North Korean Policy Elites - Defense Technical Information Center

Bulgarian Trade Unions, after which he went into coma. 5 Two days later, on a rainy Saturday
morning, Kim Jong Il hurriedly invited the Soviet Ambassador Nikolay M. Shubnikov to his
marbled and gilded office on the party street in downtown Pyongyang. Visibly traumatized, the
Dear Leader came out in person to greet the Ambassador, firmly shook his hand and, without
beating about the bush, informed the Soviet envoy via a Korean interpreter that “the Great
Leader was passing away from us,” and that the “Politburo decided to revive him for us.” He
said that “the catastrophe occurred two days before, and we badly need urgent medical assistance
from Soviet cardiologists.” Then, he described in detail what had actually happened to Kim Il
Sung and how Korean doctors attempted to revive him. What was surprising was the level of
detail and Kim Jong Il’s almost professional knowledge of all related medical terms and
processes. Kim Jong Il went on to say that the DPRK government would not spare any resources
and expenditures in order to save the Great Leader. At the end of the conversation, he shook the
Ambassador’s hand, warned him that, besides the two of them, only five other people from the
inner circle of the supreme North Korean party and military leadership and Kim Il Sung’s three
personal doctors were privy to that information, and admonished him to safeguard the state
secret in earnest.
Upon his return to the Soviet Embassy, Ambassador Shubnikov composed a ciphered
telegram addressed only to Mikhail Gorbachev, burnt the hand-written minutes of the
conversation, and personally dispatched it to Moscow. Just twelve hours later, an emergency
aircraft carrying fifteen leading Soviet cardiologists arrived at Pyongyang. The Soviet heart
specialists were immediately transported by helicopter from the Sunan International Airport to
Myohyangsan, where Kim Il Sung’s comatose body was lying at one of his magnificent secluded
residences. It took a total of forty-eight hours for these extraordinary medical miracle workers to
bring Kim Il Sung back to life. They continued to monitor Kim Il Sung’s health progress until his
full recovery in the following month. In other words, Kim Jong Il’s decisive action saved his
father’s life and cemented the dictator’s trust in his son’s judgment and confidence in his filial
piety.
But, on July 8, 1994, Kim Jong Il chose to move on. He launched a new era in Korean
history when the court doctors were ordered to cease their efforts to maintain the 82-year old
Great Leader’s life. During the ensuing neo-traditional three-year mourning period, key decisionmaking
processes allegedly became more “informalized” and “privatized” by Kim Jong Il and
his 13 to 15 closest family members and staff aides. Organizationally, the party grip on the
formulation of domestic economic policy, national security and defense strategy, and foreign
5 The following account is based on the author’s conversation with one of the Russian participants of the described
events who asked not to be identified.
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