April 6, 2022 • 47 mins
When Kim Jong-nam meets a mysterious American, were his brother's henchmen hiding in the shadows? How North Korea’s poisonous relationship with the United States contributed to Kim Jong-nam’s death — in more ways than one.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
H four days before his execution, Changsung Tex sat inside
the Mansuda Assembly Hall behind a wood paneled desk, flanked
by hundreds of his fellow politicians and bureaucrats. Seated before
(00:21):
him behind an ornately carved ais was his nephew and
judge Kim Chang n Aschangue fidgeted in his chair, the
Polite euro issued its judgment to pretended to uphold the
party and leader was engrossed in such factional antists, dreaming
(00:42):
different dreams and involving himself in double dealing. Behind the scene,
Tongue looked sullen. Two soldiers approached him, grabbed him up
by the elbows, and escorted him out of the room.
The sixty seven year old official looked hunched and frail,
as if on the verge of collapse. Within days he
(01:05):
would be dead. The so called dreams and double dealings
Uncle Tongue committed were never specified. All we know is
that Kim jong nun considered him a threat, and some
believe Kim jong nam factored into his death sentence. Chang
Song Tech clearly had a favorite nephew. He and Kim
(01:29):
jong nam spoke on the phone regularly and shared common
goals for the country. Chang reportedly wired money to his
nephew and Macao. Some murmured that Change was hoping to
install Kim jong Nam as the next leader. Others suggested
that China was providing security for Kim jong Nam as
(01:49):
a favorite to Uncle Change as a thank you for
his Chinese friendly policies. Few know what conversations were had
in Beijing, but rumors have swirled China was taking a
close look at Kim jong Nam just in case the
incumbent leader needed to be well replaced. Kim Jong Nam
(02:10):
was an obvious choice for that, because you know, he's
known to be quite friendly to China. He was somebody
I think that China felt could be counted on and
was beholden to them, And that is why I think
he was living in Macau as well, a Chinese terror ary,
a place where he could come and go easily, but
under the protection of China. Even if China provided Kim
(02:34):
jong Nam with security, it didn't provide much support financially,
because shortly after Uncle Tang was dispatched from this planet
with anti aircraft guns. No less, Kim Jong Nam's lavish
lifestyle began to flounder. The man who was accustomed to
staying at five star hotels and oceanside villas was now
(02:56):
desperately reserving airbnbs. Another former school friend of Kim Jong
Nam told me that Kim jong Nam seem to have
been kind of cut off from the regime finances once
Kim Jong Nun took over. For reasons that aren't clear,
the revenue stream Kim jong Nam had secured running his
gambling sites may have dried up. He was clearly working
(03:20):
for a living, working for himself, and making money for himself.
In the final years of his life. With Uncle Chang dead,
Kim jong Nam became increasingly desperate for cash, and just
days before his assassination in February, he took one of
the biggest risks of his life, apparently in a bid
(03:41):
to make much needed money. He flew to Malaysia, away
from the protection of his Chinese minders, and visited Langkawi,
an archipelago known for its serene, palm dazzled islands, white
sandy beaches, and turquoise waters. During his stay at a
Western hotel hell on Langkawee, security footage would catch Kim
(04:03):
jong Nam backpack and tow meeting a suspicious stranger. So
some of the last footage of Kim jong Nam showed
him in a hotel elevator with a man of Asian ethnicity.
The man's identity is a mystery, but according to South
Korea's intelligence agency, the man was not some childhood friend
(04:27):
from Switzerland, nor a friendly comrade from back home, nor
even one of Kim jong Nam's gambling clients. He was
American and he worked for the c I A I'm
even lee. In this episode, we delve into the twisted
(04:47):
relationship between Kim jong Nam, the United States and North Korea,
and a big question was Kim jong Nam an American asset?
And it's so did the US government know what could
happen to him? The regime has every interest to keep
(05:07):
tabs on his brother. North Korea has chemical weapons capability,
but the willingness to use UH is there. Kim jong
Nam had been acting as an informant to the CIA,
giving them information what he knew about Kim Jong Lan
and the regime. This is big brother in North Korea.
(05:36):
There may be no worse crime than working with or
being sympathetic to the Americans. And that's because the United
States in North Korea's eyes is public Enemy No. One.
The DPRK's behavior, it's obsession with weapons of mass destruction,
it's devotion to military first policy, even the way it
(06:00):
killed Kim Jong Nam, all tied into the country's tense
relationship with the US. But to understand why, we have
to go back to June the outbreak of the Korean War.
I would say, with just the slightest exaggeration, that the
(06:24):
Korean War launched modern international history. As Dr Lee explains,
the Korean War transformed the United Nations from a paper
organization into a global force. It's why American troops are
stationed at basis in more than seventy foreign countries, and
(06:44):
it deepened the tensions that would come to define the
Cold War. The Korean War was deeply consequential, and yet
the conflict would be largely hidden from the American public.
The Korean War has long been dubbed in the United
States It's as the Forgotten War. But for the five
hundred thousand Korean War veterans still alive today from the
(07:08):
various countries that fought in it, very little has been forgotten,
especially in Korea. The war touched upon the lives of
the vast majority of the people in both South Korea
and North Korea in a tragic negative way. Virtually every
(07:29):
Korean had a family member or relative who was maimed
or killed or lost. Over fifteen percent of North Korean
civilians were sacrificed, ten million people probably displaced from home,
hundreds of thousands of orphans. So the death toll and
(07:49):
the suffering, and it's one relevant factor metric, of course,
But of course that doesn't tell the entire story. That
entire story really it's with the indiscriminate splitting of the
Korean peninsula at the thirty eighth parallel, the line dividing
North and South. So late night on August tenth, the
(08:10):
United States came up with a plan for temporarily dividing
Korea at the halfway the midway point at the thirty
eighth parallel, to block further advancement of the Soviet troops.
So this was a proposal submitted by the United States
to stalin North and South Korea. In other words, were
(08:32):
inventions of other nations. No Koreans had a seat at
the table when their homeland was divided. The haphazard manner
in which the partitioning of the Korean Peninsula came to
take place is a source of ire for the people
of Korea, but the initially the intention was to say
(08:53):
at least half a loaf half of the Korean peninsula,
to put South Korea under the U s fere influence.
The line, however, was not something Koreans on either side
recognized culturally or politically, so the United States and Soviet
Union made a promise the division would be temporary. In
(09:17):
the United Nations tried to erase the dividing line and
unite the peninsula under one government with an election, but
when it came time to vote, the Soviet Union refused
to let the UN Commission cross into North Korea. Locked
out of the North, the UN decided to hold assembly
elections anyway, but only in the South, and with that
(09:40):
the government of South Korea was officially established and any
chance of uniting the peninsula peacefully vanished. And then two
years later, in June fifty, the Korean War began. Under
the strangest of circumstances, Koreans invaded Korea with the goal
(10:05):
of unifying Korea. There's no doubt who started it, Kimils
Hung and the communist North, but American officials refused to
believe the North Korean leader was actually responsible. When news
of the North Korean invasion of South Korea broke, President
(10:26):
Truman himself almost immediately decided to take action due to
a misreading of the situation. Do you too seeing North
Korea's invasion of the South as Stalin and Mao's ploy
viewing the North Korean leader Kim Is Sung as a
(10:48):
mere puppet to Stalin and Mao. In fact, the high
ranking State Department official said that the relationship between Stalin
and Kimmi Sung is exactly the same as that between
Won't Disney and Donald Duck. Kimi Song is not his
own man, and Stalin is pulling the strings. In an
(11:10):
effort to beat back the attack, the United Nations pour
troops into the peninsula, both what out of misreading the situation.
Within weeks, North Korea had nearly taken over the entire
South Korean peninsula, But with the backing of the U
n the South Korean military would soon receive international support.
(11:35):
Sixteen countries, including Turkey and Ethiopia, deployed military troops. Thirty
nine other countries gave financial and material support, but it
was the United States that provided the bulk of foreign
manpower and weaponry. The U n Forces, led by General
Douglas MacArthur, slowly began to beat back the Northern invasion.
