Latest / Big Brother: North Korea’s Forgotten Prince / A Secret Worth Killing For

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A Secret Worth Killing For · Big Brother: North Korea’s Forgotten Prince

0:10
Speaker 1: On the border of North Korea and China, is a lake.
0:15
Speaker 1: It's nestled within the caldera at the center of a
0:18
Speaker 1: dormant volcano, surrounded by sixteen jagged mountain peaks. The cliffs
0:25
Speaker 1: are dark and steep, poked with moss and caps of
0:29
Speaker 1: shimmering ice and snow. They tumble into deep blue water,
0:35
Speaker 1: glassy and still. This is Heaven Lake on Mount pet two,
0:43
Speaker 1: the highest point in North Korea. For Koreans both North
0:49
Speaker 1: and South, this is a special place. The special place.
0:56
Speaker 1: According to ancient folklore, this is where the Korean people originated.
1:02
Speaker 1: More than four thousand years ago, the mythological god king
1:06
Speaker 1: Tangun descended from heaven and was born right here. He'd
1:12
Speaker 1: become the first ruler of Korea. Over centuries, empires rose
1:20
Speaker 1: and fell, the Puyo Kingdom, the Koo Powers, the Chosun dynasty.
1:28
Speaker 1: Ruling families came and went, but one thing bound them all.
1:34
Speaker 1: They never stopped revering the mountain as their spiritual home.
1:40
Speaker 1: Like Tangun before them, these families justified their power by
1:45
Speaker 1: declaring themselves sons of Heaven, as descendants of Mount Pictwo
1:51
Speaker 1: and the story of Tangun. It's not the only legend
1:56
Speaker 1: associated with this sacred place. In fact, there are two
2:00
Speaker 1: other stories that every student in North Korea by age
2:04
Speaker 1: five must know by heart. The first is the story
2:10
Speaker 1: of a young Kim Io Song, a scrappy guerrilla fighter
2:14
Speaker 1: who risked life and limb to fend off Japanese invaders,
2:19
Speaker 1: waging fearless battle on the slopes of the Great Mountain.
2:23
Speaker 1: The second is the story of his son, Kim jong Il,
2:28
Speaker 1: who they say was born by heaven lake in a
2:31
Speaker 1: small wooden cabin. Upon his birth, a single bright star
2:37
Speaker 1: appeared in the twilight, a double rainbow magically streaming across
2:42
Speaker 1: the mountaintops, like Tangun and the pedigree of emperors before them.
2:49
Speaker 1: Both Kim's would use these stories to claim a mandate
2:53
Speaker 1: from heaven, a spiritual calling to become the father figures
2:57
Speaker 1: of the Korean people, because coursing through their veins was
3:03
Speaker 1: the stuff of legends, the fabled blood of Mount Peck two.
3:13
Speaker 1: I guess you could say that Mount Peck two is
3:16
Speaker 1: to North Korea what the bald Eagle is to the
3:18
Speaker 1: United States. It's a national symbol, emblazoned on the country's emblem,
3:23
Speaker 1: its name plastered on everything from power plants to torpedoes.
3:28
Speaker 1: But that doesn't even do it justice. It's magical, mythical today,
3:36
Speaker 1: the mountains lore, the notion that this place spawned a
3:40
Speaker 1: pure blood line of leaders is the glue that holds
3:44
Speaker 1: the Kim personality called together, and it's the reason Kim
3:48
Speaker 1: jong Nam's assassination was so shocking, so galling, because according
3:54
Speaker 1: to centuries of myth and tradition, Kim jong Nam's blood
3:59
Speaker 1: was more than us royal, it was divine, and he
4:06
Speaker 1: was first in line to the throne. I'm even lee
4:13
Speaker 1: in this episode inside the myths and machinations that revealed
4:17
Speaker 1: the Kim family to be not divine rulers but ruthless infighters,
4:24
Speaker 1: a family that competes not just for glory and power,
4:27
Speaker 1: but also for survival. It's pretty obscene the way Kim
4:33
Speaker 1: jong Nam was raised. They were like brother and sister.
4:36
Speaker 1: They were each other's only friends. I can just paraphrase
4:39
Speaker 1: what he said, which was, my father replaced me with
4:42
Speaker 1: his new family, and that was pretty devastating. This is
4:47
Speaker 1: big brother. The assassination of Kim jong Nam may have
4:55
Speaker 1: happened in but the circumstances that led to his death
5:00
Speaker 1: decades in the making, and it all started, as so
5:03
Speaker 1: many epic tales do, with a love story and the
5:08
Speaker 1: collision of two warring families vying for the same affection.
