Opposition Demands That Government Resign : Word That Kim Lives Dismays S. Korea

Joy turned to dismay for millions of South Koreans today when banner headlines announced that Kim Il Sung, hated here as the instigator of the 1950-53 Korean War, is evidently alive and well.

A key opposition party demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Lho Shin Yong and his Cabinet because of the government’s inaccurate report that North Korea’s president had been assassinated.

Newspapers on Monday ran special editions carrying reports that the 74-year-old Kim had been shot to death, but today came the more sobering news that he had turned up at Pyongyang airport to greet a foreign visitor. (Story on Page 8.)

The New Korea Democratic Party said the 23-member Cabinet should resign immediately to take responsibility for the confusion created by the reports that Kim was dead.

“The government can no way evade responsibility for degrading national prestige and creating confusion for the people,” said Rep. Kim Hyun Kyu, floor leader of the NKDP.

‘Unconfirmed Rumors’

Kim said the government created confusion with official announcements made on the basis of “unconfirmed rumors.”

“The government announcement was a conclusion made not by one man, the defense minister, but the entire Cabinet after an emergency meeting,” Kim said.

The Seoul government said its statements were based on reported broadcasts over loudspeakers from the north side of the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas.

“We are keenly watching to see if this development was a result of a serious power struggle in the North or a highly sophisticated psychological warfare trick,” Defense Ministry spokesman Lee Hung Shik said. “In any case, we are maintaining a stance of strong vigilance against North Korean moves.”

Few people expected the people of South Korea to shed tears over Kim, the man who sent his armies across the border in 1950 to start a three-year fratricidal war in which more than 3 million people died and which separated an estimated 10 million Koreans from their families.

Monday’s reports of Kim’s death, with all the risks of turmoil that they raised, made Seoul stock market prices soar.

This morning came the hangover.