(11:59):
Only five is removed from World War Two. American officials
chose a playbook that had successfully repelled Imperial japan air power.
The air force weaken the North Korean advance by targeting
the military's rear, disabling the chain of troops in charge
(12:20):
of supplying the front with AMMO, gasoline, and food. They
also heavily targeted North Korean cities. This strategy, while effective,
would lead to the most destructive bombing campaign in military history.
As the U. S Secretary of Defense, Robert Lovett explained,
we keep on tearing the place apart, we can make
(12:40):
a most unpopular fair for the North Koreans. We ought
to go right ahead. The extent of the bombing was unimaginable.
North Korea was flattened. More than five percent of the
country's buildings were destroyed. Some cities, like sina Ju, were
transformed into rubble. American pilots also targeted irrigation dans that
(13:04):
have provided water for three quarters of the country's crops,
flood waters destroyed squads of farmland. Suffering ensued. With their
cities gone, millions of North Koreans resorted to living underground,
and the hell fire continued. With a new lethal innovation
(13:25):
that had been tested in World War Two, but now
in the Korean War, made its real debut, napalm. This
is what an a pound bomb does. When it hits,
it's searing flames spreads four hundreds of feet. The infantrymen
then take over and advance at the crucial rate, despite
(13:46):
the pounding of red buckers. It is a harrowing foot
by foot operation. Deep in their trenches. There are still
plenty of the enemy and after to pour fire into
the attackers, but the flamethrower silence system at a smoke
screen masks the attack. Grim is the word for Korea.
Napalm charred the countryside and the people in it. From
(14:09):
June to October, the US would drop more than eight
hundred sixty six thousand gallons of napalm on North Korea.
By the war's end, more napalm was dropped on the
DPRK than any other nation in history. Vietnam included to
be clear, we're not trying to stoke sympathy for the
(14:32):
North Korean regime, nor to excuse the terrible atrocities that
has committed both during a war it started and in
the decades since. But the widespread bombing of North Korea
is vital to understanding the country's attitude toward the United States,
because while the Korean War might be forgotten in the US,
in the DPRK, the air bombardment is taught in every
(14:56):
school today. Most of North Korea as anti American propaganda
is built on easily disproved lies. But the difficult truth
is that the foundation the spark for much of this
anti americanism, according to journalist Blaine Harden, is quote rooted
in a fact based narrative, one that North Korea obsessively remembers.
(15:21):
That lingering resentment is just one of many unintended consequences.
Another is North Korea's obsession with weapons of mass destruction.
Because in late n the U N Forces did more
than just repel North Korean attacks. They cross the thirty
eighth parallel with the goal of unifying Korea for the South.
(15:46):
But on the other side, a goliath was waiting. China
kept issuing threats. If you enter North Korean territory. If
you approach our border, we will fight you. We will
send true and MacArthur dismissed those Chinese threats as just
empty threats. But MacArthur was wrong. China did step in
(16:10):
not wanting Western soldiers anywhere near its border. China would
send more than three million people to North Korea's aid.
General Douglas MacArthur, who believed he could win the war
with quote one hand tied behind his back, argued that
the best way to cut off the Chinese advance was
to drop nuclear weapons in Korea. I visualize a cul
(16:33):
de sac. I see here a unique use for the
atomic bomb to strike a blocking blow at the Pentagon.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff rejected MacArthur's proposal,
but MacArthur pushed and pushed and pushed again. He'd request
a total of twenty six atomic bombs, and although those
(16:57):
requests were denied, he would remain a shameless advocate for
nuclear attack. I would have dropped between thirty and fifty
atomic bombs strung across the neck of Manchuria. The bomb
wasn't MacArthur's only go to. He also suggested releasing chemical weapons.
Arguing that the military should spread radioactive waste across the border,
(17:21):
creating a chemical fence that would keep Communist ground troops
barricaded up North. Instead, President Harry Truman would fire him
for in subordination, but MacArthur's replacement, General Matthew Ridgeway, was
also a fan of nuclear weapons. He would request thirty
eight atomic bombs. The Pentagon did not approve. It did, however,
(17:45):
later approve of request from the Joint chiefs of Staff, who,
according to Korean war scholar Bruce Cummings, ordered quote atomic
retaliation against Manchurion bases if large numbers of new troops
came into fighting. By ninette, the possibility of a nuclear
attack on North Korea seemed so inevitable that Air Force
(18:08):
pilots started flying practice runs dropping dummy bombs on would
be targets. By the time the armistice was signed in
nineteen fifty three, with both sides effectively agreeing to a stalemate,
North Korean civilians and leaders were paranoid about the threat
of nuclear annihilation, and that paranoia would only grow. By
(18:31):
nineteen sixty seven, the United States was storing approximately nine
hundred fifty nuclear warheads in South Korea. The United States
removed the last of these weapons from the peninsula, but
to this day, submarines and stations nearby provide a so
called nuclear umbrella, and that fact has fueled North Korea's
(18:56):
decision making. It isn't irrational for North kore you to
think it might need um greater security. That again is
Jenny Town of the Simpsons Center. The nuclear attack is possible,
they don't rule it out. It's you know, during the
Korean War, UM, the US did threaten to use nuclear weapons,
(19:17):
and there have been in the past US nuclear weapons,
you know, stationed in South Korea, and there is the
US nuclear umbrella, right, So there are reasons. It's a
small country in the middle of economic and political giants, um,
and it's a country that doesn't necessarily have any real allies,
(19:38):
you know, it has a relationship with the Chinese, relationship
with the Russians. Doesn't really trust that, you know, in
the case of something happening, not really. And you're looking
at a nuclear dense region as well, right, China has
nuclear weapons, Russia has nuclear weapons, US has nuclear weapons,
and South Korea and Japan have nuclear weapons by default,
(20:00):
So there is a sense of insecurity that drives a
lot of their decisions. The North Koreans look at the
history um and especially you know from the Korean War
on and say that it's possible, no matter where you
go in Korea, North or South, you cannot escape the
(20:21):
dynamics created by the Korean War and the antagonistic relationship
that followed. It's one of the reasons North Korea is
constantly rattling its saber, trying to look tough. It's one
of the reasons Kimill's hung embraced che later investing obscene
portions of his country's GDP to build up one of
(20:42):
the world's largest militaries. And it's why North Korea has
worked so hard to develop its own deterrent, a deterrent
that Kim jong nam was well aware of because remember
his rendezvous in Langkawee, Malaysia. A few days after that
hotel meeting with an American spy, Kim Jong Nam would
(21:05):
try to leave the country with multiple vials of an
antidote designed to combat the toxic nerve agent v X.
Kim Jong Nam knew something, and that's this. When Western
Powers began installing nuclear weapons in South Korea, the DPRK,
then two Poor to counteract the arsenal with atomic bombs
(21:27):
of its own, came up with a strategy one they
believed that could neuter the US is atomic power. North
Korea would build a stockpile of chemical weapons so large
it could end all human life as we know it,
and North Korea wouldn't be afraid to use it. In
(22:02):
the nineteen fifties, as blood and bombs spilled over the
Korean Peninsula, chemists in the United Kingdom were waging a
very different kind of battle against insects. The pesticide industry
was booming and Dr Ron J. Ghosh, a chemist working
(22:22):
for Imperial Chemical Industries in gelts Hill, England, was looking
for chemicals that could kill common pests, specifically mits. Ghost
was directed to look closely at secret research on a
group of toxic pesticides called g agents, which have been
developed by German scientists during the nineteen thirties. Glos went
(22:43):
to work, and in nineteen fifty two, at the height
of the Korean War, he and a fellow chemist named J. F. Newman,
discovered a substance an organo phosphate esther of substitute amino
ethiol called Amaton. The men celebrated the discovery. Ghost was
convinced he had found the pesticide to end all pesticides.
(23:08):
Advertisers believed it too. By Amaton was being marketed across
the United Kingdom as the next great bug killer, but
within three years it would be pulled off the shelves.
Turns out Amaton was much more than an insecticide. It
(23:30):
was a nerve agent. So Ghosh went back to work.
