North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Donald Kirk: How Seoul secretly paid for a summit with North Korea

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

Almost a quarter century ago, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung traveled to Pyongyang to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Il for the first-ever inter-Korean summit, a watershed moment in ties between the longtime adversaries. Months later, Kim Dae-jung received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to promote reconciliation with the DPRK and for […]

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most closely watched regions in the world. Don't wait, spaces are filling fast. Hello listeners and welcome to the NK News Podcast. I'm your host, Jack O's Wedslute, and this episode was recorded on Friday, the 26th of July, 2024. And I'm joined here in the studio by Donald Kirk, who is a veteran correspondent and noted author who has covered wars from Vietnam to Iraq, focusing on political, diplomatic, economic, and social, as well as military issues. He's also known for his many decades of reporting on Korea, both North and South, including the nuclear crisis, North Korean

human rights, and payoffs from South Korea to North Korea preceding the June 2000 inter-Korean summit, which we'll be talking about today in his latest book Kim Dae-jung and the quest for the Nobel co-authored with Ki-Sum Kim. Welcome on the show Donald. Good to hear you. Good to hear you too. Donald what is the central argument of this book? Well the central argument is that actually South Korea had to pay multi millions we say 1.5 billion in the book, some say twice that much. US dollars. US dollars to bring about the June 2000 summit and that this money of course helped Kim Jong-il develop his nuclear program.

Okay, now we're going to come back to that money and the amounts of it later on. But first of all, in what sense is this book, Kim Dae-jung and the quest for the Nobel, a continuation of or a sequel to your 2009 book, Korea Betrayed, Kim Dae-jung and Sunshine? The main source for the argument in Korea Betrayed was Kim Ki-Sum, a former employee official with the National Intelligence Service. The last few chapters, three chapters I think of Korea betrayed, really focus on the June 2000 summit. Ki-Sum suggested to me, well, we should do a whole book on this topic. And so we followed up with this book.

Right. Okay. So I went back to the the 2000 press release from the Nobel Prize website, which was when Kim Dae-jung was awarded the prize by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in October 2000, just a few months after that inter-Korean summit. And in that press release they point to Kim Dae-jung as a defender of universal human rights in Asia, as the author of the Sunshine Policy to reduce hostility between the two Koreas.

And also they pointed to his work to reconcile relations with Japan, as well as being a spokesperson for democracy in South Korea through the decades. Quite a long list of things. Is it your contention that his whole legacy is tainted because he gave money to North Korea? Right. The list that you just went through, I wouldn't dispute any of that, but I would also say that yes, his legacy is tainted by the fact that he really authorized the payment of huge

sums to North Korea to bring about the summit, the secret transfer of funds. Right. Now, do you think that Kim Dae-jung pursued the Sunshine Policy and the Inter-Korean Summit in order to win the Nobel Peace Prize for himself? Or was that kind of a gravy in a sense? He was obsessed with the Nobel Peace Prize for years. He'd applied for it or it had been applied for at least 10 times before he finally got it. For some reason, he had the Nobel Peace Prize on his mind as much as winning the presidency. It wasn't expected that he'd win the presidency. That was an upset, a dramatic upset.

But he was just as interested, it would have seemed, in winning the Nobel Prize. Although arguably it could be said that Korea as a nation was interested in winning some kind of Nobel Prize for years. I remember when I first went to the Kyobo bookstore in the 1990s, they had in the entryway there coming out of the subway station. On either side, there was some busts or pictures of Nobel Prize winners in the past. And the last frame was a Korean at that stage face and name unknown. So the frame was left empty, but that was for a future Nobel Prize won by a Korean so what was winning the prize important to Kim for his own ego or do you believe he was in a sense doing it for Korea? Well I would say for both but certainly for his own ego by the way that blank place

space that you saw where there should be a Nobel Prize winner I think that the that the idea was that Kim Dae-jung should fill that space. Although there have been others who were sort of in contention, but the whole idea was that Kim Dae-jung should win the Nobel Peace Prize. When do you think that idea took shape? At least 10 years before he became president and before he authorized or manipulated or maneuvered the transfer of funds to North Korea. I think it goes back quite a way. To the late 1980s, to that period of democratization.

Right, right. Okay, and you were already reporting on Korea at that time. I mean, you've been in and out of Korea since, well when did you first come here? I first came here in I think it was 1972. And I came here for an interesting reason. Yes. The Red Cross talks between North and South Korea. The North Korean Red Cross, the South Korean Red Cross, great talks here. Which were the first talks between the two Koreas since the war ended I think, right? The first public talk. Right. And guess what?

