Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Radiation in North Korean Literature

Recently, a paper of mine was included in an edited volume based on a 2022 conference at KIMEP University.

My contribution, chapter 5, examined at how North Korean novels and other state literature depict nuclear technology. One of the questions I was particularly keen to investigate was cultural depictions of nuclear radiation. Western popular culture provides such a lavish cornucopia of cultural references associated with radiation, from Godzilla to Spiderman, not to mention real-life accounts of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl, Fukushima, etc. With such cultural exposure, we may erroneously assume that everyone feels the same instinctive horror associated with the word "nuclear."

In North Korean historical novels, there is a fair amount of coverage of the geopolitics of the Hiroshima bombing, the subsequent nuclear tests by the USSR and China, the NPT and the various test ban treaties, and lots of allusions to a "sea of fire." But I found very little description of what nuclear radiation actually does to human bodies, and nothing about radioactive fallout, keloids, cancers, and other long-term health and environmental effects. And of course, nothing about the lasting hazards at sites of nuclear testing or nuclear reactor accidents.

Searching my database of North Korean literature (currently comprising 70 major historical novels and thousands of shorter stories, essays and poems), I was able to find eight entries that mention radiation [search terms: 방사선, 방사능, 방사성]:

The 2016 short story 《광명성-30》호에서 날아온 전파, covered previously on this blog, makes passing mention of the danger to astronauts from solar radiation (not a major plot point).

The novel 대박산마루 (2010) by Song Sang Won mentions radiocarbon [방사선탄소] amidst a detailed technical discussion of carbon dating procedures performed on remains found in Tangun's tomb.

The novel 동해천리 (1996) by Paek Nam Nyong mentions radium in a brief discussion of Marie Curie's life; Paek seems to have a special fascination with Curie and mentions her in several novels.

The novel 총검을 들고 (2002) depicts the US military dropping irradiated foodstuffs on NK during the 1990s famine, along with an irradiated baby dropped by parachute (a nefarious tactic "preying on the compassion" of North Koreans "who will naturally run to help the baby and thus be poisoned"). Later in this same novel there is an intriguing depiction of soldiers heroically sacrificing themselves to finish constructing a tunnel at Kumgangsan Dam after a cave-in causes a radioactive gas leak - presumably radon. A "chemicals car" [화학차] is sent in to test the air and finds radiation "above the danger level," at which point Kim Jong Il personally supplies the workers with special gas suits [특수방독복] and gas masks [방독면], but several men are already fatally exposed.

The story "푸른 강산" (2014), Paek Bo Hŭm's contribution to the first anthology of stories featuring new leader Kim Jong Un, focuses on environmental issues, chiefly the effort to restore North Korea's depleted forests. Early on it points the finger at global capitalism: "Botanists of the world! Never forget that the US imperialists, who killed countless lives with atomic bombs and polluted the earth's air with radioactive poisons [방사능독해물], also sprayed chemicals that shriveled the trees in jungles during the Vietnam War. Even now, grass does not grow there." The reference to "radioactive poisons" in the air may be a reference to the "black rain" phenomenon immediately after the bombings, or it could perhaps be a reference to atmospheric radiation from the Bikini atoll tests, but this is unclear.

KJU inspecting an alleged h-bomb
(src: The New York Times)
The novel 영생(1997) dramatizes the events of the first nuclear crisis in 1994. At one point, the issue of replacing the plutonium core of the reactor is described in some detail (this procedure was overdue, the IAEA had objected to replacing fuel rods without its inspectors present). Discussing the problem with members of the National Defense Commission, Kim Il Sung asks what would happen if they do not replace the core on schedule, and Kim Jong Il answers tersely that it could lead to an "accident." The following text is revealing:

   At that moment, the NDC members all held their breath, recalling the serious implication of the simple term "accident." If the reactor core is not replaced, radiation will be emitted, potentially repeating the Chernobyl disaster which once shook Europe, and the nuclear power industry built by our own self-reliance could be blown into the sky overnight. 

This is the only literary reference I could find explicitly associating the idea of harmful radiation with a nuclear reactor. It probably should be noted that the above comes nowhere close to describing the actual cause of the Chernobyl disaster. More to the point, though, the passage does not explore the more serious peninsula-wide environmental and health problems that would inevitably result from such a disaster, but only the damage to North Korea's nuclear power industry.

선생님 믿으십시오, a short story by Ri Myŏng Hyŏn from Chosun Munhak in March 2014, mentions radiation in discussing mutations of experimental seedlings in plant genetics research [식물육종학]. 

그대의 심장, a 실화 ("true anecdote") that appeared in Choson Munhak May 2006, very briefly mentions radiation therapy as effective in relieving stress caused by computer use.

The novel Ryŏksa ŭi Taeha makes brief mention of the "Atom Bomb Disease" [원폭증] suffered by the victims of Hiroshima, but does not specifically reference radiation as the cause and thus did not pop up in my search. This occurs during a rumination by Moon Sung-kyu (pseudonym for Kang Sok-ju) on the stakes of the nuclear issue. Through his thoughts, we get an unusually vivid description of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing:

   August 6th, 1945, 8:15 am; An atomic bomb of unprecedented destructive and lethal power exploded in Hiroshima. The world soon learned of the horrors of that terrible day. 
   What happened in that city? .. At first the survivors could not properly tell the whole story of what had happened. Those who could have done so were all dead. For the living, their senses were initially dulled by shock, fear, death, and devastation; some said “There was a huge flash of light,” or “my eyes were dazzled,” or “a sudden yellow light flashed and seemed to shatter everything.”
   Anyway, some sort of detonation happened that flashed in mid-air. The next instant, the whole city shook as if an earthquake struck, trembling and undulating in a roar of thunder. At the same time an impossible dusk settled over the city that soon turned to complete darkness. A strangely electric gas permeated the air, and there was a foul odor. No one knew yet that it was the smell of death.
   Some days later, before the funeral bells had even ceased, reports confirmed 100,000 dead or missing and 50,000 injured, out of a total city population of 200,000 at the time of the explosion. But even this terrible disaster was still only the beginning. Tens of thousands of people who contracted “atomic bomb syndrome” [원폭증] died one after another, beginning just days or a few weeks later. This road of death continued for many years.

The 2017 novel Boru includes an evocative moment in which MacArthur, from his GHQ office, looks out over the gloomy streets of postwar Tokyo: "The fog, brought on by atmospheric flow and temperature difference, aroused uneasy thoughts of the atomic dust flowing over from Hiroshima and Nagasaki" [히로시마와 나가사끼에서 실려온 원자먼지가 아닌가싶은 께름함]. Here again, the text avoids using the term "radiation" or anything that might be associated with nuclear power.

The Fukushima #1 reactor explosion was caused by
 a power supply failure (Src: PolarJournal)
I have not found any literary references to radiation sickness in the context of industrial nuclear accidents in North Korean literary publications. A search of Rodong Shinmun articles on the externally-facing KCNA website is more fruitful: numerous posted articles and editorials have discussed radioactive waste [핵오물, 방사능오염] in the context of the Fukushima accident and cleanup. Apparently the chance at a new way to demonize the modern Japanese state was too good to pass up.

