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The Identity of Kim Il Sung (1949) [pdf]

208 points| CSMastermind | 3 years ago |cia.gov

132 comments

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[+] sideproject|3 years ago|reply
The fascination around North Korea and its leaders is understandable. I grew up in South Korea in the 80's and we just lived with "it" constantly (as people still do).

I remember when I was in primary school, you will find these propaganda papers on the streets telling South Koreans of how corrupt their government was and urging them to defect to North. Apparently, North Korea would send balloons filled with these propaganda messages. South would do the same to North.

Then there was a TV show once a year where separated families in North & South re-unite for a holiday. They were separated during the Korean War and the two governments allowed these families to be found and meet for a few days, before they were separated again. They hadn't seen each other for ~30 years so were young and only remembered just a few bits of information. These TV shows made EVERYONE cry.

[+] Narretz|3 years ago|reply
These reunion shows were reported on in Germany, too. I haven't heard anything about them for a few years, though. I assume not many direct separated family members are still alive, or there's currently no agreement about these meetings. It's fascinating that the population of both countries is now largely born after the split.
[+] avodonosov|3 years ago|reply
Do you know the "Ibuk T'ongsin" listed as the source in the doc? Is that a name of the "monthly periodical" or the name of the author who wrote the article for that monthly periodical?
[+] yongjik|3 years ago|reply
Meh, the so-called "fake Kim Il Sung theory" isn't a new info found in 2011, it was a raging conspiracy theory all the way back from 1940s. If you speak Korean, search for "김일성 가짜설", you'll find wiki pages the size of a book chapter.

From what I've heard, the theory is largely discredited now. (Of course that doesn't mean North Korea's breathless account of Kim's heroic adventures is anywhere near believable, but that's a separate issue.)

[+] halJordan|3 years ago|reply
This document was declassified in 2011; it was published in 1949.
[+] hackerlight|3 years ago|reply
> From what I've heard, the theory is largely discredited now.

Are there any reliable modern historians that have written about this? Especially the bit that says he was a serial killer in his early years.

[+] jinwoo68|3 years ago|reply
Yup. My understanding is that it was a propaganda spread by the right wing in order to discredit Kim Il Sung at that time. It's largely accepted as a conspiracy by the contemporary history communities IIUC.
[+] VictorPath|3 years ago|reply
Also as historical records show, and as some in the western braintrust noted at the time, the idea that Stalin was foisting revolution onto Korean communists, it was somewhat backwards - local Korean communists fighting the Japanese and then Americans, like the Chinese, were much more enthused about revolution in their countries than Stalin was.
[+] TeeMassive|3 years ago|reply
> it was a raging conspiracy theory

Sure, but is it false?

> From what I've heard, the theory is largely discredited now.

If you say so.

[+] apexalpha|3 years ago|reply
This is a report (summary) of a radio broadcast by a south korean Radio station in 1949.

This is not a CIA analysis of Kim Il Sung, just a report on a report.

[+] suction|3 years ago|reply
Extremely interesting to see how the CIA works, in 1949 they didn't have to be as believable as now - it's obviously a smear job in how it tries to paint him as a murderer and lowly thief only out to get money. It's no wonder it has been discredited.

For the easily offended - no, I don't think he was a good guy.

[+] ransom1538|3 years ago|reply
"it's obviously a smear job in how it tries to paint him as a murderer and lowly thief only out to get money"

I am trying to follow the logic here. The CIA wanted to smear Kim by using a restricted classified report that wasn't released for 60 years? If I was doing a smear campaign in 1949 I would put it on the radio.

[+] Krasnol|3 years ago|reply
> it's obviously a smear job in how it tries to paint him as a murderer and lowly thief only out to get money.

Even without this document there can be this and worse said about him. So why bother?

[+] MrPatan|3 years ago|reply
I wonder if the CIA fabrications of today only seem believable now and will seem unbelievable in 70 years.
[+] mwint|3 years ago|reply
What do the "(Ueda: ###, ###, ###)" blocks mean? Some kind of internal CIA/gov't unique-person-identifier?
[+] AdamH12113|3 years ago|reply
It looks like a way of referring to Korean (or Han?) characters. The document seems to have been typed, so adding characters from another language would be difficult. It looks like:

  Kim = 12380
  Il = 4446
  Sung = 3610
  Ju = 4871
The interesting part seems to be the claim that Kim Sung-ju's name was originally changed to a different set of characters that were also pronounced Kim Il-sung:

  Kim: 12380
  Il: 1
  Sung: 4499
and that this name was later converted to the (12380, 4446, 3610) one from above, which was the name of a famous Korean general who fought the Japanese in the 1920s.
[+] audiometry|3 years ago|reply
Or Unicode style references to the Chinese characters that compose those names?
[+] EarthIsHome|3 years ago|reply
For those interested in the Korean War, Blowback's season 3 [0] covers the span from Japan's imperial occupation of the Korean peninsula to the Korea War.

[0]: https://blowback.show/

[+] waffleiron|3 years ago|reply
Note that this is unevaluated information according to the document, and coming from a single person.
[+] cercatrova|3 years ago|reply
That was an incredibly interesting story. Where can I find more government declassified documents?
[+] WebbWeaver|3 years ago|reply
Lol I guess NSRB and FBI didn't need to know that
[+] Heleana|3 years ago|reply
That was an exceptionally fascinating account to hear. Where can I get more documents that have been declassified by the government?
[+] dzonga|3 years ago|reply
>> he's neither brilliant or educated but he's reliable i.e gets things done.

something to note.

[+] adultSwim|3 years ago|reply
Note that this story is not accepted by historians. It's not clear that this is still the official position of the CIA or US government.
[+] tomahunt|3 years ago|reply
Oh, I thought he had derived a math identity.
[+] 2143|3 years ago|reply
You work with math?

---

A company I worked for had its own in-house tool for leave management of employees.

The leaves are supposed to get reset on January 1st but that year it didn't happen automatically for whatever reason.

Somebody asked on an internal chat group when the "leaves would be reset".

It had been a long day. I casually replied "mid March".

Everybody panicked, and I panicked because I didn't know why they where panicking.

Later we discovered I thought he was asking about when leaves on trees would reappear after the winter (after they fell down during fall/autumn) :D

This was weird because I was in a torrid region where it's rather hot and humid all year round, there's no such thing as winter, it never snows, and the trees are evergreen — there's never an all-leaves-are-down situation.

(The year prior to that I was in another part of the Earth where the leaves are gone winter. I told you it had been a long day.)