Kim Jong Il: The Son of God (Full Episode) | Inside North Korea's Dynasty | Nat Geo

626.61k views3647 WordsCopy TextShare

National Geographic

The Son of God tracks the decline of Kim Il Sung and the rise of his son, Kim Jong Il. Jong is an un...

Video Transcript:

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Kim Jong-Un, the current leader of North Korea, has his own girl band. Each member handpicked by him. But their act has a sinister edge.

(singing in Korean). NARRATOR: Their show ends with a vision of the end of the world, a nuclear Armageddon. POST: It's simply impossible to understand Kim Jong-Un and predict his actions without putting that in the context of his father and grandfather.

NARRATOR: This is the story of the Kim's. One family. The first Kim, a man who tried to make himself a god.

GAUSE: Kim Il-Sung was the founder of the state; the founder of the revolution. A guy who was beloved by the people. NARRATOR: To a son who could never match his father.

BREEN: Kim Jong-Il was not the obvious candidate to be his father's successor. He was more uncomfortable with people, he kept in the background. He did have the status, but he never had the affection.

NARRATOR: And a grandson with his finger on the nuclear button. TRUMP: North Korea should have been handled 20 years ago, 10 years ago and 5 years ago. But I'll fix the mess.

NARRATOR: Now, as it all comes to a head, this is the story of the Kims, a family of dictators. PERRY: They've been smart, and they've been ruthless, and they've been single minded on their overarching goal, which is to preserve the Kim dynasty: to keep the regime in power. (cheering).

NARRATOR: The first Kim ruled North Korea as if he were their god. ♪ ♪ But it was to become increasingly clear that this god wasn't going to live forever. BREEN: I'm the only journalist as far as I know, Seoul-based journalist, who's ever met Kim Il-Sung.

And uh that's this moment. Uh, that's me with the hair. When I sort of spoke to him I just got an impression that he was a little bit out of it, a bit sort of vague, it was kind of like.

. . A little bit distracted.

We were later told that he was already sick by this time, was in bed, got up for our meeting, went back to bed afterwards, so he wasn't in good shape. In his 60s, this goiter on the side of his neck, about the size of a fist, just appeared. It continued to grow, grow, grow.

GAUSE: And I think he ultimately came to the conclusion that he needed to have a succession plan. NARRATOR: So the world was wondering who he would choose to be the next leader. The favorite was his brother.

GAUSE: In the beginning it was assumed that his heir apparent was going to be his younger brother, Kim Yong-Ju. And that person was the head of surveillance of the system, kind of the power behind the throne. NARRATOR: The other obvious candidate was his son by his second marriage, said to be highly intelligent and like his father.

GAUSE: He also had a son who was very popular within the military beloved by many parts of the old guard. NARRATOR: The person no one was expecting to succeed was his other son, Kim Jong-Il, the head of propaganda. GAUSE: He had no experience in the military, privileged, raised in a bubble.

He's enamored with movies and things like that. NARRATOR: Kim Jong-Il decided he wanted to be the next leader after his father, but all he really knew about was movies. POST: The Godfather is a very significant movie for Kim Jong-Il.

It can be seen as almost a literal model for the Kim dynasty. Jerrold Post's job was to brief the president of the United States on the mind of Kim Jong-Il. POST: I was trying to understand what shaped this individual.

From what we know he was, uh, on the one hand, pampered. There's a story, he had someone whose only job was to examine each grain of rice before it passed his precious lips. His mother died when he was but a child.

At the same time, he had little contact with his father, so Kim Jong-Il was a lonely boy, an isolated boy. He had a need to feel validated, to feel loved. At the same time, he was living in the shadow of his father.

BREEN: Kim Jong-Il was not the obvious candidate to be his father's successor, but he made up for it by becoming his father's great propagandist. (cheering). NARRATOR: The young Kim wanted to impress his father and gain power.

He decided to try to make great films that would put North Korea on the map. GAUSE: By the time that he got into the party apparatus he had really kind of gravitated toward film as being a way of perpetuating the legitimacy of the North Korean regime. And he starts to use the North Korean film industry to try to gain the respect of his father.

NARRATOR: The problem was he didn't think the North Korean film industry was any good. BREEN: He was a bit of a critic, he would look at these movies and just go, "This is rubbish. " And if you're Kim Jong-Il, you know if you can't sort of develop the talent locally then you hire externally.

