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Deadly Agents · Big Brother: North Korea’s Forgotten Prince

0:00
Speaker 1: H four days before his execution, Changsung Tex sat inside
0:12
Speaker 1: the Mansuda Assembly Hall behind a wood paneled desk, flanked
0:16
Speaker 1: by hundreds of his fellow politicians and bureaucrats. Seated before
0:21
Speaker 1: him behind an ornately carved ais was his nephew and
0:26
Speaker 1: judge Kim Chang n Aschangue fidgeted in his chair, the
0:32
Speaker 1: Polite euro issued its judgment to pretended to uphold the
0:37
Speaker 1: party and leader was engrossed in such factional antists, dreaming
0:42
Speaker 1: different dreams and involving himself in double dealing. Behind the scene,
0:48
Speaker 1: Tongue looked sullen. Two soldiers approached him, grabbed him up
0:53
Speaker 1: by the elbows, and escorted him out of the room.
0:57
Speaker 1: The sixty seven year old official looked hunched and frail,
1:00
Speaker 1: as if on the verge of collapse. Within days he
1:05
Speaker 1: would be dead. The so called dreams and double dealings
1:10
Speaker 1: Uncle Tongue committed were never specified. All we know is
1:15
Speaker 1: that Kim jong nun considered him a threat, and some
1:19
Speaker 1: believe Kim jong nam factored into his death sentence. Chang
1:25
Speaker 1: Song Tech clearly had a favorite nephew. He and Kim
1:29
Speaker 1: jong nam spoke on the phone regularly and shared common
1:32
Speaker 1: goals for the country. Chang reportedly wired money to his
1:36
Speaker 1: nephew and Macao. Some murmured that Change was hoping to
1:41
Speaker 1: install Kim jong Nam as the next leader. Others suggested
1:46
Speaker 1: that China was providing security for Kim jong Nam as
1:49
Speaker 1: a favorite to Uncle Change as a thank you for
1:52
Speaker 1: his Chinese friendly policies. Few know what conversations were had
1:57
Speaker 1: in Beijing, but rumors have swirled China was taking a
2:01
Speaker 1: close look at Kim jong Nam just in case the
2:04
Speaker 1: incumbent leader needed to be well replaced. Kim Jong Nam
2:10
Speaker 1: was an obvious choice for that, because you know, he's
2:14
Speaker 1: known to be quite friendly to China. He was somebody
2:17
Speaker 1: I think that China felt could be counted on and
2:21
Speaker 1: was beholden to them, And that is why I think
2:24
Speaker 1: he was living in Macau as well, a Chinese terror ary,
2:28
Speaker 1: a place where he could come and go easily, but
2:30
Speaker 1: under the protection of China. Even if China provided Kim
2:34
Speaker 1: jong Nam with security, it didn't provide much support financially,
2:39
Speaker 1: because shortly after Uncle Tang was dispatched from this planet
2:43
Speaker 1: with anti aircraft guns. No less, Kim Jong Nam's lavish
2:48
Speaker 1: lifestyle began to flounder. The man who was accustomed to
2:52
Speaker 1: staying at five star hotels and oceanside villas was now
2:56
Speaker 1: desperately reserving airbnbs. Another former school friend of Kim Jong
3:03
Speaker 1: Nam told me that Kim jong Nam seem to have
3:05
Speaker 1: been kind of cut off from the regime finances once
3:08
Speaker 1: Kim Jong Nun took over. For reasons that aren't clear,
3:12
Speaker 1: the revenue stream Kim jong Nam had secured running his
3:15
Speaker 1: gambling sites may have dried up. He was clearly working
3:20
Speaker 1: for a living, working for himself, and making money for himself.
3:25
Speaker 1: In the final years of his life. With Uncle Chang dead,
3:28
Speaker 1: Kim jong Nam became increasingly desperate for cash, and just
3:33
Speaker 1: days before his assassination in February, he took one of
3:37
Speaker 1: the biggest risks of his life, apparently in a bid
3:41
Speaker 1: to make much needed money. He flew to Malaysia, away
3:46
Speaker 1: from the protection of his Chinese minders, and visited Langkawi,
3:50
Speaker 1: an archipelago known for its serene, palm dazzled islands, white
3:54
Speaker 1: sandy beaches, and turquoise waters. During his stay at a
3:59
Speaker 1: Western hotel hell on Langkawee, security footage would catch Kim
4:03
Speaker 1: jong Nam backpack and tow meeting a suspicious stranger. So
4:09
Speaker 1: some of the last footage of Kim jong Nam showed
4:11
Speaker 1: him in a hotel elevator with a man of Asian ethnicity.
4:18
Speaker 1: The man's identity is a mystery, but according to South
4:22
Speaker 1: Korea's intelligence agency, the man was not some childhood friend
4:27
Speaker 1: from Switzerland, nor a friendly comrade from back home, nor
4:31
Speaker 1: even one of Kim jong Nam's gambling clients. He was
4:35
Speaker 1: American and he worked for the c I A I'm
4:43
Speaker 1: even lee. In this episode, we delve into the twisted
4:47
Speaker 1: relationship between Kim jong Nam, the United States and North Korea,
4:53
Speaker 1: and a big question was Kim jong Nam an American asset?
4:58
Speaker 1: And it's so did the US government know what could
5:03
Speaker 1: happen to him? The regime has every interest to keep
5:07
Speaker 1: tabs on his brother. North Korea has chemical weapons capability,
5:12
Speaker 1: but the willingness to use UH is there. Kim jong
5:17
Speaker 1: Nam had been acting as an informant to the CIA,
5:20
Speaker 1: giving them information what he knew about Kim Jong Lan
5:24
Speaker 1: and the regime. This is big brother in North Korea.
5:36
Speaker 1: There may be no worse crime than working with or
5:39
Speaker 1: being sympathetic to the Americans. And that's because the United
5:45
Speaker 1: States in North Korea's eyes is public Enemy No. One.