What? talks between the two Koreas since the war ended I think rather the first public talk right and guess what what they were talking about the same things they talk about now people when that is when they do talk yeah namely visits among family members all kinds of communications that kind of thing there was one thing missing from those first talks was that nuclear issue the nuclear no one was talking about that. That's right. Yeah. Although if there was a, well, okay, one of the great questions from over the last two

decades is when did North Korea really begin in earnest going down that path of nuclear weapons? Now some people date it to as early as 1953 when they said that Kim Il-sung saw the destruction wrought upon his nation by American bombing and said that the only way that we can ever be truly Self-defense self-defended is if we have our own nuclear weapons And of course it didn't happen, you know, they didn't get there till the late 1990s, but I think that's true I think it began during Kim Il-sung's rule He passed away in

94 years ago this this this month, right? Yes. Yes But in the mid 1970s, it was South Korea that had a secret nuclear weapons development plan. That was a very nascent plan. It didn't go very far. And guess who suppressed it? The US. The Americans. They did not want South Korea to become a nuclear nation, and they still don't want South Korea to become a nuclear nation. Although some Americans are more open to the idea than before.

Some might be, but I don't think it's really a prevailing view. I don't think it's a majority view. I think that there's a whole lot of feeling against it. If South Korea becomes a nuclear state, how about Japan? And how about Taiwan? You know, we could have like nuclear rivalry and eventually, although there'll be many threats and much rhetoric, eventually, someone's going to explode one of these things. Well, let's hope not.

So coming back to the amount of money that was given by Kim Dae-jung to North Korea, you mentioned the figure of 1.5 million US dollars. Billion. Billion. Bigger pardon. Billion US dollars with a B. Nowion. Billion US with a B. Now I do recall that in the early 2000s there was the first figure that was reported on was about 500 million US dollars that was apparently carried in cash by somebody through China to a handler from North Korea. Just walk us through that story. How did that all happen? The 500 million

was the figure that came up by the way in in hearings later that that's that's almost shall we say the official figure. Right it's a public knowledge. That's acknowledged. Right okay. So that's the basic figure. You mentioned that it was carried through China. Actually it went through Hyundai Asan which is the Hyundai Empire company that deals with North Korea. They're the ones who ran the gum gong and Kaesong special zones when those were open, which they're no which they no longer are. But it was all through Hyundai Aason. Now, through China or through Hyundai Aason more directly to North Korea. I'm not

sure. But it was done through Hyundai Aason. The son of the Hyundai founder Chung Ju Young Yeah was originally from North Korea, right? He was from near Mount Gumgang area Right. He was the one who really engineered it really on behalf of his father Yeah, so that's how that's how I would trace it. Now. How do you get the figure up to 1.5 billion? Yeah, how do you get the figure up to 1.5 billion? Yeah, how do you get the figure up to 1.5 billion? Some people say it was. More funds transferred through Hyundai, Asan and through other means. Chung Joo Young was very active and very much interested in inter-Korean relations.

He started the tours to Mt. Gumgang. Yes. You may remember, I think I went on a couple of them, two or three of them. Yeah, I think they first began in 1998. He brought a thousand live cattle to North Korea as a repayment of a debt from when he stole a cow from his father and came south and never returned home.

So he gave a thousand live cattle to North Korea. And then in the year after that, they started the Kumgangsan tour project. Yeah, that was a very colorful incident, bringing those cattle to North Korea. I was there at the DMZ when they crossed the DMZ. They were all on the back of flatbed trucks making a lot of noise, mooing loudly.

And it was a very touching episode to think that really their better relations were on the way between the two Koreas. And so saddening or troubling to think that really their better relations were on the way between the two Koreas. And it's so saddening or troubling to think that they haven't gotten any better now since the worst days. Now, coming back to that 1.5 billion that a lot of which you said was paid through Hyundai Asan Corporation, was that ostensibly given as payments to North Korea for allowing the Hyundai, the Kumgangsan tourism project to go ahead or was it sort of ostensibly given as payments to North Korea for allowing the Kumgangsan tourism project to go ahead, or was it sort of ostensibly given for other reasons?

Well, Kim Dae-jung always said that they owed it to North Korea for other reasons, that they were paying off a debt, or this was the price of doing business in North Korea. He had several explanations. One explanation he did not give was that I had to give it to Kim Jong-il, you know, to bring about the June 2000 summit, which was necessary to bring about my Nobel Peace Prize.

Was it commonly understood that this was money for the summit at the time? I think so. I think yes. I think it was always regarded that way. And Kim Dae-jung has always denied that. And he and his top lieutenants have had the similar explanation. Lim Dong-won was the head of what was then called the Korean Central Intelligence Agency. Right, now the National Intelligence Service. Now NIS, the National Intelligence Service. Yeah, well, actually, if I can correct, I think at the time it was the agency for national security planning. I think that it hasn't been called the case since at least 1980. NSPA, National Security Planning Agency. I'll never forget those initials because they were

kind of hard to remember when you're writing a story. What does NSPA stand for? Okay. Now, so at the time it wasn't publicly made that these payments were going ahead. How did that come out? You said it was through a hearing at the National Assembly in Korea? Later, after it was all over, there was a... when Noh Myung-un was president actually, there was a great case that went on, great hearings and so forth. And they went on for some time and then they ended and Noh Myung-un wouldn't extend the hearings or broaden them. Right. So we had to settle for 500 million. Actually, to be precise, the figure that in cash that went to North Korea was 450 million plus 50 million for them to buy excavators from Sweden. Now what do they do with these excavators? Well they dug deep.