NARRATOR: Kim looked to the regime's bitter rival, South Korea, and came up with a fiendish plan. BREEN: They were sort of the Brad and Angelina of their day in the South Korean movie world. BREEN: Then she disappeared in Hong Kong.

NARRATOR: So the film director went to Hong Kong, to search for his wife. (speaking in Korean). JEONG-KYUN: This is my mom, mom's voice.

(speaking in Korean). JEONG-KYUN: This is my father. (speaking in Korean).

JEONG-KYUN: Kim Jong-Il. This is Kim Jong-Il. (speaking in Korean).

NARRATOR: The arrival of the tapes, years after the filmmakers had gone missing, finally revealed the incredible truth: the couple had been abducted by the North Koreans. To alert the outside world to their fate, they secretly recorded themselves in conversation with Kim Jong-Il. This was the first time anyone outside North Korea had heard his voice.

NARRATOR: In 1978, the first Kim is in control of North Korea, but his son, Kim Jong-Il, wants to succeed him. He's doing everything he can to please his father and win power. The kidnapping of the South Korean filmmakers is going to plan.

The actress is being brought to him. YI: When she landed, Kim Jong-Il approached her, shook her hand. And what he said?

'Welcome to North Korea. ' BREEN: Once they'd arrived he said the reason I've brought you here is to help our movie-making, help improve our industry. And this is what they did for several years.

YI: In eight years, they made seven films. Kim Jong-Il provided all kinds of support: facilities, studios, financing, everything. Kim Jong-Il was so happy.

"Oh they are my people now, 100% my people. " GAUSE: Kim Jong-Il decides "I need some help on being able to build up my film industry, well, why don't we go kidnap somebody from South Korea and bring them here? " It's one of those very personal solutions which from the outside looks very bizarre, but when you look at it from the inside of North Korea, this is a decision made by an individual who had no checks and balances on him.

And so he decided, "Make this happen" and it was done. NARRATOR: His plan was to use them to win international recognition for the North Korean film industry, which would prove his worth to his father. YI: So they started to allow them to travel abroad together.

So he started to make his escape plan. So I was selected to handle this operation. We uh told all the American embassies in European countries what to do, in case they escape.

NARRATOR: Now the couple had gained Kim's trust, they travelled to Vienna, supposedly on a business trip to discuss film distribution. The next morning, they managed to slip past their guards. In the hotel's lobby they met a journalist who bundled them into a taxi.

With their guards soon following, the filmmakers were now players in a real-life car chase. Then, by pure luck, their car passed through some lights, just as they were changing. They headed straight for the American embassy and were finally free.

(inaudible chatter). -Todays conference is held at the request of Mr Shin and Ms. Choi.

YI: He believed he can do anything he wants to do. He was that kind of person. NARRATOR: For Kim Jong-Il, the North Korean film industry was on the map.

He also put his propaganda department into overdrive, pumping out films and television praising his father as the greatest leader the world had ever seen. -Kim Jong-Il said, 'Nobody in the world has ever dedicated all his life to the people's cause for so many years, and undergone so many hardships, as our leader has done. Whenever I think of the leader working restlessly for the people's happiness, I feel my eyes moisten.

' BREEN: It was in the 70s and 80s that the personality cult took off and went into the stratosphere and that was under the direction of his son, Kim Jong-Il. (singing in Korean). NARRATOR: He stepped up his statue-building program to heap praise on his father.

REPORTER (over TV): A towering tribute to Kim's personal velocity, higher than the Washington Monument. BREEN: He intensified the personality cult of his father to demonstrate that he was more worthy than anybody else to succeed. NARRATOR: And at the same time his rivals fell away.

His uncle's health deteriorated, and Kim Pyong-Il's mother fell out of favor, which left the way clear for Kim Jong-Il. (cheering). REPORTER (over TV): To the surprise of his placemen in the North Korean power structure, the Great Leader appointed his son, known as the Dear Leader, as successor in the event of his mortality.

GAUSE: When you look at what North Korean policy is all about, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless you tie it into the Kim family. If you look at it, it's basically a family-run dictatorship. It's unique to the whole Communist experience.

NARRATOR: Kim Jong-Il had achieved his ambition, but he still had a problem. (inaudible chanting). MCCORMACK (over TV): Turning North Korea into the world's first hereditary Communist monarchy has apparently not been well received by the country's military.

