KIM IL-SONG'S VISIT TO THE SOVIET UNION AND EASTERN EUROPE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP04T00367R000301880001-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 10
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 1, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: July 11, 1984
• Content Type: REPORT

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I I
Cents intelligence Agency
V?ashington, D. C 20505
DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE
11 July 1984
Kim I1-song's Visit to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
Summary
North Korean President Kim I1-song's six-week
visit to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe ended 1
July, having restored greater balance to
P'yongyang's triangular relationship with Moscow and
Beijing. Publicly Kim and his hosts emphasized
expressions of solidarity on political issues, but
Moscow failed to endorse specifically Kim's proposal
for tripartite talks with Washington and Seoul. Nor
did the Soviets or the East Europeans offer public
support for his plans to transfer power to his son,
Kim Chong-il. Moscow pledged project development
assistance but claims to have deferred decisions on
military aid, and we believe that the Soviets remain
unwilling to transfer advanced equipment if it would
alter the balance of power on the Korean
peninsula. Beijing is concerned about the warming
of North Korean-Soviet relations, but we do.not
believe that the Moscow meetings will fundamentally
alter the extent of influence that the Soviet Union
has in North Korea.
The niorandun was prepared byl Korea Branch, Northeast Asia
Division, Office of East Asian Analysis. Information available as of 10 July
1984. Camients and queries are welcane and may be directed to the Chief,
Korea Branch, Northeast Asia Division, OEA
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Major Stops of Kim II-Song's Trip, 16 May-1 July 1984
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The Political Context
The visit of Kim I1-song to Moscow after an absence of 23
years, while apparently short on concrete political
accomplishments and not likely to alter significantly the complex
web of political relationships in Northeast Asia, has better
balanced North Korea's dealings with the Soviet Union and
China.
Negotiations or
such a visit had been under way sporadical y since the late
1970s, failing to reach an earlier agreement, we believe, because
of differences in Soviet and North Korean positions on a wide
range of political issues.
We believe that a visit at this time reflected several
considerations:
-- Some strain in North Korean relations with China owing to
P'yongyang's concerns about the warming trend in Sino-US
relations, as well as that in the relations of South
Korea with the United States, Japan, and China.
-- Kim's desire for greater maneuverability, and therefore
greater independence, in manipulating big power relations
to his advantage.
-- The launching of a new economic program in late 1984 or
early 1985 for which the North Koreans want aid that the
Soviet Bloc, but not the Chinese, can offer.
For their part, Soviet responsiveness to a visit may have
been helped by continuing strains in Soviet relations with China,
Japan, and the United States. Indeed, the trip marks Moscow's
first diplomatic success in Asia following the shootdown of the
South Korean airliner last fall.
Leadership changes in Moscow may also have facilitated a
visit at this time. Soviet officials, particularly in the
Foreign Ministry, have long expressed a distaste for Kim I1-song
and the opinion that he was dangerous and unpredictable. We
believe such views may have reflected a personal dislike for Kim
on the part of the late Leonid Brezhnev. If this is indeed the
case, Brezhnev's death in 1982 may have created new opportunities
for P'yongyang.
Such considerations notwithstanding, the Soviets (and by
extension most of their East European allies) and the North
Koreans remain divided on several key international issues as
well as on the issue of most fundamental importance to
P'yongyang--reunification of the Korean peninsula.
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At each stop, nonetheless, Kim took pains to emphasize
solidarity on issues where common positions do exist and to gloss
over issues of contention. This was especially clear during the
Soviet portion of the trip. At the Kremlin dinner on 23 May, Kim
ignored General Secretary Chernenko's veiled attack on China,
emphasizing instead North Korean support for standard Soviet
positions opposing NATO nuclear deployments in Wester Europe and
"
"
military alliance.
an alleged US-Japan-South Korean
Yuriy Fadeyev, the ministry's foremost Korea expert, has
told US Embassy officials in Moscow that unanimity prevailed on
all issues except Kampuchea. Kim's close personal relationship
with Norodom Sihanouk has been the determining factor in North
Korean support for the anti-Vietnamese coalition in Kampuchea, a
policy that dovetails with China's interests.
But less visible disconnects apparently existed as well. If
Kim went to Moscow seeking recognition of his arrangements to
have his son succeed him (see Appendix), the Soviets were not
forthcoming in public. Nor did the Soviets publicly endorse
Kim's bid for tripartite talks with the United States and South
Korea. Instead they chose to repeat previous endorsements of
Kim's "peaceful reunification" efforts, once again registering
their insistence that Soviet interests are not ignored any future
deliberations on the Korean Peninsula.
Political atmospherics in Eastern Europe echoed the emphasis
on socialist solidarity. The signing of friendship treaties with
East Germany and Bulgaria was the most visible evidence of the
effort. At each stop, the North Koreans and the East Europeans
strove to mute differences. Most of the East Europeans followed
Moscow's lead in lending broad support to Kim's reunification
goals, but East Germany, Romania, and Yugoslavia went further,
explicitly supporting Kim's tripartite proposal.