He continued trying to turn the Nazi G agents into
effective and safe pesticides, but every time he attempted to
discover a less toxic substance, he failed. In fact, each
new advancement seemed to make the G agents more toxic.
(23:55):
The most noxious, most deadly, most terrified rying agent Ghosh
concocted would be so potent that only a few milligrams
were needed to kill a human. It would be named
Venomous Agent X. Today it's just called v X. And
(24:20):
that is where our stories collide. Because during the Korean War,
as American planes rain bombs and bullets on North Korean cities,
Kimilsung directed his military to build a labyrinth of underground
tunnels and bunkers for protection. North Korea hasn't stopped digging
since you might remember our friend historian Benjamin Young. They
(24:43):
remembered the years of the US air bombardment, and so
there's a reason why North Korea has built so many
of its military facilities under the ground, in mountainous ravines,
under mountains. They have a massive tunnel system. So North
Korea's history has made it into this very deeply paranoid,
(25:07):
almost subterranean system. Today, it's estimated that North Korea has
up to fifteen thousand underground layers acting as aircraft hangars,
material depots, and weapons storage facilities. It's believed the majority
of the country's military supplies are protected by these underground bunkers.
(25:29):
I think that one day, perhaps the regime will collapse
and we'll go then and we'll see just how huge
their tunnel system was underneath the ground, and just how
prepared they were for any sort of airbombardment. And that
might be one of the secrets that Kim Jong nam
was harboring as the son of the dear leader. He
knew that these underground cities held North Korea's war chests
(25:52):
of chemical weapons, including what maybe the largest stockpile of
VX nerve agent in the world. Today, North Koreas cash
of chemical weapons is the world's third largest, lagging behind
only the US and Russia. The country is home to
at least eleven chemical weapons facilities, almost all of them
(26:15):
buried underground, that may produce and store up to five
thousand metric tons of these deadly agents. But truth be told,
nobody certain how much they really have. North Korea has
um you know, chemical weapons capability, the extent of which
we don't really know, but the willingness to use uh
(26:36):
is there. We do, however, have a good idea of
what's in North Korea's stockpile. Anthrax, smallpox, amaton, mustard, gas saren,
the plague, and yes, VX agent, all of which are
(26:57):
ready for their neighbors to the south or anyone else
who messes with them near their turf. North Korea has
the capability of attaching you know, chemical weapons, even to
their short range ballistic missiles. Chemill Song was right to
bet on chemical weapons. Chemical missiles are cheaper and potentially
(27:18):
more lethal than nuclear warheads. It would only take one
gallon of anthrax to end all human life. Indeed, for decades,
this chemical stockpile has been a remarkable deterrent and a
threatening bargaining chip. The US won't use its nukes because
(27:39):
that would compel the North to release its chemical weapons,
and the North won't use its chemical weapons because that
would compel the US to use its nukes. It's led
to a strategic standoff, a menacing game of chicken that
allows North Korea to act belligerent lee with few consequences.
(27:59):
Anything else would be catastrophic. In the n nineties, the
Pentagon calculated the cost of a pre emptive strike on
North Korea. The results suggested that an attack would cost
the US more than a trillion dollars and require at
least a hundred thousand body bags just for American troops alone.
(28:21):
The potential loss of life in a second Korean conflict
is you know, millions of people. You have. You have
to remember that Soul the capital of South Korea. It's
only thirty miles away from the d m z Um
and about a quarter of the population lives there. Um
The response time that it takes to defend Soul and
(28:41):
the amount of damage that can be done very quickly
is enormously high. This standoff has done more than preserved
North Korea's existence. It's been a boon to the country's economy.
It essentially uses weapons of mass destruction to extort foreign
countries into lifting ancients. It's also a valuable export. These
(29:04):
chemical weapons can be shipped rogue nations and terrorist groups.
North Korea never really admits to having chemical weapons are
actually using it. That again is Sue Kim, our ex
CIA analyst. But we know that it's actually tried to
transfer chemical weapons to other countries. It's got the technology
(29:25):
and equipment, so it should be a concern. In fact,
we know that North Korea exported chemical equipment to Syria
coincidentally around the same time Syrian President Bashar al Assad
was gassing his own citizens. Meanwhile, in the US, there's
practically no VX at all in accordance with the Chemical
(29:49):
Weapons Convention in agreement North Korea disregards the United States
has destroyed almost all of its stock of VX. Today,
one of America's largest collections of VX rockets. It's resting
at the bottom of the ocean, just off the coast
of Atlantic City, New Jersey. All of that's to say,
(30:11):
while North Korea is nuclear weapons get most of the attention.
Perhaps it's time the country's chemical arsenal commands more of
our scrutiny. We do talk constantly about the came regime's
missile development, the provocations and those are all of course
valid um incredible security concerns, but the chemical warfare component
(30:33):
um the cyber components, I think are just as deadly
and in some cases even more deadly. The chemical weapons
in combination with the ballistic missiles, can lead to, I
would say, much more broader, far reaching implications than the
(30:55):
time to think. Because of this perception that Earth crews backwards,
because it's it's poor, because weird has a funny looking reader,
we tend to sort of dismiss a lot of these
serious developments. I think it's an advantage for North Korea
to play this on all the while developing so many
lethal options later to threaten the international community to use it,
(31:18):
or to actually do try to use it. As the
world found out in It's exactly the kind of weaponry
one might use too quickly and silently kill a target
in a very public place. Over the course of this podcast,
(31:48):
we've gone over a plethora of theories of who killed
Kim Jong nam and why was it Kim Jongan ensuring
his throne wouldn't be jeopardized. Was it North Korea and
elites with an eye on his money making software. Was
it someone else in the regime who was threatened by
his reform minded ideas To be honest, It may not
(32:11):
just be one, because Kim jong Nam had evaded death before.
In the early two thousand's, somebody masterminded a plot to
kill him in Austria, but that, as you may remember,
was thwarted, and in shortly after Kim Jongan was annointed successor,
(32:32):
a North Korean spy paid a Chinese taxi driver to
run over Kim jong Nam with his car. The hit
and run failed, and in after Yoji Komi published his
tell all book, Kim jong Nam reportedly dodged another attack,
the details of which are murky, but according to South
(32:54):
Korean intelligence, the exiled prince was so distressed that he
wrote a letter to his brother pleading for his life.
Please withdraw the order to punish me and my family.
We have nowhere to hide. The only way to escape
is to choose suicide. No matter who was trying to
kill him, Kim jong Nam knew the bucks stopped with
(33:17):
his brother. It seems Kim jong N didn't listen, and
after Chang Song Tech was killed, North Korean spies apparently
began tailing Kim jong Nam's movements. Even if Kim jong
Nam wanted to divorce himself from all of his connections
in North Korea, it's not up to him. The regime
(33:40):
that the Kim jong N leadership has every interest to
keep tabs on this this brother one because of course
he was family, and too because of the potential threat
that he would pose to Kim jong N as the leader.
But actions, of course, can have unintended consequences, just as
(34:00):
the U. S air bombardment and nuclear weapons inadvertently encouraged
North Korea to build tunnels and beef up on chemical weapons,
cutting off Kim jong nam slash fund had unexpected results too.
Kim jong Nam needed money. According to the Washington Post,
the circumstances may have quote thrust Kim jong Nam into
(34:22):
the arms of foreign intelligence services as he tried to
maintain his lifestyle. So a very reliable source obviously can't name,
told me that Kim jong Nam had been providing intelligence
to the CIA while he was living in exile. I mean,
we know that he was having to earn money for himself,
(34:45):
that it wasn't the beneficiary of the regime's larges anymore
after Kim Jong nun took power. Um, so it stands,
you know, it makes sense that he would be having
to earn a living, and you know what is his
more was unique marketable skill, I guess, is giving intelligence
about about Kim jongan and what's going on in North Korea.
