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Many of the encomiums heaped upon Kim Il Sung are, in any language, indecipherable gobbledygook. Korea Today, a monthly propaganda magazine, published this sentence: "His unexcelled prodigious wisdom . . . cyclopaedic knowledge of nature and society, clairvoyant scientific insight with which to perceive clearly the essence of inextricably entangled phenomena and ability to compress aspirations of millions of people in a simple proposition ... are his distinguished qualities with which to conduct ideo-theoretical activities." Moreover, North Korean officials steadfastly assert that the world looks to Pyongyang for inspiration and that the government's paid propaganda advertisements in Western newspapers constitute editorial acclaim for the Great Leader. "Korea," observed one high-level official, "is the freest country in the world."
The government has made some attempts to broaden its international links, sending military advisers to such countries as Libya, Syria and Zimbabwe. It has gained useful mileage from the tours of its daring and innovative acrobats. On occasion, it has even invited small groups of American academics and congressional officials to visit.
Yet all is not happy on the international front. North Korea has defaulted on several foreign loans and arbitrarily rescheduled others, piling up an overseas debt of more than $2 billion. In addition, the country's foreign envoys have occasionally been caught cheating. Last month Yu Jae Han, North Korea's Ambassador to Finland, was expelled for trying to bribe the former Speaker of Finland's parliament. Other North Korean diplomats in recent years have been ejected from Denmark, Sweden and Norway for attempting to sell drugs, cigarettes and liquor on the black market.
North Korea reserves its special loathing, however, for the U.S. and South Korea. Americans are portrayed as demonic war criminals bent on enslaving the Korean people. Although U.S. analysts suspect that China is counseling Pyongyang against aggression, North Korea's tough and well-equipped armed forces (at 750,000 strong, the world's fifth largest) are highly visible and heavily indoctrinated. Among their articles of faith: South Korea longs to be "liberated," and the U.S. and South Korea are preparing to invade the North.
Signs of an all-Korea detente that first emerged with the joint North-South agreement of 1972 have long since evaporated. Recent South Korean suggestions of renewed negotiations were, snarled a North Korean radio broadcast last month, "nothing but a dog barking at the moon." Pyongyang currently aims to create a "Democratic Confederal Republic of Koryo." As preconditions to further talks, however, it demands complete U.S. withdrawal from the peninsula and the overthrow of the present South Korean government.