NORTH KOREA: Purge North of the 38th

The place was different, the names unfamiliar, but the ritual was the same. Instead of Czechoslovakia or Poland, it was North Korea; instead of Slansky or Gomulka, it was Lee Sung Yup. Last week the voice of Radio Moscow, which has tolled doom for hundreds of topdog Communists, called the roll of 12 more—North Koreans who "confessed" that they had spied and plotted on behalf of the U.S. and South Korea to overthrow Premier Kim II Sung and install a "new capitalistic government" in pitted, desolate North Korea.

Shortly before, the plotters were the respected "champions of the masses." Lee...