7 Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong Il 7that he was born at a guerrilla base camp on Mount Paektu,
the highest point on the Korean Peninsula. It attributes
many precocious abilities to him and claims his birth was
accompanied by such auspicious signs as the appearance
of a double rainbow in the sky. During the Korean War
(1950–53), he was placed in safety in northeastern China
(Manchuria) by his father, although the official biography
does not mention the episode. After attending a pilot’s
training college in East Germany for two years, he gradu-
ated in 1963 from Kim Il-sung University. He served in
numerous routine posts in the KWP before becoming his
father’s secretary. He worked closely with his father in the
1967 party purge and then was assigned several important
jobs. Kim was appointed in September 1973 to the power-
ful position of party secretary in charge of organization,
propaganda, and agitation.
Kim was officially designated his father’s successor in
October 1980, was given command of the armed forces in
1990–91, and held high-ranking posts on the Central
Committee, in the Politburo, and in the Party Secretariat.
When Kim Il-sung died of a heart attack in 1994, Kim Jong
Il became North Korea’s de facto leader. He was named
chairman of the KWP in October 1997, and in September
1998 he formally assumed the country’s highest post. Since
the position of president had been eliminated by the
Supreme People’s Assembly, which reserved for Kim Il-sung
the posthumous title of “eternal president,” the younger
Kim was reelected chairman of the National Defense
Commission, an office whose powers were expanded.
During his leadership of the country, Kim built on
the mystique already surrounding his father and himself.
Conflicting information circulated regarding his personal
life, most of it unreliable and—perhaps deliberately—
serving to add to the mystery. It was known that Kim
took an interest in the arts and encouraged greater