5:50
Speaker 1: The DPRK's behavior, it's obsession with weapons of mass destruction,
5:55
Speaker 1: it's devotion to military first policy, even the way it
6:00
Speaker 1: killed Kim Jong Nam, all tied into the country's tense
6:03
Speaker 1: relationship with the US. But to understand why, we have
6:09
Speaker 1: to go back to June the outbreak of the Korean War.
6:19
Speaker 1: I would say, with just the slightest exaggeration, that the
6:24
Speaker 1: Korean War launched modern international history. As Dr Lee explains,
6:31
Speaker 1: the Korean War transformed the United Nations from a paper
6:35
Speaker 1: organization into a global force. It's why American troops are
6:40
Speaker 1: stationed at basis in more than seventy foreign countries, and
6:44
Speaker 1: it deepened the tensions that would come to define the
6:46
Speaker 1: Cold War. The Korean War was deeply consequential, and yet
6:52
Speaker 1: the conflict would be largely hidden from the American public.
6:56
Speaker 1: The Korean War has long been dubbed in the United
6:59
Speaker 1: States It's as the Forgotten War. But for the five
7:03
Speaker 1: hundred thousand Korean War veterans still alive today from the
7:08
Speaker 1: various countries that fought in it, very little has been forgotten,
7:13
Speaker 1: especially in Korea. The war touched upon the lives of
7:18
Speaker 1: the vast majority of the people in both South Korea
7:23
Speaker 1: and North Korea in a tragic negative way. Virtually every
7:29
Speaker 1: Korean had a family member or relative who was maimed
7:33
Speaker 1: or killed or lost. Over fifteen percent of North Korean
7:37
Speaker 1: civilians were sacrificed, ten million people probably displaced from home,
7:44
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of orphans. So the death toll and
7:49
Speaker 1: the suffering, and it's one relevant factor metric, of course,
7:54
Speaker 1: But of course that doesn't tell the entire story. That
7:58
Speaker 1: entire story really it's with the indiscriminate splitting of the
8:02
Speaker 1: Korean peninsula at the thirty eighth parallel, the line dividing
8:05
Speaker 1: North and South. So late night on August tenth, the
8:10
Speaker 1: United States came up with a plan for temporarily dividing
8:15
Speaker 1: Korea at the halfway the midway point at the thirty
8:18
Speaker 1: eighth parallel, to block further advancement of the Soviet troops.
8:24
Speaker 1: So this was a proposal submitted by the United States
8:27
Speaker 1: to stalin North and South Korea. In other words, were
8:32
Speaker 1: inventions of other nations. No Koreans had a seat at
8:36
Speaker 1: the table when their homeland was divided. The haphazard manner
8:40
Speaker 1: in which the partitioning of the Korean Peninsula came to
8:44
Speaker 1: take place is a source of ire for the people
8:48
Speaker 1: of Korea, but the initially the intention was to say
8:53
Speaker 1: at least half a loaf half of the Korean peninsula,
8:56
Speaker 1: to put South Korea under the U s fere influence.
9:01
Speaker 1: The line, however, was not something Koreans on either side
9:05
Speaker 1: recognized culturally or politically, so the United States and Soviet
9:10
Speaker 1: Union made a promise the division would be temporary. In
9:17
Speaker 1: the United Nations tried to erase the dividing line and
9:20
Speaker 1: unite the peninsula under one government with an election, but
9:24
Speaker 1: when it came time to vote, the Soviet Union refused
9:28
Speaker 1: to let the UN Commission cross into North Korea. Locked
9:32
Speaker 1: out of the North, the UN decided to hold assembly
9:35
Speaker 1: elections anyway, but only in the South, and with that
9:40
Speaker 1: the government of South Korea was officially established and any
9:45
Speaker 1: chance of uniting the peninsula peacefully vanished. And then two
9:51
Speaker 1: years later, in June fifty, the Korean War began. Under
9:57
Speaker 1: the strangest of circumstances, Koreans invaded Korea with the goal
10:05
Speaker 1: of unifying Korea. There's no doubt who started it, Kimils
10:11
Speaker 1: Hung and the communist North, but American officials refused to
10:16
Speaker 1: believe the North Korean leader was actually responsible. When news
10:21
Speaker 1: of the North Korean invasion of South Korea broke, President
10:26
Speaker 1: Truman himself almost immediately decided to take action due to
10:32
Speaker 1: a misreading of the situation. Do you too seeing North
10:38
Speaker 1: Korea's invasion of the South as Stalin and Mao's ploy
10:46
Speaker 1: viewing the North Korean leader Kim Is Sung as a
10:48
Speaker 1: mere puppet to Stalin and Mao. In fact, the high
10:53
Speaker 1: ranking State Department official said that the relationship between Stalin
10:58
Speaker 1: and Kimmi Sung is exactly the same as that between
11:02
Speaker 1: Won't Disney and Donald Duck. Kimi Song is not his
11:06
Speaker 1: own man, and Stalin is pulling the strings. In an
11:10
Speaker 1: effort to beat back the attack, the United Nations pour
11:14
Speaker 1: troops into the peninsula, both what out of misreading the situation.
11:21
Speaker 1: Within weeks, North Korea had nearly taken over the entire
11:25
Speaker 1: South Korean peninsula, But with the backing of the U
11:29
Speaker 1: n the South Korean military would soon receive international support.
11:35
Speaker 1: Sixteen countries, including Turkey and Ethiopia, deployed military troops. Thirty
11:41
Speaker 1: nine other countries gave financial and material support, but it
11:45
Speaker 1: was the United States that provided the bulk of foreign
11:49
Speaker 1: manpower and weaponry. The U n Forces, led by General
11:53
Speaker 1: Douglas MacArthur, slowly began to beat back the Northern invasion.
11:59
Speaker 1: Only five is removed from World War Two. American officials
12:03
Speaker 1: chose a playbook that had successfully repelled Imperial japan air power.
