- 3 months ago
Synopsis: "Kingdom of the Kims"
Set against decades of Japanese imperial rule, in 1912 a boy is born near Pyongyang—Kim Il Sung—whose arrival is seen as an ominous portent signaling the end of colonialism. Through a powerful blend of firsthand testimony and archival footage, the episode chronicles how this once-obscure guerrilla fighter seized power, consolidating absolute control over North Korea and cultivating a god-like cult of personality. Viewers witness his instigation of the Korean War, the creation of gulag-style camps for political dissenters, an assassination attempt on the South Korean president, the provocative seizure of the USS Pueblo and imprisonment of American sailors, and the chilling “axe murders” in the DMZ.
Set against decades of Japanese imperial rule, in 1912 a boy is born near Pyongyang—Kim Il Sung—whose arrival is seen as an ominous portent signaling the end of colonialism. Through a powerful blend of firsthand testimony and archival footage, the episode chronicles how this once-obscure guerrilla fighter seized power, consolidating absolute control over North Korea and cultivating a god-like cult of personality. Viewers witness his instigation of the Korean War, the creation of gulag-style camps for political dissenters, an assassination attempt on the South Korean president, the provocative seizure of the USS Pueblo and imprisonment of American sailors, and the chilling “axe murders” in the DMZ.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00Transcription by ESO. Translation by —
00:02Transcription by —
00:18When he was a child,
00:20he was given a uniform
00:22and called Comrade General.
00:24At 28,
00:30his father died
00:32and he became the youngest head of state
00:34in the world.
00:40At 30,
00:42he had his uncle killed.
00:44The official North Korean news agency report
00:46on this called his uncle,
00:48him, quote, despicable human scum
00:50and worse than a dog.
00:54And he befriended Dennis Rodman.
00:58I've seen a lot of weird things in my life.
01:00I've seen a lot of stuff,
01:02but that right there blew me away.
01:04I just couldn't believe how much power this young kid got.
01:06All I want to say is this
01:08to my friend.
01:14Happy birthday
01:16to you.
01:18Happy birthday
01:20to you.
01:22Happy birthday
01:24to you.
01:26Happy birthday to you.
01:28At 34,
01:30his half-brother was murdered.
01:34Kim Jong-nam died
01:36under mysterious circumstances
01:38while waiting for a flight
01:40at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
01:42And he developed nuclear weapons
01:44that could hit America.
01:52Rocket Man
01:54is on a suicide mission for himself.
01:56Now the world wants to know what he's thinking.
02:08And what he might do next.
02:10But to get inside his mind,
02:14you have to meet his family.
02:16You have to meet his family.
02:22It's simply impossible
02:24to understand Kim Jong-un
02:26and predict his actions
02:28without putting that in the context
02:30of his father
02:32and grandfather.
02:34Only three men,
02:40one family,
02:42have ruled this country
02:46and taken on the world.
02:48North Korea should have been handled 25 years ago,
02:5220 years ago,
02:5415 years ago,
02:5510 years ago,
02:56and five years ago.
02:58But I'll fix the mess.
03:02Now, as it all comes to a head,
03:04this is the story of the Kims,
03:08a family of dictators.
03:10They've been smart,
03:12they've been ruthless,
03:14and they've been single-minded
03:16on their overarching goal,
03:18which is preserve the Kim dynasty
03:21to keep the regime in power.
03:40in the world.
04:02I had one time,
04:08this heart I bring.
04:14I had one heart
04:20to share with you.
04:28Leadership has to do with a sense of destiny.
04:32Why do the followers choose this leader
04:35rather than that leader?
04:37It's because that leader
04:41has been able to tune into,
04:45to respond to,
04:47the need for rescuing
04:49by the followers,
04:51and to shape himself
04:53to fit that mode.
04:55Not consciously,
04:57but there is that chemistry
04:59between leader and follower
05:01that can be so powerful.
05:03And nobody else before you
05:15ever has heard me say...
05:17What is necessary
05:19is to ensure the total loyalty
05:21of the people?
05:23And anyone connected
05:25with dissidents,
05:27opposition,
05:28rebellion
05:29must be killed
05:31to ensure the purity of the people.
05:37of the people.