(35:07):
Journalists at the Wall Street Journal would later corroborate five
fields reporting suggesting that Chong Nam occasionally met CIA handlers
and undisclosed locations in Malaysia and Singapore. He wasn't an
agent or anything like that, but he was providing the
information that he had. There have also been multiple reports
since then that he was doing the same for South
Korea also potentially Japan. To learn more, we prodded deeper
(35:33):
with Sue Kim, hoping she'd spill some CIA secrets to us.
She was understandably unable to confirm these suspicions. You know,
I can't really comment about how the the Intel organizations
obtained sources, so I'm not sure if I could help
you with this question. But she was able to help
(35:54):
provide us with the rationale. If the CIA did hypothetically
see gout Tong Num, there would be I would say
great value because he has lived inside the country. Um.
He is the son of Kim jong so he knows
a lot about the system. He knows a lot about
his family members. UM. He also knows how North Korea thinks. Um,
(36:17):
not just the leadership, but just North Korean. I would say,
just the the culture. So there would be a lot
of value. And as much as there's a lot of
value for foreign intel services, it's going to be an
even greater threat for North Korea. We don't know what
Kim jong nam told the CIA or how long he
(36:39):
worked with them. All we know is that when Kim
jongan was announced his successor, intelligence agencies had little information
about him. They scramble to learn anything they could, and
what better source than his older brother. If the United
States for South Korea were able to form relationship with
(37:02):
Kim Jong nam, think about how much more vulnerable Kim
Jong nan is going to feel about his decision making,
about his health, about his interesting quirks. And on the
day Kim jong nam met with the suspected CIA agent
in Langkawi, he took the man into his hotel room. There,
(37:23):
it's believed he shared intelligence from his computer. We know
this because days after Kim jong nam died, police found
evidence that somebody had extracted extensive amounts of data with
the USB drive. Cheng Nam would also try to leave
the country with four bricks of cash, each bundle amounting
to around thirty dollars, and of course those vials of antidote.
(37:48):
Did Kim jong Nam request this his payment or did
the CIA offer it as an exchange. Honestly, nobody outside
of those involved in the exchange knows, But we do
know that Kim Jongan's own spies may have been lurking
in the shadows the DPR case seemed to be aware
(38:10):
of Toeng Nam's itinerary. It's possible that because they were
tailing him, they knew that he was talking to American spies,
and if that's true, that would present yet another reason
for his half brother to want him out of the picture.
The CIA has a history of trying to take down
foreign governments. It had tacitly endorsed the overthrow Vietnam's prime minister,
(38:35):
had helped organize the downfall of Chile's president, and had
plotted to assassinate the Democratic Republic of Congo's first prime
minister with a deadly virus, And of course they famously
tried and failed to poison Fidel Castro's cigars, So what
was stopping the CIA from trying the same with Kim
(38:56):
jong un. Sue Kim is wary of how much Tongu
Nam's links with the agency might have influenced North Korea's decisions.
I think it had much more to do with leadership insecurities.
The fact that this this oldest son who was roaming
about freely outside North Korea getting to enjoy life, occasionally
(39:17):
making these nonchalant comments about the North Korean system, the leadership,
and and you know, just being critical about the country.
It was not going to be. It wasn't going to
reflect well, obviously upon Kim Jongan. North Korea watchers like
Michael Madden also questioned whether the CIA connection was really
(39:38):
all that significant. In his opinion, the prince was already
a marked man. Disregard all of us, disregard all of
the stuff about Kim Jong Nam being a source for
foreign intelligence. That's just a really nice story for the
news media. There'd be other motivations but that begs the question,
(39:59):
if there had been so many reasons to kill this
man for decades, now, why did it take so long
for North Korea to pull the trigger. Madden suggests the
reason Kim jong Nam lived until was because he still
had a number of advocates in the regime. There were
(40:20):
other elites, people who considered Kim jong Nam as family.
There was Rios, a nineties something former hit man who
was like a grandfather to the prince. He died in November.
A few months later, a former female comrade of Kim
Il Song, also close to Kim jong Nam, died as well.
(40:41):
By the end of Kim jong Nam's circle of influence
had either defected, We're trapped in prison camps or were
buried underground. He no longer had friends or family to
speak up for him. Were put in motion Kim jong
Nam's assassination. I really think that's a huge factor. Madden
(41:04):
might be onto something, because in late North Korea spies
began hatching one of the most elaborate assassination plots ever devised.
Since Kim jong Nam enjoyed protection in China and was
now spending time with foreign intelligence agents, the spies realized
they had to be careful and strategic. So the hitman
(41:28):
likely decided that the best way to assassinate Kim Jong
Nam was to kill him with a unique method, a
method that was understated, bloodless, immediate, and immaculately lethal, deep underground,
(41:48):
stalked away in its hidden tunnels, North Korea had the
perfect murder weapon on its hands. What we know about
VX nerve agent comes largely thanks to research done by
Dr Van and Sim, the former director of human research
(42:11):
at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland, where the U. S. Army
used to test the effects of various chemical weapons. From
eight to ninety Under the direction of Dr Sim, more
than seven thousand American service members were exposed to substances
like ketamine, LSD and nerve agents like the X. The
(42:34):
Army believed live human experiments were important not only for defense,
but for intelligence gathering. As RAPI catch a Dorian writes
in The New Yorker, Doctors like Sim wanted to know
quote could an operative dose and adversary with a handshake,
So Dr Sim started drugging American soldiers to find out.
(42:56):
It sounds wildly unethical, and it is, but at the
time Dr Sim's work was well regarded. He was a
fearless researcher who always tested every chemical on himself before
exposing any soldiers to it. When he first encountered v
X in Sim intravenously infused small doses straight into his bloodstream.
(43:21):
It nearly killed him, but it thanks to doctor Sim
and the servicemen he experimented on that we now know
what v X does to the human body and what
the North Korean spies had planned for Kim Jong Nam.
Upon contact, a small drop of VX quickly penetrates the
(43:42):
skin and soaks into the bloodstream, and it wastes no time.
The nerve agent blocks enzygns that help your muscles to relax.
Within minutes, every muscle starts to contract uncontrollably. The eyes burned,
the pupils narrow, sweat beads as vision blurs, The chest titans,
making breathing more and more difficult. Muscles twitch and tire
(44:07):
as the nose runs and the mouth drools. Fluid floods
the airway, coughing, fits sputter as the whole body clenches.
After just ten minutes, nerve ending scream with pain. The
body can't handle this type of stimulation, so the muscles
become exhausted, and eventually they curl in on themselves, contracting
(44:32):
to the point where the victim can no longer breathe.
Consciousness fades, but not quickly enough. The victim's final thoughts
will be consumed by one horrifying realization that their own
body is suffocating them and it doesn't take much feex
(44:56):
to kill you. Dr sim concluded that it's it's just
ten milligrams of v X, about the same as three
rain drops to kill a human. This has prompted the
CDC to call v X quote the most potent of
all nerve agents. Tasteless, odorless, and deadly in small, almost
(45:18):
undetectable quantities. V X is also shockingly portable. It can
be broken down into two harmless compounds, allowing two people
to hold these separate ingredients in their hands with minimal
risk to themselves. That is, until you mix the two
compounds together. On the next and last episode of Big Brother,
(45:45):
the elaborate means to which North Korea would go to
wash its hands of an assassination of international proportions, and
how Kim Jong Nam's death triggered a daring rescue Big
Brother is a production of School of Humans and I
Heart Radio and hosted by me Eat and Lee Lucas.
(46:08):
Riley is our writer, co director and associate producer. Amelia
Brock is our senior producer, co director and editor. Executive
producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, Else Crowley, and Jason English.
Our fact checker is Aaron Blakemore. Music composed by Jason
Todd Shannon and Tune Walters. Original score mix by Vick Stafford.
(46:31):
Audio editing by Jesse nice Swanger, Sound design and mixed
by Harper W. Harris. Audio correction by Josh Fisher. Voice
acting by Mark Chung, June Yune, Ben Holst, Thiago Lima
and Mike Coscarelli. We'd like to acknowledge the work of
Dr Bruce Cummings. Special thanks to Ryan Murdoch and Will Pearson.