12:13
Speaker 1: The air force weaken the North Korean advance by targeting
12:16
Speaker 1: the military's rear, disabling the chain of troops in charge
12:20
Speaker 1: of supplying the front with AMMO, gasoline, and food. They
12:24
Speaker 1: also heavily targeted North Korean cities. This strategy, while effective,
12:30
Speaker 1: would lead to the most destructive bombing campaign in military history.
12:35
Speaker 1: As the U. S Secretary of Defense, Robert Lovett explained,
12:38
Speaker 1: we keep on tearing the place apart, we can make
12:40
Speaker 1: a most unpopular fair for the North Koreans. We ought
12:43
Speaker 1: to go right ahead. The extent of the bombing was unimaginable.
12:49
Speaker 1: North Korea was flattened. More than five percent of the
12:53
Speaker 1: country's buildings were destroyed. Some cities, like sina Ju, were
12:58
Speaker 1: transformed into rubble. American pilots also targeted irrigation dans that
13:04
Speaker 1: have provided water for three quarters of the country's crops,
13:08
Speaker 1: flood waters destroyed squads of farmland. Suffering ensued. With their
13:14
Speaker 1: cities gone, millions of North Koreans resorted to living underground,
13:20
Speaker 1: and the hell fire continued. With a new lethal innovation
13:25
Speaker 1: that had been tested in World War Two, but now
13:28
Speaker 1: in the Korean War, made its real debut, napalm. This
13:37
Speaker 1: is what an a pound bomb does. When it hits,
13:39
Speaker 1: it's searing flames spreads four hundreds of feet. The infantrymen
13:43
Speaker 1: then take over and advance at the crucial rate, despite
13:46
Speaker 1: the pounding of red buckers. It is a harrowing foot
13:48
Speaker 1: by foot operation. Deep in their trenches. There are still
13:51
Speaker 1: plenty of the enemy and after to pour fire into
13:53
Speaker 1: the attackers, but the flamethrower silence system at a smoke
13:57
Speaker 1: screen masks the attack. Grim is the word for Korea.
14:04
Speaker 1: Napalm charred the countryside and the people in it. From
14:09
Speaker 1: June to October, the US would drop more than eight
14:14
Speaker 1: hundred sixty six thousand gallons of napalm on North Korea.
14:18
Speaker 1: By the war's end, more napalm was dropped on the
14:22
Speaker 1: DPRK than any other nation in history. Vietnam included to
14:29
Speaker 1: be clear, we're not trying to stoke sympathy for the
14:32
Speaker 1: North Korean regime, nor to excuse the terrible atrocities that
14:36
Speaker 1: has committed both during a war it started and in
14:39
Speaker 1: the decades since. But the widespread bombing of North Korea
14:43
Speaker 1: is vital to understanding the country's attitude toward the United States,
14:48
Speaker 1: because while the Korean War might be forgotten in the US,
14:52
Speaker 1: in the DPRK, the air bombardment is taught in every
14:56
Speaker 1: school today. Most of North Korea as anti American propaganda
15:02
Speaker 1: is built on easily disproved lies. But the difficult truth
15:06
Speaker 1: is that the foundation the spark for much of this
15:10
Speaker 1: anti americanism, according to journalist Blaine Harden, is quote rooted
15:15
Speaker 1: in a fact based narrative, one that North Korea obsessively remembers.
15:21
Speaker 1: That lingering resentment is just one of many unintended consequences.
15:27
Speaker 1: Another is North Korea's obsession with weapons of mass destruction.
15:33
Speaker 1: Because in late n the U N Forces did more
15:36
Speaker 1: than just repel North Korean attacks. They cross the thirty
15:40
Speaker 1: eighth parallel with the goal of unifying Korea for the South.
15:46
Speaker 1: But on the other side, a goliath was waiting. China
15:51
Speaker 1: kept issuing threats. If you enter North Korean territory. If
15:55
Speaker 1: you approach our border, we will fight you. We will
15:59
Speaker 1: send true and MacArthur dismissed those Chinese threats as just
16:04
Speaker 1: empty threats. But MacArthur was wrong. China did step in
16:10
Speaker 1: not wanting Western soldiers anywhere near its border. China would
16:14
Speaker 1: send more than three million people to North Korea's aid.
16:18
Speaker 1: General Douglas MacArthur, who believed he could win the war
16:22
Speaker 1: with quote one hand tied behind his back, argued that
16:26
Speaker 1: the best way to cut off the Chinese advance was
16:29
Speaker 1: to drop nuclear weapons in Korea. I visualize a cul
16:33
Speaker 1: de sac. I see here a unique use for the
16:36
Speaker 1: atomic bomb to strike a blocking blow at the Pentagon.
16:41
Speaker 1: The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff rejected MacArthur's proposal,
16:46
Speaker 1: but MacArthur pushed and pushed and pushed again. He'd request
16:52
Speaker 1: a total of twenty six atomic bombs, and although those
16:57
Speaker 1: requests were denied, he would remain a shameless advocate for
17:01
Speaker 1: nuclear attack. I would have dropped between thirty and fifty
17:04
Speaker 1: atomic bombs strung across the neck of Manchuria. The bomb
17:09
Speaker 1: wasn't MacArthur's only go to. He also suggested releasing chemical weapons.
