Kim's Dynasty

The son also rises

So little is known about the second son of North Korean President Kim II Sung that Westerners are not sure about even the facts of his birth. Kim Jong II is thought to have been born in February 1941, somewhere in the Soviet Union, to Kim II Sung's first wife. According to the best surmise, he attended East Germany's air academy. He may have graduated with an economics degree from Pyongyang's Kim II Sung University about 1965. In the early 1970s, Japanese visitors were told that he was involved in the "three-revolution" movement in North Korea, an attempt to rebuild the country ideologically, technologically and culturally. After 1977, he disappeared from even the private conversations of Pyongyang officials. Speculation in Seoul and Tokyo had it that the young Kim had been badly injured in a traffic incident, perhaps during an attempt on his life.

As it happens, Kim Jong II is very much alive and well in Pyongyang. The Sixth Congress of the North Korean Workers' Party last week anointed him as heir apparent of his dictatorial father. From the outset of the congress, when the 29 members of the Communist Party Presidium took their seats on the stage of Pyongyang's Cultural Palace, the purpose of the conclave was clear. When Kim Jong II was introduced to the 3,230 party delegates, there was a perceptible stir in the hall: the young Kim was accorded no less than fifth place in party precedence. The congress, in fact, did better. Before it adjourned last week, it confirmed Kim Jong II as No. 4 in the Politburo Standing Committee, No. 3 in the sensitive Military Affairs Committee and--most significant--No. 2, after his father, in the party Secretariat.

What was behind Kim Jong Il's eclipse--and his subsequent emergence into party leadership? Observers could only guess. Many noticed that Kim II Sung's younger brother, Kim Yong Ju, once considered a possible successor, was nowhere evident on party rosters. One guess was that Kim Yong Ju had lost out to his nephew, the President's son, in an internal party struggle.

Pyongyang watchers predicted that Kim II Sung will concentrate on foreign affairs, his son on domestic problems. If he is elevated to the presidency, Kim Jong II is not likely to soften his father's hard line toward South Korea. He is feared as a hawk in Seoul, where one analyst said darkly: "Our relations with North Korea are about to enter a new era of cold war."

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