March 2, 2022 • 38 mins
In North Korea, the Kim leaders are literal legends. But Kim Jong-nam’s youth was no fairytale: He’d be trapped in a gilded cage, hidden from the world. We explore the myths and machinations that shaped one of the craziest childhoods in modern history—and how it sparked a showdown between two warring families.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
On the border of North Korea and China, is a lake.
It's nestled within the caldera at the center of a
dormant volcano, surrounded by sixteen jagged mountain peaks. The cliffs
are dark and steep, poked with moss and caps of
shimmering ice and snow. They tumble into deep blue water,
(00:35):
glassy and still. This is Heaven Lake on Mount pet two,
the highest point in North Korea. For Koreans both North
and South, this is a special place. The special place.
(00:56):
According to ancient folklore, this is where the Korean people originated.
More than four thousand years ago, the mythological god king
Tangun descended from heaven and was born right here. He'd
become the first ruler of Korea. Over centuries, empires rose
(01:20):
and fell, the Puyo Kingdom, the Koo Powers, the Chosun dynasty.
Ruling families came and went, but one thing bound them all.
They never stopped revering the mountain as their spiritual home.
Like Tangun before them, these families justified their power by
(01:45):
declaring themselves sons of Heaven, as descendants of Mount Pictwo
and the story of Tangun. It's not the only legend
associated with this sacred place. In fact, there are two
other stories that every student in North Korea by age
five must know by heart. The first is the story
(02:10):
of a young Kim Io Song, a scrappy guerrilla fighter
who risked life and limb to fend off Japanese invaders,
waging fearless battle on the slopes of the Great Mountain.
The second is the story of his son, Kim jong Il,
who they say was born by heaven lake in a
(02:31):
small wooden cabin. Upon his birth, a single bright star
appeared in the twilight, a double rainbow magically streaming across
the mountaintops, like Tangun and the pedigree of emperors before them.
Both Kim's would use these stories to claim a mandate
(02:53):
from heaven, a spiritual calling to become the father figures
of the Korean people, because coursing through their veins was
the stuff of legends, the fabled blood of Mount Peck two.
(03:13):
I guess you could say that Mount Peck two is
to North Korea what the bald Eagle is to the
United States. It's a national symbol, emblazoned on the country's emblem,
its name plastered on everything from power plants to torpedoes.
But that doesn't even do it justice. It's magical, mythical today,
(03:36):
the mountains lore, the notion that this place spawned a
pure blood line of leaders is the glue that holds
the Kim personality called together, and it's the reason Kim
jong Nam's assassination was so shocking, so galling, because according
to centuries of myth and tradition, Kim jong Nam's blood
(03:59):
was more than us royal, it was divine, and he
was first in line to the throne. I'm even lee
in this episode inside the myths and machinations that revealed
the Kim family to be not divine rulers but ruthless infighters,
(04:24):
a family that competes not just for glory and power,
but also for survival. It's pretty obscene the way Kim
jong Nam was raised. They were like brother and sister.
They were each other's only friends. I can just paraphrase
what he said, which was, my father replaced me with
his new family, and that was pretty devastating. This is
(04:47):
big brother. The assassination of Kim jong Nam may have
happened in but the circumstances that led to his death
decades in the making, and it all started, as so
many epic tales do, with a love story and the
(05:08):
collision of two warring families vying for the same affection.
It was the nineteen sixties and Kim Jong il was
just a twentysomething making propaganda for his father's political party,
the Workers Party of Korea. And Kim Jong Il was
a master of his trade. The propaganda was just brilliant.
(05:31):
That's Bradley Martin, a newspaper journalist. I've worked for a Newsweek,
the Roll Street Journal, Bloomberg News, and the author of
the book Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader.
He's reported on the Kim dynasty for decades. One of
the greatest of the propagandists Roz Kim Jong Hill. He
(05:51):
was a super producer and he really knew what he
was doing with propaganda. As a propagandist, Kim Jong Il
was the head of North Korea's motion picture division, making
films that enhanced the regime's messaging and bolstered his father's personality.
(06:13):
Cult To say Kim Jong Il enjoyed making movies is
an understatement. The man was obsessed with cinema, action, romance, horror,
you name it, Kim Jong Il devoured it. He was
(06:34):
a devoted fan of everything from James Bond to vend It.
Like Beckham, he reportedly owned more than thirty thousand movie
titles in his personal theater, including a substantial stash of
very illegal pornography. Chang I loved films so much that
(06:54):
in the nineteen seventies he abducted one of South Korea's
most famous directors. A team of henchmen secretly crossed the border,
tailed the director, threw a bag over his head, and
transported him to a work camp in the North, where
he lived on a diet of rice and grass. Kim
forced the movie maker to direct films for the regime,
(07:17):
including a comically cheesy rip off of Godzilla called Pugati,
and this love of cinema would shape Kim Jong Il's
romantic life too. In the late nineteen sixties, Chang I
(07:42):
was walking through a film studio when he bumped into
an actress named tong headium The princeling was immediately star struck.
Tongam was North Korea's biggest movie star, A thirty one
year old bombshell. She was born in the South but
had moved north as a child. As an actress, she
(08:02):
had multiple lead roles to her credit and even attended
international film festivals. For a movie buff like Kim jong il,
it was like meeting Marilyn Monroe in her prime. It
was love at first sight. Tongden was married with children,
but for a member of the pic two bloodline, that
(08:24):
was no obstacle. Jan Ille forced the actress to divorce
and sent her ex husband out of country to quote work.
The two never married, but they did start a relationship
and in the couple had a child, a baby boy.
(08:45):
Kim Jong il could hardly contain the news. In his book,
Bradley Martin writes that Kim was so excited by the
arrival of his son that he quote honked his car
horn to awaken everyone in the hospital. But there was
one person he refused to tell, his father, the supreme leader,
(09:07):
Kim ils hung. North Korea was and remains a very
socially conservative society. Kim il sung preached conventional family values.
Extramarital affairs were illegal, divorce was frowned upon, and having
a child out of wedlock it was inadmissible. And Kim
(09:28):
Jong il, he had flirted with all three. He knew
his father would never accept his decision to pair off
with the actress, especially a divorcee born in South Korea.
