Once these tasks were carried out, I concluded, a monolithic ideological system would be established within the Party. That meant that every Party member and working person would hold the Juche idea as their conviction and look up to the Great Leader with clear conscience. Everyone in Korea would think and act according to the Great Leader’s intentions and only according to the Great Leader’s intentions. There would be no more tolerance for any allegedly “honest” disagreement. The time had come for honest agreement, from everyone in the entire country.
Chapter 7
The Pueblo Incident
The 1960s witnessed the US imperialists hatching aggressive plots in all parts of the world. Any country approaching a revolution, any newly independent mass of people engaged in socialist construction, was thereby judged ripe for military confrontation.
Because of this, many smaller nations justifiably feared US invasion. Cuba in particular was concerned that the United States would attempt to conquer them, since the first Yank assault on Cuban territory had ended in such spectacular public failure. But Prime Minister Castro hadn’t studied the writings of Marshal Kim Il Sung as much as he should have. If he had, he’d have known that relying on a larger foreign power for protection would be a mixed blessing even in the best of situations. So, in 1962 Castro asked the Soviet Union for assistance.
Nikita Khrushchev, political fraud, swore that he would defend Cuba in any military confrontation with the United States. He also promised Cuba to build a nuclear missile base there. This “threat of atomic weapons” gave the US imperialists a pretext to precipitate the Caribbean crisis. Amazingly and publicly, it took Khrushchev less than two weeks to go back on his word after the United States pressed him with nuclear blackmail. It was an astonishing situation, and showed the world that Khrushchev’s pledges to his allies were not to be trusted.
The Great Leader took heed of these actions, knowing that they would embolden the US imperialists with regards to Korea. Under the slogan, “A Gun in One Hand and a Sickle and Hammer in the Other!” he launched a four-part campaign to prepare the entire Korean population for any new war with the United States. First, the entire nation was armed and given military training. Second, the country was fortified so as to prepare for nuclear war or even a mere war of attrition. Third, the KPA was turned into an army of cadres, creating a system of command for the entire armed forces. Fourth, the army was updated with modern domestic weaponry that didn’t rely upon any foreign assistance.
The Yanks took heed of Khrushchev’s actions as well. In 1964 they concocted the Bay of Tonkin incident in Vietnam, while in south Korea dictator Park Chung Hee was still in power after having seized office in a military coup. It seemed obvious to the Great Leader and to myself that an assault on the DPRK was imminent.
By 1968, President Lyndon Johnson was facing a difficult path to reelection. As is well known even in the United States, he chose to escalate the war in Vietnam as a means to ensure that he stayed President. There has never been a war where civilians aren’t killed, where children aren’t made into orphans, where towns aren’t destroyed. Johnson still chose for many people on the other side of the world to die just so that he could keep his job.
In other words, he was a typical American president.
It was on January 15, 1968 that I received a visit from a KPA naval officer in my office. The man saluted but was extremely agitated. I had been prepared for the worst from the US imperialists, and girded myself for what the officer had to say. “It’s the Americans, isn’t it?” I asked him.
“Yes, comrade.”
I’d been aware that this moment was coming for virtually my entire life. But still I found no pleasure in being proven right. “What are they up to?”
“We have sight of one of their spy ships. It’s reached our territorial waters.”
“Let me guess: It’s on full alert and being evasive.”
“That’s correct.”
“If it ever intrudes into our waters again,” I told him, “you have my permission to seize the vessel.”
“Yes, comrade.”
I could tell the man was nervous about what I’d said, so I put his fears to rest. “Yes, capturing an American ship would surely create an international incident. But we are not the Soviet Union. We are not fearful of confrontation, and we can’t overlook a violation of our territorial waters by a hostile country’s spy ship—even if it is the work of the US imperialists.”
Eight days later, I received a call from an official of the General Staff of the KPA: Our naval ships had captured USS Pueblo. For a long time, the United States had been gathering information about other countries by means of spy satellites, reconnaissance planes and up-to-the-minute radar. We couldn’t stop these mechanisms from gathering information about us. Nor had any country—including the Soviet Union and China— ever dared to capture an American spy ship. But Korea was like no other country in the world. What the US imperialists in all of their arrogance had considered to be an impossibility had actually happened.
As I learned, Pueblo was part of the US Pacific Fleet. The 1,000-ton class ship had set sail for the Korean seas in early December 1967 in order to carry out “Operation Pink Route.” This was an order from both the CIA and the Admiral of the US Navy in Japan to spy on the Far East of Russia and the territorial waters of the DPRK. Armed and equipped with the most advanced electronic equipment, Pueblo’s special assignment was to ascertain the movements of the KPA’s naval force, bug all KPA electronic signals and collect military data. It performed thorough reconnaissance on the KPA’s radar network, as well as measured water depth, salinity and transparency. It also spied on the capacity of our harbor accommodations and the displacement of vessels at anchor. But Pueblo flew no flag, and in fact had been disguised as an oceanic electron research ship.