17:15
Speaker 1: Arguing that the military should spread radioactive waste across the border,
17:21
Speaker 1: creating a chemical fence that would keep Communist ground troops
17:24
Speaker 1: barricaded up North. Instead, President Harry Truman would fire him
17:29
Speaker 1: for in subordination, but MacArthur's replacement, General Matthew Ridgeway, was
17:35
Speaker 1: also a fan of nuclear weapons. He would request thirty
17:39
Speaker 1: eight atomic bombs. The Pentagon did not approve. It did, however,
17:45
Speaker 1: later approve of request from the Joint chiefs of Staff, who,
17:49
Speaker 1: according to Korean war scholar Bruce Cummings, ordered quote atomic
17:54
Speaker 1: retaliation against Manchurion bases if large numbers of new troops
17:58
Speaker 1: came into fighting. By ninette, the possibility of a nuclear
18:04
Speaker 1: attack on North Korea seemed so inevitable that Air Force
18:08
Speaker 1: pilots started flying practice runs dropping dummy bombs on would
18:12
Speaker 1: be targets. By the time the armistice was signed in
18:16
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three, with both sides effectively agreeing to a stalemate,
18:21
Speaker 1: North Korean civilians and leaders were paranoid about the threat
18:25
Speaker 1: of nuclear annihilation, and that paranoia would only grow. By
18:31
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, the United States was storing approximately nine
18:35
Speaker 1: hundred fifty nuclear warheads in South Korea. The United States
18:40
Speaker 1: removed the last of these weapons from the peninsula, but
18:45
Speaker 1: to this day, submarines and stations nearby provide a so
18:50
Speaker 1: called nuclear umbrella, and that fact has fueled North Korea's
18:56
Speaker 1: decision making. It isn't irrational for North kore you to
19:00
Speaker 1: think it might need um greater security. That again is
19:04
Speaker 1: Jenny Town of the Simpsons Center. The nuclear attack is possible,
19:09
Speaker 1: they don't rule it out. It's you know, during the
19:12
Speaker 1: Korean War, UM, the US did threaten to use nuclear weapons,
19:17
Speaker 1: and there have been in the past US nuclear weapons,
19:20
Speaker 1: you know, stationed in South Korea, and there is the
19:23
Speaker 1: US nuclear umbrella, right, So there are reasons. It's a
19:27
Speaker 1: small country in the middle of economic and political giants, um,
19:33
Speaker 1: and it's a country that doesn't necessarily have any real allies,
19:38
Speaker 1: you know, it has a relationship with the Chinese, relationship
19:42
Speaker 1: with the Russians. Doesn't really trust that, you know, in
19:45
Speaker 1: the case of something happening, not really. And you're looking
19:49
Speaker 1: at a nuclear dense region as well, right, China has
19:53
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons, Russia has nuclear weapons, US has nuclear weapons,
19:57
Speaker 1: and South Korea and Japan have nuclear weapons by default,
20:00
Speaker 1: So there is a sense of insecurity that drives a
20:05
Speaker 1: lot of their decisions. The North Koreans look at the
20:08
Speaker 1: history um and especially you know from the Korean War
20:12
Speaker 1: on and say that it's possible, no matter where you
20:17
Speaker 1: go in Korea, North or South, you cannot escape the
20:21
Speaker 1: dynamics created by the Korean War and the antagonistic relationship
20:26
Speaker 1: that followed. It's one of the reasons North Korea is
20:30
Speaker 1: constantly rattling its saber, trying to look tough. It's one
20:35
Speaker 1: of the reasons Kimill's hung embraced che later investing obscene
20:39
Speaker 1: portions of his country's GDP to build up one of
20:42
Speaker 1: the world's largest militaries. And it's why North Korea has
20:46
Speaker 1: worked so hard to develop its own deterrent, a deterrent
20:51
Speaker 1: that Kim jong nam was well aware of because remember
20:56
Speaker 1: his rendezvous in Langkawee, Malaysia. A few days after that
21:01
Speaker 1: hotel meeting with an American spy, Kim Jong Nam would
21:05
Speaker 1: try to leave the country with multiple vials of an
21:07
Speaker 1: antidote designed to combat the toxic nerve agent v X.
21:13
Speaker 1: Kim Jong Nam knew something, and that's this. When Western
21:18
Speaker 1: Powers began installing nuclear weapons in South Korea, the DPRK,
21:24
Speaker 1: then two Poor to counteract the arsenal with atomic bombs
21:27
Speaker 1: of its own, came up with a strategy one they
21:32
Speaker 1: believed that could neuter the US is atomic power. North
21:37
Speaker 1: Korea would build a stockpile of chemical weapons so large
21:41
Speaker 1: it could end all human life as we know it,
21:45
Speaker 1: and North Korea wouldn't be afraid to use it. In
22:02
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, as blood and bombs spilled over the
22:06
Speaker 1: Korean Peninsula, chemists in the United Kingdom were waging a
22:11
Speaker 1: very different kind of battle against insects. The pesticide industry
22:18
Speaker 1: was booming and Dr Ron J. Ghosh, a chemist working
22:22
Speaker 1: for Imperial Chemical Industries in gelts Hill, England, was looking
22:26
Speaker 1: for chemicals that could kill common pests, specifically mits. Ghost
22:32
Speaker 1: was directed to look closely at secret research on a
22:35
Speaker 1: group of toxic pesticides called g agents, which have been
22:39
Speaker 1: developed by German scientists during the nineteen thirties. Glos went
22:43
Speaker 1: to work, and in nineteen fifty two, at the height
22:46
Speaker 1: of the Korean War, he and a fellow chemist named J. F. Newman,
22:51
Speaker 1: discovered a substance an organo phosphate esther of substitute amino
22:56
Speaker 1: ethiol called Amaton. The men celebrated the discovery. Ghost was
23:03
Speaker 1: convinced he had found the pesticide to end all pesticides.
23:08
Speaker 1: Advertisers believed it too. By Amaton was being marketed across
23:15
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom as the next great bug killer, but
23:20
Speaker 1: within three years it would be pulled off the shelves.
23:24
Speaker 1: Turns out Amaton was much more than an insecticide. It
23:30
Speaker 1: was a nerve agent. So Ghosh went back to work.
23:35
Speaker 1: He continued trying to turn the Nazi G agents into
23:38
Speaker 1: effective and safe pesticides, but every time he attempted to
23:43
Speaker 1: discover a less toxic substance, he failed. In fact, each
23:48
Speaker 1: new advancement seemed to make the G agents more toxic.
