Why North Korea's Kim Jong Un Isn't as Powerful as Kim Jong Il

It's difficult to understand North Korea given its secrecy and the opaque face shown to the world through state propaganda, yet there is an outlier  unique to the hermit kingdom the hereditary transference power passed by a single dictatorial  family, the Kim's.   Beginning with Kim-Il song followed by his son Kim-Jong il and now the grandson Kim-Jong un power, while still held nominally by the Kim's it has become diluted as new centers of influence emerge  be it the military or government functionaries.  

The following is an interview with the former poet laureate and spy for North Korea.


    In the late 1990s, Jang Jin-sung was North Korea’s state poet laureate and a spy.

He reached the pinnacle of his charmed life in 1999 when he met the "Dear Leader," Kim Jong Il, at the age of just 28.

Below is the translation of an interview he gave NBC News’ Director of International News Adrienne Mong during a recent visit to London.

Q: What was your job?

In North Korea, I was a writer. But in North Korea there's no such thing as a writer the way the outside world understands it. It's not as an individual that you are a writer. It is as a bureaucrat, as a civil servant, as a revolutionary.

I was a part of the so-called United Front Department [the key division in the ruling Workers’ Party that was also responsible for inter-Korean espionage, policymaking and diplomacy]. My job title was counterintelligence officer with special oversight of psychological warfare against South Korea.

Q: So your position gave you a unique perspective on how the North Korean government functions?

When I was growing up, I didn't even think to question what we read and were taught. It was only when I became part of the system, writing over and over the story that I’d been taught as a child, that I realized it wasn't the truth. I realized it was policy that was forcing our history, our culture, and our identity to be written a certain way -- not because it actually happened this way.