05:38Gerald Post is a psychiatrist whose job it was to get inside the minds of the world's most dangerous dictators.
05:47Gerald Post is a psychiatrist whose job it was to get inside the minds of the world's most dangerous dictators.
06:01For 21 years,
06:05I was leading a new kind of intelligence really,
06:11assessing world leaders for the president, secretary of state, secretary of defense.
06:17Kim Il-sung was not just a charismatic leader.
06:23He was a leader of a wounded people wishing to be led in a heroic fashion.
06:36Kim Il-sung had credentials as a guerrilla fighter.
06:39And he was a sort of rough and ready fellow.
06:41You know, he'd been in prison.
06:43He'd been living a scruffy life as a guerrilla for years.
06:48He suffered a lot for the sake of his country.
06:52To understand the strange psychology of North Korea,
07:06you have to go back to where it all began,
07:10in the frozen forests of Eastern Asia.
07:13Here, a young Kim Il-sung fought running battles with the Japanese army,
07:21who brutally occupied Korea.
07:24The Koreans had been utterly humiliated and dehumanized under Japanese rule.
07:33Then, in 1945, everything changed.
07:38When America dropped nuclear bombs on Japan.
07:41And so, the Second World War ended.
07:57And the Japanese Empire collapsed.
07:59The Soviet Union and America divided Korea between them.
08:03And cut the country in half.
08:13We looked at the map and thought that it would be a good idea if Seoul, the capital of Korea,
08:18were in our zone of occupation.
08:20And there was no clearly distinguishing geographic feature.
08:27But there was the 38th parallel.
08:29And so, we came back and suggested that.
08:33And the Russians accepted the 38th parallel with alacrity.
08:37It was Stalin who chose the young guerrilla fighter Kim Il-sung to lead the Communist North.
08:50When Kim Il-sung came into power, in effect, he was the puppet of the Soviet Union.
08:56At first, the Korean people weren't sure if he was fit to be their leader.
09:09I met Kim Il-sung and visited by Kim Il-sung's un 벌써 COVID-19...
09:12He was the interface cousins of those who had his own car.
09:13We were trained as a researcher at the time when we were Deb wraps.
09:14When he went into girls at the time, he wondered,
09:16He asked, He was the scapeacăra止 run by her dog.
09:17After all his people, I didn't know anyone else who knew his life.
09:23He said,
09:30And blueberries have a fundo that say,
09:32several people say,
09:33The Japanese invasion had stripped the Korean people of their dignity, and they were hungering
09:45for someone who could lead them out of this, and Kim Il-sung, with his eloquent speech,
09:54his ideas for independence gave the people enthusiasm.
10:03For Kim, he was supposed to be the ruler of the entire Korean peninsula, and this arbitrary
10:3038th parallel was like a major wound.
10:35It was almost like a part of his own body had been cut off.
10:38He saw the Americans like an evil empire intruding on Korean land.
10:52Kim's first big move as leader was audacious.
10:57With Stalin's help, he amassed huge numbers of tanks and artillery.
11:04And then, in 1950, he invaded South Korea.
11:11Kim always dreamt of ruling all of Korea, and now he was trying to achieve that ambition.
11:30The North Koreans were extremely well trained.
11:37They were extremely well organized, and they were tremendously motivated.
11:45They were there to make the fatherland look better, and they did.
12:06But he had badly underestimated the military might of the Americans, and their willingness to use it.
12:15The Free Nations have learned the faithful lesson of the 1930s.
12:19That lesson is that aggression must be met firmly.
12:26The United States hit back mercilessly.
12:30During the Korean War, 200,000 people lived in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.
12:37U.S. bombers dropped 200,000 bombs on the city, one for every person there.
12:52Every city was a collection of chimneys.
12:58I don't know why houses collapsed and chimneys did not, but I saw thousands of chimneys, and that was all.
13:15Kim's dream of reuniting Korea was in tatters.
13:21In a war that lasted three years, his country was flattened.
13:27More than a million North Koreans were dead, and he'd gained nothing.
13:40In 1953, Stalin, the man who had put him in the job, died.
13:50Having lost the Korean War and his benefactor, Kim felt vulnerable.
13:56His next move was to start a program of controlling his people, the like of which the world had never seen.
