Who Is Kim Jong-il, And the Sons Following In His Lonely Footsteps?
Born: Feb. 16, 1942. Kim was born at an army camp in the Soviet Union where his father was a key figure among Korean communist exiles. But the North says he was born on Mount Paektu, a peak considered sacred to Koreans. Early Years: Kim is mostly educated in China and later goes to Kim Il-sung University, named after his father, in Pyongyang. He joins the ruling Korean Workers’ Party. By 1969, he is a member of its Politburo and deputy director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department. Anointed Successor: Kim Il-sung names his son as his successor in 1974. Kim Jong-il, now referred to as the “Dear Leader” in state media, steadily increases his power in domestic, international and security affairs in the 1980s. Intelligence experts say he ordered the 1983 bombing in the capital of Burma that killed 17 senior South Korean officials and the bombing of a Korean Air jetliner in 1987 that killed 115. Kim is suspected of devising plans to raise cash by kidnapping Japanese, dealing drugs thr