5:13
Speaker 1: It was the nineteen sixties and Kim Jong il was
5:17
Speaker 1: just a twentysomething making propaganda for his father's political party,
5:21
Speaker 1: the Workers Party of Korea. And Kim Jong Il was
5:26
Speaker 1: a master of his trade. The propaganda was just brilliant.
5:31
Speaker 1: That's Bradley Martin, a newspaper journalist. I've worked for a Newsweek,
5:36
Speaker 1: the Roll Street Journal, Bloomberg News, and the author of
5:40
Speaker 1: the book Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader.
5:44
Speaker 1: He's reported on the Kim dynasty for decades. One of
5:48
Speaker 1: the greatest of the propagandists Roz Kim Jong Hill. He
5:51
Speaker 1: was a super producer and he really knew what he
5:54
Speaker 1: was doing with propaganda. As a propagandist, Kim Jong Il
6:04
Speaker 1: was the head of North Korea's motion picture division, making
6:07
Speaker 1: films that enhanced the regime's messaging and bolstered his father's personality.
6:13
Speaker 1: Cult To say Kim Jong Il enjoyed making movies is
6:19
Speaker 1: an understatement. The man was obsessed with cinema, action, romance, horror,
6:30
Speaker 1: you name it, Kim Jong Il devoured it. He was
6:34
Speaker 1: a devoted fan of everything from James Bond to vend It.
6:38
Speaker 1: Like Beckham, he reportedly owned more than thirty thousand movie
6:42
Speaker 1: titles in his personal theater, including a substantial stash of
6:47
Speaker 1: very illegal pornography. Chang I loved films so much that
6:54
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies he abducted one of South Korea's
6:58
Speaker 1: most famous directors. A team of henchmen secretly crossed the border,
7:04
Speaker 1: tailed the director, threw a bag over his head, and
7:07
Speaker 1: transported him to a work camp in the North, where
7:10
Speaker 1: he lived on a diet of rice and grass. Kim
7:14
Speaker 1: forced the movie maker to direct films for the regime,
7:17
Speaker 1: including a comically cheesy rip off of Godzilla called Pugati,
7:34
Speaker 1: and this love of cinema would shape Kim Jong Il's
7:37
Speaker 1: romantic life too. In the late nineteen sixties, Chang I
7:42
Speaker 1: was walking through a film studio when he bumped into
7:44
Speaker 1: an actress named tong headium The princeling was immediately star struck.
7:52
Speaker 1: Tongam was North Korea's biggest movie star, A thirty one
7:56
Speaker 1: year old bombshell. She was born in the South but
7:59
Speaker 1: had moved north as a child. As an actress, she
8:02
Speaker 1: had multiple lead roles to her credit and even attended
8:06
Speaker 1: international film festivals. For a movie buff like Kim jong il,
8:11
Speaker 1: it was like meeting Marilyn Monroe in her prime. It
8:15
Speaker 1: was love at first sight. Tongden was married with children,
8:20
Speaker 1: but for a member of the pic two bloodline, that
8:24
Speaker 1: was no obstacle. Jan Ille forced the actress to divorce
8:29
Speaker 1: and sent her ex husband out of country to quote work.
8:34
Speaker 1: The two never married, but they did start a relationship
8:39
Speaker 1: and in the couple had a child, a baby boy.
8:45
Speaker 1: Kim Jong il could hardly contain the news. In his book,
8:50
Speaker 1: Bradley Martin writes that Kim was so excited by the
8:53
Speaker 1: arrival of his son that he quote honked his car
8:56
Speaker 1: horn to awaken everyone in the hospital. But there was
9:01
Speaker 1: one person he refused to tell, his father, the supreme leader,
9:07
Speaker 1: Kim ils hung. North Korea was and remains a very
9:12
Speaker 1: socially conservative society. Kim il sung preached conventional family values.
9:18
Speaker 1: Extramarital affairs were illegal, divorce was frowned upon, and having
9:23
Speaker 1: a child out of wedlock it was inadmissible. And Kim
9:28
Speaker 1: Jong il, he had flirted with all three. He knew
9:34
Speaker 1: his father would never accept his decision to pair off
9:37
Speaker 1: with the actress, especially a divorcee born in South Korea.
