Leader Slain, N. Koreans at DMZ Say : Loudspeaker Report Death of Kim Il Sung; Verification Lacking

North Korean loudspeakers along the demilitarized zone reported Sunday that North Korean President Kim Il Sung has been killed in a shooting, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said early today.

The report was quickly denied by the North Korean Embassy in Peking.

The loudspeaker announcements quoted in Seoul did not say when the reported killing happened, and there was no confirmation of the report from regular North Korean radio broadcasts or from sources here in Seoul, the ministry said in a broadcast on state-run radio.

Normally for Propaganda

Loudspeakers along the demilitarized zone that divides the peninsula are normally used for propaganda messages to the south, and there was no explanation why Communist North Korea would disclose such significant information through them.

In Peking, sources at the U.S. Embassy said that unconfirmed reports of Kim’s death had circulated Sunday in the Chinese capital, but the Americans were unable to tell whether they were true. They added that monitoring of North Korean radio and television broadcasts had detected no programming out of the ordinary.

In Washington, a State Department spokesman said Sunday evening that officials had “nothing on the matter and will not be reacting until tomorrow.”

Visited Moscow

Kim, 74, who has ruled North Korea since the founding of the Communist state at the end of World War II, visited Moscow Oct. 22-26.

He was installed as ruler of the northern half of the Korean peninsula by the Soviet occupation army in 1945, and in 1950 his forces launched a surprise attack on the non-Communist south, triggering a three-year war that dragged in massive numbers of U.S. and Chinese troops. Since the 1953 armistice, tension has remained high along the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the two Korean states.

Kim Il Sung’s son, Kim Jong Il, 44, has emerged over the last few years as heir-apparent to become president and chief of the North Korean Workers (Communist) Party.

Today’s South Korean Defense Ministry statement said:

“On Nov. 16, 1986, the North Korean public address system along the demilitarized zone broadcast that Kim Il Sung, the North Korean ruler, was shot to death, a spokesman of the Ministry of National Defense said today.

“However, the official news media of North Korea have not yet made any announcement or comment on the broadcast. The (South Korean)armed forces are as always maintaining their state of readiness.”

Police Mobilized

South Korean police officials announced that the entire national police force had been placed on full alert “in connection with the recent situation in North Korea and to block possible subversive attempts by impure elements.”

The term impure elements normally is used by authorities here to describe Communists, pro-Communists or their supporters.

In Tokyo, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said it was checking into the reports but was not yet able to verify them.

A spokesman for the pro-Pyongyang General Assn. of Korean Residents in Japan said: “We have not heard of anything. We think the report was an ill-intended plot of the south.”

There had been widespread rumors in Tokyo that Kim was recently assassinated by a group of disenchanted military men. According to a Seoul newspaper report from Tokyo, the rumors said Kim was the target of an assassination attempt in early October. Most of those involved in the plot had fled to China, the report said.

Others involved in the assassination attempt finally killed Kim while the North Korean government in Pyongyang was pressing for China to return the would-be assassins, the report said.

Kim was born April 15, 1912, while Korea was under Japanese colonial rule. His father was a rural schoolteacher who took part in anti-Japanese political activities. His original name was Kim Jung Soo, but he later changed it to Kim Il Sung, after a legendary Korean patriot.

Kim embraced communism as a teen-ager while attending high school in northeast China, which also was under Japanese rule. North Korean historians say Kim led troops in anti-Japanese campaigns in the 1930s. He spent most of World War II in the Soviet Union.

Soviet forces occupied Korea north of the 38th Parallel in 1945 at the end of the war as part of a deal with the United States, which moved its troops into southern Korea. As with Germany, the division became permanent. Kim was installed by the Soviets as the leader of North Korea.

After the North Korean attack in 1950 across the 38th Parallel in an effort to unite Korea by force, a U.S. counterattack sent Kim’s forces reeling back. Massive intervention by Chinese troops saved North Korea from a military collapse and the three-year war ended in a stalemate. After long negotiations, a Korean War truce that still holds was signed in 1953.

Since then Kim has kept a strong army poised on the 38th Parallel, but South Korea developed a military force of its own and U.S. troops have remained poised at the southern fringe of the DMZ.

In January, 1968, a North Korean suicide squad slipped into Seoul and nearly succeeded in an attempt to assassinate President Park Chung Hee.

A few days later, North Korean warships seized a U.S. Navy electronic spy ship, the Pueblo, off the North Korean coast. Cmdr. Lloyd Bucher and his 85-man crew spent 11 months in North Korean jails. The United States finally signed an apology to get them out, then disowned the entire matter.

There was another U.S.-North Korean crisis in 1969 when the North Korean air force shot down a U.S. Navy electronic surveilliance plane off Korea, killing 33 men. The United States was deeply involved in Vietnam at the time and chose not to retaliate.

Kim’s greatest political achievement was to shake off Soviet domination and make North Korea an independent communist country on the model of Yugoslavia or Romania. He accomplished this by skillfully playing off the Soviet Union against China while getting economic aid from both.

With that aid, Kim turned North Korea into an industrial country along socialist lines. Farming was mechanized and illiteracy wiped out. Pyongyang, bombed flat by the Americans during the Korean War, was rebuilt as a city of modern offices and apartment building.