We believe that the Hungarian reaction to the visit--which
the US Embassy in Budapest reported as more of an "alliance duty"
than anything else--holds true for most of the East European
countries, most of which Kim had not visited in almost 30
years. Even in Yugoslavia, with its special bonds to North Korea
as common independent communists and nonaligned members,
officials showed palpable distaste for the excessive pomp and
massive security arrangements surrounding "socialism's first
emperor," as one Yugoslav official wryly put it.
1 North Korea also announced its withdrawal from the Los Angeles
Olympics shortly after Kim departed Moscow.
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The Military Dimension
North Korean interest in using the trip to negotiate
military aid agreements apparently focused solely on the Soviet
Union: both 0 Chin-u, the Minister of Defense, and Kim Tu-nam,
chief of the Korean Workers Party (KWP) military affairs
department, left the entourage following its first stop in
Moscow. Neither North Korean nor Soviet media have offered any
details of the talks 0 had with Defense Minister Ustinov, but
Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Kapitsa has told our Embassy in
Moscow that any decision on providing military aid will have to
await draftine of the new Soviet economic plan, set to begin in
1986.
We believe it likely that the O-Ustinov discussion dwelt
primarily with the question of additional Soviet supply of
defensive weapons and spare parts. In recent years, Moscow has
repeatedly turned aside North Korean requests for advanced
equipment--such as MIG-23s--that could alter the balance of power
on the Korean peninsula. We see no signs that the Kremlin, even
in the wake of the Kim visit, is inclined to support a more
adventuristic, aggressive North Korean policy toward South
Korea. We cannot rule out the possibility, however, that Moscow
could review this bidding once Washington begins delivering F-16s
to Seoul in 1986.
Soliciting Economic Aid
Officials responsible for economic affairs constituted the
core of the entourage and included not only P'yongyang's senior
plann2rs but those responsible for military industries as
Publicized economic discussions in the Soviet Union focused
on the provision of ruble aid to underwrite the costs of new
project construction. In Eastern Europe, meanwhile, the focus
was on the transfer of technology and the exchange of technical
experts.
2 Party secretary Yon Hyong-muk and Political Committee
candidate member Chon Pyong-ho joined the party in Eastern
Europe. They both play a vital role in managing the North Korean
military-industrial complex
Chon was identified by the Yugoslav press as he
vice chairman of the Second Economic Committee, the organization
under the cabinet that is directly responsible for weapons
production.
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North Korean Premier Kang Song-san and his Soviet
counterpart, Nikolai Tikhonov, handled economic negotiations in
Moscow. Speaking to the press afterwards, Tikhonov implied that
Soviet aid, although likely to be substantial, will nonetheless
fall well short of what Pyongyang sought. Subsequent to Kim's
departure from Moscow, Fadeyev told US Embassy officials that
among the projects under discussion are increased oil deliveries
and construction of factories for which North Korea will pay by
supplyigg to the Soviet Union a portion of those factories'
output. According to Fadeyev, negotiations on 33 industrial
projects are continuing.-
Fadeyev has also confirmed that the North requested aid in
establishing a nuclear power industry, but we lack information on
how Moscow intends to respond.
The largest number of economic experts--including Yon Hyong-
muk and Chon Pyong-ho--joined the North Korean tour of the
industrialized heartland of Eastern Europe. Factory visits
played an important role in these countries, covering precision
engineering in Poland, metallurgy and semiconductors in East
Germany, silicon sheets, aircraft, and automobiles in
Czechoslovakia, and buses in Hungary. The emphasis in
Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Romania was mainly on electronics.
North Korea has targeted these areas for special investment
attention and--dependent on outside sources for infusions of
higher technology--has been searching for aid. All of the
technologies touched on in these factory visits are vital to the
rapid expansion and growing sophistication that we are witnessing
in the North's military industry, particularly in the area of
aircraft production.
The North Koreans signed economic and scientific protocols
in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania. They
also received public pledges of cooperation in the processing of
raw materials, metallurgy, and machine construction. In view of
East European economic priorities and problems, however, we
believe these agreements are unlikely to result in substantial
economic benefits for North Korea.
3 Such arrangements have typified Soviet aid to North Korea in
recent years. North Korea, for example, is repaying its debts by
exporting to the Soviet Union a good share of the batteries
produced at the Soviet-build Taedonggang Battery Factory in
Pyongyang.
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Multilateral Implications
The Chinese have so far taken a low-key approach to Kim's
trip. Chinese media have reported the trip in a straightforward
manner and Chinese officials have noted implicit differences
between the North Korean and Soviet positions on issuedof
importance to China--such as Soviet policy in Vietnam.
