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Kim's history is a pastiche of fact, rumor and not a little romance. He was born, it is believed, in Siberia, while his father was being trained as a technocrat under Stalin. But his official biography transposes his birth to the slopes of Mount Paektu on the North Korean-Chinese border--for many, the mythical birthplace of the ancestor of the Korean people. Kim's mother died when he was a schoolboy. When the Korean War broke out during his father's rule, he was spirited off to the safety of Manchuria. In the 1960s Kim is believed to have trained as a pilot in East Germany. He returned to North Korea to serve as his father's factotum. Friends describe him as a calculating politician, a man who worked even to charm his father.
He also evidently learned at the old man's side. His father was a masterly manipulator. The key to Kim senior's success was an iron will and a sense of who his friends were: China and Russia. But with those allies weakened by the end of the cold war, Kim junior has had to look elsewhere. At times since taking over the helm, he has seemed to live up to the worst Western images of him--such as when he "test- fired" a missile over Japan in 1998. In the past year, however, he has begun to open his doors. Some South Korean tourists can now visit the North, and trade between the two Koreas has been increasing. Last week Kim spoke of his eagerness to work toward reunification.
That was much more like the new Kim the CIA sometimes hears about, a man who is reportedly an avid watcher of CNN and at least a onetime surfer of the Internet. On a trip to Beijing last month, he told his hosts he was cutting back on his drinking. Kim's "calculated move" to change his image, says Koh Yu Hwan, a North Korean expert at Dongguk University in Seoul, was "a stunning success."
But to what end? There was little to fault in the way Kim Jong Il comported himself at the summit (although commentators in Seoul wryly noted that during one of the celebrations he slung back 10 glasses of wine to five for President Kim). As the euphoria fades, however, the reality checks have begun. Some observers warn that this could be yet another North Korean plot, elaborately staged to make the South let down its guard. On the other hand, if Pyongyang is sincere, what next? The agreement signed by the two Kims is skimpy on details. Reuniting separated families is an appealing idea, but more than 6 million South Koreans have relatives in the North. Who gets to go? Most perplexing of all, where does one start in trying to meld North Korea's Stone Age economy with the Internet-savvy South. Then there's the issue the two leaders merely flirted with: the weapons of mass destruction that Pyongyang uses to threaten the rest of the world. Warns Victor Cha, a Korea expert at Georgetown University in Washington: "Handshakes and hugs and delightful small talk are all very nice. But all the tougher issues are still out there."