What did they dig deep for? What else but their nuclear program? Ah, so, yeah, okay. So this is a piece of evidence you have that the money was actually used for their nuclear program. Ah, so, okay, so this is a piece of evidence you have that the money was actually used for the nuclear program. What other evidence do we have that money from that 450 million remaining was used for nuclear weapons?

I think it's mostly deductive, you know, or assuming, in North Korea didn't have money. Right. The country, you know, was basically in its usual state of poverty, yet they went on with their nuclear program. They exploded their first nuclear device in 2006. Six years after the summit.

Right, and after the US and North Korea had reached an agreement whereby they would not only give up their nuclear program, but the US would provide them with the light water nuclear reactors, not the same as nuclear weapons, nuclear reactors to get their dilapidated power system going. The outcome, when this payment became known through those hearings, then the prosecutors took the case forward and they brought some indictments against some people, didn't they, in 2003?

Right, but nothing went very far and I think it was all sort of brought to an end. I don't think anybody went to jail for that, specifically for that. It did end up very sadly, of course, for Chung Mong-hun, who was the son of the founder of Hyundai, who was running Hyundai Asan at the time. That was very sad. Chung Mong-hun jumped out of the 14th floor window at the Hyundai headquarters in Central Seoul that was then in Central Seoul. I went to the scene of his passing on the day. The bushes were flattened.

His body was gone, but the bushes were flattened. And I went to his funeral. Very sad. Why do you believe he did that? Why did he end his own life? In the first place there's some people who think he was pushed out the window. If you believe in that theory, I don't really believe in that theory. I think he did take his own life but I think he was afraid of getting into huge trouble. Couldn't you have just said well

you know I did what President Kim told me to do? Of course he could have, and he could have denied, you know, any... Any wrongdoing? Any ill intent, let's not say necessarily wrongdoing. He could have said what happened. Instead, he chose to take his own life. It's believed, even though he wasn't pushed out the window, it's believed that he may have been encouraged to jump. If you want to avoid all the trouble, you better

go out that window. Encouraged by whom? By those defenders of the legacy of Kim Dae-jung. Okay. And you've now written two books that are quite strongly critical of President Kim Dae-jung, Korea Betrayed and Kim Dae-jung and the Quest for the Nobel. How do you, looking back, how do you evaluate Kim Dae-jung's Sunshine Policy and the summit that he had with Kim Jong-il? Was it something that was worth attempting at the time? Definitely. Of course, he saw Kim Jong-il at Pyongyang, but I interviewed Kim Dae-jung actually over the years about half a dozen times. Ah. And, you know... Before the summit. And I think after.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, after the summit too. But I interviewed him when he was under house arrest in Mapo, in what is now the Kim Dae-jung Library, was then his residence, his headquarters. And I interviewed him before he went to Japan on a trip to the US. While he was in Japan, a trip to the US. While he was in Japan, he was kidnapped.

Yes, and almost killed. Right, and I interviewed him after he got back here when he told me the whole story of his kidnapping. He was a man of tremendous energy and quite convincing. In my interview with him then, he went through the whole story, just detail, detail, detail,

as if he was telling it for the first time when obviously he told it many times right and But you know he gave me the whole impression that I was getting an exclusive interview It was an exclusive interview, but he wasn't telling me what he hadn't said to others yeah, but the energy of the man was incredible and you know his dedication to his cause to the cause of And his dedication to his cause, to the cause of democracy in Korea, was also beyond dispute. But nonetheless, he was a regional figure. He would not have been elected president if he hadn't had about 90-95% of the votes from southwestern Korea, the Chola region, including the two Chola provinces and Gwangju. And he wouldn't possibly have been elected president without that. He never did very well in the South Eastern region, notably Daegu and notably Daegu.

Yeah. Daegu and Gwangju are sort of polar opposites in their outlook. Sure. But also the Busan area. How do you think he looked at North Korea and at Kim Jong-il? How did he see them? Well, he saw that there was the real possibility of rapprochement between the two Koreas. He was a great peacemaker and you know you had to honor him as a peacemaker,

a man who wanted to bring about rapprochement between North and South. He was dedicated to that but he was also dedicated to the Chola legacy and I think he was also deeply opposed, if not hostile, toward the ruling, what they used to call the TK mafia. Right, the Taegukyongsang. Right, which was Pak Chung-hee, who was assassinated in 1979. And he was dedicated to really opposing that. He epitomized in many ways the division in South Korea between the Southwest and the Southeast.

It's very difficult actually for a foreigner, even if you've been here many years, to understand this division. Why are they so divided against one another? We know about it. We're told about it. But we don't really understand the emotional depths of the problems between the southwest and southeast. But the problems go deep and they don't seem to be going away in the last elections.

There you are. But coming to the the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, were they unaware of this? Do you think that that there was money given to to organize a summit? Were they snow? Were they hoodwinked? I do think that they were unaware. I'm not sure I would quite say hoodwinked, which is a rather strong word. OK, I take it back. Some would say that.