(46:53):
Sound licensed from Critical Past. If you're enjoying the podcast,
help us get the word out by leaving Obra in
your favorite podcast app. Until next time, I'm evenly School
(47:23):
of Humans m HM.
H four days before his execution, Changsung Tex sat inside
the Mansuda Assembly Hall behind a wood paneled desk, flanked
by hundreds of his fellow politicians and bureaucrats. Seated before
(00:21):
him behind an ornately carved ais was his nephew and
judge Kim Chang n Aschangue fidgeted in his chair, the
Polite euro issued its judgment to pretended to uphold the
party and leader was engrossed in such factional antists, dreaming
(00:42):
different dreams and involving himself in double dealing. Behind the scene,
Tongue looked sullen. Two soldiers approached him, grabbed him up
by the elbows, and escorted him out of the room.
The sixty seven year old official looked hunched and frail,
as if on the verge of collapse. Within days he
(01:05):
would be dead. The so called dreams and double dealings
Uncle Tongue committed were never specified. All we know is
that Kim jong nun considered him a threat, and some
believe Kim jong nam factored into his death sentence. Chang
Song Tech clearly had a favorite nephew. He and Kim
(01:29):
jong nam spoke on the phone regularly and shared common
goals for the country. Chang reportedly wired money to his
nephew and Macao. Some murmured that Change was hoping to
install Kim jong Nam as the next leader. Others suggested
that China was providing security for Kim jong Nam as
(01:49):
a favorite to Uncle Change as a thank you for
his Chinese friendly policies. Few know what conversations were had
in Beijing, but rumors have swirled China was taking a
close look at Kim jong Nam just in case the
incumbent leader needed to be well replaced. Kim Jong Nam
(02:10):
was an obvious choice for that, because you know, he's
known to be quite friendly to China. He was somebody
I think that China felt could be counted on and
was beholden to them, And that is why I think
he was living in Macau as well, a Chinese terror ary,
a place where he could come and go easily, but
under the protection of China. Even if China provided Kim
(02:34):
jong Nam with security, it didn't provide much support financially,
because shortly after Uncle Tang was dispatched from this planet
with anti aircraft guns. No less, Kim Jong Nam's lavish
lifestyle began to flounder. The man who was accustomed to
staying at five star hotels and oceanside villas was now
(02:56):
desperately reserving airbnbs. Another former school friend of Kim Jong
Nam told me that Kim jong Nam seem to have
been kind of cut off from the regime finances once
Kim Jong Nun took over. For reasons that aren't clear,
the revenue stream Kim jong Nam had secured running his
gambling sites may have dried up. He was clearly working
(03:20):
for a living, working for himself, and making money for himself.
In the final years of his life. With Uncle Chang dead,
Kim jong Nam became increasingly desperate for cash, and just
days before his assassination in February, he took one of
the biggest risks of his life, apparently in a bid
(03:41):
to make much needed money. He flew to Malaysia, away
from the protection of his Chinese minders, and visited Langkawi,
an archipelago known for its serene, palm dazzled islands, white
sandy beaches, and turquoise waters. During his stay at a
Western hotel hell on Langkawee, security footage would catch Kim
(04:03):
jong Nam backpack and tow meeting a suspicious stranger. So
some of the last footage of Kim jong Nam showed
him in a hotel elevator with a man of Asian ethnicity.
The man's identity is a mystery, but according to South
Korea's intelligence agency, the man was not some childhood friend
(04:27):
from Switzerland, nor a friendly comrade from back home, nor
even one of Kim jong Nam's gambling clients. He was
American and he worked for the c I A I'm
even lee. In this episode, we delve into the twisted
(04:47):
relationship between Kim jong Nam, the United States and North Korea,
and a big question was Kim jong Nam an American asset?
And it's so did the US government know what could
happen to him? The regime has every interest to keep
(05:07):
tabs on his brother. North Korea has chemical weapons capability,
but the willingness to use UH is there. Kim jong
Nam had been acting as an informant to the CIA,
giving them information what he knew about Kim Jong Lan
and the regime. This is big brother in North Korea.
(05:36):
There may be no worse crime than working with or
being sympathetic to the Americans. And that's because the United
States in North Korea's eyes is public Enemy No. One.
The DPRK's behavior, it's obsession with weapons of mass destruction,
it's devotion to military first policy, even the way it
(06:00):
killed Kim Jong Nam, all tied into the country's tense
relationship with the US. But to understand why, we have
to go back to June the outbreak of the Korean War.
I would say, with just the slightest exaggeration, that the
(06:24):
Korean War launched modern international history. As Dr Lee explains,
the Korean War transformed the United Nations from a paper
organization into a global force. It's why American troops are
stationed at basis in more than seventy foreign countries, and
(06:44):
it deepened the tensions that would come to define the
Cold War. The Korean War was deeply consequential, and yet
the conflict would be largely hidden from the American public.
The Korean War has long been dubbed in the United
States It's as the Forgotten War. But for the five
hundred thousand Korean War veterans still alive today from the
(07:08):
various countries that fought in it, very little has been forgotten,
especially in Korea. The war touched upon the lives of
the vast majority of the people in both South Korea
and North Korea in a tragic negative way. Virtually every
(07:29):
Korean had a family member or relative who was maimed
or killed or lost. Over fifteen percent of North Korean
civilians were sacrificed, ten million people probably displaced from home,
hundreds of thousands of orphans. So the death toll and
(07:49):
the suffering, and it's one relevant factor metric, of course,
But of course that doesn't tell the entire story. That
entire story really it's with the indiscriminate splitting of the
Korean peninsula at the thirty eighth parallel, the line dividing
North and South. So late night on August tenth, the
(08:10):
United States came up with a plan for temporarily dividing
Korea at the halfway the midway point at the thirty
eighth parallel, to block further advancement of the Soviet troops.
So this was a proposal submitted by the United States
to stalin North and South Korea. In other words, were
(08:32):
inventions of other nations. No Koreans had a seat at
the table when their homeland was divided. The haphazard manner
in which the partitioning of the Korean Peninsula came to
take place is a source of ire for the people
of Korea, but the initially the intention was to say
(08:53):
at least half a loaf half of the Korean peninsula,
to put South Korea under the U s fere influence.
The line, however, was not something Koreans on either side
recognized culturally or politically, so the United States and Soviet
Union made a promise the division would be temporary. In
(09:17):
the United Nations tried to erase the dividing line and
unite the peninsula under one government with an election, but
when it came time to vote, the Soviet Union refused
to let the UN Commission cross into North Korea. Locked
out of the North, the UN decided to hold assembly
elections anyway, but only in the South, and with that
(09:40):
the government of South Korea was officially established and any
chance of uniting the peninsula peacefully vanished. And then two
years later, in June fifty, the Korean War began. Under
the strangest of circumstances, Koreans invaded Korea with the goal
(10:05):
of unifying Korea. There's no doubt who started it, Kimils
Hung and the communist North, but American officials refused to
believe the North Korean leader was actually responsible. When news
of the North Korean invasion of South Korea broke, President
(10:26):
Truman himself almost immediately decided to take action due to
a misreading of the situation. Do you too seeing North
Korea's invasion of the South as Stalin and Mao's ploy
viewing the North Korean leader Kim Is Sung as a
(10:48):
mere puppet to Stalin and Mao. In fact, the high
ranking State Department official said that the relationship between Stalin
and Kimmi Sung is exactly the same as that between
Won't Disney and Donald Duck. Kimi Song is not his
own man, and Stalin is pulling the strings. In an
(11:10):
effort to beat back the attack, the United Nations pour
troops into the peninsula, both what out of misreading the situation.
Within weeks, North Korea had nearly taken over the entire
South Korean peninsula, But with the backing of the U
n the South Korean military would soon receive international support.
(11:35):
Sixteen countries, including Turkey and Ethiopia, deployed military troops. Thirty
nine other countries gave financial and material support, but it
was the United States that provided the bulk of foreign
manpower and weaponry. The U n Forces, led by General
Douglas MacArthur, slowly began to beat back the Northern invasion.
(11:59):
Only five is removed from World War Two. American officials
chose a playbook that had successfully repelled Imperial japan air power.