23:55
Speaker 1: The most noxious, most deadly, most terrified rying agent Ghosh
24:01
Speaker 1: concocted would be so potent that only a few milligrams
24:05
Speaker 1: were needed to kill a human. It would be named
24:10
Speaker 1: Venomous Agent X. Today it's just called v X. And
24:20
Speaker 1: that is where our stories collide. Because during the Korean War,
24:26
Speaker 1: as American planes rain bombs and bullets on North Korean cities,
24:30
Speaker 1: Kimilsung directed his military to build a labyrinth of underground
24:34
Speaker 1: tunnels and bunkers for protection. North Korea hasn't stopped digging
24:39
Speaker 1: since you might remember our friend historian Benjamin Young. They
24:43
Speaker 1: remembered the years of the US air bombardment, and so
24:48
Speaker 1: there's a reason why North Korea has built so many
24:50
Speaker 1: of its military facilities under the ground, in mountainous ravines,
24:56
Speaker 1: under mountains. They have a massive tunnel system. So North
25:01
Speaker 1: Korea's history has made it into this very deeply paranoid,
25:07
Speaker 1: almost subterranean system. Today, it's estimated that North Korea has
25:12
Speaker 1: up to fifteen thousand underground layers acting as aircraft hangars,
25:18
Speaker 1: material depots, and weapons storage facilities. It's believed the majority
25:24
Speaker 1: of the country's military supplies are protected by these underground bunkers.
25:29
Speaker 1: I think that one day, perhaps the regime will collapse
25:33
Speaker 1: and we'll go then and we'll see just how huge
25:36
Speaker 1: their tunnel system was underneath the ground, and just how
25:40
Speaker 1: prepared they were for any sort of airbombardment. And that
25:44
Speaker 1: might be one of the secrets that Kim Jong nam
25:46
Speaker 1: was harboring as the son of the dear leader. He
25:49
Speaker 1: knew that these underground cities held North Korea's war chests
25:52
Speaker 1: of chemical weapons, including what maybe the largest stockpile of
25:58
Speaker 1: VX nerve agent in the world. Today, North Koreas cash
26:04
Speaker 1: of chemical weapons is the world's third largest, lagging behind
26:08
Speaker 1: only the US and Russia. The country is home to
26:11
Speaker 1: at least eleven chemical weapons facilities, almost all of them
26:15
Speaker 1: buried underground, that may produce and store up to five
26:19
Speaker 1: thousand metric tons of these deadly agents. But truth be told,
26:24
Speaker 1: nobody certain how much they really have. North Korea has
26:29
Speaker 1: um you know, chemical weapons capability, the extent of which
26:32
Speaker 1: we don't really know, but the willingness to use uh
26:36
Speaker 1: is there. We do, however, have a good idea of
26:40
Speaker 1: what's in North Korea's stockpile. Anthrax, smallpox, amaton, mustard, gas saren,
26:50
Speaker 1: the plague, and yes, VX agent, all of which are
26:57
Speaker 1: ready for their neighbors to the south or anyone else
27:01
Speaker 1: who messes with them near their turf. North Korea has
27:05
Speaker 1: the capability of attaching you know, chemical weapons, even to
27:08
Speaker 1: their short range ballistic missiles. Chemill Song was right to
27:12
Speaker 1: bet on chemical weapons. Chemical missiles are cheaper and potentially
27:18
Speaker 1: more lethal than nuclear warheads. It would only take one
27:22
Speaker 1: gallon of anthrax to end all human life. Indeed, for decades,
27:29
Speaker 1: this chemical stockpile has been a remarkable deterrent and a
27:34
Speaker 1: threatening bargaining chip. The US won't use its nukes because
27:39
Speaker 1: that would compel the North to release its chemical weapons,
27:42
Speaker 1: and the North won't use its chemical weapons because that
27:45
Speaker 1: would compel the US to use its nukes. It's led
27:49
Speaker 1: to a strategic standoff, a menacing game of chicken that
27:53
Speaker 1: allows North Korea to act belligerent lee with few consequences.
27:59
Speaker 1: Anything else would be catastrophic. In the n nineties, the
28:05
Speaker 1: Pentagon calculated the cost of a pre emptive strike on
28:08
Speaker 1: North Korea. The results suggested that an attack would cost
28:13
Speaker 1: the US more than a trillion dollars and require at
28:16
Speaker 1: least a hundred thousand body bags just for American troops alone.
28:21
Speaker 1: The potential loss of life in a second Korean conflict
28:25
Speaker 1: is you know, millions of people. You have. You have
28:28
Speaker 1: to remember that Soul the capital of South Korea. It's
28:32
Speaker 1: only thirty miles away from the d m z Um
28:35
Speaker 1: and about a quarter of the population lives there. Um
28:37
Speaker 1: The response time that it takes to defend Soul and
28:41
Speaker 1: the amount of damage that can be done very quickly
28:45
Speaker 1: is enormously high. This standoff has done more than preserved
28:48
Speaker 1: North Korea's existence. It's been a boon to the country's economy.
28:53
Speaker 1: It essentially uses weapons of mass destruction to extort foreign
28:58
Speaker 1: countries into lifting ancients. It's also a valuable export. These
29:04
Speaker 1: chemical weapons can be shipped rogue nations and terrorist groups.