Have you spoken to anyone from the committee in writing the book? I tried to get in touch with them. There was a bishop of Norway who simply gave me a no comment. They can't talk about how they reached their conclusions, that kind of thing. Later we got, Kim Ki-sam and I got a Norwegian edition of this book published. And it got quite a lot of publicity in Oslo, Norway papers. And the bishop was said to have said... This is the same one who'd given you a no comment answer before? Yeah, right. It was said to have said, well, we should look more

carefully or something like that. In no confessions, but nonetheless they acknowledged with them we should be more careful. Well, of course, over the years there have been several controversial cases of peace prizes, both at the time and later on in retrospect. Do you think that Kim Dae-jung is the most egregious case like that? I don't know if he's the most egregious case because over the years, not only these controversies about the peace prize, remember the Japanese leader Sato got a got a Nobel Peace Prize years before I don't recall that right and you know, he was the old-time conservative

But there's also been controversy about prizes for scientific, you know endeavors physics or whatever Yeah, I mean did this guy really invent this first or was this other guy working on it? And the other area of controversy is in literary prizes. How do you judge a book? How do you judge an author, a great author in one language comparing with great authors in another language and even in the same language? Who's to say that this guy deserves the prize and this guy didn't? Don't forget, speaking of the Nobel Peace Prize, there's also one notable non-winner. That's Gandhi The great one some people say yeah the greatest advocate of peace in our time, right?

He never won it and they can't give it, you know posthumously. That would be interesting. That's a good idea I wouldn't say they can't give it posthumously but I haven't heard that idea raised. I think they haven't done so in the past. Do you think that the Nobel Peace Prize given to Kim Dae-jung should be posthumously retracted? No, certainly not. I think you can't go around retracting prizes. Okay, so even if it was maybe tainted or bought, do you think? I wouldn't say so, no. I mean, you know, you can't really take back a prize. If you start taking back one prize, then you're going to start taking back another prize and another prize and people are going to say, well, did he deserve that prize?

No, let's take that back. So I would say you got to let it stand. Now, tell us a bit more about your co-author, Kim Ki-sam or Ki-sam Kim, who used to work for the what is now called the National Intelligence Service. How did you come to write this book together? and how is it that he now lives in the United States? Okay, that's an interesting story, at least from my point of view and from his point of view.

When I was working on this book, he was already in the States and he got in touch with me and told me, well, he had a lot, he heard that I was working on it and he said he'd like to talk to me because he had a lot he heard that I was working on it and he said he'd like to talk to me because he had a lot of information and He had conducted his own campaign about the Nobel Peace Prize He had written several lengthy articles in favor of Kim Dae-jung No Against Kim Dae-jung revealing in his view how Kim Dae-jung won won the prize These are articles written after he'd been given the prize in October 2000.

Right. But he had been with the NIS when DJ, as we used to call him, was under consideration for the Nobel Peace Prize. And he saw what he regarded as a lot of manipulation and skull duggery going on. Does he argue that the NIS or then the NSPA actively lobbied for or promoted the nomination of Kim Dae-jung for the Peace Prize? By his observation, the whole Korean apparatus, both the NSPA and the Foreign Ministry and anybody else who could be involved was lobbying for DJ to win the Peace Prize. And so he was so indignant about this that he wrote his exposés.

Of course he got in tremendous trouble with the NIS. Was he still an employee at the time? I don't know exactly when he severed relations, but he certainly had to sever relations. He came to the US and he applied for acceptance in the US as a, not as acceptance in the US as a Not as a refugee but as a as a dissonant. Really? Yes. Okay. Let's so it's a he applied for asylum in the Yes, he applied for asylum and eventually he had an asylum hearing which he asked me to testify right which I did I testified on his behalf that it was somehow dangerous for him to come and his family to come back

to South Korea given that right Exposed and we had a whole asylum hearing before a judge in Philadelphia Yeah, and he won the case they gave him asylum. That's the first chapter of this book By the way, it's called the title of the chapter is asylum at last Exclamation point what that was a long process then for Kim Ki-Sung? Yes, it was a long process. He went through it and he's now an American citizen and members of his family, his wife and son and daughter are also American citizens. Right. So really they could no longer live in South Korea because of this criticism he created of Kim Dae-jung and the NIS.

Now, Kim Ki-Sung is a little reluctant. I told him, well, look, you're a US citizen. You can come back to South Korea. You got the protection of the United States. But he's a little reluctant. He thinks that they might still arrest him, US citizen or not. As I understand it, the basic text for this book was completed many years ago, wasn't it? It was completed in 2012. Okay, so that's 12 years ago. Why did it take so long to come out? It was completed in 2012. Okay so that's 12 years ago. Why did it take so long to come out? It was just published this year. The book was accepted for publication by the same publisher that did publish Korea Betrayed. That's Kim Dae-jung and Sunshine.

