. “DJ Prayed over Michael Jackson’s Death,” June 26, 2009.
———. “DJ Was Already a Strong Contender for Nobel Peace Prize in 1987,”
March 11, 2011.
Rodong Sinmun. “The Revolutionary Heritage of Comrade Kim Jong-i l,” December
28, 2011.
Selmer, Erik R. Dagsavisen, “Presidential Meeting and Historical Tears for
Bondevik in Seoul,” August 16, 2000.
Sisa Journal. “Korea Missed the Chance of Nobel Prize Three Times—I nterview
with Dr. Han Young- woo,” March 11, 2011.
Seoul Broadcasting System. “I Am DJ’s Daughter,” April 19, 2004.
Seoul Sinmun. “Stricter Scrutiny, If Lobby Is Suspected, Sohlman Said,” August 24,
2002.
Song Seung-h o. Monthly Chosun, “Back Story on DJ’s Nobel Lobby and NIS’s
Involvement,” October 2004, 180– 91.
Sudworth, John. “Kim Dae-jung’s Final Interview,” BBC, August 18, 2009, http://
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8206767.stm.
Ward, Andrew. “Lunch with the FT: Kim Dae Jung.” Financial Times, June 19,
2004.
Yonhap News. “I Want to See a Korean Win the Nobel Science Prize,” September
4, 2004.
———. “Nobel Prize Lobby Allegation Is Groundless,” April 23, 2008.
———. “UN Secretary- General Ban Writes Diary Every Day,” September 27,
2012.
Yun Seok-j in. Monthly Joongang, “The Chief of the First Attachment Chamber in
the Blue House,” September 2003.
———. “Former Chief of the First Attachment Chamber Kim Han- jung’s Memoir
on 1,200 Days of Assistance for DJ,” July 2003.
Zumwalt, James G. Family Security Matters, “For Want of a Prize, a Nation’s
Security Is Lost,” February 14, 2012,
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/ detail/for- want- of- aprize- a- nations- security- is- lost#ixzz2GCNSe3GG.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 227
Official Documents
Honeyman, Charles M. “Decision and Order of the Immigration Judge,”
Immigration Court, US Department of Justice, Philadelphia, December 11, 2011.
———. “Oral Decision of the Immigration Judge,” Immigration Court, US
Department of Justice, Philadelphia, April 15, 2008.
Kim Dae- jung and Kim Jong- il. “South- North Joint Declaration,” June 15, 2000,
copy provided by Chong Wa Dae (Blue House), office of the president, Republic
of Korea.
National Police Agency. “The Growing Severity of the International Terrorism
Situation,” Focus 271 (2005), http://www.npa.go.jp/archive/keibi/syouten/
syouten271/english/pdf/sec04.pdf.
Niksch, Larry A. “U.S. South Korean Relations: Issues for Congress,” Washington
DC: Congressional Research Service, June 19, 2002.
———. “Korea- U.S. Relations: Issues for Congress,” Washington DC: CRS,
January 12, 2010.
NIS, Press Release, February 4, 2003.
Norwegian Nobel Committee. Announcement, Oslo, October 11, 2002.
———. “Press Release,” Oslo, October 13, 2000.
White House. “Remarks by President Bush and President Kim Dae Jung of South
Korea,” March 7, 2001.
Index
230 INDEX
INDEX 231
232 INDEX
INDEX 233
234 INDEX
INDEX 235
236 INDEX
INDEX 237

Kim Dae- jung and the Quest for the Nobel

Transcription

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