9:43
Speaker 1: But Kim jong il was a virtuoso of propaganda. He
9:48
Speaker 1: had a talent for hiding inconvenient information, so he successfully
9:53
Speaker 1: kept the relationship and the existence of his own son
9:57
Speaker 1: from his father for four years rs. But even the
10:02
Speaker 1: greatest propagandists can stumble. The secret eventually leaked, and when
10:09
Speaker 1: kimio sung learned about his son's love child, he was furious,
10:15
Speaker 1: that is until he met the little boy. According to
10:20
Speaker 1: one telling, when kimio sung saw his grandson for the
10:24
Speaker 1: first time, his eyes flooded with tears. This, after all,
10:30
Speaker 1: was his first male grandchild. Pet two blood was coursing
10:36
Speaker 1: through his veins, and when he picked up the child
10:39
Speaker 1: and held him in his arms, he felt like he
10:42
Speaker 1: was holding the future of the nation. So kimio Song
10:47
Speaker 1: gave his grandson a name Kim chong nam in Korean,
10:53
Speaker 1: it means loyal man. Now with his father's blessing, Kim
11:00
Speaker 1: jong il felt free to shower his newborn son with affection,
11:05
Speaker 1: pampering and spoiling him. Kim jong il was a really
11:09
Speaker 1: doting father That again is Anna Fifield, journalists and author
11:14
Speaker 1: of The Great Successor. He was out there during the
11:18
Speaker 1: day during his day job being a tyrant, but he
11:21
Speaker 1: loved coming home to the palatial compound there and playing
11:25
Speaker 1: with Kim jong Nam. The two seemed inseparable. Father and
11:31
Speaker 1: son shared the same bed, a common practice in traditional
11:34
Speaker 1: Korean society. For eight years. Each night, Kim jong Il
11:40
Speaker 1: gently rocked and cradled his son to sleep. When Kim
11:45
Speaker 1: Jong Nam was a toddler, his father began spoiling him
11:49
Speaker 1: with every gift a child could dream of, and then some.
11:54
Speaker 1: He had this massive playhouse filled with toys. He had
11:59
Speaker 1: you know, lego brought in from Denmark and like top
12:03
Speaker 1: of the range toys brought from everywhere. He had mangoes imported.
12:08
Speaker 1: He had clothes brought from the UK. You know, anything
12:13
Speaker 1: he could ever desire. And you know, well beyond his
12:16
Speaker 1: wild imagination he had. He had a little a little
12:20
Speaker 1: golf buggy that he could zoom around on his own
12:23
Speaker 1: zoo with a real bear in it. Um He lived
12:26
Speaker 1: this ridiculous, pampered life. Kim Jong Nam and his mother's
12:31
Speaker 1: extended family lived in their own wild off compound in Pyongyang,
12:35
Speaker 1: an opulent palace called Residents Number fifteen. They had a
12:41
Speaker 1: hundred servants, five hundred bodyguards, and eight cooks. Anything the
12:48
Speaker 1: child demanded was his. His father made sure of it.
12:54
Speaker 1: According to Bradley Martin, Kim jong il assigned a special
12:58
Speaker 1: unit of bureaucrats to travel the globe to purchase gifts
13:02
Speaker 1: for his son's birthdays, buying him everything from video games
13:06
Speaker 1: to diamond wrist watches. You could have anything. You want.
13:10
Speaker 1: A revolver, here's a revolver. You know, you want an automobile.
13:15
Speaker 1: Here's a here's a little automobile you can drive around.
13:18
Speaker 1: You want bars of gold, you have some bars of gold.
13:23
Speaker 1: It's pretty obscene the way Kim jong Nam was raised.
13:28
Speaker 1: But there was one thing that young Kim jong Nam
13:30
Speaker 1: couldn't have, and that was friends. Because although Kim jong
13:36
Speaker 1: Nam might not have been a dirty secret around his
13:39
Speaker 1: grandfather anymore, his existence was still shielded from the public,
13:43
Speaker 1: as well as from most government officials. The princeling was
13:47
Speaker 1: confined to his palace, forbidden to trek beyond its walls
13:52
Speaker 1: to see how regular people lived. His playmates consisted of
13:57
Speaker 1: two adults, a painter and film technician who had been
14:02
Speaker 1: appointed to be his official friends. For years, Kim Jong
14:07
Speaker 1: Nam wouldn't know a single soul his own age. He
14:11
Speaker 1: would have to make do with his father's love, plus
14:15
Speaker 1: the occasional bar of gold. Family life was strained elsewhere too.
14:21
Speaker 1: Because of the deep love Kim Jong Ill felt for
14:24
Speaker 1: his son, it didn't translate to the boy's mother. The
14:29
Speaker 1: honeymoon phase was long over and their relationship had all
14:33
Speaker 1: but collapsed. The former actress was deeply unhappy. She missed
14:40
Speaker 1: the stage, the adrenaline fueled glow of a film set.