Paul Grave McMillan. Paul Grave McMillan and which came out in 2009 I I believe, the year that DJ died. And this book was accepted for publication, was on the way for publication in 2013. It wasn't just accepted at that stage, it had been edited, copy edited, and page proofed, and they sent us the proof. So you've seen the proofs of this book? You're seeing exactly as it was accepted. Okay and then what happened then? Okay they said

that well their lawyers said it was a whole issue of libel and they were reluctant for that reason. But why would there be any worse than Korea betrayed Kim Dae-jung and such, which itself was already quite critical of Kim Dae-jung. Right. I mean the title is Korea betrayed, presumably by Kim Dae-jung. I mean the title is Korea Betrayed, presumably by Kim Dae-jung. So how much worse could this new book be? Well, there's a lot more detail in this new book. It really contains much more detail. It is a very comprehensive book, I can assure the listeners. Which Kee Soms said we should get out there. By the way, this book is out in English and it's available via Kindle. It's not yet in bookstores in Seoul. It's going to get into book is out in English, and it's available via Kindle.

It's not yet in bookstores in Seoul. It's gonna get into bookstores in Seoul. But guess what? It's coming out in Korean edition in about two or three months. By a publisher here in South Korea? Right, right. Is that publisher concerned about backlash

from the NIS or the South Korean government? They may be. They haven't spoken to you about that? No, but Ki-Som mentioned that. So they may be concerned about that, but it's coming out in two or three months. It's going to have the same cover. It's a translation.

Ki-Som has added one chapter. And he's also changed a few facts. What's in the, oh, hang on. Before we go to the change facts, what's in the new additional chapter? You know what? I'm not sure. Oh, because it's all in Korean and you haven't seen it in English.

No. I see. But your name's attached to it. I know. My name will be attached to that book. That's a concern. Okay, what about the facts that you say he's changed? Okay, the key fact that he really wanted to change, we have 1.5 billion as the amount that ultimately went to Korea, and Ki-Som says it's 3 billion. Well, that's double.

He doubled the figure. And that's six times more than the 500 million that's publicly acknowledged. Right, right. So how did he get to that number? That will be explained. But he says that he has evidence that he believes that a lot more money was getting filtered into North Korea

to bring about the summit, and also after the summit, to stay on North Korea's good side. So it's really quite shocking. I think the question that one has to ask is, well, was this all ultimately for a good purpose? Peace between the two Koreas? Can one justify any kind of payoff by saying, well, we had to bring about some sort of peace? The problem with that is that North Korea has not given up its nuclear program. It only increases nuclear program. Right, but tensions between North and South Korea, at least on a local level, up until

the end of the North Myung-Hoon administration were not as bad as they are now. That's right. They're in a better situation. That's right. Well, Kim Jong-Il authorized during his presidency two nuclear tests right and since during the presidency of you know of Kim Jong-un there have been there have been four nuclear tests now it should also be noted now that the last nuclear test was conducted in 2017 yeah that's quite a few years ago, seven years ago. Why haven't they done

it since then? Well, okay, there's two or three reasons. What's your theory? I have two theories, neither of which is necessarily true. One is I don't think the Chinese want North Korea to be conducting nuclear tests. I think that's what do you call it, perceived wisdom or received wisdom? That's perceived and received wisdom. It's commonly held. It's not an original idea and it's thoroughly unprovable. Okay well yeah you can't yeah but what's your other theory? The other theory is the last nuclear test blew more or less the top off of the mountain in which it was conducted, 200 people were killed supposedly.

Again, not verified. But that in itself is not something that would stop the North Korean government from doing it again if they felt it was necessary. Well, one might say that, but it was said to be the equivalent of, if not a hydrogen bomb, more than a simple nuclear device. But, I mean, you know, there's been a lot of talk in the last couple of years about North Korea maybe wanting to test a much smaller device, what they call a tactical nuclear weapon. That's right. Tactical nukes. Low yield, heavy, decent at battlefield. And they haven't even tested a low yield tactical weapon. No, that's true.

Which may bring us back to our first theory that it could be just, you know, opposition by China. Right. You know. It's a strong case. Yeah. And it's also tremendously costly. Of course, we've already discussed how we believe that Kim Dae-jung was getting money into North Korea to bring about the Nobel Peace Prize and then financing the North's nuclear program.

Well, he was still alive when the first test was done in 2006. Do you think he had an inkling that I may be helping Kim Jong-il to develop these nuclear weapons? I think he was almost embarrassed by it. I think that he was blaming the Americans for backing out of their own agreement with the North. The Light Water Reactor Agreement. Reached in 1994.

Yeah, under the Agreed Framework. Backing out of the Agreed Framework. The reason for that was that North Korea had been revealed to be dealing in nuclear, in producing nuclear warheads by a highly enriched uranium program, different from the program that they're... The plutonium program. Different from the plutonium program. Different from the plutonium program.