14:05One of the best ways of dealing with criticism is to get rid of the critics.
14:11And there were two ways of getting rid of the critics.
14:15One was to kill them, and one was to put them into the gulag.
14:20The degree of ruthlessness of Kim Il-sung was quite extraordinary.
14:27He developed a kind of caste system called Songban, which had three basic divisions.
14:38Those who were loyal, those who were wavering, and those who were hostile.
14:46And anyone identified as hostile, including even having an uncle or a grandfather who was disloyal, would lead to all of the extended family being sent to the gulag.
15:01The first time of the trip was taken to the gulag.
15:06It was a very important man out there.
15:11The children of their loved ones, and their loved ones were gone through the gulag.
15:16I've been living for 10 years, and I've been living for 10 years for a while.
15:30I can't even know any of my sins.
15:36I've been living for 3 years.
15:38Hundreds of thousands were subjected to this.
16:08In effect, he went through a purification of Korean society.
16:33And so by the start of the 1960s,
16:36Kim had a grip on the North Korean people.
16:39And if you looked at the Korean peninsula as a whole,
16:42it was as if a giant psychology experiment was unfolding.
16:50In the North, communism, a planned economy, Soviet-style dictatorship.
17:03In the South, capitalism,
17:06free markets,
17:07and American influence.
17:12In the first few years, the North's organization and planning looked like it was working.
17:17Some even defected from the South to the North.
17:20But as the South started to prosper, it would become painfully obvious which system was making people richer.
17:31While President Johnson visited the South,
17:39Kim was plotting his next move.
17:42The key ingredients of dictators are paranoia, no capacity for empathy, and a willingness to use whatever aggression is necessary to accomplish one's goals.
17:59Kim believed that the South Korean people were desperate to be liberated, and given the opportunity, would rise up and support him.
18:12So, he hatched a plan to kill the president of South Korea.
18:16So, he hatched a plan to kill the president of South Korea.
18:18Only three men have ever ruled North Korea.
18:29And the template for how to do it was set by the first Kim, the grandfather, Kim Il-sung.
18:37In 1968, he wanted to strike a blow at his South Korean neighbors.
18:48So, he sent 31 of his top commandos over the border.
18:55Their mission,
18:57to go to the Blue House, where the South Korean president lived,
19:03and kill him.
19:03One of Kim's commandos survives, to tell the tale.
19:27One of Kim's commandos survives, to tell the tale.
19:30One of Kim's commands,
19:31Going back to the U.S.
19:41The great-ass-by- päevideo of the War.
19:45I was born from the War.
19:50He had a great day.
19:55He is coming to the Number 1,
19:59I got left.
20:00The second one was happening through the next 10 pts, and I got him into the first one.
20:05I got him to pass.
20:06That's what I got because of the gun.
20:07I got him to pass.
20:08Then I got him to get back.
20:09I were clicking he got him through this line.
20:11I got his finger.
20:13So I got him to come.
20:16Then the gun after I got hit.
20:20The gun is a big gun.
20:23The idea of the war was to die as a enemy, and the fear of the war was to die.
20:31The war was to die and to die.
20:38The war was to die and to die.
20:43The war was to die.
20:45I don't know what to do.
21:15When I was 5 years old, I was just holding my hand on the ground and holding my hand on the ground.
21:22That's why it became a bomb.
21:30Kim's commandos were expected to take their own lives rather than be captured.
21:36When I was killed, my friends and my friends had my life for the revolution.
21:48If I was like this, how would I do it?
21:50I think it would be better for my friends.
21:57Having not taken his own life, he knew there would be consequences.
22:02When I was a child, I had already had my own mind.
22:12I had to tell my story about that.
22:15I had to tell my parents.
22:17I had to tell my parents.
22:19I had to tell my parents.
22:24I had to tell my parents.
22:27Kim Joeho 덕무는
22:31변절자다
22:33변절자다
22:41저는 인간의 인간 생각으로는 용서 못합니다
22:47그러나oly도 안에서 내가 성직자고
22:54If Kim thought that the South Koreans wanted to be led by him, he was badly mistaken.
23:17In fact, after the Blue House raid, they burned effigies of him in the streets.
23:24Kim needed to bolster his image.
