Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il

by Michael Malice

  “None, comrade.”

  I began to think out loud. “If we let them into these sites, then they’ll find other sites to suspect, and then others, and others. They won’t be satisfied until they’ve plotted every inch of Korean soil. What a tour that would be! From Mt. Paektu and Uam’s farming and fishing villages, to the military posts on the demarcation line, and then to the island lighthouse in the East Sea and finally to the tidelands of the west coast. Where will these intrusions end? Korea can’t pull off her underwear for her enemy!”

  That’s when I knew that the Americans had gotten to the IAEA and were pulling the inspectors’ strings. The US imperialists didn’t actually want the DPRK to agree with these latest demands. What they wanted was a pretext to condemn and attack us. Heady from their recent Gulf War victory, the Americans were seeking to replay the Korean War—only this time, they intended to win it.

  “So what shall I tell them?” the liaison asked me.

  “Let them go through with their sixth ad hoc inspection as we’d agreed to,” I said. “We’ll prove that Korea is a nation that sticks to her word—even as the United States uses deception to try to further its goals. As for these ‘special inspections’...well, I’ll handle those in a special way.”

  It goes without saying that the IAEA inspectors found nothing during the sixth inspection. Nevertheless, the international mood changed completely. The Yank devils openly began to discuss war, even drafting a “120-day war scenario.” They mused that it would take 120 days to conquer the DPRK, since Korea was stronger than Iraq.

  Then, in January 1993, the US imperialists went back on their word and announced the resumption of the Team Spirit war games. They’d be conducting large-scale troop movements, with over two hundred thousand troops mobilized from the US mainland, Guam, Hawaii, Japan and other Asia-Pacific locations. High-tech fighters and naval ships equipped with nuclear weapons would be concentrated on the Korean peninsula once more. They claimed it was just an exercise, not a threat or an ultimatum. After all, the Americans would never threaten another nation unprovoked. Their nuclear arsenal—capable of destroying the world many times over—was allegedly for peaceful purposes only.

  The IAEA held a Board of Governors meeting on February 25, 1993. Allegations of “inconsistency” during the sixth inspection were now raised, and a resolution demanding the DPRK accept special inspections was passed. Needless to say, such inspections were completely outside the scope of the Nuclear Safeguards Accord which the DPRK had signed. The inspectors were literally insisting on a mandate to roam Korea’s heavily guarded military sites at will. It was nothing more than an attempt to make espionage easier for the US imperialists.

  Someone had to put a stop to these brigands, and apparently that someone was going to have to be Kim Jong Il. Their request was very firmly denied.

  As usual, the United States immediately turned from negotiation to threats. The US imperialists threatened Korea with crippling sanctions. Very quickly, south Korea and Japan joined ranks with their American cohorts. Any and all dialogue between the north and the south of Korea was frozen, just as the Americans had planned and hoped for. The sanctions closed the DPRK’s external markets, froze any funds in foreign banks and forced other nations to break any trade or economic negotiations. The West predicted that the DPRK would put up the white flag, and with good reason. It was clear that all the odds were against my country.

  I made my first move on March 8, 1993, the day before the Team Spirit aggressions were to begin. Simply put: I had had it, officially. If the US imperialists wanted to play war games, then I certainly deserved a chance to play as well. As Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army, I issued an order proclaiming a state of semi-war for the whole country, all the people and the entire army. “First,” I said, “the whole country shall switch to a state of readiness for war. Second, all soldiers shall display high revolutionary vigilance and be fully ready to crush the enemy. Third, all the people shall produce a great upswing in socialist economic construction, with a hammer or a sickle in one hand and a rifle in the other.” A great many young people volunteered to join or rejoin the army. The soldiers walked taller and stronger, ready to defend their nation against the foreign invaders.

