North Korean Policy Elites - Defense Technical Information Center

on top in the power struggle within the Kim’s extended family clan, without locking themselves
into any particular candidate in the absence of a clear vision of the future government setup in
Pyongyang.
The truth of the matter is that Kim Jong Il considers his three sons as “idle blockheads.” 6
His eldest son, Kim Jong Nam, born on May 10, 1973, is the bastard 31-year old offspring of
Kim’s mentally unstable concubine, former famous actress Sung Hye Rim. 7 Kim Jong Nam grew
up at Kim Jong Il’s residence on Mount Changgwang San on a hill in the center of Pyongyang.
He was an estranged, albeit spoiled, child with little parental guidance, love, and care. Kim Jong
Il is said to have paid special attention to him only when he was from 12 to 16 years old, namely,
in 1985-1989. He received his secondary and high school education in Moscow and Geneva.
Kim Jong Il is said to have required that his eldest son be a “prince without flaws” – no alcohol,
cigarettes, women, or luxury, only reading and sports. But Kim Jong Nam could not and did not
wish to live up to his father’s high expectations and eventually disappointed him badly. When he
turned 20, his father all but abandoned him, never displaying any affection towards him, placing
only demands and restrictions on his son and looking at him as a burden. In the 1990s, Kim Jong
Nam became miserable, easily distracted, short-tempered, and vindictive. He has always been
jealous and resentful of “the other woman’s family” and all his step-relatives. He never met his
grandfather, and his current relationship with his father is said to be tense and full of mutual
disdain. He was sidetracked in the succession plotting, and, therefore, feels embittered and
frustrated.
Kim Jong Nam is married and has a son born in 1997. 8 He spends most of his time in
China under the shadow of the Chinese State security apparatus that is rumored to consider him
as a potential Manchurian candidate. Despite being regarded as one of the potential “traitors”
from the “defector family,” 9 he is rumored to work for the DPRK State Security Agency,
6 This is what he reportedly told General Pulikovsky in one of their long daily conversations during his 24-day train
journey across the Russian Federation in 2001. By the way, all Kim Jong Il’s children from his three women are
said to look similar. The father’s side has come out very strongly in all of his three sons and three daughters.
7 Song Hye Rim was born in 1937 in the family of old Korean intelligentsia who came from the South during the
Korean War. She left the film world for Kim Jong Il in 1968. After bearing his child, she spent most of her life in
Russia under the watchful eye of the KGB, being treated for chronic depression and kidney stones. She passed
away at a secretive government clinic in Moscow in 2002. Throughout their unofficial life together, Kim Jong Il
could not present Song Hye Rim in public or to his father, because she was officially married to another man.
Although concubines were acceptable in the old society, in the new society it was impossible. It was absolutely
forbidden to break up a marriage. Only when Song Hye Rim gave birth to Kim Jong Nam, she became
“legitimate” in the eyes of Kim Jong Il, but not before the law or in the eyes of Kim Il Sung.
8 When Kim Jong Nam was arrested at Tokyo’s Narita Airport for attempting to enter Japan on a false Dominican
passport in 2001, he was escorted by two women and a four-year old boy. He identified one of the women as his
wife, the four-year old boy as his son, and the other woman as the “nanny” for his son.
9 It must have been very hard for Kim Jong Il to accept the fact that there had been a traitor in his own family, after
Kim Jong Nam’s younger cousin, Li Il Nam, disappeared in Geneva in 1982, where he was vacationing during a
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