14:44
Speaker 1: She wanted to play movie roles, not the role of
14:47
Speaker 1: a subservient housekeeper, and despite living in the lap of luxury,
14:53
Speaker 1: she was tired of being treated as a dirty secret.
14:57
Speaker 1: Here again is the founder of North Curre. You watch
15:00
Speaker 1: Michael Madden, whose audio will remind you was distorted, hence
15:05
Speaker 1: the voiceover. Even though you live in these beautiful villas
15:09
Speaker 1: with swimming pools and the best food and access to television,
15:14
Speaker 1: you're essentially under a glorified house arrest, and Kim Jong
15:18
Speaker 1: Ill didn't have patience for any of the woman's feelings.
15:23
Speaker 1: His love for her faded years earlier. Kim had once
15:30
Speaker 1: called her his yell ball or wife, but now he
15:35
Speaker 1: had downgraded her title to quote the mother of my son.
15:41
Speaker 1: The relationship grew hostile, and as Kim jong Il became
15:45
Speaker 1: more and more distant, her mental health began to spiral in.
15:51
Speaker 1: Living in the house of Kim Jong Ill was a
15:53
Speaker 1: very stressful experience. Kim Jong Ill was a fairly moody guy,
15:58
Speaker 1: and he was the most powerful man in the country,
16:01
Speaker 1: so living around him was basically an exercise and walking
16:04
Speaker 1: on eggshells. And then Kim jong Il decided he had
16:09
Speaker 1: had enough. It was time to kick the woman out
16:12
Speaker 1: of his life for good. But their son, he decided,
16:17
Speaker 1: would stay with him. Hongheading panicked at the news, she
16:25
Speaker 1: scooped Kim jong Nam into her arms and sprinted for
16:28
Speaker 1: the palace doors, Desperate to make an escape, She didn't
16:32
Speaker 1: get far before the guards stopped her. Shortly after, she
16:37
Speaker 1: was sent to Moscow for quote medical treatment. Aside from
16:44
Speaker 1: a few failed attempts to return home, she'd spend the
16:48
Speaker 1: remainder of her life in Russia mired and depression. Meanwhile,
16:54
Speaker 1: at Residence Number fifteen, a young Kim Jong Nam went
16:57
Speaker 1: back to being treated as a state's secret. He was
17:01
Speaker 1: friendless and now motherless. And soon he would begin to
17:09
Speaker 1: feel fatherless too. We want to step back for a
17:34
Speaker 1: moment and take a detour. Too many of us, North
17:38
Speaker 1: Korea can seem well, a little bit crazy. It's this small,
17:44
Speaker 1: bellicost country with nuclear weapons, led by a man with
17:49
Speaker 1: funny hair and comically bad propaganda. The leaders seem psychotic.
17:55
Speaker 1: They run googlogs. But at the same time, we'll hack
17:59
Speaker 1: a company sir verse because of a Seth Rogan film.
18:03
Speaker 1: The state media announces menacing missile launches while almost in
18:08
Speaker 1: the same breath claiming that they just discovered a unicorn
18:12
Speaker 1: layer in a cave. It can be hard to take
18:16
Speaker 1: North Korea seriously, but over the course of reporting this podcast,
18:21
Speaker 1: almost every expert we spoke to kept making the same
18:25
Speaker 1: point that North Korea is, in fact not irrational and
18:30
Speaker 1: it's definitely not unpredictable. A lot of the mainstream media's
18:35
Speaker 1: obsession with North Korea now borders on caricatures and the eccentric,
18:39
Speaker 1: But really, North Korea is a deeply serious and rational country.
18:45
Speaker 1: When you look at it as a sovereign country with
18:47
Speaker 1: its own strategic interest, a lot of the moves that
18:50
Speaker 1: it makes make a lot of sense. North Korea is
18:54
Speaker 1: not only not crazy, but very careful methodical in the
18:59
Speaker 1: way North Korea just tries to paint its adversaries into
19:04
Speaker 1: a corner. The point is to understand the death of
19:09
Speaker 1: Kim Jong Nam, you need to understand what drives North
19:13
Speaker 1: Korea and most of us, well, we don't understand, but
19:20
Speaker 1: it's possible to make sense of it. Take for instance,
19:24
Speaker 1: the Kim personality cult. It's not the only country with
19:29
Speaker 1: a personality cult, but it is one of the most effective.
19:33
Speaker 1: And the reason has a lot to do with Confucianism.