Why does it matter? Maybe it doesn't. But in my past research on atom bomb history, one of the most chilling moments for me was reading the declassified strategic discussions prior to the Hiroshima bombing and realizing how little the US military seemed to comprehend the terrifying elemental forces they were about to unleash. In 1945, with no cultural framing, most of them seemed to envision the A-bomb as just a conventional bomb on a larger scale. They talked only in terms of blast radius and equivalent tons of TNT, with not a word about fallout or radioactive decay rates. 

In the US, growing awareness of the dangers of nuclear radiation, painfully gained through a too-long list of accidents and exposures, eventually led the public to demand a moratorium on nuclear testing and heavy regulation of the nuclear power industry - and our test sites, like the Soviet Union's, were all far out in the unpopulated hinterland or obscure Pacific atolls (which still had horrific consequences for people hundreds of kilometers downwind). North Korea has no choice but to test and store its bombs within its own small territory, a few hundred kilometers from its capital city.

The evacuated atolls of Rongelap and Rongerik, 160 and 240
km from ground zero respectively, were exposed to airborne
radioactive fallout from American h-bomb tests in 1954. The
native population briefly returned in 1957 but had to be
re-evacuated after suffering extremely high rates of stillbirths
and cancers. The atolls remain uninhabited today.

Not even the US mainland population has been entirely safe. The American public has only recently come to learn just how close to disaster we came in several instances during the Cold War, e.g.  the Arkansas Titan II missile accident and the Goldsboro B-52 crash. If all of the US military's vaunted redundancies and safety protocols could prove so inadequate, what hope is there for North Korea? And if a fully modern facility like Fukushima Dai-ichi could be undone by an unforeseen flaw in the backup power generator system, what are the odds of a plant operating safely in North Korea, where the basic civilian power supply is spotty even on a good day?

My former foster cat Mametaro, 
shortly after he was rescued from
the Fukushima exclusion zone in 2019. 
Mametaro is now fat and happy and
living his best life in Tokyo
A possible alternative avenue for informing North Koreans may come through Japan's outreach to the Korean victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who later repatriated to the North, and the doctors who treat them. Very little was known about these victims until Japan sent a delegation of medical doctors on a mission to offer treatment in the early 2000s. In recent years, activists like photojournalist Takashi Ito have brought more attention to this neglected group. Lauren Richardson recently published an article in Pacific Affairs about such efforts, which I recommend reading.

Friday, December 8, 2023

Fate (#2): Kissinger and the EC-121 Incident

Following the recent death of Henry Kissinger, NK News has a timely piece on the controversial American diplomat's reaction to the 1969 EC-121 incident, one of his first major tests in his role as Nixon's NSA.

It reminded me that Kissinger makes a cameo discussing that very incident in the novel Fate, a relatively recent addition to the Imperishable History series published in 2012. This is the same novel that featured KIS' interaction with Che Guevara, which I previously covered on this blog. 

The scene opens with a favorite trope: the US president being awoken early in the morning (6:57 AM, to be exact) with news of a crisis brought on by North Korea. The same author had previously used this same device in Ryŏksa ŭi Taeha to depict Clinton being awoken from a happy dream of his Arkansas childhood to the bedside phone ringing and the news that NK just announced its intention to withdraw from the NPT.  The 2015 novel Dignity, by a different author but in the same series, has President Johnson being awoken from a more prurient dream about groping his mistress to news of the USS Pueblo's capture. I suspect this trope is intended to mock the US leader as groggy/off balance, particularly in comparison to the North Korean leader who is always depicted working late into the night and rising early in the morning. But it also has the benefit of probably being often historically accurate, given the time difference and the time of day when most NK-related crises tend to happen.

"Bad news, boss."

No word this time on what Nixon was dreaming about; the president just answers grumpily.

   “What now? The Soviet Union or China?”
   “Neither, Mr. President.” It was Kissinger, the special adviser for national security. “It’s North Korea. We have just received a report that the reconnaissance aircraft EC-121, with 31 crew members, was shot down by North Korean fighter jets in the Korean East Sea.” 
   “Shot down? One of ours?
   “Yes, Mr. President.”
   “North Korea again?”
   “Yes, Mr. President.”
   Nixon froze, gripping receiver tightly. The EC-121 was a four-propeller reconnaissance aircraft of the US Navy. It was the latest large-scale reconnaissance aircraft, with a mass of more than 60 tons, a range of more than 7000 km, and a 24-hour flight time. It had launched from Yokota Base in Japan with an important mission to reconnoiter military movements in northeast China and the Far East of the Soviet Union, with a focus on North Korea. It had flown similar missions tens or hundreds of times in the past, but the Soviet Union had never summoned the courage [용단] to shoot it down.
   Nixon pursed his lips. He had no intention of following in the footsteps of the previous president, Johnson, who stepped down after last year’s "Pueblo" scandal gave him the reputation of most incompetent president ever... 

So thinking, Nixon immediately orders a bristling array of military hardware into the region. These are listed in detail: four aircraft carrier groups ("one more than was mustered for last year's Pueblo incident") and their escorts, as well as "hundreds" of fighter jets and bombers put into readiness at US bases in South Korea and Guam. 

Nixon's NSC in 1969
(Src: Bettmann/Corbis)
The National Security Council meeting the following day is also depicted. Nixon begins: "Today, we must discuss how to deal with communist North Korea’s reckless and grave provocation – that is, how to inflict an unprecedented retaliatory blow against North Korea, which intentionally damaged the honor of the United States of America and sacrificed 31 Americans."

Defense Secretary Laird is first to respond and also the most bloodthirsty, proposing to "strike 12 important points in North Korea with nuclear weapons, and then destroy all airfields in North Korea with more destructive nuclear weapons to annihilate their air power."

The State Department and the CIA oppose such a massive retaliation. They argue that "the US, currently suffering from the Vietnam War, did not have the strength to launch such a large-scale military action, and it would not get any popular support but would only give the hardline leadership of North Korea an opportunity to wage all-out war and take over South Korea." There is no discussion of whether such a move would violate international law or US treaty commitments such as the recently-signed NPT; even the diplomats seem only constrained by their weakened position and cowardly fear of North Korea's reaction.

Amid this discussion, they get the report that partial wreckage and two bodies have been recovered, along with an urgent telegram from ROK Ambassador William Porter urging no retaliation against North Korea. Porter's telegram argues that "North Korea had completed preparations for an all-out war since last year's Pueblo incident and was waiting only for the right moment for national reunification." 

Buoyed by this support, Secretary of State Rogers offers his own proposal: to save face by continuing  EC-121 reconnaissance flights with fighter jet escorts. Nixon considers this to be "a truly fragile plan to restore America's lost prestige" and "not even worth discussing." 