Nonetheless, Beijing has demonstrated some unease about the
trip. According to the US Embassy in Beijing, Party General
Secretary Hu Yaobang delayed his briefing of Ambassador Hummel on
his own trip to North Korea for a month until he had assessed the
results of the Moscow portion of Kim's trip. Moreover, according
to press reports, Hu told the visiting former Japanese Foreign
Minister Miyazawa on 6 July that he had not yet received a full
briefing from the North Koreans on the trip.
The trip may yet bring to the fore some latent tensions in
China's relations with North Korea. Chinese leaders have
indicated privately that they have little leverage with Kim 11-
song and are especially concerned that Kim could strike
agreements with Moscow leading to greater Soviet involvement on
the peninsula--and more intense pressure on the Chinese to woo
the North. Further, China and North Korea differ over Chinese
policy toward the US and Japan--and to a degree over the way to
F__ I
approach tripartite talks on Korea.
As a result, in the aftermath of Kim's trip, Chinese leaders
will probably work to strengthen ties with North Korea. Beijing,
which has already effectively endorsed Kim's succession plans,
has stepped up the exchange of high-level political and economic
delegations with the North. Beijing is also likely to highlight
its solidarity with North Korea by continuing its strong public
endorsement of North Korea's tripartite initiative and calls for
US troop withdrawals from South Korea.
Despite China's concerns, Kim's trip will probably not, in
our view, give Moscow a competitive edge over Beijing in
relations with Pyongyang. Kim's preoccupation with maintaining
an independent stance--the national ideology remains juche, or
self-reliance--creates inherent strains in North Korea's
relations with the Soviet Union. Unlike Beijing, Pyongyang does
not publicly condemn the USSR as a hegemonistic power, but it
does view the Soviets in that light and this colors the North
Korean position on many specific issues.
In addition to differences on Kampuchea, North Korea and the
Soviet Union remain divided on the questions of China and
Afghanistan. Kim and his Soviet hosts sidestepped any public
references, and may indeed even have avoided private discussion,
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of such contentious topics. Nor are there any signs that the
meetings changed Soviet attitudes in two other areas:
-- The Soviets view with contempt North Korea's extreme cult
of personality, which embraces Kim's attempt to engineer
the first familial succession in the Communist world.
-- Moscow may believe that a certain amount of tension on
the peninsula works to its advantage, but the Soviets
nonetheless remain concerned that Kim will take
aggressive actions that could threaten stability in
Northeast Asia.
Finally, we do not believe the talks in Moscow will result
in a new role for the Soviets in brokering initiatives for a
reduction of tensions in Korea. Moscow's. desire to drive home
the point that the Soviet Union cannot be ignored in any Korean
settlement may have been a deciding factor in the Soviet decision
to welcome Kim at this time. Certainly it is the deciding factor
behind Moscow's refusal to endorse the triDartite talks proposal
with which the Chinese are associated.
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Appendix
The Status of Kim Il-song
Assertions in the South Korean press that the visit was
Kim's "swansong," setting the stage for a near-term transfer of
power to his son, Kim Chong-I1, may draw on these conflicting
reports as well as on the high profile the junior Kim maintained
at home during his father's absence. North Korean media during
May-June celebrated the economic successes for which Kim Chong-il
is responsible and highlighted his inspection tours, for the
first time to heavy industrial sites and without shared billing
with other senior officials. North Korean media also emphasized
the son's growing grasp of party and military affairs, and the
party newspaper quoted people as sa in the younger Kim was
"correctly leading" the country.
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Subject: Kim I1-song's Visit to the Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe
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Paul Wolfowitz, State/EAP
Richard Burt, State/EUR
Richard Armitage, DOD/ISA
James Kelly, DOD/ISA/EAP
Gaston Sigur, NSC
Richard Childress, NSC
Harriet Isom, State/EAP/K
Donald Anderson, State/EAP/C
Thomas Simons, State/EUR/SOV
Jay Taylor, State/INR/EAP
John Nay, State/INR/EAP
1 - Mr.
1 - Mr.
1 - Mr.
1 - Mr.
1 - Dr.
1 - Mr.
1 - Ms.
1 - Mr.
1 - Mr.
1 - Mr.
1 - Mr.
- Mr. Robert H. Baraz, State/INR/SEE
- Como James Cossev. DOD/ISA
Col. Donald Boose, DOD/OJCS/J-5/Korea
NIO/EA (7E-62)
NIO/USSR-EE
NIO/Warning
OEA/NEA/Korea Branch
OEA/NEA/Japan Branch
OEA/NEA Division
OEA/China Division
OEA/SEA Division
D/OEA (4F-18)
C/Research/OEA
OGI/VIPM (Maxfield) (3G-04)
SOVA/TWAD/Asia (Plaza GS-30)
EURA/EE/East-West
FBIS/Analysis Group
DDI (7E-44)
Executive Director (7E-12)
- CPAS/IMC/CB (7G-07)
CPAS/ILS (7G-50)
- C/PES (7F-24)
- OCR/ISG (1H-19)
1 -
1 -
1 -
1 -
1 -
1 - Author 25X1
DDI/OEA/NEA/K (11 July 1984)
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