The spy ship had intruded into north Korean territory on seventeen occasions between January 15 and January 23. Finally, Pueblo entered deep into the DPRK’s territorial waters at 39° 17.4’ North Latitude and 127° 46.9’ East Longitude, 7.6 miles away from Ryo Island off Wonsan. Our naval ships did not hesitate. After a bit of gunfire they captured Pueblo, taking it captive along with all its crewman.
I listened to the debriefing very carefully. The fact that I was receiving this call told me that Prime Minister Kim Il Sung was allowing me to take point in the conflict. It was proof that he trusted my judgment but still wanted to test me to make sure that his trust had been justified. “Are any of our men injured?” I asked the official.
“No, comrade.”
I tensed up. “None dead, I take it?”
“No,” he laughed. “Of course not.”
I smiled. Each soldier of ours was trained to be a match for a hundred foes. The idea of us suffering casualties in these circumstances was absurd. “What about on their side?”
“One dead, and four other injured.”
“Well done,” I said. “Well done, indeed. Our bluejackets are brave. This incident could only have occurred in Korea, and will surely shock the world. I can only imagine how that war fanatic Johnson will react once he hears the news. We’ll probably be able to hear his howls of indignation all the way to Pyongyang.”
So it was that President Johnson received a most unpleasant wake-up call at 2 a.m. He immediately summoned an emergency meeting of the Secretary of State, the Defense Secretary, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other high-ranking officials. The American press reports were almost comical in their melodrama. Johnson raved and ranted about this “disgrace” that the United States had never been subjected to before. He insisted that Pueblo would be retrieved at any cost. How hilarious that the man who had gotten away with assassinating President Kennedy was now being so easily stymied by the DPRK!
After his meeting, Johnson put forth the preposterous lie that Pueblo had been “an unjust capture on the open sea.” The US imperialists brazenly demanded that north Korea return the ship and its crew at once, apologize to the US Governmen
t and compensate the United States for damages. This, less than two decades after they had bombed the DPRK into practically nothing.
Their demand was rejected.
True to form, the US imperialists immediately began issuing threats, throwing a large naval force into the waters around the Korean peninsula. Enterprise, a nuclear carrier, led four destroyers, a nuclear submarine and supply ships northward through the Straits of Korea to prepare an attack. Several hundred warplanes flew from the US mainland to south Korea. Johnson also sent an explicit ultimatum, promising to block the port of Wonsan with mines, to capture DPRK vessels, to launch air raids on KPA bases and to intensify reconnaissance flights. He even promised that he would “retaliate” against Korea with war if we did not buckle.
All eyes around the world were on the Korean peninsula. It seemed as if conflict could break out at any moment. It had only been a few years since the United States had won a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union in Cuba, and the Americans were currently in the process of extending their bombing in Vietnam. The odds certainly seemed to be against the small country of the DPRK.
In other words, everything was proceeding exactly according to my plan.
Whereas the US imperialists’ first response was to resort to violence, my ideology was far more peace-loving. So while Johnson threatened to bomb Wonsan, I decided to approach the conflict in a more civilized way: by giving a talk. My speech to the Party Central Committee was entitled On Waging a Fierce Reporting Warfare Against the Enemy. “We need to engage in a vigorous ‘reporting warfare’ campaign against US imperialism,” I explained, “until we have brought it to its knees. Let’s lay bare their lies and aggressive actions for all the world to see.”
It would be very easy for President Johnson to paint Korea as the aggressor as long as we maintained our silence. After all, it was his word against ours—or was it? I sent my officers to speak to the captured Yankee spies. I wanted to see the Americans go home as much as they themselves wanted to. The DPRK masses were growing uneasy having such rabid beasts in their midst. To be completely candid, a small part of me even feared for the Americans’ safety.
My main contact returned to my office after speaking to the captives. “The Americans are holding to their story,” he told me. “They are insisting it’s not a spy ship.”
“But the prow has GER 2 in large white letters written on it. That stands for ‘General Environmental Research’ in English.”
“They refuse.”
I pondered the matter for a moment. I vividly remembered seeing one of these jackals back during the Fatherland Liberation War. I knew how weak they were. “Tell the captain that we will shoot all of his men in front of him, one by one, until and unless he confesses. Once he folds, the rest of them will follow.”
The officer’s eyes grew wide. “Do you really want to start shooting them?”
“Of course not!” I snapped. “That would go against everything the DPRK stands for. But these Yank bastards are so cowardly that he will immediately agree. If they want to continue lying about their mission, we can lie back to them just as easily.”
The officer turned on his heels and left. A couple of hours later, he came back with a grin. Without saying anything, he walked over to my desk and slapped down a piece of paper. It was a confession, and the signature read “Lloyd Bucher.” Once the captain had confessed, then the research officers had confessed, and then the operation officers had confessed.
