North Koreans at DMZ Say Leader Kim Il Sung Is Dead

Authorities in South Korea reported today that North Korean loudspeakers at the demilitarized zone said North Korean President Kim Il Sung had been killed. But the North Korean Embassy here and Peking diplomats said they had no confirmation of the report.

The startling announcement came from a spokesman for the South Korean Defense Ministry, saying the loudspeakers at the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas “said on Sunday that Kim Il Sung had been shot and killed,” newsmen in Seoul, the South Korean capital, reported.

The announcement did not say when the reported death occurred. Loudspeakers along the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that divides the peninsula are normally used for propaganda messages to the south.

In Peking, an official for the North Korean Embassy told The Times he was unable to confirm or deny the reports, and shortly afterwards a North Korean Embassy official told other reporters it was a “sheer fabrication.”

The American Embassy in Peking said U.S. officials had heard the reports of Kim’s death but were so far unable to corroborate them.

“There have been reports since late yesterday (Sunday) morning, but so far we cannot say for sure whether they are true,” a U.S. official said. He said that monitoring of North Korean radio and television broadcasts had so far not observed any announcement of Kim’s death or anything else unusual.

Despite the rumors of an assassination attempt, life was apparently normal on the streets of Pyongyang.

An Eastern European source said in Peking at mid-morning today that he had just spoken with his nation’s embassy in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. “They said nothing is out of order and everything is going on as usual,” the source said.

The ambassadors from Austria and Finland, two Western European nations that also have missions in Pyongyang, said they too had no information of Kim’s death or any attempted coup.

Power Struggle Possible

The conflicting reports concerning Kim’s death could indicate an intense ongoing power struggle in North Korea, in which one faction may be attempting to disseminate word of an assassination while a rival faction is trying to keep such news suppressed.

Kim, 74, had only recently returned to Pyongyang from an Oct. 22-27 trip to Moscow. While there, he met for the first time with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Over the last two years, in apparent reaction to China’s improved ties with the West and with South Korea, Kim had been gradually distancing himself from Peking and moving into a closer relationship with the Soviet Union.

For years, there have been reports from North Korea of internal controversy over Kim’s efforts to groom his own son, Kim Jong Il, 44, to take over after his death. If Kim Jong Il were to assume power, it would be the first time any Communist nation had established a dynastic line of succession.

Son Reportedly Designated

On Oct. 15, just a week before Kim left for Moscow, official North Korean news reports suggested that he had made a definite decision that his son should succeed him.

“Our party and people have successfully solved the question of carrying forward the revolutionary cause by holding in high esteem dear Comrade Kim Jong Il, who is faithful to the lofty intention of the great leader President Kim Il Sung,” said North Korea’s Central News Agency.

But analysts noted that other Communist nations did not seem prepared to accept Kim Jong Il as a successor. During a visit to Pyongyang on Oct. 19-20, for example, East German leader Erich Honecker pointedly omitted any mention of Kim’s son from his banquet toasts.

Family Taken to China

Kim Il Sung was born in the northern part of Korea in 1912, two years after the Japanese had annexed Korea. His father took the family to northeastern China, where Kim received his early education. He is believed to have embraced communism as a teen-ager. North Korean historians say he led troops in the anti-Japanese campaigns of the 1930s. He spent most of World War II in the Soviet Union.

Kim Il Sung took over as ruler of the northern half of the Korean peninsula after it was occupied by Soviet troops at the end of World War II. In 1950, North Korean forces launched a surprise attack on the non-Communist south. President Harry S. Truman ordered U.S. forces under United Nations command to the aid of the south.

The combined forces drove the North Korean army back across the 38th Parallel and deep into North Korea, advancing close to the Chinese border and prompting Peking to send its troops into the conflict. The Korean War ended with an armistice in 1953, and tensions have remained high between north and south since then.

Both north and south maintain large military forces, and the United States has 40,000 troops stationed in South Korea, as well as planes believed capable of delivering nuclear bombs.

Close Ties to Peking

For many years after the Korean War, Chinese and North Korean ties were so close that, according to one Chinese expression, the relationship between the two nations was “like lips and teeth.” Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang told a North Korean youth delegation last month that this slogan is as valid as ever.

But North Korea is believed to have been disturbed by South Korea’s growing indirect trade with China and, recently, by the large delegation of Chinese athletes that visited Seoul for the Asian Games.

China also last month permitted the U.S. Navy to make its first port call to China since 1949. The American ships went into the Chinese port of Qingdao, less than 400 miles across the Yellow Sea from the western coast of North Korea.

The plans for the U.S. Navy port call were made public on Oct. 9 during a visit to Peking by Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger. Less than a week later, North Korea suddenly announced that Kim would visit Moscow for the second time in three years.