North Korea Now You See Kim ...

By William R. Doerner

Ordinarily, the arrival in Pyongyang of Mongolian President Jambyn Batmonh would scarcely register a blip on the radar screens of international diplomacy. But when Batmonh stepped off his jetliner in North Korea's capital last week, television footage of the welcoming ceremony was almost immediately flashed to eagerly awaiting networks and wire services around the world. Reason: the Premier was greeted by a man whose sudden and violent death had been widely rumored and, in some cases, reported as confirmed fact for two days. Yet there he was, Kim Il Sung, the "Great Leader," still paunchy and apparently hale at 74 after holding power in North Korea continuously since 1948.

Reports of Kim's demise have surfaced several times over the years, but last week's spate of false rumors was the most bizarre episode yet. They originated, so South Korea claimed, with announcements made by North Koreans over loudspeakers along the 151-mile Demilitarized Zone that divides the two countries. The same rumors popped up independently in Peking, Hanoi and Tokyo, apparently before officials in Seoul began spreading the word. Until Kim's ceremonial airport appearance, the North Koreans did nothing either to dispel or confirm the story. Little could be made of their unresponsiveness: in one of the world's most hermetically sealed societies, official silence is the rule rather than the exception.

While all accounts agreed that Kim was dead, explanations of how he met his demise varied wildly. In some versions, Kim was shot by mutinous army officers, who then fled to China. Others said the North Korean leader had been killed in a coup staged aboard a train, which happens to be Kim's favorite form of transportation. Most claimed that power had passed to Kim's son, Kim Jong Il, who indeed is his father's designated heir. One loudspeaker announcement and some other versions of the story had it that aging North Korean Defense Minister O Jin U had "grasped power" and that the "whole nation of North Korea positively supports him."

Kim's passing, as related by South Korean transcripts of the loudspeaker announcements, had an almost surreal quality. Normally used to broadcast mind- numbing Communist propaganda across the DMZ, the loudspeakers reportedly came alive just after noon on Sunday with somber music. Forty minutes later, with ! no explanation, an announcer began reciting the North Korean leader's lifetime accomplishments, including his World War II service in the Soviet army. After another six hours the announcer began hinting -- opaquely, to say the least -- that Kim's career was finally at an end: "Our leader Kim Il Sung flows in the river as a leaf." A statement announcing his death by shooting followed shortly. Monday's broadcasts eulogized Kim extensively. Then, on Tuesday, came the startling admonition, "Do not be deceived by groundless rumors that our leader Kim Il Sung is dead."

Kim's public reappearance proved that accounts of his passing had been greatly exaggerated. Thus the hottest diplomatic game of the week became trying to figure out who had been doing what to whom. As antagonists of 36 years' standing who regularly wage often arcane propaganda wars against each other, both North and South Korea had plenty of motives to engage in political fabrications. Both countries, moreover, have lately shown signs of instability that could somehow have played a role in the strange episode.

South Korea, which has been plagued by student protests over President Chun Doo Hwan's resistance to proposed democratic reforms, responded to the rumor campaign by placing the national police force on Grade A alert. The heightened security was ostensibly a precaution against a sudden attack by an unknown new regime in the north. Some observers suspect, however, that the government in Seoul was actually mounting a show of strength to rally domestic political sentiment. Moreover, South Korea's Defense Department could not produce any recordings of the loudspeaker announcements, which apparently had not been made in areas of the DMZ patrolled by U.S. troops. A government spokesman explained this lacuna by claiming that official policy is "not to disclose how any intelligence matter was obtained." Washington, however, flatly dismisses the possibility that South Korea was behind any fabrication. If Seoul had been playing disinformation games, moreover, it got badly burned. The government's clumsy handling of the loudspeaker announcements, all but giving them its official imprimatur, caused an uproar in the National Assembly. Said Opposition Leader Kim Young Sam: "I have to question the ability of our government's intelligence system." Few governments, particularly in Asia, would manufacture a story that was guaranteed to result in a loss of face with its allies. That is precisely what happened in Seoul after Kim surfaced. Says Daryl Plunk, a Korea specialist at Washington's Heritage Foundation: "It is obvious that South Korea has been embarrassed by this."

Pyongyang's glee at its neighbor's discomfort suggested that North Korea would have had no qualms about mounting a malicious disinformation campaign, although probably not one centering on rumors of its leader's death. Kim has spent nearly four decades creating a cult around his personality and accomplishments that is Pharaonic in its intensity. He has erected larger- than-life statues of himself in virtually every North Korean city, and inspired a school curriculum based on adulation of his teachings. Korea watchers in the U.S. doubt that he would trifle with his self-created legend merely to score a propaganda victory. Says a Reagan Administration official: "It's awfully difficult to imagine they'd do that. Kim Il Sung is like Stalin at the peak of his power."

That leaves a single plausible theory of what happened, in the opinion of U.S. observers: the possibility that a real power struggle was going on in Pyongyang. U.S. officials have picked up rumors in recent months of internal discord centered on the question of Kim's succession. In particular, Defense Minister O has been conspicuous lately by his lack of public appearances. Some observers have wondered if the 76-year-old defense minister was having trouble adjusting to the increased day-to-day powers of First Son Jong Il, 45, and the younger cadres around him. Says the Heritage Foundation's Plunk: "O had been the major exception to the new generation of officials."

There were other issues that could also have led to a showdown in North Korea. Over the past two years Kim has engineered a pronounced tilt in Pyongyang's Sino-Soviet policies toward Moscow. Just two months ago the North Korean President made a hastily arranged visit to the Soviet capital, his second in 29 months, for talks with Mikhail Gorbachev. The Soviets provide North Korea with MiG-23 fighter aircraft and Scud surface-to-surface missiles. In return, they have acquired calling rights at the North Korean ports of Nampo and Najin and clearance for military reconnaissance flights from Vladivostok to the Soviet air base at Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam. These arrangements are a major annoyance to Peking.

Finally, U.S. observers speculate that North Korea's poor economic performance and military buildup could have led to an internal political rift. In the past decade Kim has more than doubled the size of the North Korean army, from 409,000 to 885,000 men, turning it into the world's sixth largest fighting force. Meanwhile, North Korea has fallen into arrears on its foreign debt of some $2 billion. The country achieved only about half of the growth called for in its last long-term economic plan (1978-84), and has yet to produce a new one. Both of the last two grain harvests have been substandard, and the daily grain ration in Pyongyang was recently reduced by 14%. Although the exact cause of last week's events remains murky, the forced cutback in such a staple certainly carried the potential for creating trouble.

With reporting by David Aikman/Washington and S. Chang/Tokyo