29:09
Speaker 1: North Korea never really admits to having chemical weapons are
29:12
Speaker 1: actually using it. That again is Sue Kim, our ex
29:16
Speaker 1: CIA analyst. But we know that it's actually tried to
29:22
Speaker 1: transfer chemical weapons to other countries. It's got the technology
29:25
Speaker 1: and equipment, so it should be a concern. In fact,
29:29
Speaker 1: we know that North Korea exported chemical equipment to Syria
29:34
Speaker 1: coincidentally around the same time Syrian President Bashar al Assad
29:39
Speaker 1: was gassing his own citizens. Meanwhile, in the US, there's
29:44
Speaker 1: practically no VX at all in accordance with the Chemical
29:49
Speaker 1: Weapons Convention in agreement North Korea disregards the United States
29:54
Speaker 1: has destroyed almost all of its stock of VX. Today,
29:59
Speaker 1: one of America's largest collections of VX rockets. It's resting
30:03
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the ocean, just off the coast
30:06
Speaker 1: of Atlantic City, New Jersey. All of that's to say,
30:11
Speaker 1: while North Korea is nuclear weapons get most of the attention.
30:15
Speaker 1: Perhaps it's time the country's chemical arsenal commands more of
30:18
Speaker 1: our scrutiny. We do talk constantly about the came regime's
30:23
Speaker 1: missile development, the provocations and those are all of course
30:27
Speaker 1: valid um incredible security concerns, but the chemical warfare component
30:33
Speaker 1: um the cyber components, I think are just as deadly
30:38
Speaker 1: and in some cases even more deadly. The chemical weapons
30:44
Speaker 1: in combination with the ballistic missiles, can lead to, I
30:50
Speaker 1: would say, much more broader, far reaching implications than the
30:55
Speaker 1: time to think. Because of this perception that Earth crews backwards,
30:58
Speaker 1: because it's it's poor, because weird has a funny looking reader,
31:01
Speaker 1: we tend to sort of dismiss a lot of these
31:05
Speaker 1: serious developments. I think it's an advantage for North Korea
31:08
Speaker 1: to play this on all the while developing so many
31:13
Speaker 1: lethal options later to threaten the international community to use it,
31:18
Speaker 1: or to actually do try to use it. As the
31:21
Speaker 1: world found out in It's exactly the kind of weaponry
31:26
Speaker 1: one might use too quickly and silently kill a target
31:30
Speaker 1: in a very public place. Over the course of this podcast,
31:48
Speaker 1: we've gone over a plethora of theories of who killed
31:51
Speaker 1: Kim Jong nam and why was it Kim Jongan ensuring
31:56
Speaker 1: his throne wouldn't be jeopardized. Was it North Korea and
32:00
Speaker 1: elites with an eye on his money making software. Was
32:03
Speaker 1: it someone else in the regime who was threatened by
32:07
Speaker 1: his reform minded ideas To be honest, It may not
32:11
Speaker 1: just be one, because Kim jong Nam had evaded death before.
32:17
Speaker 1: In the early two thousand's, somebody masterminded a plot to
32:21
Speaker 1: kill him in Austria, but that, as you may remember,
32:25
Speaker 1: was thwarted, and in shortly after Kim Jongan was annointed successor,
32:32
Speaker 1: a North Korean spy paid a Chinese taxi driver to
32:36
Speaker 1: run over Kim jong Nam with his car. The hit
32:40
Speaker 1: and run failed, and in after Yoji Komi published his
32:45
Speaker 1: tell all book, Kim jong Nam reportedly dodged another attack,
32:50
Speaker 1: the details of which are murky, but according to South
32:54
Speaker 1: Korean intelligence, the exiled prince was so distressed that he
32:58
Speaker 1: wrote a letter to his brother pleading for his life.
33:03
Speaker 1: Please withdraw the order to punish me and my family.
33:06
Speaker 1: We have nowhere to hide. The only way to escape
33:10
Speaker 1: is to choose suicide. No matter who was trying to
33:14
Speaker 1: kill him, Kim jong Nam knew the bucks stopped with
33:17
Speaker 1: his brother. It seems Kim jong N didn't listen, and
33:23
Speaker 1: after Chang Song Tech was killed, North Korean spies apparently
33:27
Speaker 1: began tailing Kim jong Nam's movements. Even if Kim jong
33:32
Speaker 1: Nam wanted to divorce himself from all of his connections
33:37
Speaker 1: in North Korea, it's not up to him. The regime
33:40
Speaker 1: that the Kim jong N leadership has every interest to
33:43
Speaker 1: keep tabs on this this brother one because of course
33:47
Speaker 1: he was family, and too because of the potential threat
33:52
Speaker 1: that he would pose to Kim jong N as the leader.
33:56
Speaker 1: But actions, of course, can have unintended consequences, just as
34:00
Speaker 1: the U. S air bombardment and nuclear weapons inadvertently encouraged
34:04
Speaker 1: North Korea to build tunnels and beef up on chemical weapons,
34:08
Speaker 1: cutting off Kim jong nam slash fund had unexpected results too.
34:13
Speaker 1: Kim jong Nam needed money. According to the Washington Post,
34:18
Speaker 1: the circumstances may have quote thrust Kim jong Nam into
34:22
Speaker 1: the arms of foreign intelligence services as he tried to
34:25
Speaker 1: maintain his lifestyle. So a very reliable source obviously can't name,
34:31
Speaker 1: told me that Kim jong Nam had been providing intelligence
34:36
Speaker 1: to the CIA while he was living in exile. I mean,
34:41
Speaker 1: we know that he was having to earn money for himself,
34:45
Speaker 1: that it wasn't the beneficiary of the regime's larges anymore
34:50
Speaker 1: after Kim Jong nun took power. Um, so it stands,
34:54
Speaker 1: you know, it makes sense that he would be having
34:56
Speaker 1: to earn a living, and you know what is his
34:59
Speaker 1: more was unique marketable skill, I guess, is giving intelligence
35:03
Speaker 1: about about Kim jongan and what's going on in North Korea.
35:07
Speaker 1: Journalists at the Wall Street Journal would later corroborate five
35:10
Speaker 1: fields reporting suggesting that Chong Nam occasionally met CIA handlers
35:14
Speaker 1: and undisclosed locations in Malaysia and Singapore. He wasn't an
35:19
Speaker 1: agent or anything like that, but he was providing the
35:21
Speaker 1: information that he had. There have also been multiple reports
35:25
Speaker 1: since then that he was doing the same for South
35:27
Speaker 1: Korea also potentially Japan. To learn more, we prodded deeper
35:33
Speaker 1: with Sue Kim, hoping she'd spill some CIA secrets to us.