19:39
Speaker 1: Confucianism is deeply embedded in North Korean society. That's Dr
19:44
Speaker 1: Sung Unually, a professor at Tufts University. He's an expert
19:48
Speaker 1: on North Korea US relations as well as history. Confucianism
19:53
Speaker 1: has been the most prominent ideology in Korean history since
20:00
Speaker 1: about the year fourteen. Confucius never stepped foot on the
20:06
Speaker 1: Korean peninsula, but his life's work saturates the region's value
20:12
Speaker 1: system both North and South. Take North Korea's propaganda, for example,
20:18
Speaker 1: the films cooked up by Kim Jong il in the
20:21
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties painted the Supreme leader as universally benevolent, even omniscient.
20:28
Speaker 1: The leader's talents no no bounds. Kim Jong Ill, after all,
20:32
Speaker 1: supposedly wrote six operas and could hit eighteen holes in one.
20:38
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous, but the strategy makes some sense in the
20:42
Speaker 1: context of Confucianism. Confucius experienced deep instability during his lifetime,
20:50
Speaker 1: and he dreamed of bringing peace to the bloodshed around him.
20:54
Speaker 1: He preached strategies that he believed could coax order from
20:58
Speaker 1: the chaos. In solution was virtue. In Confucian society, a
21:06
Speaker 1: leader rules not by force, but by virtue, and the
21:11
Speaker 1: Kim family knows this, so they push a narrative, one
21:16
Speaker 1: that constantly reminds the populace over and over and over,
21:22
Speaker 1: how dear, how great, how benevolent, how kind, and how
21:27
Speaker 1: caring their leader is. This desire to appear virtuous, mixed
21:32
Speaker 1: with the peck two myth of divine rule, creates a
21:36
Speaker 1: noxious ideology that basically treats the Kims as God's and
21:42
Speaker 1: if they're to be worshiped like God's, then they must
21:46
Speaker 1: have the virtues and the abilities of God's. As a result,
21:52
Speaker 1: North Korea has outstalinized Stalin. North Korea's cult of personality
21:57
Speaker 1: puts the cult of Chairman mob in China or Stalin
22:01
Speaker 1: in the former Soviet Union to shame. And that's why
22:05
Speaker 1: Kim Jong il had to keep his private life a secret.
22:09
Speaker 1: If news ever spread to the common people about his
22:12
Speaker 1: illicit relationship with an actress or his love child, it
22:17
Speaker 1: could soil this carefully calibrated image. It could be especially
22:22
Speaker 1: dangerous if this knowledge ever fell into the hands of
22:25
Speaker 1: a competitor or some military figure who wanted to stage
22:29
Speaker 1: a coup. This information could be used against him to
22:33
Speaker 1: puncture that godlike persona. Because the other element of Confucianism
22:40
Speaker 1: revolves around hierarchy, what are the common characteristics of Confucianism?
22:46
Speaker 1: Respectful communal values, respect for society, respectful authority, respect for
22:53
Speaker 1: the nation, putting the family about the individual, the society
22:58
Speaker 1: above the family, and the state above all. Confucius believed
23:03
Speaker 1: in the society built upon strong hierarchies with strict obedience
23:08
Speaker 1: to authorities. This, he said, could foster stability, and the
23:15
Speaker 1: system has a proven track record. According to Dr Lee,
23:20
Speaker 1: Korea's ancient dynasties flourished because of this dogmatic loyalty to
23:25
Speaker 1: superiors and the willingness to put society before the self.
23:30
Speaker 1: Confucian societies are more cohesive to when it comes to
23:35
Speaker 1: national calamities, war, the pandemic. People are more prone to
23:41
Speaker 1: sacrificing their individual privacy and their individual rights for the
23:46
Speaker 1: sake of the greater good of society. This respect for
23:49
Speaker 1: hierarchy is the reason young people both North and South
23:54
Speaker 1: are expected to show constant obedience to their parents, to teachers,
23:59
Speaker 1: and the government offici shoals. There are three bonds so
24:03
Speaker 1: cold in Confucianism. First the bureaucrat, the official submits himself
24:09
Speaker 1: to the king, and then the gross gender inequality women,
24:15
Speaker 1: the wife submits herself to the husband and later even
24:19
Speaker 1: to her own son. And then filial piety the son
24:23
Speaker 1: submits to the father. But it's filial piety, submission and
24:28
Speaker 1: loyalty to your father's reputation that really drives the culture.
24:33
Speaker 1: And in North Korea everybody has the same symbolic father.
24:38
Speaker 1: The man with peck two blood Kim ils Hung. This
24:42
Speaker 1: is no mistake, this is a brilliant strategy. The Kims
24:47
Speaker 1: have used propaganda to hijack traditional Confucian values and seize
24:52
Speaker 1: upon the national myth of the Peck two bloodline to
24:55
Speaker 1: serve their own interests and to feed their own power.