GAUSE: There was a military pushback against hereditary succession. The military didn't believe this person had what it took to be the leader, so Kim Jong-Il had to manufacture legitimacy. In order to feel secure in this position, he has to come in with an iron fist.

NARRATOR: By the start of the 1980s, North Korea had their next leader lined up. But he looked like a man with something to prove. POST: The U.

S. Government was gravely concerned. Kim Jong-Il was dangerous, he was living in the shadow of his father.

And he had a need to be respected. REPORTER (over TV): America's top of the line spy plane, the SR71, routinely flies at the edge of space, at three times the speed of sound. Its spy cameras are capable of looking hundreds of miles into hostile territory, providing the U.

S. with some of its most detailed intelligence. POST: He was shaped from boyhood on: you have to defend yourself against the West, and his provocations became more reckless.

REYNOLDS (over TV): Good evening, the United States now insists there is no doubt about it, North Korea fired a missile at an American reconnaissance or spy plane yesterday. It was, according to the State Department, an act of lawlessness. NARRATOR: As the chosen next leader, Kim Jong-Il was now in the driver's seat, and starting to take charge of running North Korea.

He would prove to make even wilder decisions than his father, with even less grasp of what the consequences might be. One of his first moves was to put his embassies to work, to bring him his favorite feature films. BREEN: Kim Jong-Il got all the latest movies illegally copied by diplomats in North Korean embassies around the world.

He would have them sent back to him in Pyongyang. He had built up an enormous library of movies and he watched all of them. He was a big fan of James Bond apparently.

And he's exposed himself to all these movies, they'll be feeding his imagination. How does that influence him in real terms? NARRATOR: According to the abducted filmmakers Kim Jong-Il had not only seen and loved every James Bond film, he thought they were somehow based in reality.

POST: He had this huge collection of videos. And I believed that that shaped his concept of how to be a leader in some ways. NARRATOR: A new chapter of North Korean history was about to begin, with a man in charge acting ever more like a Bond villain.

POST: Kim Jong-Il saw himself as impelled to try to achieve the goals that had been implanted in him by his father. And so we saw a ramping up of attacks to achieve unification of the Korean peninsula. NARRATOR: Next he took a page out of his father's book.

His father had twice tried to kill the president of South Korea. Now Kim Jong-Il attempted to succeed where his father had failed. ♪ ♪ REPORTER (over TV): President Chun of South Korea and his party are optimistic about their six-nation tour of Asia.

NARRATOR: The South Korean delegation included Choi Jae-Wook. (explosion) NARRATOR: Kim Jong-Il cared more about impressing his people and his military than he did about how he looked to the world. His plot to assassinate the South Korean president was an attempted show of strength.

(inaudible shouting). (inaudible shouting). LEHRER (over TV): South Korean President Chun Doo-Hwan returned to Seoul today to sort out the political and personal pieces of yesterday's bombing in Burma, a bombing meant for him that instead killed 19 other people, including 16 Koreans, 4 of whom were members of Chun's cabinet.

Chun's motorcade had been delayed in traffic, the president was minutes away when the bomb went off. NARRATOR: Ronald Reagan flew to South Korea and gave a speech to the American troops stationed in the demilitarized zone. -Atten-hut.

-At ease! -Warriors, the President of the United States. REAGAN: Thank you very much, Colonel.

There's no better proof of the relationship between strength and freedom than right here in the DMZ in Korea. You stand between the free world and the armed forces of a system that is hostile to everything we believe in as Americans. The Communist system to the North is based on hatred and oppression.

Its attack against the leaders of the South Korean government in Rangoon made clear what kind of enemy you face across the DMZ. NARRATOR: Over the years the reckless action of the Kims led to international sympathy and support for South Korea. BREEN: The conclusion in South Korea in the intelligence world was that Kim Jong-Il was kind of, out of place as a leader that actually he was more like some kind of Hollywood director type of character.

NARRATOR: The last thing North Korea's master showman would have wanted was what happened next: an opportunity for South Korea to triumph on the world stage. JENNINGS (over TV): News today of the 1988 Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee awarded the summer games to Seoul, the capital of South Korea.

BREEN: Seoul, the capital of South Korea, being awarded the Olympics was a moment of recognition, and I felt at the time that the world was symbolically acknowledging the ascendancy of South Korea over North Korea. NARRATOR: Rocked by this announcement, Kim made a wild demand. He announced that North Korea would co-host the games, and before he got an answer from the Olympic committee, he started building stadiums.