But Kim jong il was a virtuoso of propaganda. He
had a talent for hiding inconvenient information, so he successfully
(09:53):
kept the relationship and the existence of his own son
from his father for four years rs. But even the
greatest propagandists can stumble. The secret eventually leaked, and when
kimio sung learned about his son's love child, he was furious,
(10:15):
that is until he met the little boy. According to
one telling, when kimio sung saw his grandson for the
first time, his eyes flooded with tears. This, after all,
was his first male grandchild. Pet two blood was coursing
(10:36):
through his veins, and when he picked up the child
and held him in his arms, he felt like he
was holding the future of the nation. So kimio Song
gave his grandson a name Kim chong nam in Korean,
it means loyal man. Now with his father's blessing, Kim
(11:00):
jong il felt free to shower his newborn son with affection,
pampering and spoiling him. Kim jong il was a really
doting father That again is Anna Fifield, journalists and author
of The Great Successor. He was out there during the
day during his day job being a tyrant, but he
(11:21):
loved coming home to the palatial compound there and playing
with Kim jong Nam. The two seemed inseparable. Father and
son shared the same bed, a common practice in traditional
Korean society. For eight years. Each night, Kim jong Il
gently rocked and cradled his son to sleep. When Kim
(11:45):
Jong Nam was a toddler, his father began spoiling him
with every gift a child could dream of, and then some.
He had this massive playhouse filled with toys. He had
you know, lego brought in from Denmark and like top
of the range toys brought from everywhere. He had mangoes imported.
(12:08):
He had clothes brought from the UK. You know, anything
he could ever desire. And you know, well beyond his
wild imagination he had. He had a little a little
golf buggy that he could zoom around on his own
zoo with a real bear in it. Um He lived
this ridiculous, pampered life. Kim Jong Nam and his mother's
(12:31):
extended family lived in their own wild off compound in Pyongyang,
an opulent palace called Residents Number fifteen. They had a
hundred servants, five hundred bodyguards, and eight cooks. Anything the
child demanded was his. His father made sure of it.
(12:54):
According to Bradley Martin, Kim jong il assigned a special
unit of bureaucrats to travel the globe to purchase gifts
for his son's birthdays, buying him everything from video games
to diamond wrist watches. You could have anything. You want.
A revolver, here's a revolver. You know, you want an automobile.
(13:15):
Here's a here's a little automobile you can drive around.
You want bars of gold, you have some bars of gold.
It's pretty obscene the way Kim jong Nam was raised.
But there was one thing that young Kim jong Nam
couldn't have, and that was friends. Because although Kim jong
(13:36):
Nam might not have been a dirty secret around his
grandfather anymore, his existence was still shielded from the public,
as well as from most government officials. The princeling was
confined to his palace, forbidden to trek beyond its walls
to see how regular people lived. His playmates consisted of
(13:57):
two adults, a painter and film technician who had been
appointed to be his official friends. For years, Kim Jong
Nam wouldn't know a single soul his own age. He
would have to make do with his father's love, plus
the occasional bar of gold. Family life was strained elsewhere too.
(14:21):
Because of the deep love Kim Jong Ill felt for
his son, it didn't translate to the boy's mother. The
honeymoon phase was long over and their relationship had all
but collapsed. The former actress was deeply unhappy. She missed
the stage, the adrenaline fueled glow of a film set.
(14:44):
She wanted to play movie roles, not the role of
a subservient housekeeper, and despite living in the lap of luxury,
she was tired of being treated as a dirty secret.
Here again is the founder of North Curre. You watch
Michael Madden, whose audio will remind you was distorted, hence
(15:05):
the voiceover. Even though you live in these beautiful villas
with swimming pools and the best food and access to television,
you're essentially under a glorified house arrest, and Kim Jong
Ill didn't have patience for any of the woman's feelings.
His love for her faded years earlier. Kim had once
(15:30):
called her his yell ball or wife, but now he
had downgraded her title to quote the mother of my son.
The relationship grew hostile, and as Kim jong Il became
more and more distant, her mental health began to spiral in.
(15:51):
Living in the house of Kim Jong Ill was a
very stressful experience. Kim Jong Ill was a fairly moody guy,
and he was the most powerful man in the country,
so living around him was basically an exercise and walking
on eggshells. And then Kim jong Il decided he had
had enough. It was time to kick the woman out
(16:12):
of his life for good. But their son, he decided,
would stay with him. Hongheading panicked at the news, she
scooped Kim jong Nam into her arms and sprinted for
the palace doors, Desperate to make an escape, She didn't
get far before the guards stopped her. Shortly after, she
(16:37):
was sent to Moscow for quote medical treatment. Aside from
a few failed attempts to return home, she'd spend the
remainder of her life in Russia mired and depression. Meanwhile,
at Residence Number fifteen, a young Kim Jong Nam went
(16:57):
back to being treated as a state's secret. He was
friendless and now motherless. And soon he would begin to
feel fatherless too. We want to step back for a
(17:34):
moment and take a detour. Too many of us, North
Korea can seem well, a little bit crazy. It's this small,
bellicost country with nuclear weapons, led by a man with
funny hair and comically bad propaganda. The leaders seem psychotic.
(17:55):
They run googlogs. But at the same time, we'll hack
a company sir verse because of a Seth Rogan film.
The state media announces menacing missile launches while almost in
the same breath claiming that they just discovered a unicorn
layer in a cave. It can be hard to take
(18:16):
North Korea seriously, but over the course of reporting this podcast,
almost every expert we spoke to kept making the same
point that North Korea is, in fact not irrational and
it's definitely not unpredictable. A lot of the mainstream media's
obsession with North Korea now borders on caricatures and the eccentric,
(18:39):
But really, North Korea is a deeply serious and rational country.
When you look at it as a sovereign country with
its own strategic interest, a lot of the moves that
it makes make a lot of sense. North Korea is
not only not crazy, but very careful methodical in the
way North Korea just tries to paint its adversaries into
(19:04):
a corner. The point is to understand the death of
Kim Jong Nam, you need to understand what drives North
Korea and most of us, well, we don't understand, but
it's possible to make sense of it. Take for instance,
(19:24):
the Kim personality cult. It's not the only country with
a personality cult, but it is one of the most effective.
And the reason has a lot to do with Confucianism.