23:38To help him, he turned to his son, the second member of the Kim dynasty.
23:51Kim Jong-il would ultimately succeed his father and prove to be an eccentric and unpredictable leader.
23:58But as a young man, he had a genius for propaganda and began the process of turning his father into a god in the minds of the North Korean people.
24:14He started by showing his father as the father of the nation, the person who gave every child their food and clothes.
24:32All religions were stamped out, and a massive statue-building program began.
24:48While we may know the country was devastated and is economically a basket case at this point,
25:10the people of North Korea don't know because of this Bureau of Propaganda and Agitation which shapes the nation's consciousness.
25:21A potent cocktail of isolation, fear, and propaganda put the Kims on the path to becoming a country.
25:28gods in the minds of their minds of the minds of their people.
25:31A potent cocktail of isolation, fear, and propaganda put the Kims on the path to becoming gods in the minds of their people.
25:41Next, they would start to take on their archenemies, the Americans.
26:11I think it's important to understand the value of enemies.
26:16Enemies are to be cherished, they're to be cultivated.
26:22It's convenient to have someone to blame for your leadership failures.
26:29The world's a proud member of the nation's heaven.
26:32I think it's important to be a breakthrough.
26:34The Americans are at the moment that the government has to be continued to become a warrior.
26:37We have to fight the battle of the nation's war.
26:42The Americans have to fight the battle of the nation's war.
26:47It's important to be a battle of the nation's war.
26:51In the United States, the country in the United States,
26:56For Kim, having the constant threat of war with America was useful in controlling his
27:17people. Any sign that America was threatening North Korea was helpful in making him their
27:24protector. So when a US spy ship was seen off the coast, it was an opportunity for Kim to
27:32define himself in the eyes of his people.
27:54When I arrived, I saw it in the early US, but it was a surprise.
28:00When I saw it in the early US, it had a very strong fire.
28:03It had to be a wild bird that had to die and was able to catch my body and
28:05then I'd like it to warm water.
28:07But I thought, well, when the US trade Atari 100 years of
28:14missionaries we picked up with the Russia side, the militia of the U.S.
28:16The first shots were aimed at the bridge, shattering glass, and raking the ship back and forth with machine gun fire.
28:37The Pueblo was an intelligence collection ship to pick up electronic surveillance in Russia and North Korea, but we were unarmed.
28:46They started shooting their bigger shells at us that came right through the side of the ship and just blew us up.
29:00They just literally lifted me up and blew me down the hall.
29:04That's what I took off the bottom of my scrotum and went into my upper leg.
29:08Eventually, when the Koreans came on board the ship, they tied us up and blindfolded us.
29:17As a matter of fact, they kicked me in my wound.
29:21Kim had captured a U.S. Navy vessel and had taken 82 Americans prisoner.
29:26In the middle of the night, the President of the United States was informed.
29:35What's your speculation on what happened to it?
29:40Mr. President, I honestly don't know, and I think we need a Cuban Missile Crisis approach to this.
29:46We ought to get locked in a room, and you ought to keep us there.
29:48And sister, we stay there until we come up with answers to three questions.
29:51What was the Korean objective?
29:54Secondly, what are they going to do now?
29:57Blackmail us, let it go.
29:59And thirdly, what should we do now?
30:02President Johnson is at the head of the table.
30:07He's back to us.
30:09And that is I, Tom Johnson, taking the notes.
30:15The President.
30:16What I want to know is how do we get the ship and the boys back?
30:22Clark Clifford.
30:23I think the President must proceed on the basis of probabilities and not possibilities.
30:28I think the North Koreans are engaged in harassments.
30:32Our moral posture would be better if the North Koreans moved first.
30:37I am deeply sorry about the ship and about the 83 men, but I do not think it is worth a resumption of the Korean War.
30:46There was deep concern that however the United States reacted militarily could trigger another large-scale war.
31:02And the United States, to be honest, was not prepared for another large war when we already had a very, very serious war going in Vietnam.
31:15And that was something President Johnson wanted to avoid at almost all costs.
31:20For the first 40 days, I don't think they knew what they were going to do with us.
31:36Whether they were going to keep us alive, I think they fully were as surprised as we were that there was no retaliation.
31:43And we fully expected retaliation, and we knew we might not make it.