Finally Kissinger speaks up:

Src: Boston Globe

   “Mr. President, never forget this, that the Soviet Union, North Vietnam and China are watching us right now.”
   “It’s not just those countries. The whole world is watching us now, comparing us with the Johnson administration...” These words came from the Secretary of Defense.
   Nixon clenched his fists for the third time. “Then, Kissinger, tell us your idea.”
   “I propose retaliation, strong retaliation.”  Kissinger spoke rapidly without hesitation, as if reciting foreign language homework. “Only strong physical countermeasures can show off the confidence of the US at home and abroad, boost the morale of its allies, and dampen the courage of the radical North Korean leadership.”
   "Hmm…” Nixon was of the same opinion. However, he had more arithmetic and pragmatic calculations in mind than Kissinger, a scholar born to a Jewish family that fled to the US to avoid Hitler's extermination of Jews in Germany. In the event of a retaliatory strike, [Nixon] was concerned about what consequences it would bring to him, who had just ascended to the presidency.
   The meeting continued until late at night...

Thus, the thing that ended up happening in real life – continuing to run recon flights but with escorts – is shown being mocked and dismissed by the president as an unthinkably cowardly choice, before he backs down and goes with it. Kissinger as NSA is shown urging "strong retaliation" but does not actually mention a nuclear strike, as the SecDef does. Positioning Kissinger as the final and most forceful speaker makes him seem like the most capable person in the room, although if you pay attention, his words lack any detail and could be interpreted in multiple ways. 

Writing this scene in 2012, the author would be aware that Kissinger's reputation has not aged well in the eyes of the world. He's just the sort of low-hanging fruit that a North Korean novelist would typically put in an exaggerated mustache-twirling villain role. Thus it is interesting that he seems to get the most respectful treatment of all the players in the scene. He is too hawkish to be a real "good guy," but he at least seems to have his head on straight, and the biographical detail about him escaping the Holocaust seems to lend a more sympathetic motivation to his hawkishness.

Although Kissinger had a lifelong adversarial relationship to North Korea, they did have one noteworthy thing in common - they both wanted the 1968 Paris Peace Talks to fail, and for purely self-serving reasons. In that respect, I suppose one could argue that Kissinger did North Korea a solid. Perhaps this is their belated way of saying thanks?

Src: Nixon Foundation
Nixon did in fact convene an emergency NSC meeting that day to discuss the incident; the actual discussion can be found summarized here. In the summary neither Kissinger nor Laird come off sounding particularly hawkish. Nobody seems to have said anything about nukes, although the NK News article notes that "The incident did prompt the Nixon administration to consider contingency plans for future incidents with North Korea" including nuclear strikes on NK airfields.  It must be mentioned that some sources claim that Nixon did initially order a nuclear strike on North Korea as a knee-jerk reaction under the influence of rage and alcohol, and that Henry Kissinger was the one who talked him down.

The novel also briefly depicts KIS getting the news about the EC-121 downing – on his birthday, no less. KIS inquires about the name of the pilot who fired the shot, and it turns out to be one of the story's lead fictional characters, a young KPA fighter pilot who also appeared in earlier scenes dogfighting with the USAF in Vietnam. 

Separately, leader-in-training Kim Jong Il shares the news with ailing Vice-President Kim Il, another major character in this novel, who at the time is bedridden recovering from major surgery. "Comrade Kim Il," KJI soothes, "everything is going well, so why are you fretting? Smile. The Great Leader has performed his own 'major surgery' with the shooting down of the EC-121 spy plane that you were so worried about, so do not worry anymore." He then shares the text of Nixon's press statement announcing no retaliation, and the two men joke that "under the giant mountain was just one tiny mouse" (태산명동에 서일필, from the Chinese idiom 泰山鳴動 鼠一匹).


Wednesday, November 29, 2023

North Korean Literature in the News!

This past year has been a really rewarding one for us here at North Korean Literature in English. After years of toiling in obscurity, we are finally starting to see some international attention brought to this project.

Src: Politico
First, I have been able to reach out to several individuals – diplomats, reporters, and retired US military – who have actual named roles in North Korean historical novels. All have reacted with bemused chagrin to the translated excerpts I showed them, but after getting over the initial shock, they have really helped me to get a sense of the real historical circumstances behind the events and personalities depicted in the stories.

One such person is former CNN journalist Mike Chinoy, who has made numerous reporting trips to North Korea and was with the first American news team to broadcast live from Pyongyang. He was so amused to learn that he had a role a North Korean novel, he wrote an article about the experience which posted on CNN.

Then, last month I was able to get a portion of novelist/defector Kim Ju-song's memoir published in The Dial, with my own translation. Part of the excerpt covers his job at the Korean Writers' Union and their locked-up collection of forbidden foreign literature, which I previously blogged about. Kim's is one of the best-written defector memoirs I've ever read, and it really sheds light on the inner workings of North Korea's system of state-run literary production. I'm hoping this exposure will make it easier for us to find a publisher to translate the whole thing into English. 

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

The Red Flash: North Korean scientists discover a thing in Antarctica

 "The Red Flash" (붉은 섬광) is a science fiction story by Ri Kŭm Chŏl that appeared in Chosŏn Munhak in September 2002.

I was originally drawn to this story after skimming over it quickly and catching phrases like "Antarctica," "Graham Land Research Station," "unexplained phenomenon," "Ph.D. in molecular chemistry," plus a lot of talk about penguins and molecules. Having just recently rewatched John Carpenter's The Thing, I briefly fantasized about discovering a North Korean rendition of the cult classic, which sent me down a spiral of hopeful speculation. What sort of unique test would North Koreans come up with for detecting who is the Thing? How would the Thing manage to infiltrate a group of North Koreans, who are famously always practicing mutual surveillance? How might the Thing be transformed for the better after absorbing Juche thought from their brains?

But sadly, it was not to be. In fact the bulk of the story takes place not in Antarctica but in a South Pacific port and aboard a docked cruise ship. It is less sci-fi horror and more procedural detective story with sci-fi elements. 

The two main characters are a pair of investigators named Helen and Jasmine who are clearly romantically entangled, which got me excited again for a few paragraphs as I wondered if I had stumbled upon the first openly gay couple in North Korean fiction – until I realized that, against all odds, the character named Jasmine [쟈스민] is an extremely heteronormative man. More on their relationship in the notes below. But first:

The Plot

Late one night on the small South Pacific island nation of Asir, a sudden explosion rips through the commercial port, setting off a fire that spreads rapidly. As the flames approach a huge stockpile of fuel oil barrels with “USA” stenciled on their sides, witnesses observe a US military helicopter appear to drop several black spherical objects. But rather than being extinguished, the flames burn even higher. Just as the fire is about to hit the fuel barrels, a strange reddish light flashes in the sky over the dock. Then, mysteriously, the raging inferno dies down to nothing in seconds.

The next morning, two investigators are on the scene: "Female Prosecutor Helen" of the Asir Prosecutor's Office and "Inspector Jasmine" from the Metropolitan Police Department. 

Their attention quickly turns to the Penguin, a fancy passenger cruise ship docked in the port on its return from an Antarctic excursion. They already have one clue – the quick-acting port authorities have dragged the port area and recovered a metal tube from the seabed near the Penguin [they did this overnight, I guess?]. They speculate that it may be the remnant of a projectile weapon. 

