North Korean Policy Elites - Defense Technical Information Center

was apparently tapping phones of other leaders, including Kim Il-sung. 46 Representatives of the
Kim Chong-il network, who reported directly to Kim Chong-il’s staff, countersigned all
commands throughout the system, including military orders.
It is rumored that Kim Chong-il relies on his sister, Kim Kyong-hui, as a private source
of information and reconnaissance on the system. She apparently has been dispatched to areas of
the country to verify reports Kim Chong-il receives through dedicated and other channels. This is
an especially useful tool when Kim Chong-il decides to conduct a surgical anti-corruption
campaign and needs unvarnished information. 47
According to one North Korean source, most of the information senior leaders rely on to
carry out their bureaucratic responsibilities is based on reports culled and sanitized by their staffs.
These reports are often reduced to a two to five-page memo “with an introductory paragraph
written as if the reader has no preliminary knowledge of the subject.” 48 Information in the reports
is checked for superfluities, and unpleasing news is glossed over. In addition to reports prepared
by their staffs, some North Korean leaders have developed some dedicated channels for
additional information. This is done through personal contacts and alliances formed with one or
another bureaucracy. Leaders also seek to reach accommodations with various
counterintelligence organizations for both reasons of political survival and to protect private
ventures, which, if discovered, could lead to allegations of corruption.
Most reports and memoirs of senior North Korean defectors also make reference to an
unofficial network of information that is shared among the elite. 49 Much of the information (and
rumors) garnered from this network concerns power within the system and the private lives of
the leaders. In his memoirs, Hwang Chang-yop relates various stories of intrigues and scheming
between factions within the Kim Il-sung family tree. Information is used as a tool for infighting
between clans. Disinformation campaigns are run within elite channels to undermine rivals and
position people for key posts within the apparatus. 50 According to one defector, “the members of
the elite class are selective in what they choose to be informed about; they are most curious
46 According to one North Korean source, Kim Chong-il sought and received the cooperation of Chon Ha-chol, Kim
Il-sung’s chief secretary, as a conduit for information. While this claim cannot be verified, Chon, before he
entered Kim Il-sung’s personal secretariat, was the director of the KWP CC General Affairs Department in the
early 1980s and worked closely with Kim Chong-il in establishing the routing procedures of information through
the senior political leadership. See “Kim Il-sung’s Former Chief Secretary Chon Ha-chol Profiled,” Seoul
National Intelligence Service website (www.nis.go.kr) (May 12, 2003).
47 Discussion with a South Korean Pyongyang watcher, November 2003.
48 This North Korean defector worked in the Central Committee apparatus in the 1980s and 1990s. E-mail
correspondence in December 2003.
49 Several references are made to this network in Hwang Chang-yop’s memoirs (I Saw the Truth of History)
published in 1999.
50 Ibid.
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