U.S. Links Jet Blast to North Korea Officials : Says President’s Son Ordered Bombing; Plot to Hurt Olympics Seen

U.S. officials unveiled evidence Thursday linking the bombing of a South Korean airliner to North Korean officials and told Congress they believe that Kim Jong Il, the son and heir apparent of North Korean President Kim Il Sung, was responsible.

At a House subcommittee hearing, State Department officials said the United States has confirmed the account of Kim Hyon Hui, the North Korean woman who recently confessed in Seoul that she had carried out the terrorist action. They said the 26-year-old woman had identified two men who helped her in the bombing and that both men were North Korean agents.

In a separate interview, a U.S. official told The Times that the November bombing of a Korean Air jetliner, which killed 115 people, may have been “the kickoff of a larger program of violent actions” through which North Korea aims to undermine the Summer Olympics in Seoul.

Overshadowing the Games

“They want to throw fear into people so they won’t go to South Korea,” said this U.S. official, a government analyst who spoke on condition that he not be identified. He said North Korea hopes the 1988 Olympics will be overshadowed by terrorism in the same way as were the 1972 Olympics in Munich.

The new disclosures are part of an effort by the United States to persuade its West European allies to condemn the Pyongyang regime for the bombing. The allies reportedly have been skeptical of Kim Hyon Hui’s confession because it was obtained by South Korean officials.

U.S. officials also say they are trying to persuade Japan, which has condemned North Korea, to go further and cut off all trade between the two countries. The U.S. has no direct trade with North Korea.

Korean Air Flight 858 disappeared over the Andaman Sea near Burma on Nov. 29 while en route from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates to Bangkok, Thailand, and Seoul. Kim Hyon Hui and a male companion named Kim Sung Il had been on an earlier leg of the flight but got off in Abu Dhabi. When they were stopped for questioning in Bahrain, both took cyanide capsules. The man died, but the woman was given medical treatment and survived.

After several days in the custody of South Korean officials, Kim Hyon Hui made a dramatic, televised confession in which she acknowledged planting the bomb on the plane. She said she had been trained for years as a covert North Korean agent and was told that her orders came from Kim Jong Il.

Clayton E. McManaway Jr., a State Department specialist on terrorism, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific on Thursday that “highly trained, Korean-speaking U.S. officials have met with (Kim Hyon Hui) and believe she is telling the truth.” He said there are a number of other details “which we believe confirm her story.”

2 Pictures Identified

According to McManaway, U.S. officials showed Kim a selection of pictures and asked her to identify any persons who helped in the airplane bombing. Kim identified “two men known to the United States as North Korean agents,” McManaway said.

One of these men was identified as Han Song Sam, a North Korean official stationed in Budapest, Hungary. Kim said she and her companion, Kim Sung Il, had stayed at Han’s home in Budapest. McManaway said investigators found in Kim Hyon Hui’s possession coded phone numbers of North Korean missions in Vienna and Belgrade.

When asked Thursday about the terrorist’s allegation that Kim Jong Il, 45, the second most powerful official in North Korea, was responsible for the bombing, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State William Clark Jr. told the subcommittee: “Her belief certainly is credible. . . . That would be consistent with what we know of operations in North Korea.”

Clark acknowledged that the evidence linking Kim Jong Il to the bombing “is not definitive. . . . We will most likely never obtain independent evidence directly linking the highest echelons of that regime to this act.”

Both the United States and Japan have imposed sanctions against North Korea, such as barring diplomats from having any contact with North Korean officials. However, State Department officials expressed disappointment Thursday that the European Communities has not yet criticized the Pyongyang regime and that Japan has not cut off its trade with North Korea, worth several million dollars a year.

The North Korean government has officially denied any involvement in the airplane bombing.

In the interview this week, the U.S. government analyst said North Korean officials “believed that no one would find out” about their role in the bombing of the airplane.

“You cannot write off the possibility that something else is going to happen, whether it be another plane or something different,” this official said. “Having the Olympics in Seoul is hard for North Korea to take.”