The air force weaken the North Korean advance by targeting
the military's rear, disabling the chain of troops in charge
(12:20):
of supplying the front with AMMO, gasoline, and food. They
also heavily targeted North Korean cities. This strategy, while effective,
would lead to the most destructive bombing campaign in military history.
As the U. S Secretary of Defense, Robert Lovett explained,
we keep on tearing the place apart, we can make
(12:40):
a most unpopular fair for the North Koreans. We ought
to go right ahead. The extent of the bombing was unimaginable.
North Korea was flattened. More than five percent of the
country's buildings were destroyed. Some cities, like sina Ju, were
transformed into rubble. American pilots also targeted irrigation dans that
(13:04):
have provided water for three quarters of the country's crops,
flood waters destroyed squads of farmland. Suffering ensued. With their
cities gone, millions of North Koreans resorted to living underground,
and the hell fire continued. With a new lethal innovation
(13:25):
that had been tested in World War Two, but now
in the Korean War, made its real debut, napalm. This
is what an a pound bomb does. When it hits,
it's searing flames spreads four hundreds of feet. The infantrymen
then take over and advance at the crucial rate, despite
(13:46):
the pounding of red buckers. It is a harrowing foot
by foot operation. Deep in their trenches. There are still
plenty of the enemy and after to pour fire into
the attackers, but the flamethrower silence system at a smoke
screen masks the attack. Grim is the word for Korea.
Napalm charred the countryside and the people in it. From
(14:09):
June to October, the US would drop more than eight
hundred sixty six thousand gallons of napalm on North Korea.
By the war's end, more napalm was dropped on the
DPRK than any other nation in history. Vietnam included to
be clear, we're not trying to stoke sympathy for the
(14:32):
North Korean regime, nor to excuse the terrible atrocities that
has committed both during a war it started and in
the decades since. But the widespread bombing of North Korea
is vital to understanding the country's attitude toward the United States,
because while the Korean War might be forgotten in the US,
in the DPRK, the air bombardment is taught in every
(14:56):
school today. Most of North Korea as anti American propaganda
is built on easily disproved lies. But the difficult truth
is that the foundation the spark for much of this
anti americanism, according to journalist Blaine Harden, is quote rooted
in a fact based narrative, one that North Korea obsessively remembers.
(15:21):
That lingering resentment is just one of many unintended consequences.
Another is North Korea's obsession with weapons of mass destruction.
Because in late n the U N Forces did more
than just repel North Korean attacks. They cross the thirty
eighth parallel with the goal of unifying Korea for the South.
(15:46):
But on the other side, a goliath was waiting. China
kept issuing threats. If you enter North Korean territory. If
you approach our border, we will fight you. We will
send true and MacArthur dismissed those Chinese threats as just
empty threats. But MacArthur was wrong. China did step in
(16:10):
not wanting Western soldiers anywhere near its border. China would
send more than three million people to North Korea's aid.
General Douglas MacArthur, who believed he could win the war
with quote one hand tied behind his back, argued that
the best way to cut off the Chinese advance was
to drop nuclear weapons in Korea. I visualize a cul
(16:33):
de sac. I see here a unique use for the
atomic bomb to strike a blocking blow at the Pentagon.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff rejected MacArthur's proposal,
but MacArthur pushed and pushed and pushed again. He'd request
a total of twenty six atomic bombs, and although those
(16:57):
requests were denied, he would remain a shameless advocate for
nuclear attack. I would have dropped between thirty and fifty
atomic bombs strung across the neck of Manchuria. The bomb
wasn't MacArthur's only go to. He also suggested releasing chemical weapons.
Arguing that the military should spread radioactive waste across the border,
(17:21):
creating a chemical fence that would keep Communist ground troops
barricaded up North. Instead, President Harry Truman would fire him
for in subordination, but MacArthur's replacement, General Matthew Ridgeway, was
also a fan of nuclear weapons. He would request thirty
eight atomic bombs. The Pentagon did not approve. It did, however,
(17:45):
later approve of request from the Joint chiefs of Staff, who,
according to Korean war scholar Bruce Cummings, ordered quote atomic
retaliation against Manchurion bases if large numbers of new troops
came into fighting. By ninette, the possibility of a nuclear
attack on North Korea seemed so inevitable that Air Force
(18:08):
pilots started flying practice runs dropping dummy bombs on would
be targets. By the time the armistice was signed in
nineteen fifty three, with both sides effectively agreeing to a stalemate,
North Korean civilians and leaders were paranoid about the threat
of nuclear annihilation, and that paranoia would only grow. By
(18:31):
nineteen sixty seven, the United States was storing approximately nine
hundred fifty nuclear warheads in South Korea. The United States
removed the last of these weapons from the peninsula, but
to this day, submarines and stations nearby provide a so
called nuclear umbrella, and that fact has fueled North Korea's
(18:56):
decision making. It isn't irrational for North kore you to
think it might need um greater security. That again is
Jenny Town of the Simpsons Center. The nuclear attack is possible,
they don't rule it out. It's you know, during the
Korean War, UM, the US did threaten to use nuclear weapons,
(19:17):
and there have been in the past US nuclear weapons,
you know, stationed in South Korea, and there is the
US nuclear umbrella, right, So there are reasons. It's a
small country in the middle of economic and political giants, um,
and it's a country that doesn't necessarily have any real allies,
(19:38):
you know, it has a relationship with the Chinese, relationship
with the Russians. Doesn't really trust that, you know, in
the case of something happening, not really. And you're looking
at a nuclear dense region as well, right, China has
nuclear weapons, Russia has nuclear weapons, US has nuclear weapons,
and South Korea and Japan have nuclear weapons by default,
(20:00):
So there is a sense of insecurity that drives a
lot of their decisions. The North Koreans look at the
history um and especially you know from the Korean War
on and say that it's possible, no matter where you
go in Korea, North or South, you cannot escape the
(20:21):
dynamics created by the Korean War and the antagonistic relationship
that followed. It's one of the reasons North Korea is
constantly rattling its saber, trying to look tough. It's one
of the reasons Kimill's hung embraced che later investing obscene
portions of his country's GDP to build up one of
(20:42):
the world's largest militaries. And it's why North Korea has
worked so hard to develop its own deterrent, a deterrent
that Kim jong nam was well aware of because remember
his rendezvous in Langkawee, Malaysia. A few days after that
hotel meeting with an American spy, Kim Jong Nam would
(21:05):
try to leave the country with multiple vials of an
antidote designed to combat the toxic nerve agent v X.
Kim Jong Nam knew something, and that's this. When Western
Powers began installing nuclear weapons in South Korea, the DPRK,
then two Poor to counteract the arsenal with atomic bombs
(21:27):
of its own, came up with a strategy one they
believed that could neuter the US is atomic power. North
Korea would build a stockpile of chemical weapons so large
it could end all human life as we know it,
and North Korea wouldn't be afraid to use it. In
(22:02):
the nineteen fifties, as blood and bombs spilled over the
Korean Peninsula, chemists in the United Kingdom were waging a
very different kind of battle against insects. The pesticide industry
was booming and Dr Ron J. Ghosh, a chemist working
(22:22):
for Imperial Chemical Industries in gelts Hill, England, was looking
for chemicals that could kill common pests, specifically mits. Ghost
was directed to look closely at secret research on a
group of toxic pesticides called g agents, which have been
developed by German scientists during the nineteen thirties. Glos went
(22:43):
to work, and in nineteen fifty two, at the height
of the Korean War, he and a fellow chemist named J. F. Newman,
discovered a substance an organo phosphate esther of substitute amino
ethiol called Amaton. The men celebrated the discovery. Ghost was
convinced he had found the pesticide to end all pesticides.
(23:08):
Advertisers believed it too. By Amaton was being marketed across
the United Kingdom as the next great bug killer, but
within three years it would be pulled off the shelves.
Turns out Amaton was much more than an insecticide. It
(23:30):
was a nerve agent. So Ghosh went back to work.