35:38
Speaker 1: She was understandably unable to confirm these suspicions. You know,
35:44
Speaker 1: I can't really comment about how the the Intel organizations
35:48
Speaker 1: obtained sources, so I'm not sure if I could help
35:51
Speaker 1: you with this question. But she was able to help
35:54
Speaker 1: provide us with the rationale. If the CIA did hypothetically
35:59
Speaker 1: see gout Tong Num, there would be I would say
36:02
Speaker 1: great value because he has lived inside the country. Um.
36:07
Speaker 1: He is the son of Kim jong so he knows
36:10
Speaker 1: a lot about the system. He knows a lot about
36:12
Speaker 1: his family members. UM. He also knows how North Korea thinks. Um,
36:17
Speaker 1: not just the leadership, but just North Korean. I would say,
36:21
Speaker 1: just the the culture. So there would be a lot
36:24
Speaker 1: of value. And as much as there's a lot of
36:27
Speaker 1: value for foreign intel services, it's going to be an
36:32
Speaker 1: even greater threat for North Korea. We don't know what
36:36
Speaker 1: Kim jong nam told the CIA or how long he
36:39
Speaker 1: worked with them. All we know is that when Kim
36:43
Speaker 1: jongan was announced his successor, intelligence agencies had little information
36:48
Speaker 1: about him. They scramble to learn anything they could, and
36:53
Speaker 1: what better source than his older brother. If the United
36:58
Speaker 1: States for South Korea were able to form relationship with
37:02
Speaker 1: Kim Jong nam, think about how much more vulnerable Kim
37:08
Speaker 1: Jong nan is going to feel about his decision making,
37:11
Speaker 1: about his health, about his interesting quirks. And on the
37:15
Speaker 1: day Kim jong nam met with the suspected CIA agent
37:18
Speaker 1: in Langkawi, he took the man into his hotel room. There,
37:23
Speaker 1: it's believed he shared intelligence from his computer. We know
37:28
Speaker 1: this because days after Kim jong nam died, police found
37:31
Speaker 1: evidence that somebody had extracted extensive amounts of data with
37:35
Speaker 1: the USB drive. Cheng Nam would also try to leave
37:39
Speaker 1: the country with four bricks of cash, each bundle amounting
37:42
Speaker 1: to around thirty dollars, and of course those vials of antidote.
37:48
Speaker 1: Did Kim jong Nam request this his payment or did
37:51
Speaker 1: the CIA offer it as an exchange. Honestly, nobody outside
37:57
Speaker 1: of those involved in the exchange knows, But we do
38:03
Speaker 1: know that Kim Jongan's own spies may have been lurking
38:06
Speaker 1: in the shadows the DPR case seemed to be aware
38:10
Speaker 1: of Toeng Nam's itinerary. It's possible that because they were
38:14
Speaker 1: tailing him, they knew that he was talking to American spies,
38:18
Speaker 1: and if that's true, that would present yet another reason
38:22
Speaker 1: for his half brother to want him out of the picture.
38:26
Speaker 1: The CIA has a history of trying to take down
38:29
Speaker 1: foreign governments. It had tacitly endorsed the overthrow Vietnam's prime minister,
38:35
Speaker 1: had helped organize the downfall of Chile's president, and had
38:39
Speaker 1: plotted to assassinate the Democratic Republic of Congo's first prime
38:42
Speaker 1: minister with a deadly virus, And of course they famously
38:47
Speaker 1: tried and failed to poison Fidel Castro's cigars, So what
38:53
Speaker 1: was stopping the CIA from trying the same with Kim
38:56
Speaker 1: jong un. Sue Kim is wary of how much Tongu
39:00
Speaker 1: Nam's links with the agency might have influenced North Korea's decisions.
39:05
Speaker 1: I think it had much more to do with leadership insecurities.
39:09
Speaker 1: The fact that this this oldest son who was roaming
39:12
Speaker 1: about freely outside North Korea getting to enjoy life, occasionally
39:17
Speaker 1: making these nonchalant comments about the North Korean system, the leadership,
39:23
Speaker 1: and and you know, just being critical about the country.
39:27
Speaker 1: It was not going to be. It wasn't going to
39:29
Speaker 1: reflect well, obviously upon Kim Jongan. North Korea watchers like
39:34
Speaker 1: Michael Madden also questioned whether the CIA connection was really
39:38
Speaker 1: all that significant. In his opinion, the prince was already
39:43
Speaker 1: a marked man. Disregard all of us, disregard all of
39:46
Speaker 1: the stuff about Kim Jong Nam being a source for
39:49
Speaker 1: foreign intelligence. That's just a really nice story for the
39:52
Speaker 1: news media. There'd be other motivations but that begs the question,
39:59
Speaker 1: if there had been so many reasons to kill this
40:02
Speaker 1: man for decades, now, why did it take so long
40:08
Speaker 1: for North Korea to pull the trigger. Madden suggests the
40:12
Speaker 1: reason Kim jong Nam lived until was because he still
40:17
Speaker 1: had a number of advocates in the regime. There were
40:20
Speaker 1: other elites, people who considered Kim jong Nam as family.
40:25
Speaker 1: There was Rios, a nineties something former hit man who
40:28
Speaker 1: was like a grandfather to the prince. He died in November.
40:34
Speaker 1: A few months later, a former female comrade of Kim
40:37
Speaker 1: Il Song, also close to Kim jong Nam, died as well.