BARRON (over TV): The vast propaganda machine here is still demanding that the North be allowed to co-host the Olympics with the South. It's a monumental effort, new sports complexes are growing like mushrooms all over Pyongyang. This glittering masterpiece is known as the Chrysanthemum Stadium because of its shape.

His nation's entire resources, money, steel, concrete, are being channeled into this. With 150,000 seats the Communists claim it will be the world's biggest, easily surpassing Seoul's Olympic Stadium. NARRATOR: Kim's gamble was: "Build it and they will come.

' The Olympic committee did politely pay a visit to discuss sharing the games, but ultimately, they decided against it. Seoul, the South Korean capital, would host the games alone. As excitement built in South Korea as the games approached, there was always the worry about what the North Koreans might do next.

CARLUCCI (over TV): We certainly cannot rule out the possibility that they would attempt to disrupt the Olympics. BREEN: The only thing North Korea's ever been internationally competitive in, is the ability to cause trouble. DRAPER: What does that mean?

BREEN: Well that means a bit of terrorism basically. JENNINGS (over TV): This week the South Koreans did some pretty public advertising on how prepared they are to keep the Games secure. REPORTER (over TV): An elite anti-terrorist task force has been in training here for more than two years, perfecting ways to overpower hijackers, preparing for the worst.

POST: Not having the supreme honor of hosting the Olympics must have been so humiliating for Kim that if he wasn't going to have them, nobody was. REPORTER (over TV): The Olympic Flame which burns in Seoul is more than a symbol of preparedness, it heralds the emergence of a country which has become the new economic miracle of the 20th century. NARRATOR: As the '88 Seoul Olympics approaches, tensions escalate between the Kims and South Korea.

REPORTER (over TV): The Seoul Olympics will have the distinction of being the most heavily guarded sporting event in history. GAUSE: The separation between South Korea and North Korea was becoming apparent, everyone felt the fear of possible terrorism. REPORTER (over TV): A U.

S. carrier task force is even sitting off-shore, as a deterrent to possible North Korean aggression. NARRATOR: Kim Jong-Il appealed to the Soviet Union and China to boycott the games, but even his communist allies let him down, and decided to take part.

GAUSE: He had spent a lot of time and effort courting fellow Communist countries, and the fact that many of them were going to come to the Olympics was a slap in the face. For Kim Jong-Il and his father, it really turned their vision of the world upside down. They were increasingly desperate over the situation.

-And. . .

recording. Yeah. 2, 1, 0.

(inaudible radio). REPORTER (over TV): A Korean Airlines jet carrying 115 people on a flight from Iraq vanished today somewhere near Burma. REPORTER (over TV): As aircraft search for the wreckage of the Korean airliner, reports of a possible bomb plot begin to surface, leading investigators to think Flight 858 may have been a terrorist target.

REPORTER (over TV): Relatives of the 95 passengers and 20 crew began gathering as news of the disappearance spread. All but two on board were of Korean origin. (speaking in Korean).

(speaking in Korean). GAUSE: North Korean operatives were well-trained, and they were carrying out a mission that they were told directly by Kim Jong-Il. They nearly got away with it.

BARRON (over TV): The mouth of 26-year-old Kim Huyn-Hee was taped up to prevent her poisoning herself. Miss Kim, and another North Korean agent who did commit suicide, blew up a South Korean airliner killing over 100 people. NARRATOR: Kim Jong-Il's agent was sentenced to death for her act of mass murder, but she was later pardoned by the South Korean president, who stated that she was a brainwashed victim of the real culprit: the Kim regime.

REPORTER (over TV): For the next two weeks a worldwide audience will be treated to the 24th Olympic Games. South Korea, whose capital is the site, and whose country is in the world's eye as never before. LIFTKE (over TV): A moment of national pride, especially when more than 9,000 athletes finally marched in, the largest number in Olympic history.

The first Games in three decades with the U. S. , China and the Soviet Union all competing.

BREEN: The Olympics in a way were the end of a disastrous decade but were just the eve of a far more disastrous one for the North Koreans. -Welcome athletes of the world. NARRATOR: The success of the South Korean Olympics was kept from the North Korean people.

Instead they watched TV shows like this. (speaking in Korean). NARRATOR: Kim Jong-Il was making himself like his father, a god in the eyes of his people.

And he was about to use his power more wildly and extravagantly than anyone would have imagined. Captioned by Cotter Captioning Services.