Confucianism is deeply embedded in North Korean society. That's Dr
Sung Unually, a professor at Tufts University. He's an expert
(19:48):
on North Korea US relations as well as history. Confucianism
has been the most prominent ideology in Korean history since
about the year fourteen. Confucius never stepped foot on the
Korean peninsula, but his life's work saturates the region's value
(20:12):
system both North and South. Take North Korea's propaganda, for example,
the films cooked up by Kim Jong il in the
nineteen sixties painted the Supreme leader as universally benevolent, even omniscient.
The leader's talents no no bounds. Kim Jong Ill, after all,
(20:32):
supposedly wrote six operas and could hit eighteen holes in one.
It's ridiculous, but the strategy makes some sense in the
context of Confucianism. Confucius experienced deep instability during his lifetime,
and he dreamed of bringing peace to the bloodshed around him.
(20:54):
He preached strategies that he believed could coax order from
the chaos. In solution was virtue. In Confucian society, a
leader rules not by force, but by virtue, and the
Kim family knows this, so they push a narrative, one
(21:16):
that constantly reminds the populace over and over and over,
how dear, how great, how benevolent, how kind, and how
caring their leader is. This desire to appear virtuous, mixed
with the peck two myth of divine rule, creates a
noxious ideology that basically treats the Kims as God's and
(21:42):
if they're to be worshiped like God's, then they must
have the virtues and the abilities of God's. As a result,
North Korea has outstalinized Stalin. North Korea's cult of personality
puts the cult of Chairman mob in China or Stalin
in the former Soviet Union to shame. And that's why
(22:05):
Kim Jong il had to keep his private life a secret.
If news ever spread to the common people about his
illicit relationship with an actress or his love child, it
could soil this carefully calibrated image. It could be especially
dangerous if this knowledge ever fell into the hands of
a competitor or some military figure who wanted to stage
(22:29):
a coup. This information could be used against him to
puncture that godlike persona. Because the other element of Confucianism
revolves around hierarchy, what are the common characteristics of Confucianism?
Respectful communal values, respect for society, respectful authority, respect for
(22:53):
the nation, putting the family about the individual, the society
above the family, and the state above all. Confucius believed
in the society built upon strong hierarchies with strict obedience
to authorities. This, he said, could foster stability, and the
(23:15):
system has a proven track record. According to Dr Lee,
Korea's ancient dynasties flourished because of this dogmatic loyalty to
superiors and the willingness to put society before the self.
Confucian societies are more cohesive to when it comes to
national calamities, war, the pandemic. People are more prone to
(23:41):
sacrificing their individual privacy and their individual rights for the
sake of the greater good of society. This respect for
hierarchy is the reason young people both North and South
are expected to show constant obedience to their parents, to teachers,
and the government offici shoals. There are three bonds so
(24:03):
cold in Confucianism. First the bureaucrat, the official submits himself
to the king, and then the gross gender inequality women,
the wife submits herself to the husband and later even
to her own son. And then filial piety the son
submits to the father. But it's filial piety, submission and
(24:28):
loyalty to your father's reputation that really drives the culture.
And in North Korea everybody has the same symbolic father.
The man with peck two blood Kim ils Hung. This
is no mistake, this is a brilliant strategy. The Kims
have used propaganda to hijack traditional Confucian values and seize
(24:52):
upon the national myth of the Peck two bloodline to
serve their own interests and to feed their own power.
It was a way for Kim Ala Song to essentially
guarantee that he was going to be front and center
of the North Korean system. That you may remember is Dr.
Benjamin Young, a historian at Virginia Commonwealth University. There was
(25:14):
actually a slogan in uh North Koreator in the Cold
War era that literally said koreas Kimbelsung. Kimmel Sung is Korea.
The Kim family personality called It is ubiquitous within North Korea,
from slogans and posters to school children learning poems about
the greatness of Kimmel Song. I really can't escape it.
(25:34):
It is central to the North Korean way of life,
and there is nothing to rival or challenge that messaging.
In fact, the government is the only source of information.
This persistent burrage of propaganda has a way of bending
and breaking people's minds into submission. So the people of
(25:58):
North Korea believe these stories, whether through real devotion or
fear of what might happen if they don't. It helps
breed political loyalty and simultaneously quashes any grassroots opposition. And
total fidelity to the image of one man, one family
(26:22):
has the power to turn normal people into monsters. Look
no further than Kim Chang Ill. In the nine seventies,
when Kim jong Nam was just a little boy, his
father was preparing to become the nation's next ruler. He
(26:45):
was the chosen son of heaven, a pick to air,
and he had an image to maintain, a godlike image,
and that's probably why he sent the mother of his
firstborn son to Moscow. If she stayed in North Korea,
it was guaranteed that gossip about their relationship would reach
(27:07):
the public. So he exiled her, banishing her to a
foreign mental facility, and in the process, his cruelty affected
his son. He deprived Kim jong Nam of a mother.
In fact, Kim jong Il would go to extreme lengths
to ensure that the boy and his mother would remain
(27:30):
a state secret. We know this because at the time,
a group of young North Korean students were living in Moscow.
One day, a student somehow learned about Kim jong il's
mentally distressed mistress. Words spread that she lived nearby, somewhere
in the Soviet Union. The gossip spread all the way
(27:52):
back to Kiang Yang, and Kim jong Il was horrified.
In an effort to shut down the rumor mill, he
sent a security team to Russia. Kim's communist goons arrived
in Moscow, rounded up all the university students and interrogated them.
(28:12):
Anybody who acknowledged knowing anything about the ex mistress or
her whereabouts or her child was immediately executed. Turns out,
Kim jong Nam was a secret worth killing for. For
(28:50):
most of his childhood, Kim jong Nam was functionally locked
in a palace, cut off from the outside world. The
boy passed his time and activity by reading books, drawing pictures,
and naturally, watching movies, and his father continued to spoil him.
(29:10):
One time, when the little prince had a toothache, Kim
Jong ille convinced him to go to the dentist by
gifting him a Cadillac. When he turned eight, his father
threw him a birthday party, where instead of toys, he
was given a military uniform and the rank of martial.
In a nod to his future rank, palace workers began
(29:33):
referring to the boy as little Comrade General. Later that night,
a fireworks display spelled out the words Happy birthday, Comrade
General in the sky. Nothing was too much to ask for.