40:41
Speaker 1: By the end of Kim jong Nam's circle of influence
40:45
Speaker 1: had either defected, We're trapped in prison camps or were
40:49
Speaker 1: buried underground. He no longer had friends or family to
40:54
Speaker 1: speak up for him. Were put in motion Kim jong
40:58
Speaker 1: Nam's assassination. I really think that's a huge factor. Madden
41:04
Speaker 1: might be onto something, because in late North Korea spies
41:09
Speaker 1: began hatching one of the most elaborate assassination plots ever devised.
41:15
Speaker 1: Since Kim jong Nam enjoyed protection in China and was
41:18
Speaker 1: now spending time with foreign intelligence agents, the spies realized
41:23
Speaker 1: they had to be careful and strategic. So the hitman
41:28
Speaker 1: likely decided that the best way to assassinate Kim Jong
41:32
Speaker 1: Nam was to kill him with a unique method, a
41:36
Speaker 1: method that was understated, bloodless, immediate, and immaculately lethal, deep underground,
41:48
Speaker 1: stalked away in its hidden tunnels, North Korea had the
41:54
Speaker 1: perfect murder weapon on its hands. What we know about
42:03
Speaker 1: VX nerve agent comes largely thanks to research done by
42:07
Speaker 1: Dr Van and Sim, the former director of human research
42:11
Speaker 1: at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland, where the U. S. Army
42:14
Speaker 1: used to test the effects of various chemical weapons. From
42:19
Speaker 1: eight to ninety Under the direction of Dr Sim, more
42:24
Speaker 1: than seven thousand American service members were exposed to substances
42:28
Speaker 1: like ketamine, LSD and nerve agents like the X. The
42:34
Speaker 1: Army believed live human experiments were important not only for defense,
42:39
Speaker 1: but for intelligence gathering. As RAPI catch a Dorian writes
42:43
Speaker 1: in The New Yorker, Doctors like Sim wanted to know
42:46
Speaker 1: quote could an operative dose and adversary with a handshake,
42:51
Speaker 1: So Dr Sim started drugging American soldiers to find out.
42:56
Speaker 1: It sounds wildly unethical, and it is, but at the
43:01
Speaker 1: time Dr Sim's work was well regarded. He was a
43:05
Speaker 1: fearless researcher who always tested every chemical on himself before
43:09
Speaker 1: exposing any soldiers to it. When he first encountered v
43:13
Speaker 1: X in Sim intravenously infused small doses straight into his bloodstream.
43:21
Speaker 1: It nearly killed him, but it thanks to doctor Sim
43:26
Speaker 1: and the servicemen he experimented on that we now know
43:29
Speaker 1: what v X does to the human body and what
43:33
Speaker 1: the North Korean spies had planned for Kim Jong Nam.
43:38
Speaker 1: Upon contact, a small drop of VX quickly penetrates the
43:42
Speaker 1: skin and soaks into the bloodstream, and it wastes no time.
43:47
Speaker 1: The nerve agent blocks enzygns that help your muscles to relax.
43:51
Speaker 1: Within minutes, every muscle starts to contract uncontrollably. The eyes burned,
43:57
Speaker 1: the pupils narrow, sweat beads as vision blurs, The chest titans,
44:02
Speaker 1: making breathing more and more difficult. Muscles twitch and tire
44:07
Speaker 1: as the nose runs and the mouth drools. Fluid floods
44:12
Speaker 1: the airway, coughing, fits sputter as the whole body clenches.
44:16
Speaker 1: After just ten minutes, nerve ending scream with pain. The
44:21
Speaker 1: body can't handle this type of stimulation, so the muscles
44:26
Speaker 1: become exhausted, and eventually they curl in on themselves, contracting
44:32
Speaker 1: to the point where the victim can no longer breathe.
44:37
Speaker 1: Consciousness fades, but not quickly enough. The victim's final thoughts
44:43
Speaker 1: will be consumed by one horrifying realization that their own
44:49
Speaker 1: body is suffocating them and it doesn't take much feex
44:56
Speaker 1: to kill you. Dr sim concluded that it's it's just
45:00
Speaker 1: ten milligrams of v X, about the same as three
45:04
Speaker 1: rain drops to kill a human. This has prompted the
45:08
Speaker 1: CDC to call v X quote the most potent of
45:11
Speaker 1: all nerve agents. Tasteless, odorless, and deadly in small, almost
45:18
Speaker 1: undetectable quantities. V X is also shockingly portable. It can
45:24
Speaker 1: be broken down into two harmless compounds, allowing two people
45:29
Speaker 1: to hold these separate ingredients in their hands with minimal
45:32
Speaker 1: risk to themselves. That is, until you mix the two
45:37
Speaker 1: compounds together. On the next and last episode of Big Brother,
45:45
Speaker 1: the elaborate means to which North Korea would go to
45:48
Speaker 1: wash its hands of an assassination of international proportions, and
45:53
Speaker 1: how Kim Jong Nam's death triggered a daring rescue Big
46:01
Speaker 1: Brother is a production of School of Humans and I
46:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and hosted by me Eat and Lee Lucas.
46:08
Speaker 1: Riley is our writer, co director and associate producer. Amelia
46:12
Speaker 1: Brock is our senior producer, co director and editor. Executive
46:16
Speaker 1: producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, Else Crowley, and Jason English.
46:21
Speaker 1: Our fact checker is Aaron Blakemore. Music composed by Jason
46:25
Speaker 1: Todd Shannon and Tune Walters. Original score mix by Vick Stafford.
46:31
Speaker 1: Audio editing by Jesse nice Swanger, Sound design and mixed
46:34
Speaker 1: by Harper W. Harris. Audio correction by Josh Fisher. Voice
46:39
Speaker 1: acting by Mark Chung, June Yune, Ben Holst, Thiago Lima
46:44
Speaker 1: and Mike Coscarelli. We'd like to acknowledge the work of
46:47
Speaker 1: Dr Bruce Cummings. Special thanks to Ryan Murdoch and Will Pearson.
46:53
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Speaker 1: of Humans m HM.