  The US imperialists became hysterical again. They couldn’t believe that they were being defied so brazenly—especially by a nation so much smaller, with nowhere near America’s population, wealth or technology. This sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen in the “New World Order.” I didn’t stop with a mere order. I knew that I had to press my advantage and use the element of surprise while the US imperialists scrambled to come up with a response to my unprecedented defiance. I well understood that treaties can often be wildly open to interpretation. Regardless of the actual language, the premise of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was to ensure that no new nations developed nuclear weapons. By Korea signing such a treaty, other countries—including the US—truly did have grounds to make a fuss, which necessitated the IAEA adjudicating the international conflict. This was a major reason why countries like India and Israel never signed the NPT; they didn’t want to answer to some international body.

  On March 12, four days after entering a state of semi-war and directly in the middle of the Team Spirit hostilities, I proclaimed that the DPRK was quitting the NPT. “We have no other choice,” I explained. “We are compelled to do so in order to safeguard our interests. Since Korea is no longer a signatory to the NPT, it is now our legal and moral right as a sovereign nation to seek nuclear weapons—just as America did when it needed them.”

  The US imperialists had regarded nuclear dominationism as one of their tools for implementing foreign policy—and I’d taken that away. Still reeling from my declaration of semi-war, this latest move truly shocked them to the core. They didn’t know what to do. America’s Kim Jong Il Research Institute failed to figure out my tactics, its computer unable to make sense of my ever-changing wisdom and strategy. Each and every computer simulation of a second Korean war resulted in defeat for the American side. I knew how they operated better than they did.

  Since a formal withdrawal from the NPT takes sixty days to becomes effective, the Americans were left with two months to try and figure out how to handle the situation. As the Yanks scrambled ever more frantically, I found time to celebrate just as I had during the Panmunjom incident. That’s because Ri In Mo finally returned to north Korea on March 13, 1993.

  THE INCARNATION OF FAITH AND WILL

  There is a lie spread by Korea’s enemies that the only books in our stores are by or about President Kim Il Sung or myself. This is ridiculous. We also have a book by Ri In Mo, a great hero to the Korean people.

  Ri In Mo had been a KPA war correspondent during the Fatherland Liberation War. He was wounded and captured by the enemy during a battle. For the next thirty-four years—longer than Mandela—he was held prisoner in south Korea for the simple reason that he refused to renounce his socialist ideology.

  Many a letter was sent to demand his release. We appealed to Red Cross societies all over the world, and many international organizations carried on a solidarity campaign for his repatriation. Nor was Ri In Mo alone in his dilemma. Throughout the years, I consistently worked hard for the release of such unconverted long-term prisoners, patriots imprisoned due to their loyalty rather than any crime.

  Ri In Mo’s return to the socialist motherland couldn’t have been timed any better. Less than a week into the state of semi-war, the Korean people were filled with a high sense of pride. Here was a living, breathing example of the victory of the Juche idea over the brute force of our opponents. Dubbed “the Incarnation of Faith and Will,” Ri In Mo demonstrated that Korea was invincible. If the imperialists couldn’t break one man, how could they possibly break an entire nation of twenty-four million, united as one under the Great Leader?

  I was constantly in the operations room during this period, commanding the KPA while sizing up the fluid situation on the fr
ont line. At the same time, I made sure to maintain an air of ease in public. I made it a point to be photographed discussing the forthcoming Fatherland Liberation War victory monument, for example. It was important for the world to see that we weren’t the aggressors in the conflict but rather the ones being aggressed upon.

  Frightened by my stern attitude, the US imperialists cut their Team Spirit war games short. The IAEA also gave up its demand for a “special inspection.” To put it bluntly: the Americans caved completely and agreed to negotiations. Hearing of their surrender, I held true to my word. On March 24, I issued an order releasing the DPRK from the state of semi-war.

