Speaker 1: H four days before his execution, Changsung Tex sat inside
Speaker 1: the Mansuda Assembly Hall behind a wood paneled desk, flanked
Speaker 1: by hundreds of his fellow politicians and bureaucrats. Seated before
Speaker 1: him behind an ornately carved ais was his nephew and
Speaker 1: judge Kim Chang n Aschangue fidgeted in his chair, the
Speaker 1: Polite euro issued its judgment to pretended to uphold the
Speaker 1: party and leader was engrossed in such factional antists, dreaming
Speaker 1: different dreams and involving himself in double dealing. Behind the scene,
Speaker 1: Tongue looked sullen. Two soldiers approached him, grabbed him up
Speaker 1: by the elbows, and escorted him out of the room.
Speaker 1: The sixty seven year old official looked hunched and frail,
Speaker 1: as if on the verge of collapse. Within days he
Speaker 1: would be dead. The so called dreams and double dealings
Speaker 1: Uncle Tongue committed were never specified. All we know is
Speaker 1: that Kim jong nun considered him a threat, and some
Speaker 1: believe Kim jong nam factored into his death sentence. Chang
Speaker 1: Song Tech clearly had a favorite nephew. He and Kim
Speaker 1: jong nam spoke on the phone regularly and shared common
Speaker 1: goals for the country. Chang reportedly wired money to his
Speaker 1: nephew and Macao. Some murmured that Change was hoping to
Speaker 1: install Kim jong Nam as the next leader. Others suggested
Speaker 1: that China was providing security for Kim jong Nam as
Speaker 1: a favorite to Uncle Change as a thank you for
Speaker 1: his Chinese friendly policies. Few know what conversations were had
Speaker 1: in Beijing, but rumors have swirled China was taking a
Speaker 1: close look at Kim jong Nam just in case the
Speaker 1: incumbent leader needed to be well replaced. Kim Jong Nam
Speaker 1: was an obvious choice for that, because you know, he's
Speaker 1: known to be quite friendly to China. He was somebody
Speaker 1: I think that China felt could be counted on and
Speaker 1: was beholden to them, And that is why I think
Speaker 1: he was living in Macau as well, a Chinese terror ary,
Speaker 1: a place where he could come and go easily, but
Speaker 1: under the protection of China. Even if China provided Kim
Speaker 1: jong Nam with security, it didn't provide much support financially,
Speaker 1: because shortly after Uncle Tang was dispatched from this planet
Speaker 1: with anti aircraft guns. No less, Kim Jong Nam's lavish
Speaker 1: lifestyle began to flounder. The man who was accustomed to
Speaker 1: staying at five star hotels and oceanside villas was now
Speaker 1: desperately reserving airbnbs. Another former school friend of Kim Jong
Speaker 1: Nam told me that Kim jong Nam seem to have
Speaker 1: been kind of cut off from the regime finances once
Speaker 1: Kim Jong Nun took over. For reasons that aren't clear,
Speaker 1: the revenue stream Kim jong Nam had secured running his
Speaker 1: gambling sites may have dried up. He was clearly working
Speaker 1: for a living, working for himself, and making money for himself.
Speaker 1: In the final years of his life. With Uncle Chang dead,
Speaker 1: Kim jong Nam became increasingly desperate for cash, and just
Speaker 1: days before his assassination in February, he took one of
Speaker 1: the biggest risks of his life, apparently in a bid
Speaker 1: to make much needed money. He flew to Malaysia, away
Speaker 1: from the protection of his Chinese minders, and visited Langkawi,
Speaker 1: an archipelago known for its serene, palm dazzled islands, white
Speaker 1: sandy beaches, and turquoise waters. During his stay at a
Speaker 1: Western hotel hell on Langkawee, security footage would catch Kim
Speaker 1: jong Nam backpack and tow meeting a suspicious stranger. So
Speaker 1: some of the last footage of Kim jong Nam showed
Speaker 1: him in a hotel elevator with a man of Asian ethnicity.
Speaker 1: The man's identity is a mystery, but according to South
Speaker 1: Korea's intelligence agency, the man was not some childhood friend
Speaker 1: from Switzerland, nor a friendly comrade from back home, nor
Speaker 1: even one of Kim jong Nam's gambling clients. He was
Speaker 1: American and he worked for the c I A I'm
Speaker 1: even lee. In this episode, we delve into the twisted
Speaker 1: relationship between Kim jong Nam, the United States and North Korea,
Speaker 1: and a big question was Kim jong Nam an American asset?
