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By Root 1819 0

Clinton telephoned ROK president Kim Young Sam to reassure him that Hubbard's negotiations had not opened a new U.S. channel or line of policy toward North Korea. The telephone call was deemed necessary because South Korean news media and some officials were highly critical of the negotiations, worried that Hubbard was making new deals in the North and reading North Korean advantages into the brief statement Hubbard had made on Washington's authority. "Something strange is going on up there," Kim told Clinton, evidently referring to differences within North Korea's leadership. "We should not move too fast."

In mid-January 1995, I was able to take a week-long look at North Korea in the Kim Jong Il era as part of a four-member academic delegation sponsored by George Washington University's Sigur Center for East Asian Studies. As in my 1991 visit, the small Russianbuilt airliner that brought us from Beijing was the only one to land in the entire country that day. By contrast, Seoul's busy Kimpo airport, one of dozens of commercial airports in the ROK, was recording more than 40,000 passengers a day arriving or departing from overseas on an incessant stream of jumbo jets.

Within an hour after landing, however, I was struck by notable changes from my previous trip three and a half years earlier. The first surprise was that our official Mercedes cars-and all other vehicles in sight-were stopped and their occupants examined at a military checkpoint. This had never happened on my previous trip. Moreover, army and internal security police, often armed with automatic weapons, were in much greater evidence in Pyongyang streets than they had been before, and a frequent European visitor said the military was more conspicuous in the countryside than previously. While there was no discernible challenge to the regime (nor would such a challenge have been tolerated), the notably greater military presence seemed intended to convey a message: but whether that message was increased vigilance against potential challenge or simply the increased importance of the military in the Kim Jong 11 era, I did not know.

As our cars entered the city, we paused en route to our hotel for a new obligatory rite of passage: paying homage to Kim Il Sung at his giant bronze statue on Mansu Hill, overlooking the capital he built. Professor Young C. Kim, the Korean-American leader of our delegation, accepted bouquets of flowers from our hosts to place at the base of the statue, which was already bedecked with scores of other bouquets. Behind us in the subzero January chill were groups of schoolchildren, and then a group of children and adults, waiting their turn to pay tribute. While somber music came from loudspeakers and a sorrowful electronic voice invoked the memory of the Great Leader, television cameras recorded our respectful visit to the statue. The scene was broadcast the following evening on state television, the only TV outlet available and legally permitted to the people of North Korea.

Beginning with our stop at the statue and continuing throughout our stay, Kim 11 Sung seemed as omnipresent in death as in life, dominating the television programs, publications, cultural programs, and even policy presentations of the regime he left behind. With rare exceptions, each official whom we met began his presentation with recognition of the grave historic misfortune suffered by the country and, they claimed, the entire world when the Great Leader died. While mention was made of his son and chosen successor, greater emphasis was placed on the fallen leader.

In all political systems, the death of the leader is a traumatic experience, especially in the case of totalitarian leaders such as Stalin, Mao, and Kim Il Sung, who reigned over their countries for decades. With the choice of his son to be his political heir, Kim had been seeking to avoid the years of confusion and the ultimate repudiation that followed the deaths of his Russian and Chinese contemporaries. The continuing and elaborate homage to Kim even after his death appeared to be calculated