  The nuclear standoff had been a model case of psychological warfare. It only took me two weeks to break the US imperialists’ spirit. Not one shot was fired, not one life was lost, not one drop of blood was spilled. This, while nuclear bombers, super-large nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and other modern means of mass destruction were being actively organized against the north. Even many American commentators praised my military wisdom and unfathomable tactics. I demonstrated how dedicated the DPRK was to peace on the Korean peninsula—and how desperately the US imperialists opposed it.

  To further illustrate how dedicated I was to peace, I sent the Americans a message. Three days before negotiations were to begin, the DPRK fired a missile into the Pacific. Faster than a Tomahawk, as precise as the absurdly-named Patriot missile, it successfully reached its target between Guam and Hawaii. This made it clear that missiles were no longer the monopoly of the United States. Gone were the days when the US imperialists could launch strikes at other countries with impunity. Clearly, Korea was no longer what it had been in the 1950s. We were now a socialist power possessed of unshakable will, equipped with all the necessary means to mercilessly annihilate any enemy. As the saying goes, “a weak fist wipes away tears.”

  Having fired the missile and demonstrated our strength made negotiations quite painless for the DPRK. The two sides came to terms on June 11, just one day before our effective withdrawal from the NPT. The US committed to respecting our political system, to supporting peaceful reunification and to never threaten the DPRK with nuclear weapons. Our withdrawal from the NPT was halted and the tension eased on the Korean peninsula.

  Further talks dragged on for over a year, with constant tricks from the Americans. The moment Korea acquiesced to a US demand, the Yanks would simply make more. They once again insisted on “special inspections,” and they once again wanted to impose sanctions. They dug in their heels, and so I dug in mine. It seemed as if there was no one who could break such an impasse. On June 13, 1994, I announced Korea’s immediate withdrawal from the IAEA. What we needed was a miracle to deescalate the tensions.

  What we got was Jimmy Carter.

  Chapter 16

  The Great Loss

  President Carter left Korea on June 17, 1994. It was the first time that an American President had stepped foot in Pyongyang. Since the United States was the biggest obstacle to Korean peace, it naturally followed that a former President could be instrumental to pushing peace back home.

  The day after President Carter left, the Great Leader called me to his villa to recount how the talks had gone. I’ll never forget the sight of him sitting there, the man whom they called the sun, radiant under the Korean sky. When I arrived he was wearing a pale blue suit and looked much younger than his eighty-two years. Yes, his hair had gone grey. And yes, the war wound on the back of his neck had grown to the size of an apple. But he looked downright giddy. President Kim Il Sung had negotiated the Joint Agreement on Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula with President Carter, providing the basis for further Korea-US talks.

  The Great Leader had spent his life fighting: From Kalun to Antu and Xiaowangqing, from Nanhutou to Donggang and Pochonbo, from Nanpaizi to the Musan area and from the Hongqi River to Xiaohaerbaling. Now, the Americans had finally come to pay him respect on his own terms in the homeland that he loved so much. After deaths and wars and decades, everything that he had struggled for was within reach.

  “Did you hear what President Carter said about me?” President Kim Il Sung asked with excitement.

  “No,” I lied. I wanted to give him a chance to boast; he’d earned it. “He said that, ‘President Kim Il Sung is a person in whom George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, those popular three Presidents of the United States early in its history, are put together.’ He said that he was utterly charmed by me from the moment that we met, and that he knew that I was a man who really loved peace.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said, with a huge smile. General Kim Il Sung truly was the Korean General Washington. Both men were revolutionary generals who led their people to freedom and who were later unanimously voted to be their respective nations’ leaders. It saddened me that the Americans simply couldn’t bring themselves to see the General’s greatness. The Yanks thought that believing in one Great Leader was “absurd” and “crazy”—while themselves claiming that the best minds in history happened to be localized in thirteen minor Atlantic colonies at the end of the eighteenth century.

  “President Carter told the journalists that north Korea is a very particular country having its own political philosophy,” the Great Leader pointed out. “He said that it’s very unproductive to take sanctions against us. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  “It is, it is.”

