STAFF NOTES: EAST ASIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86T00608R000300110005-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 16, 2005
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: March 10, 1975
• Content Type: REPORT

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East Asia
Secret
149
March 10, 1975
No. 0078/75
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SECRET
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March 10, 1975
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North Korea: More of the Kim Clan .
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North Korea: More of the Kim Clan
r- I
With the possible exception of Nicolae Ceausescu
in Romania, Kim II-song has made more extensive use
of family members to consolidate his political power
than have the heads of other Communist states.
--Kim Choi -il 25X1
the son ot Kim 11-song by an earlier
mar27xage, became a candidate member of the Political
Committee of the Korean Workers Party (KWP) in late
1973 and is being groomed to succeed his father 25X1
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--Kim Il-song's uncle, younger brother, and
wife are all members of the Political Committee.
--Five additional committee members have been
identified in Japanese and South Korean biographical
dictionaries as married to cousins of Kim Il-song.
Kang Yang-uk, the maternal uncle of Kim Il-song,
is the highest ranking of the North Korean leader's
relatives. Kang graduated from Chuo University in
Japan in 1925, returned home to take up seminary
studies, and throughout World War II was pastor to
a Presbyterian congregation By the late 1940s, he
was a ranking member of Kim Il-song's government,
charged with the political organization of North
Korea's several hundred thousand Christians. Today,
Kang is the third-ranking member of the Political
Committee, second vice president of the government,
and chairman of the Korean Democratic Party, one of
two minor parties that exist on paper to provide
a facade of democracy. Kang has made frequent
visits to the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa to
strengthen Pyongyang's ties to that region, but his
role is largely a ceremonial one.
March 10, 1975
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Kim Yorig-chu, the general secretary's younger
brother, holds a lower ranked but more politically
sensitive post in L?ho party hierarchy than Kang
Yang-uk. lie came to prominence in 1,961 by taking
charge of the Central Committee's Organization and
Guidance Department. The department--initiator of
all decisions regarding KWP personnel--has enormous
power. As its chairman, and earlier as its deputy
chairman, Kim Yonq-chu is said to have managed a
series of purges aimed at increasing personal loyalty
to his older brother. Kim is assumed to still head
the department:, although his deputy is now commonly
identified with party organizational work. In July
1972, Kim was named chief North Korean representative
on the North-South Coordinating Committee--which was
scat up to explore possibilities for political inter-
change. This was largely a prestige assignment, and
Kim did virtually no work.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, foreign
observers regarded Kim Yong-chu as Kim I1-song's
designated successor. His career on the Political
Committee advanced rapidly, from a freshman candidate
member in 1966 to the top-ranked member in a non-
ceremonial slot by 1970. In 1973, however, Kim Yong-
chu slipped from 6th to 13th place in the North Korean
hierarchy. His fall coincided with persistent reports
of medical problems, and his health is now said to
permit only two or three hours of work daily. This,
combined with the growing interest in Kim Chong-il as
a successor, has caused a decrease of foreign specula-
tion about Kim Yong-chu's political future.
Kim Song-ae, wife of Kim I1-song, ranks last
among the candidate members of the Political Com-
mittee, the only woman on that august body. She
joined the committee in late 1971, at roughly the
same time that she became chairman of the Korea
Democratic Womens Union (KDWU). As head of the KDWU,
Kim Song-ae is responsible for the political and
economic mobilization of the female population.
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Otherwise, little is known of her political influence,
although analysts in Seoul and diplomats in Pyong-
yang claim that she has been waging an unsuccessful
battle to increase her own power at the expense of
her stepson, Kim Chong-il.
There are occasional reports of high-level
dissatisfaction with Kim Il-song's favoring of his
relatives, bi nepotism is not unusual in a society
given to clannishness, as in Korea, nor in a polit3.-
cal system where the base of the ruling elite has
been progressively narrowed.
March 10, 1975
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