On one occasion, when the young child requested that his
father hire his favorite South Korean comedian. The regimes seriously
(29:56):
considered abducting the funny man, but this is the hassle. Instead,
Kim Jong Il sand scouts to find a look alike.
They returned with a farmer who they trained to do
stand up comedy. But Kim Jong Ill knew that his
firstborn son was still lonely. A palace of endless toys
(30:17):
and cars and jewels was not the same as having
a mother or a friend his own age. So when
Kim Jong Nam was eight, his father brought a little
girl home to be his friend. It was his thirteen
year old cousin, Namok. The two hit it off immediately.
Kim Jong Nam and Nam were very very close growing.
(30:40):
They were like brother and sister that were each other's
only friends. Together, the duo would binge movies and shoot
pelicans and potter between the palace walls on golf carts.
Sometimes they convinced the palace show first to drive them
around the streets of Kong Young. They were never allowed
out of the vehicle. The girl would become his playmate
and his closest confidant. He basically kind of gave up
(31:05):
her whole life to be his friend, to be his sidekicks.
His father also invited Kim jong Nam's grandmother and aunt
to move into residence Umber fifteen to provide a needed
maternal presence. The women were like governesses. They schooled him
and everything from Russian to mathematics. By the time he
(31:27):
was nine, Kim jong Nam was growing into an artistic
and curious young child, A sensitive yet optimistic boy who
loved books and jokes and the latest technology, and his
feelings of filial piety ran deep. The boy worshiped his father,
as his playmate Enamok later recounted, he was totally submissive
(31:51):
to his father, and I never criticized what Kim jongile
decided for him. Kim Jongial poured his very deep love
into his on in childhood, so I don't think the
child felt lonely. His mother's absence was covered up by
his father's presence, but it wouldn't last. As Kim jong
(32:12):
Nam grew older, his father's love grew colder. He stopped
talking the young boy into bed. He no longer dispatched
teams to buy him every imaginable gift. He started to
join the family in residence number fifteen for supper less
and less often only appearing three times a week. The
(32:37):
reason Kim jong Il had what we're called secret parties
or secret banquets, and those became places where many decisions
were made, whether it was about policy or personnel, and
everybody was required to sing and everybody was required to
have a lot to drink. One night, Kim jong Il
invited a local art troop to one of these parties,
(32:59):
the sude Ar Troupe, which is a prestigious performing arts
group in North Korea, and he was immediately smitten by
the group's star dancer. She's on the cover of record
albums that they would put out and traveled around Japan.
So Kim jong Il invited the dance troupe back again
and again just to watch the same woman perform. After
(33:23):
each performance, he invited her to sit beside him. Sometimes
he'd even go to their rehearsals to watch her practice.
Her name was Cool Yong He, and sometime around she
began missing dance practice. Rumors swirled among the dancers that
(33:44):
she was pregnant, and soon she was living in the
Royal Palace with Kim Jong Il is the third or
fourth wife of Kim Jong Ill and my wife. These
people were never officially married. These are more like royal consorts.
(34:05):
These are women that Kim jong Ill established households with.
Like Kim jong Il's previous relationship, this one was also
a little scandalous in North Korea's cast system. This new
woman was the lowest of the low. Her father had
worked for the Japanese Army, North Korea's sworn enemy. But
(34:28):
none of this matter to Kim jong Ill. He loved
her and she was carrying a baby, a boy, what
would be his second son. So he gave her her
own home, and Changill started an entirely new household, one
that lived completely separated from Kim jong Nam's wing of
(34:49):
the family. And with that, an unspoken feud flared between
the two branches of Kim's one that would go on
for decades to come. But for the young Kim jong Nam,
it was his father's divided attention that took the biggest toll.
He saw less of Kim Jong Il and grew closer
(35:13):
with his aunts and uncles. He started feeling increasingly alienated
from his father, so Kim jong Nam's minders made a decision.
It was time to give the boy a new environment.
He couldn't live as a secret anymore. He had to
see the world. The family of Kim jong The family
(35:36):
of Kim jong Nam convinced Kim Jong Ill that Kim
jong Nam needs to get a proper education in a
school setting. He can't do it in North Korea because
you have to keep the leader standard secret. So they
convinced Kim Jong Ill that Kim jong Nam should study abroad,
and the first stop is Switzerland. This decision, however, would
(35:57):
do nothing to improve Kim jong Nam's relation ship with
his father. In fact, Cheng Nam would feel even more
forgotten neglected. He was motherless, he had one childhood friend
to his name, and now he was living thousands of
miles away from home. And for the first time in
(36:17):
his life, the firstborn heir to the Peck two dynasty
began to feel something, something he had been taught to
suppress all his life, resentment for his father. I can
just paraphrase what he said, which was that when I
left for switzerlandon my father replaced me with his new family,
(36:40):
and that was pretty devastating. Little did Kim jong Nam, no,
But that's exactly what his father's new mistress wanted because
in she gave birth to another boy. His name was
Kim Jong un. And even though these boys were still
(37:02):
too young to even comprehend running a country, Koyong he
knew that Kim Jong nam stood in the way of
her children's path to the throne, and she would do
anything to clear it. Next time on Big Brother, we
(37:24):
dive deeper into how manipulative mothers drove two young boys
to scramble for their father's affection, leading to a ruthless
race to become North Korea's successor. Big Brother is a
production of School of Humans and I Heart Radio and
hosted by me Eden Lee Lucas. Riley is our writer,
(37:47):
co director and associate producer. Amelia Brock is our senior producer,
co director and editor. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
Elci Crowley, and Jason English. Our fact checker is Aaron Blakemore.
Music composed by Jason Todd Shannon and Tunewalders. Original score
mixed by Vick Stafford. Our opening song is Adi Dang
(38:09):
Fantasy arranged by Choice Hongwan As performed by the New
York Philharmonic licensed from euro Arts Music International. Audio editing
by Jesse nice Swanger, Sound design and mixed by Harper W. Harris.
Audio correction by Josh Fisher. Voice acting by Mike Coscarelli,
June you In and Sage Kim Gray. Special thanks to
(38:33):
Ryan Murdoch and Will Pearson. Sound licensed from Critical Past.
