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Good info,
Pres. Jimmy Carter arranged a Kim IS - Kim YS
summit and the latter was all set to fly to Pyongyang but Kim IS died
suddenly. In a sense, Kim DJ completed the summit arranged by
Carter.
Kim YS claims that he blocked an American plan to
bomb Kim IS's nuclear facilities and thus avoided another war in Korea, for
which Kim IS was grateful and willing to meet Kim YS.
As far as Kim JI's 'dictatorship' goes, he has to
contend with Kim IS's brother (Kim Young Ju), widow, other siblings as well as
the old partisan comrades still alive and well. Kim JI's son did not help
much by getting caught in Tokyo by the very Japanese Kim IS hated so
much.
ysk
>
I
think the "unthinkability" of a ROK President visiting Pyongyang as
other
than a conqueror is more based on the current ROK President, not
the
current DPRK President. The ROK Kim was trying his best to cause a
unification of the Koreans within his administration and that has been
frustrated by many different things.
Rhee, Park, Chun or Roh,
visiting Kim Il Sung, (LOL!).
Kim Il Sung survived as turbulent as
times as his son is currently going
through. He survived the
de-Stalinization of the USSR (an unreliable
ally) and the several
incarnations of Mao and his policies (another
unreliable ally) and so
on. The only advantage the NK had in the 50s and
60s was the steel
mills the Soviets gave them. They produced and sold
steel around the
world until the Japanese introduced and exported cheaper
steel. It
wiped out the demand for NK (and US) Steel. The Oil Embargo
of 1974
and the rise of oil prices took the NK economy to the floor. The
only advantage they had was an alternate producer of Soviet Arms (FROGs,
SCUDs, SA-2s and SAGGER Missiles) to Egypt, Syria and Libya and
eventually to Iran. When the Chinese saw they could sell stuff on
the
market they cut the NKs throat and undersold them.
A lot of
people think that NK is a dictatorship controlled by one man,
this has
never been the case. Through it's short history, both of the
Kims
have had to deal with numerous factions and interest groups within
NK. While they could eliminate real opposition (like the pro-Chinese
faction in the late 50s), but they were very good working with groups and
in the elder's case making drastic changes in policy based on current
activities.
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