The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History by Don Oberdorfer, Robert Carlin Read Free Book Online Page B

developments. Based on the reports, he said he issued immediate instructions.
    During most of his years in power, Kim traveled incessantly within the country on personal inspection tours, giving “on-the-spot guidance.” As late as 1980, Kim told Representative Stephen Solarz (D-NY), the first US political figure to visit Pyongyang, that each year he spent ten to fifteen days on such tours in each of the ten provinces and three special cities. Kim boasted to Solarz that as a result of his conversations with farmers in their fields, he had personally countermanded government instructions about the planting time for rice—and claimed that the amended policy produced a bumper crop.
    Because his many directives took on the aura of holy writ, they proved difficult to change if they became outdated or were mistaken from the start. Even Politburo members and government ministers were forced to undergo “self-criticism,” and some were ousted from their jobs, for making proposals that inadvertently breached policy lines previously laid down bythe Great Leader. “Once said by Kim, it is said forever,” according to a diplomat who spent four years in Pyongyang. “Nobody is allowed to change anything; the smallest sign of deviation means the system has developed a dangerous crack.”
    In the spring of 1972, Kim had just celebrated his sixtieth birthday with great fanfare, a traditional milestone for Korean elders, after which they are greatly venerated. Kim’s hwangop birthday was the occasion for the opening of the ninety-two-room Museum of the Revolution, devoted to glorifying him, and the unveiling of his sixty-six-foot-high bronze likeness, painted in gold, on a scenic spot overlooking Pyongyang, where a shrine had been erected for worship of the Japanese emperors during the Japanese occupation. It was the largest statue ever built by Koreans for any leader in their long history. Still in his physical prime, Kim was a burly man with a rolling walk and heavy-rimmed glasses. New York Times correspondent Harrison Salisbury, the first American correspondent granted an interview with the Great Leader, called him “a big, impressive man with a mobile face and a quick chuckle” and nearly constant gestures to emphasize his words. At this point in his long career, Kim turned his attention and his considerable charisma to creating his first political opening to South Korea.
    CONVERSATIONS WITH THE SOUTH
    The historic initial secret meeting between Kim Il Sung and the second most powerful figure in the South began with an exchange of pleasantries and assurances of trust. In the early-morning hours of May 4, 1972, Lee Hu Rak, director of the ROK intelligence agency, broke the ice by praising the achievements of construction he had been shown on his first day in Pyongyang. Kim Il Sung responded by praising the South Korean president for sending Lee as “an expression of his trust,” and he commended Lee as “a very bold person” and “a hero” for making the journey to the opposite camp.
    The meeting, whose record was kept by Lee’s aide and not disclosed until seventeen years later, was remarkable for the shared antipathy to the major powers and the heavy emphasis by both sides on reaching accords and eventual reunification.
            LEE : President Park Chung Hee and I believe unification should be achieved by ourselves without interference of the four powers [the United States, China, Japan, and the Soviet Union]. . . . We are never front men of the United States or Japan. We believe we should resolve our issues by ourselves. . . .
            KIM : Our position is to oppose reliance on external forces on the issue of unification. This is where I agree with Park Chung Hee. . . .
            LEE : I’d like to tell you that President Park is a person who detests foreign interference most.
            KIM : That being so, we are already making progress to solve the issue. Let us exclude foreign forces.