And I think that DJ was very upset with the Americans for backing out of the 1994 agreement. Now, they didn't exactly back out of it. The North Korean, they simply said, we're not sending any more money or oil. Actually, they were sending oil. They were sending oil to North Korea to fuel their existing power plants

until the nuclear plants, the twin light water reactors went online. Okay, the US stopped doing that. Congress wouldn't approve anymore of that. Then North Korea pulled out of the non-proliferation treaty, the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. At that point, everything was off. I think that DJ blamed the US for that sequence. Years ago, I interviewed a chap from the the Nautilus Institute. I'm having trouble on his last name now, Peter Hayes

of the Nautilus Institute, who said to me that even if those light water reactors had been completed and powered up and switched on, the North Korean electricity grid was in such a poor state that it would never have been able to have handled the electrical output from the light water reactor. Well, certainly right away they couldn't have handled it. They would have had to, and they still have to vastly improve their grid. That is a valid point. I don't think that they would forever have not been able to use the oh no But I there would have been a lot of work that had would have had to be done to get the power

Really get the grid functioning. Well, I think it could have begun functioning in stages I think part of the grid could have been turned on, then another part and another part. I'm not an electrical engineer. I do not know these things. I'll take your word for it. Now, over the years, you have actually been to North Korea, haven't you, on reporting trips? Right. A number of times we say reporting trips. I was masquerading as a tourist, of course. Ah, okay. So you were always given a tourist visa.

Right. But do you imagine that the North Koreans knew who you were? I'm not sure. On one of these trips, they asked everybody to identify what they were. I forget what I... I think I said I was a teacher and then went to an institution and I wrote down the school of hard knocks. Gosh. Okay.

I don't know if they... They never came back to me and said, what's that? Were you traveling under your own name and a US passport? Oh yes, I was traveling under my own name on a US passport. So if it had somebody with a Google machine who'd looked you up, they would have found out, oh, this is Donald Kirk, he's probably that guy

that wrote critical things about us. Well, on one trip, I was with a group of Canadian Koreans who were on a tourist trip. And they really wanted to, they really went there ostensibly to go to a sports and cultural festival, but actually they wanted to get in touch with their old relatives and so forth. Very interesting. Yes. And I told them... So many separated families, right? Since the war. And some of them did get to see their old relatives. Yeah, with help from the North Korean government? With help from the North Koreans.

You know, fleeting conversations. But it actually worked out for some of them. Wow. But I told the guy, you know, I really want to talk to a press official because I am a journalist. I said- You actually mentioned to a guide, by the way, I'm a journalist. Can I talk to a fellow journalist?

Yeah. I said, look, I really would like to meet some official from the foreign ministry or somewhere. Okay. And I did get to meet someone. Oh, how was that? Well, they arranged it for me. Yeah. And he shouted at me, you cannot write anything.

You're a tourist, you cannot write. Do not write anything about this trip. And I said, yes, yes, yes, calm down. Everything's okay. And of course, after I got out of there, I wrote everything I could. I don't know what they were thinking, but. Where was that published? Do you remember who you were writing for at the time?

I was writing for a bunch of people. That was a period when I was really freelancing all over the place, Boston Globe, Miami Herald, the Atlanta Constitution, Dallas Morning News. I can't even remember, by the way, a whole bunch of papers that no longer even take foreign news anymore. But those were the days when you the way a whole bunch of papers that no longer even take foreign news anymore but those were the days when you could write for a bunch of papers so I wrote for everybody I could. I think you've

been about six or eight times to North Korea does that sound right to you? Yes, yes now two of those trips are to the mount just to the Mount Geumgang tourist zone and two of those trips are day trips to Kaesong, the Kaesong industrial complex. Well, one of many places I never got to go to. Right, right. Well, they were arranged from here and you came back the same day, but I count those among my North Korean trips. I was in North Korea. Yeah. What's your sort of big takeaway from your reporting, your tourist slash reporting trips to North Korea?

Well, you're always shown the same thing. You always go to Kim Il-sung's boyhood home. If you go to Pyongyang, that's true Yeah, well you have to if you go to Pyongyang not to Mount Kumgang or just to K-song or Mount Kumgang But when you go to Pyongyang, you go to Kim Il-sung's boyhood home And you always have to stand in a row behind, beside, in front of the statue. First it was just Kim Il-sung when Kim Jong-il was in power, and then after Kim Jong-il passed away, there's a statue of him next to Kim Il-sung. So you stand in this row and somebody presents flowers in front of the statue, and you're

supposed to bow, which I didn't do. I just stood in the back row and didn't bow. But you always do the same type of thing and you wonder when you've done it three or four times why am I doing this? Isn't it all the same? But you always pick up some additional insights, just little touches that help to show you what's going on. They took us to Nampo, the port southwest of, or west of, I forget the geography. Yes, southwest of Pyongyang, which is where a lot of the aid from the 1990s during the famine period came through that port of Nampo. Right, it went through, they have locks there. You go from the sea to the to the river, and you through a great big lock. And why would this

one trip there be different from the other? Well, I've been there like three times I think and funny on the last trip I noticed that a lot of this stuff looks pretty old and a lot of it looks out and not in repair You get this sense of you know things really not that good the road there Which is a built the width of an expressway, had weeds in it, there was gravel around. I'm not saying it was a pothole road, but obviously it was a road that needed updating.