He continued trying to turn the Nazi G agents into
effective and safe pesticides, but every time he attempted to
discover a less toxic substance, he failed. In fact, each
new advancement seemed to make the G agents more toxic.
(23:55):
The most noxious, most deadly, most terrified rying agent Ghosh
concocted would be so potent that only a few milligrams
were needed to kill a human. It would be named
Venomous Agent X. Today it's just called v X. And
(24:20):
that is where our stories collide. Because during the Korean War,
as American planes rain bombs and bullets on North Korean cities,
Kimilsung directed his military to build a labyrinth of underground
tunnels and bunkers for protection. North Korea hasn't stopped digging
since you might remember our friend historian Benjamin Young. They
(24:43):
remembered the years of the US air bombardment, and so
there's a reason why North Korea has built so many
of its military facilities under the ground, in mountainous ravines,
under mountains. They have a massive tunnel system. So North
Korea's history has made it into this very deeply paranoid,
(25:07):
almost subterranean system. Today, it's estimated that North Korea has
up to fifteen thousand underground layers acting as aircraft hangars,
material depots, and weapons storage facilities. It's believed the majority
of the country's military supplies are protected by these underground bunkers.
(25:29):
I think that one day, perhaps the regime will collapse
and we'll go then and we'll see just how huge
their tunnel system was underneath the ground, and just how
prepared they were for any sort of airbombardment. And that
might be one of the secrets that Kim Jong nam
was harboring as the son of the dear leader. He
knew that these underground cities held North Korea's war chests
(25:52):
of chemical weapons, including what maybe the largest stockpile of
VX nerve agent in the world. Today, North Koreas cash
of chemical weapons is the world's third largest, lagging behind
only the US and Russia. The country is home to
at least eleven chemical weapons facilities, almost all of them
(26:15):
buried underground, that may produce and store up to five
thousand metric tons of these deadly agents. But truth be told,
nobody certain how much they really have. North Korea has
um you know, chemical weapons capability, the extent of which
we don't really know, but the willingness to use uh
(26:36):
is there. We do, however, have a good idea of
what's in North Korea's stockpile. Anthrax, smallpox, amaton, mustard, gas saren,
the plague, and yes, VX agent, all of which are
(26:57):
ready for their neighbors to the south or anyone else
who messes with them near their turf. North Korea has
the capability of attaching you know, chemical weapons, even to
their short range ballistic missiles. Chemill Song was right to
bet on chemical weapons. Chemical missiles are cheaper and potentially
(27:18):
more lethal than nuclear warheads. It would only take one
gallon of anthrax to end all human life. Indeed, for decades,
this chemical stockpile has been a remarkable deterrent and a
threatening bargaining chip. The US won't use its nukes because
(27:39):
that would compel the North to release its chemical weapons,
and the North won't use its chemical weapons because that
would compel the US to use its nukes. It's led
to a strategic standoff, a menacing game of chicken that
allows North Korea to act belligerent lee with few consequences.
(27:59):
Anything else would be catastrophic. In the n nineties, the
Pentagon calculated the cost of a pre emptive strike on
North Korea. The results suggested that an attack would cost
the US more than a trillion dollars and require at
least a hundred thousand body bags just for American troops alone.
(28:21):
The potential loss of life in a second Korean conflict
is you know, millions of people. You have. You have
to remember that Soul the capital of South Korea. It's
only thirty miles away from the d m z Um
and about a quarter of the population lives there. Um
The response time that it takes to defend Soul and
(28:41):
the amount of damage that can be done very quickly
is enormously high. This standoff has done more than preserved
North Korea's existence. It's been a boon to the country's economy.
It essentially uses weapons of mass destruction to extort foreign
countries into lifting ancients. It's also a valuable export. These
(29:04):
chemical weapons can be shipped rogue nations and terrorist groups.
North Korea never really admits to having chemical weapons are
actually using it. That again is Sue Kim, our ex
CIA analyst. But we know that it's actually tried to
transfer chemical weapons to other countries. It's got the technology
(29:25):
and equipment, so it should be a concern. In fact,
we know that North Korea exported chemical equipment to Syria
coincidentally around the same time Syrian President Bashar al Assad
was gassing his own citizens. Meanwhile, in the US, there's
practically no VX at all in accordance with the Chemical
(29:49):
Weapons Convention in agreement North Korea disregards the United States
has destroyed almost all of its stock of VX. Today,
one of America's largest collections of VX rockets. It's resting
at the bottom of the ocean, just off the coast
of Atlantic City, New Jersey. All of that's to say,
(30:11):
while North Korea is nuclear weapons get most of the attention.
Perhaps it's time the country's chemical arsenal commands more of
our scrutiny. We do talk constantly about the came regime's
missile development, the provocations and those are all of course
valid um incredible security concerns, but the chemical warfare component
(30:33):
um the cyber components, I think are just as deadly
and in some cases even more deadly. The chemical weapons
in combination with the ballistic missiles, can lead to, I
would say, much more broader, far reaching implications than the
(30:55):
time to think. Because of this perception that Earth crews backwards,
because it's it's poor, because weird has a funny looking reader,
we tend to sort of dismiss a lot of these
serious developments. I think it's an advantage for North Korea
to play this on all the while developing so many
lethal options later to threaten the international community to use it,
(31:18):
or to actually do try to use it. As the
world found out in It's exactly the kind of weaponry
one might use too quickly and silently kill a target
in a very public place. Over the course of this podcast,
(31:48):
we've gone over a plethora of theories of who killed
Kim Jong nam and why was it Kim Jongan ensuring
his throne wouldn't be jeopardized. Was it North Korea and
elites with an eye on his money making software. Was
it someone else in the regime who was threatened by
his reform minded ideas To be honest, It may not
(32:11):
just be one, because Kim jong Nam had evaded death before.
In the early two thousand's, somebody masterminded a plot to
kill him in Austria, but that, as you may remember,
was thwarted, and in shortly after Kim Jongan was annointed successor,
(32:32):
a North Korean spy paid a Chinese taxi driver to
run over Kim jong Nam with his car. The hit
and run failed, and in after Yoji Komi published his
tell all book, Kim jong Nam reportedly dodged another attack,
the details of which are murky, but according to South
(32:54):
Korean intelligence, the exiled prince was so distressed that he
wrote a letter to his brother pleading for his life.
Please withdraw the order to punish me and my family.
We have nowhere to hide. The only way to escape
is to choose suicide. No matter who was trying to
kill him, Kim jong Nam knew the bucks stopped with
(33:17):
his brother. It seems Kim jong N didn't listen, and
after Chang Song Tech was killed, North Korean spies apparently
began tailing Kim jong Nam's movements. Even if Kim jong
Nam wanted to divorce himself from all of his connections
in North Korea, it's not up to him. The regime
(33:40):
that the Kim jong N leadership has every interest to
keep tabs on this this brother one because of course
he was family, and too because of the potential threat
that he would pose to Kim jong N as the leader.
But actions, of course, can have unintended consequences, just as
(34:00):
the U. S air bombardment and nuclear weapons inadvertently encouraged
North Korea to build tunnels and beef up on chemical weapons,
cutting off Kim jong nam slash fund had unexpected results too.
Kim jong Nam needed money. According to the Washington Post,
the circumstances may have quote thrust Kim jong Nam into
(34:22):
the arms of foreign intelligence services as he tried to
maintain his lifestyle. So a very reliable source obviously can't name,
told me that Kim jong Nam had been providing intelligence
to the CIA while he was living in exile. I mean,
we know that he was having to earn money for himself,
(34:45):
that it wasn't the beneficiary of the regime's larges anymore
after Kim Jong nun took power. Um, so it stands,
you know, it makes sense that he would be having
to earn a living, and you know what is his
more was unique marketable skill, I guess, is giving intelligence
about about Kim jongan and what's going on in North Korea.
(35:07):
Journalists at the Wall Street Journal would later corroborate five
fields reporting suggesting that Chong Nam occasionally met CIA handlers
and undisclosed locations in Malaysia and Singapore. He wasn't an
agent or anything like that, but he was providing the
information that he had. There have also been multiple reports
since then that he was doing the same for South
Korea also potentially Japan. To learn more, we prodded deeper
(35:33):
with Sue Kim, hoping she'd spill some CIA secrets to us.