If you're enjoying the podcast, help us get the word
out by leaving a rating in your favorite podcast app.
Until next time, I'm even Lee School of Humans
On the border of North Korea and China, is a lake.
It's nestled within the caldera at the center of a
dormant volcano, surrounded by sixteen jagged mountain peaks. The cliffs
are dark and steep, poked with moss and caps of
shimmering ice and snow. They tumble into deep blue water,
(00:35):
glassy and still. This is Heaven Lake on Mount pet two,
the highest point in North Korea. For Koreans both North
and South, this is a special place. The special place.
(00:56):
According to ancient folklore, this is where the Korean people originated.
More than four thousand years ago, the mythological god king
Tangun descended from heaven and was born right here. He'd
become the first ruler of Korea. Over centuries, empires rose
(01:20):
and fell, the Puyo Kingdom, the Koo Powers, the Chosun dynasty.
Ruling families came and went, but one thing bound them all.
They never stopped revering the mountain as their spiritual home.
Like Tangun before them, these families justified their power by
(01:45):
declaring themselves sons of Heaven, as descendants of Mount Pictwo
and the story of Tangun. It's not the only legend
associated with this sacred place. In fact, there are two
other stories that every student in North Korea by age
five must know by heart. The first is the story
(02:10):
of a young Kim Io Song, a scrappy guerrilla fighter
who risked life and limb to fend off Japanese invaders,
waging fearless battle on the slopes of the Great Mountain.
The second is the story of his son, Kim jong Il,
who they say was born by heaven lake in a
(02:31):
small wooden cabin. Upon his birth, a single bright star
appeared in the twilight, a double rainbow magically streaming across
the mountaintops, like Tangun and the pedigree of emperors before them.
Both Kim's would use these stories to claim a mandate
(02:53):
from heaven, a spiritual calling to become the father figures
of the Korean people, because coursing through their veins was
the stuff of legends, the fabled blood of Mount Peck two.
(03:13):
I guess you could say that Mount Peck two is
to North Korea what the bald Eagle is to the
United States. It's a national symbol, emblazoned on the country's emblem,
its name plastered on everything from power plants to torpedoes.
But that doesn't even do it justice. It's magical, mythical today,
(03:36):
the mountains lore, the notion that this place spawned a
pure blood line of leaders is the glue that holds
the Kim personality called together, and it's the reason Kim
jong Nam's assassination was so shocking, so galling, because according
to centuries of myth and tradition, Kim jong Nam's blood
(03:59):
was more than us royal, it was divine, and he
was first in line to the throne. I'm even lee
in this episode inside the myths and machinations that revealed
the Kim family to be not divine rulers but ruthless infighters,
(04:24):
a family that competes not just for glory and power,
but also for survival. It's pretty obscene the way Kim
jong Nam was raised. They were like brother and sister.
They were each other's only friends. I can just paraphrase
what he said, which was, my father replaced me with
his new family, and that was pretty devastating. This is
(04:47):
big brother. The assassination of Kim jong Nam may have
happened in but the circumstances that led to his death
decades in the making, and it all started, as so
many epic tales do, with a love story and the
(05:08):
collision of two warring families vying for the same affection.
It was the nineteen sixties and Kim Jong il was
just a twentysomething making propaganda for his father's political party,
the Workers Party of Korea. And Kim Jong Il was
a master of his trade. The propaganda was just brilliant.
(05:31):
That's Bradley Martin, a newspaper journalist. I've worked for a Newsweek,
the Roll Street Journal, Bloomberg News, and the author of
the book Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader.
He's reported on the Kim dynasty for decades. One of
the greatest of the propagandists Roz Kim Jong Hill. He
(05:51):
was a super producer and he really knew what he
was doing with propaganda. As a propagandist, Kim Jong Il
was the head of North Korea's motion picture division, making
films that enhanced the regime's messaging and bolstered his father's personality.
(06:13):
Cult To say Kim Jong Il enjoyed making movies is
an understatement. The man was obsessed with cinema, action, romance, horror,
you name it, Kim Jong Il devoured it. He was
(06:34):
a devoted fan of everything from James Bond to vend It.
Like Beckham, he reportedly owned more than thirty thousand movie
titles in his personal theater, including a substantial stash of
very illegal pornography. Chang I loved films so much that
(06:54):
in the nineteen seventies he abducted one of South Korea's
most famous directors. A team of henchmen secretly crossed the border,
tailed the director, threw a bag over his head, and
transported him to a work camp in the North, where
he lived on a diet of rice and grass. Kim
forced the movie maker to direct films for the regime,
(07:17):
including a comically cheesy rip off of Godzilla called Pugati,
and this love of cinema would shape Kim Jong Il's
romantic life too. In the late nineteen sixties, Chang I
(07:42):
was walking through a film studio when he bumped into
an actress named tong headium The princeling was immediately star struck.
Tongam was North Korea's biggest movie star, A thirty one
year old bombshell. She was born in the South but
had moved north as a child. As an actress, she
(08:02):
had multiple lead roles to her credit and even attended
international film festivals. For a movie buff like Kim jong il,
it was like meeting Marilyn Monroe in her prime. It
was love at first sight. Tongden was married with children,
but for a member of the pic two bloodline, that
(08:24):
was no obstacle. Jan Ille forced the actress to divorce
and sent her ex husband out of country to quote work.
The two never married, but they did start a relationship
and in the couple had a child, a baby boy.
(08:45):
Kim Jong il could hardly contain the news. In his book,
Bradley Martin writes that Kim was so excited by the
arrival of his son that he quote honked his car
horn to awaken everyone in the hospital. But there was
one person he refused to tell, his father, the supreme leader,
(09:07):
Kim ils hung. North Korea was and remains a very
socially conservative society. Kim il sung preached conventional family values.
Extramarital affairs were illegal, divorce was frowned upon, and having
a child out of wedlock it was inadmissible. And Kim
(09:28):
Jong il, he had flirted with all three. He knew
his father would never accept his decision to pair off
with the actress, especially a divorcee born in South Korea.