24:59
Speaker 1: It was a way for Kim Ala Song to essentially
25:02
Speaker 1: guarantee that he was going to be front and center
25:05
Speaker 1: of the North Korean system. That you may remember is Dr.
25:09
Speaker 1: Benjamin Young, a historian at Virginia Commonwealth University. There was
25:14
Speaker 1: actually a slogan in uh North Koreator in the Cold
25:18
Speaker 1: War era that literally said koreas Kimbelsung. Kimmel Sung is Korea.
25:22
Speaker 1: The Kim family personality called It is ubiquitous within North Korea,
25:26
Speaker 1: from slogans and posters to school children learning poems about
25:31
Speaker 1: the greatness of Kimmel Song. I really can't escape it.
25:34
Speaker 1: It is central to the North Korean way of life,
25:38
Speaker 1: and there is nothing to rival or challenge that messaging.
25:43
Speaker 1: In fact, the government is the only source of information.
25:48
Speaker 1: This persistent burrage of propaganda has a way of bending
25:53
Speaker 1: and breaking people's minds into submission. So the people of
25:58
Speaker 1: North Korea believe these stories, whether through real devotion or
26:04
Speaker 1: fear of what might happen if they don't. It helps
26:09
Speaker 1: breed political loyalty and simultaneously quashes any grassroots opposition. And
26:17
Speaker 1: total fidelity to the image of one man, one family
26:22
Speaker 1: has the power to turn normal people into monsters. Look
26:27
Speaker 1: no further than Kim Chang Ill. In the nine seventies,
26:36
Speaker 1: when Kim jong Nam was just a little boy, his
26:39
Speaker 1: father was preparing to become the nation's next ruler. He
26:45
Speaker 1: was the chosen son of heaven, a pick to air,
26:48
Speaker 1: and he had an image to maintain, a godlike image,
26:54
Speaker 1: and that's probably why he sent the mother of his
26:57
Speaker 1: firstborn son to Moscow. If she stayed in North Korea,
27:03
Speaker 1: it was guaranteed that gossip about their relationship would reach
27:07
Speaker 1: the public. So he exiled her, banishing her to a
27:12
Speaker 1: foreign mental facility, and in the process, his cruelty affected
27:18
Speaker 1: his son. He deprived Kim jong Nam of a mother.
27:23
Speaker 1: In fact, Kim jong Il would go to extreme lengths
27:27
Speaker 1: to ensure that the boy and his mother would remain
27:30
Speaker 1: a state secret. We know this because at the time,
27:35
Speaker 1: a group of young North Korean students were living in Moscow.
27:40
Speaker 1: One day, a student somehow learned about Kim jong il's
27:42
Speaker 1: mentally distressed mistress. Words spread that she lived nearby, somewhere
27:48
Speaker 1: in the Soviet Union. The gossip spread all the way
27:52
Speaker 1: back to Kiang Yang, and Kim jong Il was horrified.
27:59
Speaker 1: In an effort to shut down the rumor mill, he
28:02
Speaker 1: sent a security team to Russia. Kim's communist goons arrived
28:07
Speaker 1: in Moscow, rounded up all the university students and interrogated them.
28:12
Speaker 1: Anybody who acknowledged knowing anything about the ex mistress or
28:17
Speaker 1: her whereabouts or her child was immediately executed. Turns out,
28:26
Speaker 1: Kim jong Nam was a secret worth killing for. For
28:50
Speaker 1: most of his childhood, Kim jong Nam was functionally locked
28:54
Speaker 1: in a palace, cut off from the outside world. The
28:58
Speaker 1: boy passed his time and activity by reading books, drawing pictures,
29:03
Speaker 1: and naturally, watching movies, and his father continued to spoil him.
29:10
Speaker 1: One time, when the little prince had a toothache, Kim
29:13
Speaker 1: Jong ille convinced him to go to the dentist by
29:16
Speaker 1: gifting him a Cadillac. When he turned eight, his father
29:21
Speaker 1: threw him a birthday party, where instead of toys, he
29:24
Speaker 1: was given a military uniform and the rank of martial.
29:30
Speaker 1: In a nod to his future rank, palace workers began
29:33
Speaker 1: referring to the boy as little Comrade General. Later that night,
29:38
Speaker 1: a fireworks display spelled out the words Happy birthday, Comrade
29:43
Speaker 1: General in the sky. Nothing was too much to ask for.
29:49
Speaker 1: On one occasion, when the young child requested that his
29:52
Speaker 1: father hire his favorite South Korean comedian. The regimes seriously
29:56
Speaker 1: considered abducting the funny man, but this is the hassle. Instead,
30:02
Speaker 1: Kim Jong Il sand scouts to find a look alike.
