As N. Korea’s Kim Turns 80, Focus Is on Enigmatic Son

North Korea on Wednesday will celebrate the 80th birthday of President Kim Il Sung, the world’s longest-reigning ruler and the only one that the Stalinist hermit nation has known.

But in Seoul, other Asian capitals and in Washington, interest and concern have already turned toward the man who will succeed him--a mysterious figure who works in the wee hours of the night, as a rule never meets foreigners and has never delivered a speech.

He is Kim Jong Il, 50, the elder Kim’s son.

His expected ascension, on Kim Il Sung’s death, will mark the biggest domestic political event in North Korea’s history. Even Mao Tse-tung never dominated China to the extent that Kim Il Sung smothers North Korea.

Indeed, in the 44 years since the nation was established in 1948 after a post-World War II Soviet occupation that divided Korea, only 53 people have served on the Politburo of Kim’s Korean Workers’ Party, says Lee Byoung Yong, president of the Research Institute for National Unification.

Intelligence experts in Seoul and Washington confess that they know even less about the enigmatic son than they do about the closed society that his father has been grooming him to rule for the last two decades.

American reconnaissance flights make trips over the open seas around North Korea every week or so, Washington sources say, and have detected developments such as the construction of nuclear fuel enrichment plants 60 miles north of Pyongyang; the plants could produce weapons-grade plutonium for nuclear bombs.

But “human intelligence”--knowledge of decision-making councils in the north--remains nonexistent. “Discussing what happens after Kim Il Sung dies is sheer speculation. We, like you (Americans), are in the dark,” said Kim Hyung Ki, deputy director of the Office of South-North Dialogue in Seoul.

Despite the limitations, new thinking has emerged in both Washington and Seoul about a post-Kim Il Sung North Korea. Where experts once were unanimous in predicting a short reign for the son--”anywhere from five minutes to five years” was the standard view--opinion now is divided.

Donald P. Gregg, U.S. ambassador to Seoul, remains in the old school. “North Koreans are still Koreans. Kim Jong Il will have a short reign and then be replaced by a Park Chung Hee--a hard-nosed general,” Gregg said at a Los Angeles symposium. He compared Kim Jong Il with South Korea’s John M. Chang, a civilian prime minister who succeeded authoritarian President Syngman Rhee in 1960 and was ousted a year later by Park in a coup.

“I don’t think Kim Jong Il will last two years,” Gregg declared.

But a newly emerging school of thought gives the son a good chance of making a go of it as a long-term leader, particularly if the succession comes later rather than sooner. “Kim Jong Il will inherit the throne because he is the son of the Great Leader. But he also is the front man for the ruling strata of North Korea. If he goes down, where are they?” said one American analyst in Washington.

Another analyst, pointing to Taiwan and India as examples of countries with long one-family rule, observed: “No one can predict how long Kim Jong Il will last. But hereditary succession in Asia is not all that unique. In addition, it makes sense to keep a lid on the divisive issue of succession.”

In a nation of nearly 23 million people, Kim Jong Il’s assumption last December of leadership of the 1-million-man army--the one organization that can hold the country together--”reflects his weakness,” said Prof. Chae Jin Lee of Claremont McKenna College, who added that “Kim Jong Il never served in the military, and now he is the supreme commander. He must develop loyalties in the armed forces.”

One South Korean analyst in Seoul said: “If Kim Il Sung lives another seven years or so, Kim Jong Il will make it. He is already forming his own power base and will eliminate any opponents.”

Installed as leader by the Soviet Union, Kim Il Sung has made himself revered as a godlike father of the country; North Koreans believe he led them to liberation from the Japanese colonial yoke of 1910-1945.

Although hard of hearing--microphones are used, even when he sits at the same table with visitors--Kim is believed to be in good health and could live for years. He recently told Japanese visitors that he intends to keep working until he reaches 90. On television, he appears alert and energetic. His charismatic command over the nation is unquestioned.

His son is No. 2 in the Korean Workers’ Party, runs the government on a day-to-day basis--with big decisions still made by the father--and now heads the regular armed forces.

Yet, not once has his voice ever been recorded, noted Prof. Rhee Sang Woo of Sogang University.

Indeed, Kim Jong Il has never delivered a speech in public. His speeches are read by announcers on North Korean radio and TV and reproduced in the Communist-controlled print media. “We think he has problems articulating,” a Washington analyst said.

As a rule, Kim Jong Il almost never meets foreigners. Top leaders of China are among the few exceptions. Only three South Koreans are known to have met him, despite 20 years of on-again, off-again exchanges of visits by officials between north and south.

The shroud of mystery has produced “a tendency to demonize him and short-circuit careful analysis,” particularly among South Koreans, who have described him as “a prince of terror,” said one official in Washington, who asked not to be identified. But in fact, “Kim Jong Il has been associated with economic reform for some time,” this official said.

A joint venture law enacted in the early 1980s, he said, “has been more effective than generally presumed.” More than 100 such ventures, about half financed by North Korean residents in Japan and a few with China, have been set up so far, the official said.

