A New Belligerence

Dramatic and dangerous as it was, the seizure of the U.S.S. Pueblo was only the latest and loudest thunderbolt from a long-gathering storm of North Korean belligerence. Under Premier Kim II Sung, a tough, Soviet-trained soldier, the North has become increasingly frustrated by its place in the Communist world and its poor showing visa-vis South Korea. Moved by the desire to bolster his regime internally and win some international notice and prestige --plus his oft-stated desire to distract the U.S. from its role in Viet Nam-Kim has deliberately launched his country on a high-risk policy.

The North has plenty of reason to feel frustrated. Its seven-year plan, due to end last year, failed to meet its goals and had to be extended--while South Korea's healthy economy was spurting ahead at a G.N.P. rate of 8.4% in 1967. Kim and his government failed in their efforts to disrupt the South Korean presidential elections last spring, watched with embarrassment while South Korea sent 46,000 men to fight its Communist allies in Viet Nam. And at 57, Kim is desperately anxious to see unification of North and South Korea realized before he reaches 61, the all-important year in a man's life cycle according to the Korean zodiac.

Brazen Incursion. As that prospect dimmed in the face of Southern success and stagnation in the North, Kim switched from talking about "peaceful" reunification and declared: "We must accomplish the South Korean revolution and unify the fatherland in our generation." To that end, he set up subversion and terrorist schools in North Korea, where some 2,400 commandos are now being trained to infiltrate the South to start a guerrilla war. The results have become apparent in the North's new aggressiveness along the Demilitarized Zone at the 38th parallel. In 1967, there were 566 North Korean infiltration incidents v. only 50 in 1966; 117 exchanges of fire compared with only 19 in 1966; and 122 men of the U.N. command killed (including 16 Americans) v. 35 the year before. No wonder Kim warned recently that "a tense situation in which a war may break out at any moment has been created in our country."

Last week, just two days before the Pueblo's seizure, North Korea made the most brazen incursion into South Korea to date. From its subversion camps, it dispatched 31 North Korean agents into the South in a meticulously planned attempt to assassinate South Korean President Chung Hee Park. Their orders: make their way into the Blue House residence of the President in Seoul, cut off Park's head and pitch it into the street. The attack marked the first time since the Korean armistice in 1953 that a large number of North Korean terrorists had had the audacity to enter the capital.

Organized into six groups, each commanded by a North Korean army captain, the assassination team members had trained for two years in guerrilla-warfare tactics, then practiced their assignment for 15 days in a mock-up model of the Blue House erected in their base at Wonsan. Setting out on foot to slip through the snowy DMZ, each of the 31 wore an overcoat, black sneakers and a woollen winter cap and carried 66 lbs. of equipment, including a submachine gun, a pistol, a dagger, eight hand grenades and one antitank grenade.

The North Koreans managed to get through the DMZ barbed wire and mines unnoticed but, en route on their four-day march to Seoul, they made the mistake of asking a woodcutter about the capital's security checkpoints. He notified the police, who began to set up road and street blocks to intercept the assassins. Even so, they got within several hundred yards of the Blue House before police sighted and challenged them. A brief battle ensued, in which a policeman and a guerrilla were killed, and one young guerrilla, Lieut. Shin Jo Kim, was captured. The rest of the North Koreans escaped, and a nationwide man hunt spread out to catch them before they could get back through the DMZ. By week's end all but ten had been caught, but only one alive. The rest died shooting, killing 18 people in the process, including a U.S. soldier guarding the DMZ.

Toughness & Arrogance. The plan to kill Park was Premier Kim's own idea, as in all likelihood was the order to seize the Pueblo. A Stalinist who has kept North Korea in a state of permanent purge, Kim has acted In recent years to assert North Korea's independence, slipping out of China's orbit and edging closer to Russia. To show that independence, North Korea became the first Communist country to offer to send troops to North Viet Nam to aid Ho Chi Minh; Ho declined, except for accepting some 50 North Korean pilot instructors. Kim has built around him self a cult of personality that is exceeded in the Communist world only by Mao Tse-tung's, and he personally sets the tone of toughness and arrogance that shows up so regularly in North Korea's dealings with the rest of the world.

To back up that arrogance, Kim commands an army of 367,000 men, an air force of 35,000 men and a navy 10,500 seamen strong. In addition, a people's militia of 1,200,000 men and women stands trained and ready to fight. But this muscle has been built at a tremendous cost to the welfare of North Koreans: the military takes some 30% of the nation's budget. With more than 650 planes in its air force, North Korea has an air capability far superior to anything North Viet Nam ever possessed, and North Korean pilots know how to fly their MIG-21s.

No Restraints. In pirating the Pueblo, Kim knew that discomfiting the U.S. would also undercut South Kore an President Park--and thought that the risk was worth it. Risks are, of course, a relative matter. A hypermil-itant, fanatical minipower such as North Korea does not feel the restraints that are imposed upon the Soviet Union or the U.S. It has no interest in maintaining the tradition of freedom of the seas for its own minuscule coastal navy, nor does it carry the burden of an atomic arsenal. Past masters of propaganda, the North Koreans can be expected to wring the maximum insult from the Pueblo affair. North Korea proclaimed that Kim's soldiers "are renewing their resolve to repulse the U.S. imperialist aggressors at one stroke, if the enemy dares pounce upon us like a puppy unafraid of a tiger." The danger is that the North Koreans, flushed with their triumph at sea, may come to believe their own propaganda.

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