30:04
Speaker 1: They returned with a farmer who they trained to do
30:08
Speaker 1: stand up comedy. But Kim Jong Ill knew that his
30:12
Speaker 1: firstborn son was still lonely. A palace of endless toys
30:17
Speaker 1: and cars and jewels was not the same as having
30:20
Speaker 1: a mother or a friend his own age. So when
30:24
Speaker 1: Kim Jong Nam was eight, his father brought a little
30:27
Speaker 1: girl home to be his friend. It was his thirteen
30:30
Speaker 1: year old cousin, Namok. The two hit it off immediately.
30:37
Speaker 1: Kim Jong Nam and Nam were very very close growing.
30:40
Speaker 1: They were like brother and sister that were each other's
30:42
Speaker 1: only friends. Together, the duo would binge movies and shoot
30:46
Speaker 1: pelicans and potter between the palace walls on golf carts.
30:51
Speaker 1: Sometimes they convinced the palace show first to drive them
30:53
Speaker 1: around the streets of Kong Young. They were never allowed
30:56
Speaker 1: out of the vehicle. The girl would become his playmate
31:00
Speaker 1: and his closest confidant. He basically kind of gave up
31:05
Speaker 1: her whole life to be his friend, to be his sidekicks.
31:09
Speaker 1: His father also invited Kim jong Nam's grandmother and aunt
31:13
Speaker 1: to move into residence Umber fifteen to provide a needed
31:17
Speaker 1: maternal presence. The women were like governesses. They schooled him
31:22
Speaker 1: and everything from Russian to mathematics. By the time he
31:27
Speaker 1: was nine, Kim jong Nam was growing into an artistic
31:31
Speaker 1: and curious young child, A sensitive yet optimistic boy who
31:36
Speaker 1: loved books and jokes and the latest technology, and his
31:40
Speaker 1: feelings of filial piety ran deep. The boy worshiped his father,
31:46
Speaker 1: as his playmate Enamok later recounted, he was totally submissive
31:51
Speaker 1: to his father, and I never criticized what Kim jongile
31:54
Speaker 1: decided for him. Kim Jongial poured his very deep love
31:59
Speaker 1: into his on in childhood, so I don't think the
32:03
Speaker 1: child felt lonely. His mother's absence was covered up by
32:07
Speaker 1: his father's presence, but it wouldn't last. As Kim jong
32:12
Speaker 1: Nam grew older, his father's love grew colder. He stopped
32:19
Speaker 1: talking the young boy into bed. He no longer dispatched
32:23
Speaker 1: teams to buy him every imaginable gift. He started to
32:28
Speaker 1: join the family in residence number fifteen for supper less
32:31
Speaker 1: and less often only appearing three times a week. The
32:37
Speaker 1: reason Kim jong Il had what we're called secret parties
32:41
Speaker 1: or secret banquets, and those became places where many decisions
32:45
Speaker 1: were made, whether it was about policy or personnel, and
32:49
Speaker 1: everybody was required to sing and everybody was required to
32:52
Speaker 1: have a lot to drink. One night, Kim jong Il
32:55
Speaker 1: invited a local art troop to one of these parties,
32:59
Speaker 1: the sude Ar Troupe, which is a prestigious performing arts
33:03
Speaker 1: group in North Korea, and he was immediately smitten by
33:07
Speaker 1: the group's star dancer. She's on the cover of record
33:11
Speaker 1: albums that they would put out and traveled around Japan.
33:14
Speaker 1: So Kim jong Il invited the dance troupe back again
33:17
Speaker 1: and again just to watch the same woman perform. After
33:23
Speaker 1: each performance, he invited her to sit beside him. Sometimes
33:27
Speaker 1: he'd even go to their rehearsals to watch her practice.
33:31
Speaker 1: Her name was Cool Yong He, and sometime around she
33:39
Speaker 1: began missing dance practice. Rumors swirled among the dancers that
33:44
Speaker 1: she was pregnant, and soon she was living in the
33:50
Speaker 1: Royal Palace with Kim Jong Il is the third or
33:56
Speaker 1: fourth wife of Kim Jong Ill and my wife. These
34:00
Speaker 1: people were never officially married. These are more like royal consorts.
34:05
Speaker 1: These are women that Kim jong Ill established households with.