A cruise ship in Antarctica
(src: AdventureSmith Explorations) 
Checking the Penguin's manifest, the investigators become suspicious of three passengers the ship picked up in Antarctica. These are no bourgeois luxury cruise patrons, but North Korean scientists catching a ride home after a stint at Graham Land Research Base in Antarctica. They are all experts in molecular chemistry, and their research involves finding ways to repair the hole in the ozone layer. 

Reviewing surveillance camera footage of the panicked passengers milling on the deck during the incident, they spot one of the North Koreans acting suspiciously calm as he speaks into a mobile phone just moments before the red flash.  Helen goes aboard and meets with the captain, who produces the man, Dr. Kim Hak Sŏng, for her to interview.

Dr. Kim is an extremely handsome 30-something man with Ph.D. in molecular chemical engineering who readily answers Helen's questions. He suggests to her that those black spheres from the US military helicopter, which everyone else thinks helped to extinguish the fire, were actually intended to push it toward the oil barrels. 

This actually puts even more suspicion on him, because the science-loving Helen knows that "if the fire was guided, it would mean Substance M was present to increase oxygen molecules in the air," and his team's research project is known to involve "Substance M." But, Dr. Kim points out, "Substance M is also produced at US research bases."  He also points out that the US military helicopter could not have arrived on-scene so quickly if it had not somehow anticipated the fire.

He urges her to think carefully before jumping to conclusions, and cryptically claims that the US military stands most to gain from the port fire, even though its own oil barrels were endangered. His reasoning:  "Because the US military placed its strategic materials in a civilian port, if they were to explode, your authorities would be held responsible. Then, not only would you have to pay enormous damage compensation, but you would no longer be able to make such strong demands for the US forces to withdraw... So, the US military will continue to sit on this island of Asir like it owns the place, while receiving full payment for value of the exploded fuel."

From the Penguin's captain, Helen learns that somebody had reported "thieves breaking into the luggage hold" during the conflagration. She gathers all the passengers who have large trunks in the hold, weighs each trunk, and compares the results against the weights recorded at boarding. She finds only one disparity - the North Koreans'  trunk is 4.8 kg lighter than when it came aboard at Graham Land.

Graham Land Research Station, Antarctica
Src: istockphoto

Meanwhile, Jasmine has processed the video footage of Dr. Kim's phone call using a lip-reading algorithm and managed to isolate a few phrases: "… Port fire... oil container explosion... using the research product… flames…" All the other detectives think this is pretty incriminating, but Helen points out that he could also be saying, "extinguish the flames by using the research product." The other investigators laughingly suggest that this "young female prosecutor" must have fallen in love with the Korean scientist, who they have all noticed is extremely handsome.

They obtain a few more clues from the surveillance video: Just after the red flash, they can hear a brief sputtering from the ship's engine (which had been hastily started in an attempt to back away from the flames); and at the same time, some of the passengers standing on the deck appear to briefly gasp for breath. Meanwhile, Jasmine has confirmed that the black spheres from the helicopter did in fact contain Substance M.

It's enough to raise suspicions, but for proof they will need access to the US military port. Here Jasmine heroically steps up, calling in a favor from a US military counterintelligence officer with a gambling addiction who owes him $8,000 - the exact price of a base entry pass. This substantially raises his profile in Helen's eyes.

Just as the Penguin is readying to depart, Helen meets Dr. Kim on deck and informs him that they've solved the case. To his surprise, she shows him her classified report. They have found irrefutable proof that the US military was responsible for the port fire: "In the wake of growing anti-American sentiment on a global scale and increasingly calls for American troops to withdraw from Asir, the US military carried out a planned conspiracy. ... The plot was to rationalize the US military's presence in Asir by bringing oil containers into Asir port and exploding them, passing the blame to the local authorities."

Further, her clever sleuthing has concluded that the red flash was caused by the North Koreans deploying their research product to extinguish the fire. Their research involved developing a projectile-delivered flash that [several paragraphs of molecular chemistry talk here] essentially reshapes the oxygen molecules so that they are less flammable. The crucial clues were the 4.8 kg missing from their trunk (the weight of the device), as well as the ship's engine sputtering and the people on deck briefly gasping for air, which are side effects of the phenomenon.

She only has one question: why did they try to hide their altruistic deed, which saved untold lives? Dr. Kim answers humbly: “I did not want to make the research public. You see, it hasn't been shown in my home country yet. However, after getting my emergency report about the fire in Asir Port, our country unhesitatingly instructed us to deploy it. Their concern was for the lives and property of Asir’s people.”

Helen is awed by his patriotism and sense of mission. Before his eyes, she sets fire to her notebook, destroying the record of her findings. “Please forgive me," she says. "When your research product is reproduced and released to the world, I will write this report again. Until then, know that the Asir people will never forget your benevolence.”

Asir

The main port of Fiji in the South Pacific
The fictional setting of Asir [아씨르] is described as a small island nation in the South Pacific on which the US military maintains an unwelcome presence. This could be intended as a stand-in for one of several real-life US security dependencies such as Palau, the Marshall Islands, the FSM, etc. It is not, however, an incorporated US territory like Guam or American Samoa.

This makes for some confusion about  Helen's and Jasmine's identities and loyalties. As civilian port officials seemingly independent of (and at odds with) the US military, they are presumably locals. And yet their names, and Helen's long blonde hair, do not fit with any Pacific islanders I know of. Jasmine used to be a man's name in France, so I guess it's possible they are French descendants somewhere in French Polynesia; but then I don't see how the US military could have a port there.

Helen and Jasmine

Helen's femininity is firmly established early and reemphasized often. She is referred to throughout as "처녀", which can mean either "virgin" or "young, unmarried woman" (as in most East Asian languages, these two things are linguistically indistinguishable in Korean). When her job title is mentioned, she is always "young woman prosecutor" (처녀검사) and never just "prosecutor." She is beautiful and passionate, but strives to maintain appropriate professional distance around both male colleagues and male suspects, however handsome they may be.

Jasmine, on the other hand, is identified as an "inspector" [경부] with the Asir Metropolitan Police. Since Korean pronouns are not necessarily gendered, I held on for some time to the hope that Jasmine might be female, even after he was described several times as "manly" [사나이다운], but eventually I accepted that he must be a man. He flagrantly flirts with Helen, despite her pleas to keep things professional. Her rebukes just make him all the more determined to "shake this beauty's heart with his wisdom and ability as a police officer, as well as his manly temperament and perseverance" [사나이다운 기질과 인내력]. He sees the port fire investigation as his chance to impress her.

When Jasmine suggests that they work together on the investigation, Helen readily agrees but says that they should split up to approach the case from different angles: "When it comes to hunting wild animals, it’s more effective to stab them in two places at once rather than twice in the same place.” She also cites "Eastern scripture" [동방의 성구] which teaches that one must “Look at the beginning and the end at the same time."