It needed work, yeah. So you get this sense of things. And you see people, I ran into a bunch of school girls at something or other we were looking at, and these school girls were there, other we were looking at and these school girls were there and I said, can I see your book? And it was really a dog-eared book, an old book, which they both had really old books that had obviously gone through many hands.

That was the textbook that they were learning from. Right, right. Okay. So you get, there are little touches that make it worthwhile. On the last trip there, and I'm sorry to say I haven't been there since I think 2012 maybe, I haven't been there since 2012. So you have been once after that

Korea Betrayal book came out, in which you talk about the sunshine policy. Right, right. Did they bring it up? Well no, on the last trip, I noticed when we were visiting some, I think the library, they have a huge library. Oh, the Grand People's Study House in Pyongyang.

You could see these new apartments sparkling and not in the near distance in the city. And since then, they've built a whole lot more new apartments. Speaking of the Grand People's Library, they say they got 30 million books there, which is hard to believe. I think it would make it bigger than the Library of Congress or the British Museum. Yeah, that's true. We're not sure how many they have there.

But it's a big place, it's impressive. And you can show a few books coming out, and yet they're the same books that are available every time. Are they? Yeah, yeah, the same titles were available every time. They were just showing us the same old stuff that they show everybody who visits there. Wow, okay. I've not spoken to many people on this podcast about the Kaesong Industrial Zone, and I've never

been there myself. So give us a little bit of a sense of what was that like? It was built and run by South Koreans, but staffed almost entirely by North Korean workers. What was it like to go there? Well, you saw these factories that were producing small items. I can't quite remember what they were, but small. We're not talking heavy industry or even medium-sized industry. This was light industry. We're talking very light industry. Consumer goods, right?

Yes, consumer goods. And you see dozens of young people in front of machines doing this and that. And there was one South Korean who was running a factory, and we visited his headquarters, which had a chapel there. He was able to run his own chapel there in the Kaesong Industrial Complex. He was a devout Christian. Presumably, the North Korean workers weren't allowed to go to the chapel. No, no, no.

But it was interesting to me that they allowed this at all. There was a branch of, I think the Wudi Bank had a branch there. There was a post office there, all that kind of thing. So it seemed like a pretty well-run zone. Again, it's a shame that it's not going now. You mentioned there was a post office there in Kaesong. That brings me to something that I, listeners to our podcast over the years, will have heard me rabid on about this before.

It seems to me like a missed opportunity that over the decades that a postal exchange has never been attempted between North and South Korea. Just basically sending letters from separated family members in South Korea to their families in North Korea since they can't all possibly Physically meet them they could have at least sent them letters Do you have you ever talked to South Korean government officials about whether they tried? I know asking that we're putting this forward whether Kim did Jung in the sunshine policy person Hey, how about I pay you money to take letters and exchange them, right? It's just amazing and of course the South Koreans have gotten nowhere in

this. But have they tried? They've tried, they've raised the topic but it's beyond comprehension. It's not even a negotiating point anymore. There's all kinds of relationships between North. There's no trade between North and South other than by sea. Right now I don't think there's any trade by sea. Yeah. But there has been some trade by sea. Mm-hmm. From Nampo to Incheon. But, but there's... And by rail when Kaesong was open? I should point out that that railroad never transferred cargo. Ah. They only had test runs. They had one test run a week. Okay. And then they stopped the test runs.

Okay, then there were trucks at least from KSOM. There were trucks and there was a train that ran once a week. But they stopped that after a year or two. I'm not, by the way, when I say after a year or two, I'm not totally sure how long it ran. But they were running one test run a week. But the postal exchanges, that never happened.

And they never had any exchange of letters. There's certainly no email. And you would think there would be occasional truck traffic across the line, occasional cargo traffic. No, there's not. And on the East Coast, there's another railroad, which I've seen build at approximately the same time, running into the tourist area,

into the Mt. Gumgang tourist area. They didn't even have test runs on that railroad, so it made me from when they first opened the railroad. That was a complete failure, and it's really a shame because you would have thought that those two lines would eventually, I was on the East Coast when South Korea sent a whole team in the North Korea to examine their whole railroad infrastructure.

The team came back saying there are many problems, they could do this and that, but they could overcome these problems. Nothing ever came of that visit. There was never any follow-up. The North Korean railroad system is in a state of dubious repair. It's not, I wouldn't say it's not operating, but the trains run slowly and

carefully and if they run at all. It was interesting to me that in the period 1948 to 1950, almost right up until the day before the Korean War began, there were actually trains carrying mail back and forth between Seoul and Pyongyang from civilians to civilians. Of course, they went through some kind of a censorship process, but there was actually a mail exchange. There was regular traffic. And in fact, the last train ran from North to South Korea. The engine is on display at Imjongok right now.

It used to be visible from Dorasan son just south of the north south north south line you could see this engine in in the Undergrowth way down below it was blown off the tracks I always thought well surely the guy the engineer must have been blown up to he got out Wow he escaped But there were no more trains that was in the early time of the Korean War Yeah But there were no more trains. That was in the early time of the Korean War. Now, these days, a big story that we talked about here on the NK News podcast and at nknews.org has been the indictment brought against Sumi Terry in the United States for allegedly working together with NIS agents to influence American policymaking on the Korean Peninsula.