31:53Obviously, no one likes the idea of dying.
31:56However, we really wanted some help, and it just didn't come.
32:13Kim Il-sung used the capture of the Pueblo as a propaganda triumph.
32:24We never saw him. He never came by.
32:27But we were very aware from the very beginning of Kim Il-sung.
32:33Actually, you never just said Kim Il-sung.
32:36It would be always preceded or followed by these long eulogies of praise.
32:41I just memorized one of them for the hell of it.
32:45Peerless patriot, ever victorious, iron-willed, genius commander,
32:50and one of the outstanding international and working class movement leaders,
32:56Marshal Kim Il-sung.
32:57It had to be said with reverence.
33:02Actually, we had talked about if he came by, we'd try to jump him
33:06and see if we could use him as a hostage to get out of there.
33:11Kim paraded the captured Americans in front of the cameras
33:15and forced them to confess to having been in Korean waters.
33:20The crew unanimously admitted the fact that they had intruded deep into territorial waters
33:25and conducted espionage on 17 occasions and signed a joint apology to the DPRK government.
33:34To my mind, it was the deepest intrusion I had ever made
33:39into the waters of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
33:45With 82 Americans in captivity, the U.S. government signed a statement of apology prepared by the North Koreans
33:56and so avoided another Korean war.
34:09The U.S. representative was so confused that he even forgot to write a data in the apology.
34:15All of a sudden, the beatings just stopped.
34:22Everyone that had visible bruises and things like that were doctored up a bit
34:26for a trip down to Pamela John.
34:30Turned us loose.
34:31Here at the bridge of no return, the members of the Pueblo are returning to U.S. custody.
34:38The transfer is taking place just 11 months to the day
34:41after the Pueblo was captured off once on harbor.
34:46When they reached the free side of the bridge, they began to relax a little,
34:50perhaps finally comprehending that the idea and dream of being home for Christmas was all but a reality.
34:55To this day, the U.S. Pueblo sits in North Korean waters, a trophy for the Kims.
35:11And for his people, further evidence that the first Kim could do no wrong.
35:19Fifty years later, his grandson is keeping the myth alive.
35:25Kim Jong-un, in particular, is very strategic about what he wears.
35:36Often, he'll wear, say, a hat and clothes that are identical to an outfit that his grandfather wore.
35:46That's a way that Kim Jong-un piggybacks on his grandfather's legacy
35:49to legitimize his role as the leader.
35:52This is meant to refer back to a certain period in North Korean history.
35:59North Koreans are going to remember that.
36:01They're going to see that and say,
36:02ah, he's just like his grandfather.
36:04In the late 1960s, his grandfather was developing a taste for brinkmanship with the United States.
36:20But his next move would take him and his country to the limit.
36:24In the 1970s, the world changed.
36:37President Nixon went to China to meet Chairman Mao.
36:40There is no reason for us to be enemies.
36:51And he traveled to the Soviet Union to make deals with Brezhnev.
36:56All of which was bad news for Kim Il-sung.
37:16He'd been relying on his fellow communist leaders for backup in his battles with America.
37:24However, if he was feeling less support, at first he didn't show it.
37:30As he continued to attack his enemies.
37:33The defendant, 22-year-old Moon Se-kwang, admitted he attempted to kill South Korean President Park Chung-hee,
37:52but had not intended killing Madam Park.
37:55He said he acted under orders from North Korean communist agents in Japan.
37:59Then, in 1976, the fate of North Korea hung in the balance.
38:13It came down to an event in the demilitarized zone.
38:18An event that centered around a single tree.
38:29The demilitarized zone between the two Koreas is one of the world's great artificial, ideological fault lines.
38:39Here, the great plates of the capitalist and communist worlds press and chafe against each other.
38:45It's a place of suspicion, bristling with mutual threat and mutual fear.
38:50It was a poplar tree, which are usually very slender and don't sprawl, but this tree was a sprawling poplar.
39:10It obscured the visibility between two observation posts.
39:16So the soldiers had brought it to my attention.
39:19And I said, well, we'll need to send the work party to go up there and trim the lower branches of the tree.
39:27Little did they know that the North Koreans believed that this tree had been planted by their leader, Kim Il-sung.