Prof. Young C. Kim, director of the Gaston Sigur Institute at George Washington University in Washington, noted that Kim Jong Il argued in favor of producing more consumer goods as early as 1984.

One American analyst in Washington linked Kim Jong Il to the moves toward reconciliation with South Korea. “But it is clear he is a strange character,” he conceded.

Kim Jong Il was raised in a Soviet military camp. A brother drowned while they were playing. His mother died. Then, a stepmother appeared and two stepbrothers were born. Consumed with “artsy interests”--particularly movies--Kim Jong Il reportedly works into the wee hours, often summoning officials from sleep. “Like his father, he doesn’t lead,” another Washington analyst said. “He just gives orders and expects them to be carried out.”

Although there has been rampant speculation that Kim Il Sung would hand over the presidency of North Korea on his 80th birthday, “We found out that a power transfer is not going to happen,” Lee Dong Bok, Seoul’s spokesman for north-south dialogue, told reporters after returning from Pyongyang in February.

“Kim Il Sung is too healthy to abdicate,” a delegation accompanying the South Korean prime minister was told, Lee said. North Korean officials added that the father retains control of “all military forces,” which include paramilitary units, and explained that a subordinate post--commander of only regular forces--was created for the son in December, Lee said.

Washington and Seoul analysts agree that North Korea already has begun a process of opening cracks in the thick wall that has kept it isolated from the rest of the world. Economic exchange with the outside world--South Korea and Japan, in particular--will eventually occur, although it will fall far short of the open-door reforms of China.

North Korea’s ruling elite, they agree, is likely to place even more emphasis on its own survival and power than does the Beijing ruling elite.

Kim Woo Choong, founder and chairman of South Korea’s giant Daewoo conglomerate, for example, said after visiting North Korea in January that the north, with the south’s help, could export $10 billion worth of goods in five years. But he predicted that North Korea would not take that opportunity. Its fear of exposing its average citizens to South Koreans is too great, he said.

The move toward greater pragmatism, nonetheless, will continue--and will be enhanced by Kim Il Sung’s demise, analysts agree. “I’m interested in the post-Kim-Kim era,” said Prof. Rhee of Sogang University.

In his opinion, pragmatic technocrats will emerge as the real rulers of North Korea, both during and after Kim Jong Il’s rule, because of demands on the leadership to deal with the de facto end of Pyongyang’s military alliances with Russia and China.

Already, the pragmatists have been noticed in Washington. North Korean diplomats who have met secretly with Washington officials “are well informed and know what is going on in the world,” one American official said. He said he personally has met with 18 North Korean diplomats in Washington, although none of the meetings has been announced.

And troubles in North Korea have been exaggerated, he added. “They are by no means on the ropes.”

Another Washington official rated North Koreans as “good negotiators and good tacticians”--so much so that “we need to be very careful where our policy and where South Korean policy is going.”

Already, without offering a single concession, North Korea has “succeeded in getting American nuclear weapons out of South Korea, achieved the end of Team Spirit (the annual large-scale joint U.S.-South Korean military exercise) and may be on the way to getting U.S. troops out of South Korea, too,” this Washington official said. “They’ve made real gains.”

North Korea might also succeed in finessing nuclear inspections, while completing development of nuclear bombs, and wind up with economic aid from both South Korea and Japan, he added.

“Enormous camouflage and concealment capability in the north poses huge problems for monitoring any agreement to forswear development of nuclear weapons” like the one North and South Korea reached Dec. 31, the official said. The north-south agreement is separate from inspections that North Korea is required to accept from the International Atomic Energy Agency as part of its adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“After 1995, we are going to be in a murky world of wondering whether North Korea has nuclear weapons or not,” the official added. “Even a preemptive strike wouldn’t wipe out the possibility of nuclear weapons.”

But Rhee of Sogang University predicted that the threat to South Korea will all but disappear in a few years. “South Korea can overcome its present military inferiority within two to three years. From 1995, there will be little chance for North Korea to launch an all-out war against the south,” he said.

Rhee accepts that North Korea is likely to develop nuclear weapons but says the north’s military leaders are being forced to insist upon a nuclear arsenal as the “ultimate protection” against a threat they perceive from the south.

The Father-Son Rulers

Kim Il Sung

* Age: 79

* Roles and titles: Marshal; president; supreme military commander; secretary general, Korean Workers’ Party.

* Background: Key player in efforts before 1945 to oust Japanese colonial forces . . . installed as leader of north by the Soviet Union . . . served as supreme commander of Korean People’s Army during Korean War . . . now world’s longest-reigning

ruler . . .

Kim Jong Il

* Age: 50

* Roles and titles: Military commander; No. 2 in Korean Workers’ Party; runs government day-to-day.

* Background: Raised in Soviet military camp . . . brother drowned, mother died . . . “consumed” with “artsy interests,” especially films . . . believed to be a proponent of economic reforms.

Sources: International Who’s Who; Times staff.