North Korean Policy Elites - Defense Technical Information Center

een severely curtailed. 16 Kim Chong-il relies on carefully placed lieutenants within the second
echelon as his key sources of information and power management. Therefore, influence is
measured not so much by access (few have it), but by being a source who receives direct
instructions from Kim Chong-il. As the Kim Chong-il regime has reformulated the lines of
power, those receiving instructions have tended to be pushed further down into the apparatus,
mainly at the deputy director/commander level.
In order to understand where true power lies in the system, one should look not at the
formal institutions, but at the patronage system within the institutions. By virtue of Kim Chongil’s
patronage system, the role of the first vice director is critical. 17 According to numerous
defector accounts, the four most powerful men in North Korea are the first vice directors of the
Organization Guidance Department: Yom Ki-sun (in charge of Party Central Committee), Yi
Yong-ch’ol (military), Chang Song-t’aek (administration), and Yi Che-kang (personnel
management). Other Central Committee first vice directors, include Choi Chun-hwang
(Department of Propaganda and Agitation), Yim Tong-ok (Reunification Propaganda
Department) and Chu Kyu-ch’ang (Munitions Manufacturing Department). Within the military,
the same type of patronage system exists, as can be seen in the examples of Gen. Pak Chaekyong
and Gen. Yi Myong-su. Both reside within the second echelon of the military leadership
and appear to have been tapped by Kim as sources of information and intelligence. Pak Chaekyong
is a vice director of the General Political Bureau and oversees propaganda ideological
training for the KPA. Yi Myong-su (63) is the director of the General Staff’s Operations
Bureau, 18 which is responsible for all operational aspects of the KPA, including the general
operational planning for the Air Force, Navy, Workers’-Peasants’ Red Guard, and Paramilitary
Training units. 19 A close associate of Chang Song-u, Yi has a direct channel to Kim Chong-il. 20
In cases of emergency, Kim can by-pass the chain of command and communicate directly with
the Operations Bureau.
16 Party secretaries now mainly report directly to Kim Chong-il’s personal secretariat. Chung Ha-chul (Secretary,
Propaganda) is believed to still carry influence within the Secretariat. Kim’s key supporters in the early part of his
reign, including Kye Ung-tae (Secretary, Public Security), Choi Tae-bok (Secretary, Science Education), are
believed to be declining in influence.
17 Kim Kwang-in, “Change of Kim’s Associates,” http://nkchosun.com, December 31, 2003.
18 Yi Myong-su took over from Kim Myung-kuk, who moved over to become commander of the 108 th Mechanized
Army. He was an influential figure in the early years of Kim Chong-il’s reign.
19 Joseph Bermudez, The Armed Forces of North Korea. (London: I.B. Tauris & Co., Ltd., 2001), p. 40. It is also
rumored that the Operations Bureau may serve as an information facilitating body for NDC directives to the KPA,
a relationship similar to the one that existed between the Soviet General Staff’s Operation Directorate and the
Defense Council.
20 Yi’s relationship with Chang dates back to at least the early 1990s when Yi was commander of the 5 th Corps.
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