She was understandably unable to confirm these suspicions. You know,
I can't really comment about how the the Intel organizations
obtained sources, so I'm not sure if I could help
you with this question. But she was able to help
(35:54):
provide us with the rationale. If the CIA did hypothetically
see gout Tong Num, there would be I would say
great value because he has lived inside the country. Um.
He is the son of Kim jong so he knows
a lot about the system. He knows a lot about
his family members. UM. He also knows how North Korea thinks. Um,
(36:17):
not just the leadership, but just North Korean. I would say,
just the the culture. So there would be a lot
of value. And as much as there's a lot of
value for foreign intel services, it's going to be an
even greater threat for North Korea. We don't know what
Kim jong nam told the CIA or how long he
(36:39):
worked with them. All we know is that when Kim
jongan was announced his successor, intelligence agencies had little information
about him. They scramble to learn anything they could, and
what better source than his older brother. If the United
States for South Korea were able to form relationship with
(37:02):
Kim Jong nam, think about how much more vulnerable Kim
Jong nan is going to feel about his decision making,
about his health, about his interesting quirks. And on the
day Kim jong nam met with the suspected CIA agent
in Langkawi, he took the man into his hotel room. There,
(37:23):
it's believed he shared intelligence from his computer. We know
this because days after Kim jong nam died, police found
evidence that somebody had extracted extensive amounts of data with
the USB drive. Cheng Nam would also try to leave
the country with four bricks of cash, each bundle amounting
to around thirty dollars, and of course those vials of antidote.
(37:48):
Did Kim jong Nam request this his payment or did
the CIA offer it as an exchange. Honestly, nobody outside
of those involved in the exchange knows, But we do
know that Kim Jongan's own spies may have been lurking
in the shadows the DPR case seemed to be aware
(38:10):
of Toeng Nam's itinerary. It's possible that because they were
tailing him, they knew that he was talking to American spies,
and if that's true, that would present yet another reason
for his half brother to want him out of the picture.
The CIA has a history of trying to take down
foreign governments. It had tacitly endorsed the overthrow Vietnam's prime minister,
(38:35):
had helped organize the downfall of Chile's president, and had
plotted to assassinate the Democratic Republic of Congo's first prime
minister with a deadly virus, And of course they famously
tried and failed to poison Fidel Castro's cigars, So what
was stopping the CIA from trying the same with Kim
(38:56):
jong un. Sue Kim is wary of how much Tongu
Nam's links with the agency might have influenced North Korea's decisions.
I think it had much more to do with leadership insecurities.
The fact that this this oldest son who was roaming
about freely outside North Korea getting to enjoy life, occasionally
(39:17):
making these nonchalant comments about the North Korean system, the leadership,
and and you know, just being critical about the country.
It was not going to be. It wasn't going to
reflect well, obviously upon Kim Jongan. North Korea watchers like
Michael Madden also questioned whether the CIA connection was really
(39:38):
all that significant. In his opinion, the prince was already
a marked man. Disregard all of us, disregard all of
the stuff about Kim Jong Nam being a source for
foreign intelligence. That's just a really nice story for the
news media. There'd be other motivations but that begs the question,
(39:59):
if there had been so many reasons to kill this
man for decades, now, why did it take so long
for North Korea to pull the trigger. Madden suggests the
reason Kim jong Nam lived until was because he still
had a number of advocates in the regime. There were
(40:20):
other elites, people who considered Kim jong Nam as family.
There was Rios, a nineties something former hit man who
was like a grandfather to the prince. He died in November.
A few months later, a former female comrade of Kim
Il Song, also close to Kim jong Nam, died as well.
(40:41):
By the end of Kim jong Nam's circle of influence
had either defected, We're trapped in prison camps or were
buried underground. He no longer had friends or family to
speak up for him. Were put in motion Kim jong
Nam's assassination. I really think that's a huge factor. Madden
(41:04):
might be onto something, because in late North Korea spies
began hatching one of the most elaborate assassination plots ever devised.
Since Kim jong Nam enjoyed protection in China and was
now spending time with foreign intelligence agents, the spies realized
they had to be careful and strategic. So the hitman
(41:28):
likely decided that the best way to assassinate Kim Jong
Nam was to kill him with a unique method, a
method that was understated, bloodless, immediate, and immaculately lethal, deep underground,
(41:48):
stalked away in its hidden tunnels, North Korea had the
perfect murder weapon on its hands. What we know about
VX nerve agent comes largely thanks to research done by
Dr Van and Sim, the former director of human research
(42:11):
at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland, where the U. S. Army
used to test the effects of various chemical weapons. From
eight to ninety Under the direction of Dr Sim, more
than seven thousand American service members were exposed to substances
like ketamine, LSD and nerve agents like the X. The
(42:34):
Army believed live human experiments were important not only for defense,
but for intelligence gathering. As RAPI catch a Dorian writes
in The New Yorker, Doctors like Sim wanted to know
quote could an operative dose and adversary with a handshake,
So Dr Sim started drugging American soldiers to find out.
(42:56):
It sounds wildly unethical, and it is, but at the
time Dr Sim's work was well regarded. He was a
fearless researcher who always tested every chemical on himself before
exposing any soldiers to it. When he first encountered v
X in Sim intravenously infused small doses straight into his bloodstream.
(43:21):
It nearly killed him, but it thanks to doctor Sim
and the servicemen he experimented on that we now know
what v X does to the human body and what
the North Korean spies had planned for Kim Jong Nam.
Upon contact, a small drop of VX quickly penetrates the
(43:42):
skin and soaks into the bloodstream, and it wastes no time.
The nerve agent blocks enzygns that help your muscles to relax.
Within minutes, every muscle starts to contract uncontrollably. The eyes burned,
the pupils narrow, sweat beads as vision blurs, The chest titans,
making breathing more and more difficult. Muscles twitch and tire
(44:07):
as the nose runs and the mouth drools. Fluid floods
the airway, coughing, fits sputter as the whole body clenches.
After just ten minutes, nerve ending scream with pain. The
body can't handle this type of stimulation, so the muscles
become exhausted, and eventually they curl in on themselves, contracting
(44:32):
to the point where the victim can no longer breathe.
Consciousness fades, but not quickly enough. The victim's final thoughts
will be consumed by one horrifying realization that their own
body is suffocating them and it doesn't take much feex
(44:56):
to kill you. Dr sim concluded that it's it's just
ten milligrams of v X, about the same as three
rain drops to kill a human. This has prompted the
CDC to call v X quote the most potent of
all nerve agents. Tasteless, odorless, and deadly in small, almost
(45:18):
undetectable quantities. V X is also shockingly portable. It can
be broken down into two harmless compounds, allowing two people
to hold these separate ingredients in their hands with minimal
risk to themselves. That is, until you mix the two
compounds together. On the next and last episode of Big Brother,
(45:45):
the elaborate means to which North Korea would go to
wash its hands of an assassination of international proportions, and
how Kim Jong Nam's death triggered a daring rescue Big
Brother is a production of School of Humans and I
Heart Radio and hosted by me Eat and Lee Lucas.
(46:08):
Riley is our writer, co director and associate producer. Amelia
Brock is our senior producer, co director and editor. Executive
producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, Else Crowley, and Jason English.
Our fact checker is Aaron Blakemore. Music composed by Jason
Todd Shannon and Tune Walters. Original score mix by Vick Stafford.
(46:31):
Audio editing by Jesse nice Swanger, Sound design and mixed
by Harper W. Harris. Audio correction by Josh Fisher. Voice
acting by Mark Chung, June Yune, Ben Holst, Thiago Lima
and Mike Coscarelli. We'd like to acknowledge the work of
Dr Bruce Cummings. Special thanks to Ryan Murdoch and Will Pearson.
(46:53):
Sound licensed from Critical Past. If you're enjoying the podcast,
help us get the word out by leaving Obra in
your favorite podcast app. Until next time, I'm evenly School
(47:23):
of Humans m HM.
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