But Kim jong il was a virtuoso of propaganda. He
had a talent for hiding inconvenient information, so he successfully
(09:53):
kept the relationship and the existence of his own son
from his father for four years rs. But even the
greatest propagandists can stumble. The secret eventually leaked, and when
kimio sung learned about his son's love child, he was furious,
(10:15):
that is until he met the little boy. According to
one telling, when kimio sung saw his grandson for the
first time, his eyes flooded with tears. This, after all,
was his first male grandchild. Pet two blood was coursing
(10:36):
through his veins, and when he picked up the child
and held him in his arms, he felt like he
was holding the future of the nation. So kimio Song
gave his grandson a name Kim chong nam in Korean,
it means loyal man. Now with his father's blessing, Kim
(11:00):
jong il felt free to shower his newborn son with affection,
pampering and spoiling him. Kim jong il was a really
doting father That again is Anna Fifield, journalists and author
of The Great Successor. He was out there during the
day during his day job being a tyrant, but he
(11:21):
loved coming home to the palatial compound there and playing
with Kim jong Nam. The two seemed inseparable. Father and
son shared the same bed, a common practice in traditional
Korean society. For eight years. Each night, Kim jong Il
gently rocked and cradled his son to sleep. When Kim
(11:45):
Jong Nam was a toddler, his father began spoiling him
with every gift a child could dream of, and then some.
He had this massive playhouse filled with toys. He had
you know, lego brought in from Denmark and like top
of the range toys brought from everywhere. He had mangoes imported.
(12:08):
He had clothes brought from the UK. You know, anything
he could ever desire. And you know, well beyond his
wild imagination he had. He had a little a little
golf buggy that he could zoom around on his own
zoo with a real bear in it. Um He lived
this ridiculous, pampered life. Kim Jong Nam and his mother's
(12:31):
extended family lived in their own wild off compound in Pyongyang,
an opulent palace called Residents Number fifteen. They had a
hundred servants, five hundred bodyguards, and eight cooks. Anything the
child demanded was his. His father made sure of it.
(12:54):
According to Bradley Martin, Kim jong il assigned a special
unit of bureaucrats to travel the globe to purchase gifts
for his son's birthdays, buying him everything from video games
to diamond wrist watches. You could have anything. You want.
A revolver, here's a revolver. You know, you want an automobile.
(13:15):
Here's a here's a little automobile you can drive around.
You want bars of gold, you have some bars of gold.
It's pretty obscene the way Kim jong Nam was raised.
But there was one thing that young Kim jong Nam
couldn't have, and that was friends. Because although Kim jong
(13:36):
Nam might not have been a dirty secret around his
grandfather anymore, his existence was still shielded from the public,
as well as from most government officials. The princeling was
confined to his palace, forbidden to trek beyond its walls
to see how regular people lived. His playmates consisted of
(13:57):
two adults, a painter and film technician who had been
appointed to be his official friends. For years, Kim Jong
Nam wouldn't know a single soul his own age. He
would have to make do with his father's love, plus
the occasional bar of gold. Family life was strained elsewhere too.
(14:21):
Because of the deep love Kim Jong Ill felt for
his son, it didn't translate to the boy's mother. The
honeymoon phase was long over and their relationship had all
but collapsed. The former actress was deeply unhappy. She missed
the stage, the adrenaline fueled glow of a film set.
(14:44):
She wanted to play movie roles, not the role of
a subservient housekeeper, and despite living in the lap of luxury,
she was tired of being treated as a dirty secret.
Here again is the founder of North Curre. You watch
Michael Madden, whose audio will remind you was distorted, hence
(15:05):
the voiceover. Even though you live in these beautiful villas
with swimming pools and the best food and access to television,
you're essentially under a glorified house arrest, and Kim Jong
Ill didn't have patience for any of the woman's feelings.
His love for her faded years earlier. Kim had once
(15:30):
called her his yell ball or wife, but now he
had downgraded her title to quote the mother of my son.
The relationship grew hostile, and as Kim jong Il became
more and more distant, her mental health began to spiral in.
(15:51):
Living in the house of Kim Jong Ill was a
very stressful experience. Kim Jong Ill was a fairly moody guy,
and he was the most powerful man in the country,
so living around him was basically an exercise and walking
on eggshells. And then Kim jong Il decided he had
had enough. It was time to kick the woman out
(16:12):
of his life for good. But their son, he decided,
would stay with him. Hongheading panicked at the news, she
scooped Kim jong Nam into her arms and sprinted for
the palace doors, Desperate to make an escape, She didn't
get far before the guards stopped her. Shortly after, she
(16:37):
was sent to Moscow for quote medical treatment. Aside from
a few failed attempts to return home, she'd spend the
remainder of her life in Russia mired and depression. Meanwhile,
at Residence Number fifteen, a young Kim Jong Nam went
(16:57):
back to being treated as a state's secret. He was
friendless and now motherless. And soon he would begin to
feel fatherless too. We want to step back for a
(17:34):
moment and take a detour. Too many of us, North
Korea can seem well, a little bit crazy. It's this small,
bellicost country with nuclear weapons, led by a man with
funny hair and comically bad propaganda. The leaders seem psychotic.
(17:55):
They run googlogs. But at the same time, we'll hack
a company sir verse because of a Seth Rogan film.
The state media announces menacing missile launches while almost in
the same breath claiming that they just discovered a unicorn
layer in a cave. It can be hard to take
(18:16):
North Korea seriously, but over the course of reporting this podcast,
almost every expert we spoke to kept making the same
point that North Korea is, in fact not irrational and
it's definitely not unpredictable. A lot of the mainstream media's
obsession with North Korea now borders on caricatures and the eccentric,
(18:39):
But really, North Korea is a deeply serious and rational country.
When you look at it as a sovereign country with
its own strategic interest, a lot of the moves that
it makes make a lot of sense. North Korea is
not only not crazy, but very careful methodical in the
way North Korea just tries to paint its adversaries into
(19:04):
a corner. The point is to understand the death of
Kim Jong Nam, you need to understand what drives North
Korea and most of us, well, we don't understand, but
it's possible to make sense of it. Take for instance,
(19:24):
the Kim personality cult. It's not the only country with
a personality cult, but it is one of the most effective.
And the reason has a lot to do with Confucianism.
