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Virulent Animosity. The seizure of the Pueblo 15 months ago and the downing of the EC-121 last week were only the most conspicuous expressions of hatred for Americans. Along Korea's Demilitarized Zone, for instance, North Korean infiltrators long have concentrated on the small American-held sector of the line. Last year 15 G.I.s died fighting invaders from the North; this year the pressure has continued.
North Korea's armed forces constitute a formidable foe. The regular army comprises an estimated 345,000 men, backed up by a militia force of about 1.5 million. Most infantrymen carry Soviet-designed automatic weapons, including the AK-47 automatic rifle that proved so effective in Viet Nam, and Kim has some 800 tanks, well over half of them supplied by the Soviet Union. The air force boasts about 30 late-model MIG-21s, at least 450 earlier-model MIGs, and perhaps 70 IL-28 jet bombers. Kim has no major naval vessels, since the fleet's mission is mainly coastal patrol.
In part, Kim's virulent animosity toward the U.S. can be traced back to the early days of the Korean War when North Korean troops, after scoring startling initial victories, were chased all the way north to the Chinese border by American and allied forces. The North Koreans were rescued only by the late-1950 infusion of hundreds of thousands of Chinese "volunteers." Now Kim sees the U.S. as the great obstacle to his hope of reunifying Korea on Communist terms. Beyond this, Kim seems to be a great congenital hater; the path to his present power is strewn with the bodies of once-trusting comrades.
Soviet Training. The early years of his career, like those of many other Communist leaders, are shadowy. He was born near Pyongyang in 1912. In the '30s, as Japan tightened its hold on Korea, he fled with his parents to Manchuria. There he joined Communist Chinese guerrillas fighting the Japanese, then moved on to the Soviet Union. During the '40s, he underwent Soviet military and political training in Khabarovsk, a major city in Soviet Asia, and had his name changed from Kim Sung Chu to Kim II Sung, after a highly respected anti-Japanese Korean guerrilla leader of the previous generation. His new name helped: at the end of World War II, when the Russians brought him back to Korea uniformed as a Soviet major, many Koreans believed that he was the original Kim II Sung. Over the next several years, Kim worked hard to consolidate his position. In 1948, after U.S.-Soviet negotiations on reunification had finally proved fruitless, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was proclaimed. Kim II Sung became its Premier.