Kim’s Trip Into the Bizarre

When Steve Goodman wrote his train song “City of New Orleans,” there were “15 cars and 15 restless riders.” North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il’s bizarre train journey through Russia had 21 cars--armor-plated at that--and one rider in chief.

Kim’s train pulled back into North Korea last weekend after a 24-day trip said to have been his third foreign visit. The previous two were to China. Those were train trips too, due to what is believed to be Kim’s fear of flying.

Kim obviously doesn’t believe in pressing the flesh. He refused to leave the train at several stops, bewildering dignitaries waiting at the stations. Nor did he bother to step off to meet the widow of the man who had saved his father’s life.

Kim did lay a wreath at Lenin’s tomb, but even that was surreal. He walked behind goose-stepping Russian guards who were brought out of retirement; they hadn’t been seen at the monument since 1993.

The serious part of the trip came in a meeting with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, who wants to show that North Korea is not a “rogue” nation that the United States needs to defend against with a missile shield. Kim and Putin signed a joint declaration promising to promote international security. One way to make everyone feel safer would be not to fire more missiles over Japan, as North Korea did three years ago. Another would be to stop work on nuclear weapons.

Kim, rogue or not, is a leader of the sort we seldom see anymore. He’s a throwback, embarrassing even to the Russians, who have been trying to move beyond the Stalinist past. The North Korean claim is that Kim, like his shun-the-limelight father, is beloved by the people. His security and secretiveness belie that.