American Influence

A Successor to Kim Jong-il?, and Two American Journalists on Trial in the DPRK

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Hardly anything is known about Kim Jong-un, the young man said to be next-in-line to take over in North Korea. The CIA refers to him as “the cute leader,” according to today’s New York Times. The only known picture of him was taken when he was 11 years old. You can see a copy of that photo at right. The one source that nearly every news story about the 20-something third son of Kim Jong-il is citing is the former chef of the Dear Leader, who has described Kim Jong-un as a chip off the old block.

Episode 20 of the podcast includes an interview with Prof. Sung-Yoon Lee about the apparent transition in leadership that’s going on in North Korea. He’s skeptical about many details in recent reports about Kim Jong-un. The bottom line, Lee says, is that North Korea’s economy may be a mess, the country may be the most isolated nation on earth, but its system of government is probably stable enough to make it through a post-Kim Jong-il transition intact.

The rest of the podcast focuses on the case of Laura Ling and Euna Lee. As I write this post, the two American women await trial in Pyongyang for entering North Korea illegally and with “hostile intent.” Here’s the latest from Reuters. I spoke with Chuck Downs of the Washington-based group, Human Rights in North Korea; former US ambassador to South Korea, Donald Gregg; and a former US Navy officer, Edward Murphy. In 1968, he was held – along with 81 of his fellow crewmembers on the USS Pueblo – in a North Korean prison for more than 11 months after their ship was captured by the DPRK.

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