39:35Little did they know that this tree had been planted by their leader, Kim Il-sung, Kim Il-sung, Kim Il-sung, Kim Il-sung, Kim Il-sung, Kim Il-sung.
40:05As fate would have it, the Americans are in white hats, the North Koreans in the dark ones.
40:12According to witnesses, a North Korean army officer yelled, kill.
40:16And 30 or so North Korean soldiers grabbed axe handles and started hitting the Americans and their workers.
40:22And suddenly, less than five minutes after it all began, it's over.
40:29Left behind the body of one of the dead American officers.
40:33The other is in the bushes here by the tree.
40:36From the moment the incident occurred, I received a call from my commander-in-chief, General Stilwell.
40:50And he told me, you know, we will have to take some sort of action.
40:57It went everywhere from Newcomb to run a couple of divisions up there, wipe them out, you know, you name it.
41:06The whole gamut of military options.
41:08I said, my alternative would be that we form a task force and we go up there and we cut the tree down completely and we leave it there for them to see.
41:25And he said, immediately, I agree.
41:32The mission was called Operation Paul Bunyan, named after the larger-than-life folk hero.
41:40With my double-blade axe and my hobnail boots, I go where the timber's tall.
41:46When there's work to be done, don't mess around, just sing right up or call.
41:50Bunyan was immortalized in a classic 1950s cartoon.
41:55As a symbol of old-fashioned American strength.
41:57Right up or call.
41:59Hey, Paul.
42:00I'm coming, boys.
42:02Paul Bunyan.
42:02No one would be able to stop Paul Bunyan chopping down a tree.
42:11Good evening.
42:12Circling over a poplar tree in the zone between the two Koreas were 26 armed helicopters,
42:18an unknown number of phantom jets, F-111s, and three B-52s,
42:24flying protection for 300 American and South Korean soldiers who were cutting the tree down.
42:31The aircraft carrier Midway cruised off the Korean coast today in response to the murder of two American officers in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.
42:39The Midway and its planes will augment two U.S. Air Force fighter squadrons already sent to Korea from Okinawa and Idaho.
42:46We assembled the largest combined military operation since the end of the Korean War.
42:58Every soldier with a gun pointed into North Korea.
43:02President Ford's new secretary, Ron Nesson, said the president himself approved the plan to go in there and cut down the tree.
43:08The North Koreans called President Ford a boss of war.
43:18I was on the ground going to cut down a tree, but all of this was backing me up.
43:26The North Koreans knew the ships were off the coast.
43:30They knew the bombers were above them.
43:33They could tell that.
43:34They could surveil that.
43:35I'll to touch speed our discretion, OK?
43:41It was a tinderbox.
43:43Any spark could set it off.
43:48As far as I was concerned, it was the last day I'd be alive on this earth.
43:52We used chainsaws to cut down the tree.
44:06We just let it fall where it may, with no regard, just a ragged stump there.
44:15Mission complete.
44:17I'm sure the magnitude of the force played a large measure in their deciding it was not a good idea to respond.
44:28North Korea has expressed regret over the killing of two American army officers in the demilitarized zone last Wednesday.
44:34However, the regret was expressed in passing in a statement that implied that the United States provoked the incident.
44:41The North Koreans backed down.
44:44The United States didn't want to go to war over this incident.
44:49Neither did China or Russia.
44:51And they made it clear to Kim that he was not going to be backed up.
44:55And they said, you better apologize.
44:57And this was the first instance in the entire time that Kim has been leading North Korea that he ever apologized for anything.
45:04The tree-cutting incident showed that even Kim Il-sung had his limits.
45:14When faced with a threat of overwhelming force, he stepped back from the brink.
45:19For other world leaders, such a public climb down might have been a problem, but not for him.
45:28By now, it made no difference to how his people felt about him.
45:33His social control and his son's propaganda were giving him complete control of his people's minds.
45:40As Kim Il-sung aged, and so time is shortening.
46:08They increasingly became preoccupied with getting a nuclear program.
46:19His son, who had given his father godlike status, was beginning to have designs on becoming leader himself.
46:28It's always difficult to succeed a great father.
46:39But it's almost impossible to step into the shoes of God.
46:44I've never thought about it.
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