To make sure that there were no misconceptions about the ongoing tensions, the Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun published an editorial entitled “The Brigandish Acts of the US Imperialists in Broad Daylight.” The article laid bare all the facts of the case. Accompanying the piece were photographs of the spies freely writing their notes of confession and exposing the CIA’s information-gathering system to the world. In the face of the confessions, Washington lost all means of defending their behavior. Clearly, it was the US who had been the aggressor.
A couple of days later, the United States brought the incident to the United Nations. Once again, the Americans tried to use the UN as a pretext for their underhanded actions against a foreign power. Our response to the Americans was immediate: “The heroic Korean People’s Army and all the Korean people are prepared in every way to counter any provocation or aggression by the US imperialists.” I promised to deal a crushing blow to the enemy if they dared to attack. As anticipated, our statement evoked positive support from many countries throughout the world, and the UN Security Council rejected the American complaints.
Obviously, the Great Leader had been closely monitoring this incident the entire time. That fact that he had given me such a free hand was a source of great validation, though I felt sure that he would correct me immediately if I made the slightest misstep. And if war were to break out, he would once again take charge as Supreme Commander. As I saw it, however, my role was to ensure that that didn’t happen.
One day Prime Minister Kim Il Sung dropped by to speak with me. I could tell from the half-smile on his face that he had been as amused as I was by Washington’s frantic behavior. He adored how I’d been utterly humiliating them on the world stage. “Let me ask you a question,” he said. “If you were the Supreme Commander, how would you be dealing with this incident?”
In other words, he was asking me how I would handle it if it developed into an armed conflict. But I didn’t even consider such a turn of events to be a realistic possibility. “Well, I won’t release the crew unless the Americans submit a letter of surrender. And since the ship is our booty, I won’t return it even if they do present such a letter to us.”
The Great Leader chuckled. “I like your determination.”
“I’ll tell you what’s more: I’ll have the ship on exhibit so that posterity can see for themselves what we captured from the Yanks.”
He nodded. “Yes, I like the sound of that very much.”
I made it a point to maintain an air of calm and normality during this entire tense period. I saw to it that our soldiers sang songs optimistically and played athletic games. I went to the Pyongyang Grand Theatre to guide a music-and-dance production. I made sure that a national conference of agricultural workers was convened on schedule. I checked the designs of women’s dresses and discussed them with the relevant officials. Everything went forward just as it always had.
On February 8, 1968 the Great Leader issued a statement clarifying the DPRK position. “If the US imperialists persist in their attempt to solve this matter by mobilizing their armed forces to threaten and blackmail us,” he wrote, “they will get nothing out of it. If they do get anything it will be only corpses and death. We do not want war, but we are not afraid of it.” He then ordered the Korean People’s Army and the entire nation to get ready for wartime mobilization. He made full preparations to deliver a frontal attack on the American air and ground forces concentrated in and around Korea.
If the conflict had been occurring with respect to a country other than the DPRK, the Yank army would have surely launched an attack by this point. But unfortunately for the Americans, this was the DPRK— and what’s more, it wasn’t the DPRK of 1950. North Korea would not be caught unawares by an American surprise attack twice. We had antiair-craft guns installed and ready to fire everywhere: in schools, in factories and even on running trains. The American spy planes must have seen this in aerial photos. I’m sure that their operation planners knew that we could immediately shoot down a good 70-80% of any planes that violated north Korea’s airspace. In late March of 1968, the Yanks had no choice but to withdraw all of their warships, some of their frontline troops and some of their warplanes from their former positions in an attempt to calm the situation.
It was at this point that things began to get out of hand. I wanted to get the spies home for humanitarian reasons. Besides, it was making me sick that these American bastards were being lodged on Korean soil at state expense. I phoned my contact and gave him instructions. “Now that the truth about th
e case has been made clear, the only thing to do would be for Johnson to sincerely apologize to Korea. Tell the spies to write their master an open letter requesting as much, and all parties involved can get on with more important matters.”
When my contact visited my office a couple of hours later, he kept staring at the floor and generally doing everything possible to avoid eye contact. He had a look on his face that I’d had never seen before in my life, a queer mix of shock and anger and excruciating discomfort. “There’s a...situation,” he told me.
“What kind of...situation?”
“As you know, we’ve been releasing photos to the world to show that these men are being unharmed. It’s been a while since they’ve had a haircut and they look unkempt. It would give the wrong impression to the camera.”
I scowled. “So cut their hair! You know how hard I’m working. Why are you bothering me with this?”
“All our KPA soldiers have refused to go on cutting the spies’ hair.” I could imagine, theoretically, insubordination from one KPA solider. But from all of them?
“What? Why?”
“The stench.”
“The stench?”
“The Americans smell. Every last one of them. At first I hoped that our men were overreacting—though that would have been out of character for them. So I went to smell the bastards for myself.”
“And?”
“And it’s quite horrific, comrade. It’s downright beastly. This is a matter without precedent, for any of us—including many veterans who have seen the worst of war. The Americans are surely incubating virulent microbes on their bodies, or something like that.”
“Then put them in the shower! Hose them down if that’s what it takes!”
He shook his head. “We tried that.”
“And?”
Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il Page 13