Confucianism is deeply embedded in North Korean society. That's Dr
Sung Unually, a professor at Tufts University. He's an expert
(19:48):
on North Korea US relations as well as history. Confucianism
has been the most prominent ideology in Korean history since
about the year fourteen. Confucius never stepped foot on the
Korean peninsula, but his life's work saturates the region's value
(20:12):
system both North and South. Take North Korea's propaganda, for example,
the films cooked up by Kim Jong il in the
nineteen sixties painted the Supreme leader as universally benevolent, even omniscient.
The leader's talents no no bounds. Kim Jong Ill, after all,
(20:32):
supposedly wrote six operas and could hit eighteen holes in one.
It's ridiculous, but the strategy makes some sense in the
context of Confucianism. Confucius experienced deep instability during his lifetime,
and he dreamed of bringing peace to the bloodshed around him.
(20:54):
He preached strategies that he believed could coax order from
the chaos. In solution was virtue. In Confucian society, a
leader rules not by force, but by virtue, and the
Kim family knows this, so they push a narrative, one
(21:16):
that constantly reminds the populace over and over and over,
how dear, how great, how benevolent, how kind, and how
caring their leader is. This desire to appear virtuous, mixed
with the peck two myth of divine rule, creates a
noxious ideology that basically treats the Kims as God's and
(21:42):
if they're to be worshiped like God's, then they must
have the virtues and the abilities of God's. As a result,
North Korea has outstalinized Stalin. North Korea's cult of personality
puts the cult of Chairman mob in China or Stalin
in the former Soviet Union to shame. And that's why
(22:05):
Kim Jong il had to keep his private life a secret.
If news ever spread to the common people about his
illicit relationship with an actress or his love child, it
could soil this carefully calibrated image. It could be especially
dangerous if this knowledge ever fell into the hands of
a competitor or some military figure who wanted to stage
(22:29):
a coup. This information could be used against him to
puncture that godlike persona. Because the other element of Confucianism
revolves around hierarchy, what are the common characteristics of Confucianism?
Respectful communal values, respect for society, respectful authority, respect for
(22:53):
the nation, putting the family about the individual, the society
above the family, and the state above all. Confucius believed
in the society built upon strong hierarchies with strict obedience
to authorities. This, he said, could foster stability, and the
(23:15):
system has a proven track record. According to Dr Lee,
Korea's ancient dynasties flourished because of this dogmatic loyalty to
superiors and the willingness to put society before the self.
Confucian societies are more cohesive to when it comes to
national calamities, war, the pandemic. People are more prone to
(23:41):
sacrificing their individual privacy and their individual rights for the
sake of the greater good of society. This respect for
hierarchy is the reason young people both North and South
are expected to show constant obedience to their parents, to teachers,
and the government offici shoals. There are three bonds so
(24:03):
cold in Confucianism. First the bureaucrat, the official submits himself
to the king, and then the gross gender inequality women,
the wife submits herself to the husband and later even
to her own son. And then filial piety the son
submits to the father. But it's filial piety, submission and
(24:28):
loyalty to your father's reputation that really drives the culture.
And in North Korea everybody has the same symbolic father.
The man with peck two blood Kim ils Hung. This
is no mistake, this is a brilliant strategy. The Kims
have used propaganda to hijack traditional Confucian values and seize
(24:52):
upon the national myth of the Peck two bloodline to
serve their own interests and to feed their own power.
It was a way for Kim Ala Song to essentially
guarantee that he was going to be front and center
of the North Korean system. That you may remember is Dr.
Benjamin Young, a historian at Virginia Commonwealth University. There was
(25:14):
actually a slogan in uh North Koreator in the Cold
War era that literally said koreas Kimbelsung. Kimmel Sung is Korea.
The Kim family personality called It is ubiquitous within North Korea,
from slogans and posters to school children learning poems about
the greatness of Kimmel Song. I really can't escape it.
(25:34):
It is central to the North Korean way of life,
and there is nothing to rival or challenge that messaging.
In fact, the government is the only source of information.
This persistent burrage of propaganda has a way of bending
and breaking people's minds into submission. So the people of
(25:58):
North Korea believe these stories, whether through real devotion or
fear of what might happen if they don't. It helps
breed political loyalty and simultaneously quashes any grassroots opposition. And
total fidelity to the image of one man, one family
(26:22):
has the power to turn normal people into monsters. Look
no further than Kim Chang Ill. In the nine seventies,
when Kim jong Nam was just a little boy, his
father was preparing to become the nation's next ruler. He
(26:45):
was the chosen son of heaven, a pick to air,
and he had an image to maintain, a godlike image,
and that's probably why he sent the mother of his
firstborn son to Moscow. If she stayed in North Korea,
it was guaranteed that gossip about their relationship would reach
(27:07):
the public. So he exiled her, banishing her to a
foreign mental facility, and in the process, his cruelty affected
his son. He deprived Kim jong Nam of a mother.
In fact, Kim jong Il would go to extreme lengths
to ensure that the boy and his mother would remain
(27:30):
a state secret. We know this because at the time,
a group of young North Korean students were living in Moscow.
One day, a student somehow learned about Kim jong il's
mentally distressed mistress. Words spread that she lived nearby, somewhere
in the Soviet Union. The gossip spread all the way
(27:52):
back to Kiang Yang, and Kim jong Il was horrified.
In an effort to shut down the rumor mill, he
sent a security team to Russia. Kim's communist goons arrived
in Moscow, rounded up all the university students and interrogated them.
(28:12):
Anybody who acknowledged knowing anything about the ex mistress or
her whereabouts or her child was immediately executed. Turns out,
Kim jong Nam was a secret worth killing for. For
(28:50):
most of his childhood, Kim jong Nam was functionally locked
in a palace, cut off from the outside world. The
boy passed his time and activity by reading books, drawing pictures,
and naturally, watching movies, and his father continued to spoil him.
(29:10):
One time, when the little prince had a toothache, Kim
Jong ille convinced him to go to the dentist by
gifting him a Cadillac. When he turned eight, his father
threw him a birthday party, where instead of toys, he
was given a military uniform and the rank of martial.
In a nod to his future rank, palace workers began
(29:33):
referring to the boy as little Comrade General. Later that night,
a fireworks display spelled out the words Happy birthday, Comrade
General in the sky. Nothing was too much to ask for.