34:09
Speaker 1: Like Kim jong Il's previous relationship, this one was also
34:14
Speaker 1: a little scandalous in North Korea's cast system. This new
34:19
Speaker 1: woman was the lowest of the low. Her father had
34:23
Speaker 1: worked for the Japanese Army, North Korea's sworn enemy. But
34:28
Speaker 1: none of this matter to Kim jong Ill. He loved
34:32
Speaker 1: her and she was carrying a baby, a boy, what
34:36
Speaker 1: would be his second son. So he gave her her
34:40
Speaker 1: own home, and Changill started an entirely new household, one
34:46
Speaker 1: that lived completely separated from Kim jong Nam's wing of
34:49
Speaker 1: the family. And with that, an unspoken feud flared between
34:56
Speaker 1: the two branches of Kim's one that would go on
34:59
Speaker 1: for decades to come. But for the young Kim jong Nam,
35:04
Speaker 1: it was his father's divided attention that took the biggest toll.
35:09
Speaker 1: He saw less of Kim Jong Il and grew closer
35:13
Speaker 1: with his aunts and uncles. He started feeling increasingly alienated
35:18
Speaker 1: from his father, so Kim jong Nam's minders made a decision.
35:24
Speaker 1: It was time to give the boy a new environment.
35:28
Speaker 1: He couldn't live as a secret anymore. He had to
35:32
Speaker 1: see the world. The family of Kim jong The family
35:36
Speaker 1: of Kim jong Nam convinced Kim Jong Ill that Kim
35:40
Speaker 1: jong Nam needs to get a proper education in a
35:43
Speaker 1: school setting. He can't do it in North Korea because
35:46
Speaker 1: you have to keep the leader standard secret. So they
35:48
Speaker 1: convinced Kim Jong Ill that Kim jong Nam should study abroad,
35:52
Speaker 1: and the first stop is Switzerland. This decision, however, would
35:57
Speaker 1: do nothing to improve Kim jong Nam's relation ship with
36:00
Speaker 1: his father. In fact, Cheng Nam would feel even more
36:04
Speaker 1: forgotten neglected. He was motherless, he had one childhood friend
36:10
Speaker 1: to his name, and now he was living thousands of
36:14
Speaker 1: miles away from home. And for the first time in
36:17
Speaker 1: his life, the firstborn heir to the Peck two dynasty
36:22
Speaker 1: began to feel something, something he had been taught to
36:26
Speaker 1: suppress all his life, resentment for his father. I can
36:33
Speaker 1: just paraphrase what he said, which was that when I
36:36
Speaker 1: left for switzerlandon my father replaced me with his new family,
36:40
Speaker 1: and that was pretty devastating. Little did Kim jong Nam, no,
36:46
Speaker 1: But that's exactly what his father's new mistress wanted because
36:51
Speaker 1: in she gave birth to another boy. His name was
36:58
Speaker 1: Kim Jong un. And even though these boys were still
37:02
Speaker 1: too young to even comprehend running a country, Koyong he
37:07
Speaker 1: knew that Kim Jong nam stood in the way of
37:10
Speaker 1: her children's path to the throne, and she would do
37:16
Speaker 1: anything to clear it. Next time on Big Brother, we
37:24
Speaker 1: dive deeper into how manipulative mothers drove two young boys
37:28
Speaker 1: to scramble for their father's affection, leading to a ruthless
37:33
Speaker 1: race to become North Korea's successor. Big Brother is a
37:40
Speaker 1: production of School of Humans and I Heart Radio and
37:43
Speaker 1: hosted by me Eden Lee Lucas. Riley is our writer,
37:47
Speaker 1: co director and associate producer. Amelia Brock is our senior producer,
37:51
Speaker 1: co director and editor. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
37:56
Speaker 1: Elci Crowley, and Jason English. Our fact checker is Aaron Blakemore.
38:01
Speaker 1: Music composed by Jason Todd Shannon and Tunewalders. Original score
38:06
Speaker 1: mixed by Vick Stafford. Our opening song is Adi Dang
38:09
Speaker 1: Fantasy arranged by Choice Hongwan As performed by the New
38:13
Speaker 1: York Philharmonic licensed from euro Arts Music International. Audio editing
38:19
Speaker 1: by Jesse nice Swanger, Sound design and mixed by Harper W. Harris.
38:23
Speaker 1: Audio correction by Josh Fisher. Voice acting by Mike Coscarelli,
38:28
Speaker 1: June you In and Sage Kim Gray. Special thanks to
38:33
Speaker 1: Ryan Murdoch and Will Pearson. Sound licensed from Critical Past.
38:38
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying the podcast, help us get the word
38:41
Speaker 1: out by leaving a rating in your favorite podcast app.
38:44
Speaker 1: Until next time, I'm even Lee School of Humans