North Korean House of Cards

Chart 24: Organizational Chart of the MSC 636
Commander
Political Department
Command Staff
Cadre Department
Inspection Section
Guard Unit
(Protection for KJU)
Security University
1st Department
(Organization/
Planning)
2nd Department
(Investigation)
3rd Department
(Preliminary
Examination)
4th Department
(Investigation of
Military Personnel)
5th Department
(General Affairs)
6th Department
(Surveillance)
7th Department
(Telephone
Monitoring)
8th Department
(Inspects MPAF
Factories)
9th Department
(Inspects MPAF
Special Institutions)
10th Department
(Registration)
11th Department
(Monitors NK
Defense Attaches)
12th Department
(Rear Services)
The MSC maintains agents within all critical KPA entities, including the
GSD and the GPB. 637 Within the KPA itself, the MSC maintains elements down
to the battalion level. Each battalion has a security guidance officer. Each regiment
has a senior security guidance officer and two or three security guidance officers.
Each division has the departments necessary for carrying out MSC tasks. Security
guidance officers employ informants from among the soldiers, who report on spies
that have infiltrated the units, rumors about the Kim family, and individual
soldiers’ behavior. About six or seven informants exist in any given company, which
consists of about 120 soldiers. 638 In the 1990s, Kim Jong-il allowed the MSC to
establish offices at the provincial and city levels, thus enhancing its ability to support
non-military investigations.
636 This chart is based on interviews and a number of sources, including Joseph S. Bermudez,
Jr., Shield of the Great Leader, op. cit, and Atsushi Shimizu, An Overview of the North Korean Intelligence
System: The Reality of the Enormous Apparatus that Supports the Dictatorship, op. cit.
637 Defector reports have recently highlighted a new unit of “elite guards” who are tasked with
covert surveillance against potential threats at the leadership level against Kim Jong-un’s rule. Allegedly
falling under the control of the MSC, this unit’s mandate extends beyond just monitoring military
officials to include authority figures in general. Information gathered by this unit is reportedly forwarded
directly back to Kim Jong-un. In many respects, this unit’s mandate overlaps with that of the Guard
Command. Lee Sang-Yong, “Elite Guards Form to Quash Anti-Kim Activity,” Daily NK, April 24, 2015.
638 Yun Tae-il, The Inside Story of the SSD, op. cit.
Ken E. Gause
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