On one occasion, when the young child requested that his
father hire his favorite South Korean comedian. The regimes seriously
(29:56):
considered abducting the funny man, but this is the hassle. Instead,
Kim Jong Il sand scouts to find a look alike.
They returned with a farmer who they trained to do
stand up comedy. But Kim Jong Ill knew that his
firstborn son was still lonely. A palace of endless toys
(30:17):
and cars and jewels was not the same as having
a mother or a friend his own age. So when
Kim Jong Nam was eight, his father brought a little
girl home to be his friend. It was his thirteen
year old cousin, Namok. The two hit it off immediately.
Kim Jong Nam and Nam were very very close growing.
(30:40):
They were like brother and sister that were each other's
only friends. Together, the duo would binge movies and shoot
pelicans and potter between the palace walls on golf carts.
Sometimes they convinced the palace show first to drive them
around the streets of Kong Young. They were never allowed
out of the vehicle. The girl would become his playmate
and his closest confidant. He basically kind of gave up
(31:05):
her whole life to be his friend, to be his sidekicks.
His father also invited Kim jong Nam's grandmother and aunt
to move into residence Umber fifteen to provide a needed
maternal presence. The women were like governesses. They schooled him
and everything from Russian to mathematics. By the time he
(31:27):
was nine, Kim jong Nam was growing into an artistic
and curious young child, A sensitive yet optimistic boy who
loved books and jokes and the latest technology, and his
feelings of filial piety ran deep. The boy worshiped his father,
as his playmate Enamok later recounted, he was totally submissive
(31:51):
to his father, and I never criticized what Kim jongile
decided for him. Kim Jongial poured his very deep love
into his on in childhood, so I don't think the
child felt lonely. His mother's absence was covered up by
his father's presence, but it wouldn't last. As Kim jong
(32:12):
Nam grew older, his father's love grew colder. He stopped
talking the young boy into bed. He no longer dispatched
teams to buy him every imaginable gift. He started to
join the family in residence number fifteen for supper less
and less often only appearing three times a week. The
(32:37):
reason Kim jong Il had what we're called secret parties
or secret banquets, and those became places where many decisions
were made, whether it was about policy or personnel, and
everybody was required to sing and everybody was required to
have a lot to drink. One night, Kim jong Il
invited a local art troop to one of these parties,
(32:59):
the sude Ar Troupe, which is a prestigious performing arts
group in North Korea, and he was immediately smitten by
the group's star dancer. She's on the cover of record
albums that they would put out and traveled around Japan.
So Kim jong Il invited the dance troupe back again
and again just to watch the same woman perform. After
(33:23):
each performance, he invited her to sit beside him. Sometimes
he'd even go to their rehearsals to watch her practice.
Her name was Cool Yong He, and sometime around she
began missing dance practice. Rumors swirled among the dancers that
(33:44):
she was pregnant, and soon she was living in the
Royal Palace with Kim Jong Il is the third or
fourth wife of Kim Jong Ill and my wife. These
people were never officially married. These are more like royal consorts.
(34:05):
These are women that Kim jong Ill established households with.
Like Kim jong Il's previous relationship, this one was also
a little scandalous in North Korea's cast system. This new
woman was the lowest of the low. Her father had
worked for the Japanese Army, North Korea's sworn enemy. But
(34:28):
none of this matter to Kim jong Ill. He loved
her and she was carrying a baby, a boy, what
would be his second son. So he gave her her
own home, and Changill started an entirely new household, one
that lived completely separated from Kim jong Nam's wing of
(34:49):
the family. And with that, an unspoken feud flared between
the two branches of Kim's one that would go on
for decades to come. But for the young Kim jong Nam,
it was his father's divided attention that took the biggest toll.
He saw less of Kim Jong Il and grew closer
(35:13):
with his aunts and uncles. He started feeling increasingly alienated
from his father, so Kim jong Nam's minders made a decision.
It was time to give the boy a new environment.
He couldn't live as a secret anymore. He had to
see the world. The family of Kim jong The family
(35:36):
of Kim jong Nam convinced Kim Jong Ill that Kim
jong Nam needs to get a proper education in a
school setting. He can't do it in North Korea because
you have to keep the leader standard secret. So they
convinced Kim Jong Ill that Kim jong Nam should study abroad,
and the first stop is Switzerland. This decision, however, would
(35:57):
do nothing to improve Kim jong Nam's relation ship with
his father. In fact, Cheng Nam would feel even more
forgotten neglected. He was motherless, he had one childhood friend
to his name, and now he was living thousands of
miles away from home. And for the first time in
(36:17):
his life, the firstborn heir to the Peck two dynasty
began to feel something, something he had been taught to
suppress all his life, resentment for his father. I can
just paraphrase what he said, which was that when I
left for switzerlandon my father replaced me with his new family,
(36:40):
and that was pretty devastating. Little did Kim jong Nam, no,
But that's exactly what his father's new mistress wanted because
in she gave birth to another boy. His name was
Kim Jong un. And even though these boys were still
(37:02):
too young to even comprehend running a country, Koyong he
knew that Kim Jong nam stood in the way of
her children's path to the throne, and she would do
anything to clear it. Next time on Big Brother, we
(37:24):
dive deeper into how manipulative mothers drove two young boys
to scramble for their father's affection, leading to a ruthless
race to become North Korea's successor. Big Brother is a
production of School of Humans and I Heart Radio and
hosted by me Eden Lee Lucas. Riley is our writer,
(37:47):
co director and associate producer. Amelia Brock is our senior producer,
co director and editor. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
Elci Crowley, and Jason English. Our fact checker is Aaron Blakemore.
Music composed by Jason Todd Shannon and Tunewalders. Original score
mixed by Vick Stafford. Our opening song is Adi Dang
(38:09):
Fantasy arranged by Choice Hongwan As performed by the New
York Philharmonic licensed from euro Arts Music International. Audio editing
by Jesse nice Swanger, Sound design and mixed by Harper W. Harris.
Audio correction by Josh Fisher. Voice acting by Mike Coscarelli,
June you In and Sage Kim Gray. Special thanks to
(38:33):
Ryan Murdoch and Will Pearson. Sound licensed from Critical Past.
If you're enjoying the podcast, help us get the word
out by leaving a rating in your favorite podcast app.
Until next time, I'm even Lee School of Humans
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