The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [15]
Kim's biographer, Dae-Sook Suh of the University of Hawaii, wrote that Kim became "a ruler who wields more power than the notorious monarchs of the old Korean kingdom," building a state that practices "a peculiar brand of oriental despotism" rather than communism. "There was no such thing as a conversation with Kim Ii Sung," said a prominent South Korean who was Kim's guest on numerous occasions. "If he spoke to a North Korean, that person stood up, in effect at attention, to receive instructions or orders." With his personal guests who were important to him or his state, Kim was a stickler for detail. While in Pyongyang, "he would call me every day," said this South Korean, always asking, "How are you feeling? Is everything all right?"
In a revealing speech in the 1970s, Kim told government officials that "whatever I am doing, I cannot rest easy unless I have the whole situation at my fingertips." As the restless and energetic leader of a small country, Kim telephoned the chief of the general staff every night for a report on the military situation, and the foreign minister for a report on diplomatic 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, the first U.S. 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 riceand 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Because his many directives took on the aura of holy writ, they proved difficult to change if they became outdated or were mistaken from the start.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 by the 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 sixtysix-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