Now, given your decades of reporting on North and South Korea and your experience writing and publishing this book with a former NIS agent, Gi-Sum Kim, I imagine you might have some thoughts either about the case or more broadly about the context of Korean government agencies trying to influence debate or to promote or silence certain voices even in the United States. Well, I was really, frankly, along with a lot of other people, I was quite shocked. And I am quite shocked by the Sumitari case. Of course, I've heard her talk a number of times.

I've met her a couple of times. She's a charming, personable person, talks quite convincingly. She's been on this podcast before, last November. Yep, always very nice to me. When I saw her at the Asan Plenum, for example, at the Hyatt Hotel. We both saw her there. Right. And sounds quite reasonable and well-informed and doesn't have the arrogant edge of some self, you know, somebody who thinks, oh I'm a super

expert on North Korea, speaks well. So all the more reason to be shocked by the case. The question, and by the way, the indictment is out there on the internet. It makes good reading. It's about 30 pages. It's quite a story. It's written in a narrative style, so it's very easy to follow. That's right. It's quite dramatic. It's almost as if it was written to be read. Well, definitely to be read. It was written to be read.

I mean not just read by officials of the court or prosecutors and defense law but written to be read by a public. Right I think somebody had fun writing it frankly. But what does it say about South Korean intelligence officials trying to influence the debate or discussion about Korea? Well it says a lot about it but here's what it makes me wonder how many other of these think tank people who talk so knowledgeably are also on the take? Not necessarily from the National Intelligence Service, maybe from some special interest. How many are getting, not necessarily tens of thousands, but a couple thousand here, dollars that is, a couple thousand here, a couple thousand there, a gift here, a gift there.

How many others are there who are in this net of influencers whom South Korea would like to influence and whom others would like to influence? There are many other countries and enterprises that would like to influence US policy. Well, you've been reporting on Korea since, well, you first came here in 1972 during the Red Cross talks. You'll remember the Korea Gate scandal and Dongsung Park. I do, I wrote about that at the time. Did you ever meet Dongsung Park?

I met him, no, I didn't meet him at the time. I met him years later here in Seoul. I remember saying, oh, are you Dongsung Park? And he said, yes, yes, how do you do? Did you talk about the about Korea? No, I just met him at some event here. He went through another scandal after that. Yeah, he was related to the oil for food allegedly. But somehow I think he stayed out of jail. I'm not totally sure of that, but he managed to survive these scandals. So over the years, without having to name any names if you don't want to, have you

known any people who you did think, oh this person's probably on the tank, that they're hewing a little bit too closely to the South Korean policy line and trying to influence people in America? You know, I'm very easily fooled. Sumi Terry fooled me, and I'm sure that others have fooled me. I've never known who was really doing intelligence here. I've never known who in the business community or academic community might secretly be aiding the NIS or the American CIA or some other intelligence agency. I've

never had reason for suspicion. I will say quite honestly, I've never been approached. Now that's either because they don't think I have anything worthwhile to tell them or because maybe if anybody approached me I would not only not do not give them anything but would start writing about it. You are a contrarian figure and you like to expose things that happen. Yeah okay well then I recommend to our listeners to check out your latest book Kim Dae-jung and the quest for the Nobel. It's published by a little known publisher Libratus but you can also find as a Kindle version of it right? Right

and the Kindle is the best way to get it rightas, but you can also find as a Kindle version of it, right? Right. And the Kindle is the best way to get it right now. So you can find that on probably Amazon or other? Amazon, yeah. Okay. Available on Amazon. How the President of South Korea bought the Peace Prize and financed Kim Jong-il's nuclear

program. It's a provocative subtitle, but you certainly make a strong case in the book for it. Thanks very much for coming on the show today, Donald Kirk. Well, thanks for having me. It's been fun and interesting to chat with you. Do you have a website or a Twitter account where people can look at what you're putting out these days and follow you? I have a website, which I haven't been really keeping up

very much, www.donaldkirk.com. OK. I've got quite a few books listed there, all of which can be ordered through Amazon. The website includes many reviews of the books and that kind of thing. So, yeah, my stuff is out there. As I say, I haven't really updated that website for some time now, at least a year or two. Okay.

All right. Well, have a look at donaldkirk.com or get the book from Amazon. Thanks very much again for coming on the show. Thank you. at donaldkirk.com or get the book from amazon thanks very much again for coming to the show thank you welcome to a new realm of insights into the korean peninsula at korea risk group we delve deep into the complexities of north and south korea offering bespoke analyses that empower decision makers whether you're in government, business or academia, our tailored solutions provide clarity in an opaque region. Let our team guide your strategy with data-driven insights and on-the-ground intelligence.

Step into a world of informed decision making the end of our podcast episode for today. Our thanks go to Brian Betts and Alana Hill for facilitating this episode and to our post-recording producer genius, Gabby Magnuson, who cuts out all the extraneous noises, awkward silences, bodily functions and fixes the audio levels. Thank you and listen again next time.