  “Enough about that. Are the latest economic figures in? How goes the food situation?” he asked.

  “Relax and enjoy your old age,” I told him, patting him on the knee. “You keep working on your memoirs and we’ll take care of everything else.”

  Immediately his face flashed with anger. “Answer my question, if you please!”

  “We’re making progress,” I insisted.

  “Are you sure? I know that you’re keeping things from me, just as I know that those beneath you are keeping things from you.”

  “If you really want to know,” I said, “I’ll tell you. The sanctions are making things very difficult.”

  “So what measures have you taken?”

  “For one, I’ve launched a new campaign: ‘Let’s eat two meals a day instead of three!’ The masses didn’t realize how unhealthy it was to eat three times a day. If they stopped desiring food so much, then they wouldn’t get as hungry.”

  The President grunted, unsatisfied. “If the nuclear tensions lessen, we can ease up on war preparations. That will mean more money for food and agriculture. I might even be able to ask for some aid; President Carter seemed amenable. Regardless, if we manage to achieve reunification in the near future, then all this will be a distant memory. The south has far more arable land than the mountainous north.”

  I wish I could remember what else we spoke about that day. I wish I’d stayed instead of hurrying back to work. There were a million things I would’ve done differently that day, if I had only known that it was That Day and not one unlike any other. But seeing that the Great Leader was happy meant that I could leave happy as well.

  Then the worst possible thing happened. It was no longer the beginning of the end. It was the end of the end.

  I don’t remember who told me, and I don’t remember how I found out. It could have been a premonition in a dream, or it could have been me being roused awake by a member of my staff or it could have been a phone call. Maybe it was all three, one leading into another. I don’t know. All I can recall is that on the morning of July 8, 1994, President Kim Il Sung, Grand Marshal of the heroic Korean People’s Army, General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the Great Leader of all of Korea—and my father—passed away.

  The rain was rageful and violent as I rushed to his villa. When I entered, I passed by all of his staff without a word or even a glance. Though I couldn’t register anything that they actually said, I still felt their grief filling the entire house. Someone (was it his secretary?) pointed me to where he was. I ran into the bedroom, my clothes soaked from the weather, expecting t
o find that this had all been an enormous misunderstanding, a bad dream, something, anything other than what it was.

  I saw him lying on the bed. All his life he had worked day and night, waking every morning at 3 a.m. to rebuild his country into a shining model of self-reliant independence—and now it seemed as if he were sleeping off a lifetime of fatigue. I stood there in the doorway, not daring to approach, still being respectful of his space. Quickly I gestured for everyone to leave the room, though how many were there and who they might have been I didn’t even notice. “Great Leader,” I called out. “Great Leader, wake up...Father? Father, it’s me!”

  For an instant it looked like he was moving—but then I realized that he was become blurred as I started to cry. I hoped that all it would take to wake him up was a good, swift shake and slowly made my way over to the bed. I then took his hand but dropped it instantly. I knew what his grip felt like, mighty and sure, but this was the cold, limp handshake of the deceased. I sat down on the bed and took his hand again, staring at the carpet. I just sat there shedding tears of blood for who knows how long.

  After a while, I smiled despite myself. I remembered what he had said about crying, with regard to me specifically: “Comrade Kim Jong Il not only has deep humane feelings, but he is also easily moved to tears. He smiles all the time, but when something sad happens, he shed tears like a child. I, too, am easily moved to tears. It is good for a man to have a lot of tears to shed. A cold-hearted and indifferent person cannot shed a tear even if he tries to weep. A hero who can shed tears is a true hero.”

  No matter what the subject, the Great Leader had always managed to capture its essence with a few sentences, instilling mere words with great profundity. Every book, every lecture, every article in Korea began with one of his quotes. But now no new sayings would be forthcoming. We would have to make do with trying to remember everything that he’d said at different points in his life. I desperately forced myself to recall what his voice sounded like, knowing I would never be able to hear it in person again.