Jasmine seizes upon this opportunity for some cringeworthy dialogue: 

   “Helen, if our two lines of investigation intersect at one point, do you suppose that intersection will become our romance (love)?” [그것이 우리들의 로맨스 (사랑) 로 되지 않을가요?]
   “Please don’t look at me that way, it isn't proper.” 
   A coy smile twitched across Jasmine’s lips.
   “I have a feeling that intersection point will be the intersection of our two fates, which have run parallel until now. How about it?"
   "Well. Will our investigations intersect? But I also look forward to that.” 
   In an instant, Jasmine's broad, flat face brightened like a floodlight.

After he heroically steps in to help solve the case at significant financial cost to himself, Helen "looked at Jasmine with fresh eyes" and seems more amenable to his romantic hopes, although we do not see this come to fruition. The story closes with Jasmine comforting a misty-eyed Helen on the dock, after she has finished waving farewell to handsome Dr. Kim as he and his ship recede into the horizon. It's clear who she would rather be with, if she had her 'druthers.

Shipping Delays

Our heroes are under tremendous pressure to solve the case quickly; in particular, they are told they must not detain the Penguin past its scheduled 2pm departure.

The reason is financial; the longer they detain the ship, the more expenses will be incurred by shipping delays  - expenses that must be borne by the port of Asir. Capitalism is indeed a ruthless taskmaster.

For a vacation cruise ship returning from an unpopulated continent, the Penguin carries a surprising amount of time-sensitive commercial cargo and high-pressure corporate shark types. As Helen is interviewing the captain on the deck, several passengers come up and remind the captain how much money a delay would cost them. One says he has a contract with something called "Voltaire" [maybe a magazine?] to do an interview about Antarctic tourism, and asks if the captain will take responsibility [i.e., compensate him] if the contract gets cancelled. Another says, “My shareholders [주권들] are racing against time. We can’t delay here.” The captain gloomily turns to Helen: “You see, miss, to me, time is money. We will lose $800,000 every day our return is delayed.”

These appeals are, of course, intended to illustrate the heartlessness of global capitalism in the face of human tragedy. Standing up to this pressure, Helen asks the captain to consider the cost in lives and property lost in the fire. Even though she is a non-Korean, Helen here takes on the voice of the righteous socialist warrior that is normally exclusive to North Korean characters.

Tech Overkill

The author takes advantage of the story's "sci-fi" categorization to insert some needlessly high-tech gadgetry. Although nothing in the essential plot requires it to be set very far into the future, it seems that it must be so, because the detectives use some tools that make no sense otherwise. 

Remember tricorders?
For instance, Jasmine brings up the port fire surveillance video on a "small portable computer" [자그마한 휴대용콤퓨터], which at the time of publication in 2002 would have seemed quite futuristic. When Helen weighs the luggage in the hold, she does so using a "portable mass sensor" [휴대용질량측정기] which she simply places on top of each trunk. If I recall my high school physics correctly, the difference between mass and weight only becomes relevant as distance from the planet's center varies – and since the luggage is at sea level the entire time, it is unclear why she would need to measure the trunks' mass and not just weigh them on a plain old scale. If such a gadget were readily available, it would save time, I guess.

Bonus Link

Congratulations on reaching the bottom of this post. Since I lured you in by false pretenses (like the American jackal that I am), please enjoy this clip from a classic cinematic masterpiece as compensation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebMgBIy6mTo


Saturday, September 2, 2023

Great drinking scenes in North Korean novels

"You first."
(Src: CNN)
Alcohol provides a beloved social lubricant and test of manhood on both sides of the DMZ. In North Korean literature heavy drinking is also sometimes used to represent emotional discomfort or insecurity. Here are some of my favorite drinking scenes from North Korean novels:

Guerrilla comrades get slappy

In The Night Before Liberation [해방전야], Kim Il Sung has a late-night confab with Zhou Baozhong, his former commander in the Red Army's 88th Brigade, at a guerrilla encampment in Ning'an, Manchuria in the spring of 1945. The two men share a drink and reminisce about old times. KIS speaks respectfully if a little patronizingly; Zhou's speech starts out polite and gets progressively rougher.

   Zhou Baozhong took out a bottle of Moutai wine from the pocket of his military coat, put it down on the desk with a bang, and poured the wine equally between two porcelain cups. He then placed a cup in front of Comrade Kim Il Sung.
  "Commander Kim, let's drink together."
  "Yes, let’s."
   Comrade Kim Il Sung drank without hesitation.
   Zhou Baozhong gulped down his own cup in one breath. Then he rubbed the back of his nose with his thumb and index finger and began sniffing those fingers. It seemed that he had picked up the Russians’ bizarre habit of drinking strong liquor without snacks [안주없이 강술을 마시는 로씨야사람들의 괴이한 습관을 그도 본받은 모양이였다].
   "Please, have some more…"
Zhou and KIS with comrades of the 88th
Brigade, circa 1942 (Src: WSJ)
  "Don't mind if I do." 
   Comrade Kim Il Sung drank. After a couple of sips, a stream of hot fire seemed to flow down his throat into his chest. "Such excellent liquor as this, and you’re hiding it here for yourself alone."
   "Hmmph!" Zhou gave no response except to snort. He drank half a cup (actually more like half a bottle) of strong liquor and sat motionless. The mood of the other Chinese in the camp had been jubilant, but Zhou looked pale and kept to himself. And now, he sat before Comrade Kim Il Sung acting like a volatile drill-sergeant....
   "Commander Zhou, something seems to be troubling you; please speak freely."
   "That's right. I came to put out the fire that is burning inside me." Zhou let out a rough sigh. "Commander Kim, slap my face."
   "No, commander–"
   "I was a very sinful bastard. How many times have I benefited from your help in the past? Anyway, I have no honor." Zhou grimaced as if in pain. "Really, I–"
   "Commander, please don't do this." Comrade Kim Il Sung was surprised at how angry Zhou looked, even as he struggled with self-reproach and pain...  "Commander, calm down."
   "No." As if his throat was drying up, Zhou seized his cup and drank the remainder in one gulp. "Today, I came to show you what kind of great man this Zhou Baozhong is."
   "Commander Zhou."
   "Please don’t try to stop me." Zhou let out another rough sigh and continued...
 
It turns out that Zhou is still remorseful because he couldn't help KIS and his friends years ago during the Minsaengdan incident, a time when the nascent CCP viewed its Korean comrades with distrust and had hundreds of them rounded up and killed. As he gets progressively drunker, he apologizes again and again to KIS for this and other failures. The intoxicated Zhou also enumerates several times when Kim saved his life and credits him for providing the tactics that won his greatest victories against the Japanese. 

Kim Il Sung's near-miss with the Minsaengdan purge and his enduring friendship with General Zhou are both well-established historical facts. The North Korean leader sent a personal condolence telegram upon Zhou's death in 1964, sent a delegation to attend his funeral, and recalled him fondly and respectfully in his memoir With the Century. Kim's memoir generally tends to be more honest and humble than Party-produced historical novels like the one above, in which the legendary Chinese general appears more like an accident-prone and frequently besieged guerrilla leader constantly in need of rescue or guidance from KIS. 

