"Mostly Propaganda in Nature:" Kim Il Sung, the Juche Ideology, and ...

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"Mostly Propaganda in Nature:" Kim Il Sung, the Juche Ideology, and the Second Korean War NKIDP Working Paper #3 The Second Korean War Korea has been one of the "hottest" of the proverbial Cold War hot spots since its division at the end of World War II. Tens of thousands died in skirmishes even before North Korean forces crossed the 38 th parallel in 1950. Although the fighting officially ended in 1953, tensions have persisted. In August 1955, DPRK anti-aircraft artillery downed an American T-6 training aircraft, killing one man. Three years later, they shot down an F-86 Sabre Jet that strayed over the restricted zone, holding the pilot prisoner briefly before returning him to the United States. Northern rhetoric was even more belligerent. DPRK children, claimed Pyongyang Radio in 1959, were being kidnapped and sold to the United States, where "most of them were divided among American capitalists and plantation owners, and many children died while they were being sold around like animals in the foreign land." 48 Yet, despite the occasional flare-up, the overall level of violence declined dramatically after the 1953 Armistice. Incidents along the DMZ still occurred but to some extent it was their very infrequency that seemed to make them newsworthy. American soldiers manning the demilitarized zone (DMZ) still faced dangers, wrote the New York Times in 1962, but since the North seemed to have adopted a "soft, pro- coexistence line," such service was now considered "generally tedious." 49 The calm, however, began to fade in the mid-1960s. The explosion of violence started in late 1966, when Kim began sending guerrillas into South Korea for the first time since the Korean War. The relative stability along the DMZ was soon shattered. Military incidents grew from 42 in 1965 to 286 in just the first 6 months of 1967, and mutual exchanges of gunfire across 48 Washington Post, June 8, 1959, p. 6. 49 New York Times, November 23, 1962, p. 28. www.wilsoncenter.org/nkidp 18
Mitchell Lerner NKIDP Working Paper #3 December 2010 the armistice line had become a daily event by late 1967. 50 Overall, according to the Australian Ambassador to the USSR, DPRK troop incursion into the South increased from 150 in 1966 to 566 in 1967. 51 Direct attacks on US property were not uncommon; one attack, in May 1967, resulted in the destruction of two US infantry barracks, killing two men and leaving 19 wounded. 52 That year also saw two ship-to-shore firefights along the Southern coast, a North Korean attack on a ROK army barracks, and large-scale guerrilla infiltration. Nor was it just the area along the parallel that came under increased pressure, as DPRK forces expanded their infiltration efforts into remote rural areas, likely scouting for possible bases for future operations. They also, largely in the wake of improved defensive systems implemented along the DMZ, increased naval infiltration of the South. North Korean propaganda stressed American responsibility for the provocations and warned of an impending attack, but even the DPRK's allies knew who was responsible for the outbreaks; Soviet officials in North Korea, according to one report, "held the view that they were mostly instigated by the DPRK." 53 The violence reached a peak in early 1968. On January 17, thirty-one North Korean Army officers crossed through the DMZ on a mission to assassinate ROK President Park Chung Hee. Four days later, while disguised as ROK soldiers, they reached the "Blue House," the official presidential residence in Seoul. A suspicious ROK policeman stopped them shortly before they could attack, and the ensuing firefight saw eight South Koreans and five members of the commando team killed. The rest of the guerrillas fled, sparking a nationwide manhunt that 50 "Telegram From the Commander in Chief, United Nations Command, Korea and the Commander of United States Forces, Korea (Bonesteel) to the Commander in Chief, Pacific (Sharp)," July 21, 1967, Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library (henceforth "LBJL"), National Security File, Country File, Korea, Vol. IV. 51 "Record of a Conversation with J. [Rowland], Australian Ambassador to the USSR, 29 January 1968," from the journal of S.P. Kozyrev, 30 January 1968. 52 "Security Conditions in South Korea," CIA report, June 23, 1967, LBJL, National Security File, Country File, Korea, Vol. IV. 53 Letter to Secretary of State and First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Comrade Hegen, from Embassy of the GDR in the DPRK, December 12, 1966, Archives of the Foreign Office, Berlin, Collection MfAA, G-A 316. [Document 2] www.wilsoncenter.org/nkidp 19
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