Cold War fraternizing

In Eternal Life (1997), there is a drinking scene during the final banquet concluding the 1994 Carter summit. Kim Il Sung offers Jimmy Carter some Kŭmchŏngju (a Korean sake-like drink served hot). Carter says that reminds him of a story:

   “As you know, during my presidency I had a summit in Geneva with Brezhnev of the USSR. We were drinking cognac; Brezhnev had drunk himself senseless, but I was still sober. Observing the diplomatic niceties, I drank when he drank and vice versa. So we had drunk the same amount,” Carter said laughingly.
   “Are you really such a strong drinker?” Comrade Kim Il Sung looked surprised.
   “No, the secret was in my cup. I had a special cup that was the same shape and size as Brezhnev’s, but neutralized the alcohol each time it was filled. Drinking like that, Brezhnev said all sorts of things he shouldn’t have. I learned much of his true feelings that way, and quite a few Soviet secrets as well.” ...
    Comrade Kim Il Sung joked, “Mr. Carter, there may be a trick in these cups as well. Better be careful.” 
   “I think you’ve already gotten me drunk somehow. Else why would I tell you that secret from Geneva?” 

Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev feeling
tipsy in Vienna. Src: Getty Images

This is likely either a misunderstanding or a creative reinterpretation of a story related in Jimmy Carter's memoir, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President, published in 1982, in the chapter on the SALT III talks in Vienna:

   [At US Embassy banquet:] "During supper we offered several toasts, and [Brezhnev] bottomed up his glass of vodka each time, teasing me when I failed to do the same…" 
   [The next night, at the Soviet Embassy] "Again, Brezhnev offered frequent toasts. I arranged with the waiter for a tiny glass, shifted to a somewhat milder drink, and joined in the bottoms-up ceremonies along with everyone else."

Carter's memoir makes no mention of extracting any valuable secrets or confessions from Brezhnev on that occasion; rather, aides recalled being concerned that Brezhnev might manipulate the teetotaling Carter into a more malleable frame of mind through alcohol. But it's possible that the North Korean author was working with a different version of the same story from the Russian side.

Reporter outdrinks his source/censor

Fine wine sets the scene for a subtle battle of wits in the novel Blue Skies (1992), set in Seoul under the Fifth Republic dictatorship. The plot revolves around North Korea's donation of flood relief supplies to South Korea in 1984 - an act of generosity that they doubtless expected would be rebuffed as usual by the proud ROK government, and that struck a heavy blow to the North's already tenuous financial liquidity, although of course that is not mentioned in the novel. 

Flood damage reporting in Kyŏnghyang Shinmun, 3 Sept 1984
Src: Naver Newslibrary

The main protagonist is Han Young-guk, a veteran reporter for Dong-a Ilbo who reports on both the flooding and the NK relief deliveries, using his superior wit and literary references to slip his subversive reporting past the eyes of the dictatorship's troglodite censors. Han shares a tense symbiotic relationship with Lee Byŏng-chan, an officer in the Ministry of State Security responsible for devising the Press Guidelines - sort of like daily talking points that the Chun regime issued to control the media narrative. In the scene below, Lee has asked Han to join him for dinner "just to chat" – leaving Han immediately suspicious and wondering which of his recent articles has gotten him in trouble.

   Their private dining room was quiet. Outside, the bar area was raucous and lively, but this room, with its thick soundproofing, gave off an otherworldly atmosphere. A cool breeze blew from the cooling fan, and the neatly set table was stocked with alcohol and snacks for two.
   Baring his white, plump arms, Lee Byŏng-chan treated Han Young-guk with refined manners and courtesy as always. In terms of personality and knowledge, Lee Byung-chan's existence seemed an insignificant object in gray-haired Han’s eyes, but considered in terms of power, he was always a fearsome presence that gave Han goosebumps over his whole body.
   “Have some wine. Then we’ll talk.” Lee smiled through his gold-rimmed spectacles as he poured. “It’s a little out of order, but since this is a famous Italian wine, I think we’ll be okay. This is a Valpolicella. Here, have some.”
   With a tone that said: Who cares if you don’t serve the wine after clear liquor as in Western-style drinking, Han Young-guk chided Lee Byung-chan for his quirky attempt at showing off: “However fine this wine may be, I'd like it better if you'd just get down to business already.”
   “Business? Ha ha ha, that’s so you...”

[Lee insists he just wants to chat, Han says I don’t believe you]

   “…Come on. I need to know my role so I can memorize the lines and perform, don’t I?”
   Lee knew he was no match for Han at eloquent speech. That's why alcohol was needed. Deducing his inner turmoil as usual, Han casually raised his glass and drank. It felt like an icicle trickling down from his throat to the pit of his stomach. But he didn’t reach for the snacks. The effect of alcohol would be greater on an empty stomach.
   “To be honest, I want to give you some news.”
   “News?"
   “That’s right. You must have heard the report that the North is offering to send relief supplies, right?”
   “Ah, that!” Han nodded lightly and smiled as if the news was insignificant, then lifted his full glass of wine and drank it down. A mischievous smile crossed Lee's thin lips. 

   “What about it?” Han set down his empty glass and gently wiped around his mouth. “Are you going to ask me to make up [a narrative] that we don’t need the supplies?”
   It was a slightly challenging question. After a couple of drinks, he unconsciously got more ballsy [저도 몰래 담이 커졌다]. Feeling depressed lately, Han found it harder not to vent the resentment in his heart. But he never crossed the line. He know very well what lay behind the smile of the guy sitting across from him talking of “kindness” and “a favor”.
   "No. Han, you’re always so impatient.” Cooling his agitation in this way, Lee continued with that sly smile that seemed to draw out a person's soul. “This time, we’re going to issue a statement that we will accept the North Korean relief supplies.”
   “What, really?!” Han sat up, perking his ears.
   “It's true. It'll probably go out on the morning news tomorrow. Then the whole world will surely be astonished like you are now.”
   Han was shaken. This was an amazing scoop that would cause a sensation in the news world. But underneath his excitement he felt his sharp sense of caution relentlessly constrain the bounds of his emotions. He couldn't figure out why Lee would secretly inform him first about this important incident that the authorities had not yet announced. He struggled to suppress the excitement boiling inside him and shook his head with willful calm.
   “I don’t know. I can't believe it at all.”
   “It’s true. I too was unsure at first, but this is an undeniable fact. On September 8th, North Korea announced that it would send 50,000 sacks of rice, 500,000 m of cloth, 100,000 tons of cement, and medicines as relief supplies. Those amounts are considerable.”
   Lee poured more wine into Han's empty glass. 
   Han, still doubtful, asked again: “Byŏngchan-kun, don’t jerk me around, speak plainly. How did the authorities come to accept North Korean aid this time? It can’t be just good faith taking the North's intentions at face value...”
   “As usual, I bow my head before your sharp deductive skills. You’re right. 'North Korea' [북한] announced to the world that it would send relief supplies, but in reality it is an empty shell [빈껍데기].”
   “An empty shell?”
   “They’re trying to launch a propaganda offensive with nothing to give. So that when we don't accept it, they're going to criticize us to the world, saying 'Look, there is no brotherly love, no humanitarianism, no care for the people'. This is a cunning trick of the communists in 'North Korea'.”
   “I don’t know. I can’t believe such a thing...”
   “Ha, you don’t believe it?! According to information from our National Intelligence Service [KCIA], 'North Korea' cannot afford to give us that much rice right now. So, if we say we will receive relief supplies, 'North Korea' will have to go to the Soviet Union or China to import cloth and rice; but we wouldn't give them time to do so. Then, you can imagine how things will turn out. Isn’t this a great opportunity to show off your writing skill?” ...

The conversation continues in this way, with Lee attempting to throw Han off his game with drink and flattery, seemingly unaware that the veteran reporter is basically immune to both. In a flashback, we get a sympathetic glimpse of Lee's point of view: he has been under extreme pressure from higher-ups in the Ministry to get his pet reporter on a tighter leash. He is also insecure about his own mediocre education and thus uses alcohol as a crutch to feel more at ease with Han, his senior and intellectual superior. 

Because this is a conversation between two South Korean characters, they use the South Korean words for North Korea (북한) and South Korea (한국) throughout, although always in scare quotes.

Useful drinking vocabulary:

고뿌 North Korean for "cup" - loan word from Japanese loan word from English
모태주 Moutai liquor
워드까 North Korea spelling of "Vodka"
마사무네 North Korean word for Japanese sake (orig. alternative reading of 正宗 [청주], a brand popular during the colonial era)
안주 Snacks served with alcoholic beverages, the same in North and South
찰랑찰랑한 술잔  a full, almost overflowing glass
꿀꺽꿀꺽 onomatopoeia for gulping down a drink

Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Raise Your Bayonets (#1): Bob Dole plays a Bond villain

Raise Your Bayonets (총검을 들고) is a 2002 novel by Song Sang Wŏn, part of the Imperishable Leadership series of historical novels which purports to chronicle the life & deeds of Kim Jong Il. Song is also a co-author of Eternal Life (1997), reviewed earlier in this blog.

This novel covers events in 1996, chiefly the construction of the massive Kumgangsan Dam and Anbyŏn Youth Power Plant, the KPA submarine incursion into South Korea, and the Arduous March Famine. The famine coverage includes some quite moving scenes of ordinary workers and soldiers making extraordinary sacrifices to save the country from disaster, as well as depictions of high-level debates over economic priorities and the best strategy for recovery.

"Who has one thumb and a badass role
in a North Korean novel?"
Src: Getty Images
In this post I will ignore all of that, to focus instead on a secondary and rather silly portion of the novel: its depiction of the 1996 US presidential race, and particularly Republican Candidate Bob Dole. I choose to do this because it is one of the few cases of North Korean historical fiction depicting an American political campaign in any detail, and because it's just so gosh-darn entertaining.

The Room Z Fraktsiya

The novel makes the innovative narrative choice to cast then-candidate Dole in the principal bad-guy role, instead of the actual sitting US president. Dole leads a secretive cabal of like-minded hardliners within the US intelligence and defense agencies who meet periodically in a smoke-filled back room at CIA headquarters labeled simply 'Z'. The members of this "Room Z Conspiracy" are motivated by a shared belief that Clinton's Agreed Framework deal is a humiliation for the US and that new, hawkish leadership is needed to defeat North Korea, the greatest threat to US global hegemony.

The author takes some relish in playing up the cloak-and-dagger elements of this plot. When we first encounter Dole in Chapter 3, he is sitting blindfolded in the backseat of an idling car with reflective glass windows by the back door of CIA headquarters. We then backtrack to the story of how he came to be there:

   Early that morning, Dole had been awakened from sleep by the phone ringing on the small table next to his bedside. He stretched out his arm, picked up the phone, and groggily asked: “Who is this?”
   “This is your airport guide. Your flight to New York leaves at exactly 2:00 pm.” 
   It was a woman's soft voice.  But those words were enough to wake Dole for good. He sat up in bed and pushed the covers off, lifting his legs and lowering them to the floor, fumbling for his slippers. Such was his excitement that he forgot he was still holding the phone.
   He quickly recovered and, in a voice mixed with joy and fear of misunderstanding, asked: “Is that true?”
   “Yes, your contact asked me to inform you that he will wait at the appointed place at 10:00 am.”
   Dole absently set down the phone. He found his prosthetic arm, strapped it on, and walked around the room limping. He had lost his right arm and injured his left leg in the Vietnam War.
   Dole grabbed the prosthetic arm with his good hand and raised it to the right of his head, muttering to himself, “I’ve won! Clinton, you draft dodger [전쟁기피자]! Did you think I would lose to you?”
   His wife, Elizabeth Dole, regarded her husband in amazement.
   The call that drove Dole to mad ecstasy came from CIA Director Herriman’s secretary. The only important word in that phone call was the number “2.”

Dole understands that the number "2" in this call indicates the output of a calculation by a CIA supercomputer programmed to simulate various crisis situations in North Korea. The number signifies that if their plans are implemented, the computer predicts that North Korea will collapse in two years.

"The secret ingredient is... love? Okay, who's 
been messing with this thing?!!"
Src: WarGames, MGM

Eagle-eyed readers will note that the above excerpt incorrectly states that Dole had a prosthetic arm as a result of an injury sustained fighting in Vietnam. In reality, his arm was paralyzed, not prosthetic, and the injury happened when Dole was fighting in Europe during WWII. Such mistakes have little significance, but they hint at the difficulties faced by North Korean authors when researching for a historical novel while working with a limited selection of probably poorly translated news sources.

"CIA Director Herriman" [허리먼] is a fabrication; the actual CIA director at this time would have been John Deutch. It's quite common for these novels to give aliases to DPRK officials, likely to save trouble later if those individuals fall from favor, but US officials are usually identified by their real names unless they need to step far outside of their real historical roles for the sake of the plot. I've read enough by now to know that when a fake name is assigned to a clearly identified US official, something pretty crazy is going to happen with that character.

Anyway, Dole is thrilled at this phone call and the impending crisis that, in his mind, virtually guarantees his victory in the upcoming election. After savoring the feeling of victory a bit, he hurries to meet his co-conspirators in their secret CIA lair.

   Entering the secret room marked with the letter "Z" at the CIA at 10:00 a.m., Bob Dole was in high spirits.
   In attendance, as always at these meetings, were Deputy Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Jones (representing the Department of Defense), Deputy Secretary of State Seaburn [씨번], Deputy Director of the FBI Dipper [디퍼], and Senior Fellow Hoker [호케르] of the Kennedy Foundation, which was funding their group. None of them had ever seen Dole so exuberant, except for the first few days after their fraktsiya had been formed three years ago. 
  But Bob Dole, an extraordinary actor, managed to contain his elation. However much he had longed to see those computer calculations, he did not want to show his feelings in front of these people, who would occupy important positions in his future administration. By doing so, he would have been essentially admitting that he had been in a tight spot until now.

Again, all of these officials' names seem fictional; it is easy to verify who actually held those titles in 1996 and none of their names resemble any romanized rendering of the given Korean. Notice there are a lot of "deputy" chiefs here; perhaps the author felt it more believable that a deputy would be willing to conspire against the president who appointed them. Why he chose to pick on the Kennedy Foundation, an organization primarily dedicated to helping people with disabilities, is anyone's guess. The Russian term fraktsiya is rendered phonetically and seems a well-known foreign loan word in North Korea.

CIA Director Herriman opens the meeting with his report on the latest computer calculations. He explains how they used data collected from espionage and satellite reconnaissance to input political, economic and military crisis situations of North Korea into the program, focusing on economic crises. All the data suggest that the NK economy is near disaster and cannot possibly recover (here the text accurately reports several grim indicators - 5 years' negative growth, record low GNP & foreign trade, near-zero factory operation rate). 

He concludes: “The fundamental reason why the North Korean economy has developed like this is that the socialist economic market on which they depended has completely disappeared, and they have been unable to enter Western markets due to our economic blockade. So if we tighten the economic blockade and increase military pressure, they will suffocate in the very near future. The computer has calculated this precisely.”

Bob Dole, speaking next, agrees. He believes that the DPRK has been rocked to its core by the death of President Kim Il-sung, and if this had been included in the computer input, they might see an even lower number. “Anyway, the collapse of North Korea is a fait accompli. Therefore, we must work to accelerate it with all our might. One year is enough to destroy North Korea, not two years!” To achieve this acceleration, they plan to instigate a series of provocations along the DMZ, which they will then use as a pretext for war.

World domination. The same old dream....

Later in the novel, the Room Z conspirators gather to watch their plans come to fruition from an underground command center at Mount Weather – the closest thing America has to a hollowed-out volcano ala Dr. No. The base is described:

   In the US state of Virginia is an unknown town that cannot even be found on a map. 7.2 kilometers from the capital Washington, this town is little-known and is not included in the government budget. This mysterious place, which they named "Mount Weather," takes on the mission of underground capital [지하수도] in the event the US enters a war.  
   Built in 1958 during the Eisenhower era, it had never before been opened, as its opening signals an intention to have a final confrontation with the enemy. It was clear that the fuse had been ignited for some kind of provocation, the kind of fuse that would decide each other's life or death.

"Mr. Kim, I've been expecting you."
Src: Getty Images (from You Only Live Twice)

Via a satellite feed, the conspirators are treated to a high-res view of the obscure point along the MDL where their agents have arranged a sort of ambush that they hope will escalate into a wider crisis. As they watch, their plan backfires spectacularly, thanks to the quick thinking of a certain KPA commander and his team: 

   The [KPA] attack was ruthless; a hundredfold, a thousandfold retaliation. All kinds of sniper weapons and artillery howled. Under this extraordinary battery, the enemy's concrete barriers were blown away like sheets of paper, and their firing points, anti-tank barriers and barbed wire were reduced to bean curd powder [콩가루가 되였다]. Not only the enemy's guard posts but also their radio broadcasting stations and first-line infantry medic wards were blown away to nothing.
   The attack was so unexpected, fierce and explosive that the generals back at Mount Weather, observing the scene via military satellite, were frozen and unable to give any instructions to the local commanders. Before any instructions could have even been given, it was all over, as the enemy soldiers in the field had hurriedly raised the white flag and acknowledged their surrender by holding breathlessly silent.

The plot involves sneakily moving a certain
MDL marker a few meters north and waiting
for a KPA patrol to come along
It's hard to imagine why the US/ROK forces would not have just escalated to airstrikes at that point, and this should have pleased the Room Z group since escalation was their hope from the beginning. But they all seem shattered, and instead of gaining popular support for the hardliners this incident causes Dole's whole campaign to fall apart. To me this is the most troubling part of the whole story, because it seems to suggest that massive retaliation is a good and productive response to DMZ clashes. Up to now, the lesson had seemed to be "The US warmongers are always trying to provoke a massive retaliation as a pretext for war, don't give them what they want."

Who's Your Baddie?

It's interesting to contrast this novel with Ryŏksa ŭi Taeha, part of the same Imperishable Leadership Series and written by an equally elite author, published just four years earlier in 1998. That novel, set in 1993 during the first nuclear crisis, had President Clinton in the role of warmonger-in-chief and principal villain plotting North Korea's downfall, with nary a mention of Dole or the Republican Party.

In this later novel, Dole is the main villain, but Clinton does not completely get a pass. By the time the DMZ clash happens, he has joined forces with the Room Z conspirators, spooked by the unexpected successful completion of the Anbyon Youth Power Plant which suggests that North Korea might be stronger than he [Clinton] had believed. 

Clinton has no dialogue or personal interaction with the conspirators, however. There is no explanation of how he found out about their plot in the first place, nor any dramatic scene of him confronting all the "deputy chiefs" who had been conspiring behind his back. There is just a brief paragraph explaining that the Anbyon Plant's success produced "a massive public opinion wave that combined the rival forces of the two presidential candidates, Bill Clinton and Bob Dole; in other words, hardliners and moderates had joined together."  It's unclear what Clinton contributes to the plot, aside from access to Mt. Weather, and there is no subsequent mention of his involvement, even when Bob Dole is dragged before a joint session of Congress and made to answer for the whole fiasco. 

If I were the gambling type, I might place a small wager that this Clinton involvement was added at the last minute, at some party bureaucrat's insistence. It would not do for people to start thinking of a sitting US president as "the good guy."

Rise of the Machines

There is also an interesting contrast between the two novels in their portrayals of American strategists relying on computer-based models. 

Loyal readers of this blog may recall the scene in Ryŏksa ŭi Taeha that I reviewed a few years back, in which the Clinton-era Defense Department ran a computer-simulated war game based on their secret plan to attack North Korea. There, Clinton and the assembled generals watched aghast as the simulation predicted that Seoul would be occupied by the KPA within two weeks of the start of hostilities. Seeing this, a shaken Clinton despaired: "They couldn’t ignore this result from a computer developed with state-of-the-art science and technology. The machine had no emotions and did not care about anybody's feelings, even the US president. It just produced scientific, absolute calculations."

In the novel excerpted above, we see a similar type of computer simulation, but this time it is predicting something the American warmongers presumably want to hear – the collapse of North Korea. When Dole hears the computer prediction he crows ecstatically,  “I won! ... Computers are science! Let's pull tighter for the final victory! I will appeal to the people. Clinton, I will beat you!” 

In this story, we the readers are invited to laugh at the folly of these computer-trusting Americans, knowing full well that the DPRK will not collapse in two years, nor ten, nor twenty. Yet in Ryŏksa ŭi Taeha, we are meant to appreciate the wisdom of the computer that could see what the US president and his advisors could not: a North Korean victory. What are we to make of this, other than that DoD supercomputers are apparently superior to CIA supercomputers? Whose side are these computers on, anyway?