Speaker 1: And it's so did the US government know what could
Speaker 1: happen to him? The regime has every interest to keep
Speaker 1: tabs on his brother. North Korea has chemical weapons capability,
Speaker 1: but the willingness to use UH is there. Kim jong
Speaker 1: Nam had been acting as an informant to the CIA,
Speaker 1: giving them information what he knew about Kim Jong Lan
Speaker 1: and the regime. This is big brother in North Korea.
Speaker 1: There may be no worse crime than working with or
Speaker 1: being sympathetic to the Americans. And that's because the United
Speaker 1: States in North Korea's eyes is public Enemy No. One.
Speaker 1: The DPRK's behavior, it's obsession with weapons of mass destruction,
Speaker 1: it's devotion to military first policy, even the way it
Speaker 1: killed Kim Jong Nam, all tied into the country's tense
Speaker 1: relationship with the US. But to understand why, we have
Speaker 1: to go back to June the outbreak of the Korean War.
Speaker 1: I would say, with just the slightest exaggeration, that the
Speaker 1: Korean War launched modern international history. As Dr Lee explains,
Speaker 1: the Korean War transformed the United Nations from a paper
Speaker 1: organization into a global force. It's why American troops are
Speaker 1: stationed at basis in more than seventy foreign countries, and
Speaker 1: it deepened the tensions that would come to define the
Speaker 1: Cold War. The Korean War was deeply consequential, and yet
Speaker 1: the conflict would be largely hidden from the American public.
Speaker 1: The Korean War has long been dubbed in the United
Speaker 1: States It's as the Forgotten War. But for the five
Speaker 1: hundred thousand Korean War veterans still alive today from the
Speaker 1: various countries that fought in it, very little has been forgotten,
Speaker 1: especially in Korea. The war touched upon the lives of
Speaker 1: the vast majority of the people in both South Korea
Speaker 1: and North Korea in a tragic negative way. Virtually every
Speaker 1: Korean had a family member or relative who was maimed
Speaker 1: or killed or lost. Over fifteen percent of North Korean
Speaker 1: civilians were sacrificed, ten million people probably displaced from home,
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of orphans. So the death toll and
Speaker 1: the suffering, and it's one relevant factor metric, of course,
Speaker 1: But of course that doesn't tell the entire story. That
Speaker 1: entire story really it's with the indiscriminate splitting of the
Speaker 1: Korean peninsula at the thirty eighth parallel, the line dividing
Speaker 1: North and South. So late night on August tenth, the
Speaker 1: United States came up with a plan for temporarily dividing
Speaker 1: Korea at the halfway the midway point at the thirty
Speaker 1: eighth parallel, to block further advancement of the Soviet troops.
Speaker 1: So this was a proposal submitted by the United States
Speaker 1: to stalin North and South Korea. In other words, were
Speaker 1: inventions of other nations. No Koreans had a seat at
Speaker 1: the table when their homeland was divided. The haphazard manner
Speaker 1: in which the partitioning of the Korean Peninsula came to
Speaker 1: take place is a source of ire for the people
Speaker 1: of Korea, but the initially the intention was to say
Speaker 1: at least half a loaf half of the Korean peninsula,
Speaker 1: to put South Korea under the U s fere influence.
Speaker 1: The line, however, was not something Koreans on either side
Speaker 1: recognized culturally or politically, so the United States and Soviet
Speaker 1: Union made a promise the division would be temporary. In
Speaker 1: the United Nations tried to erase the dividing line and
Speaker 1: unite the peninsula under one government with an election, but
Speaker 1: when it came time to vote, the Soviet Union refused
Speaker 1: to let the UN Commission cross into North Korea. Locked
Speaker 1: out of the North, the UN decided to hold assembly
Speaker 1: elections anyway, but only in the South, and with that
Speaker 1: the government of South Korea was officially established and any
Speaker 1: chance of uniting the peninsula peacefully vanished. And then two
Speaker 1: years later, in June fifty, the Korean War began. Under
Speaker 1: the strangest of circumstances, Koreans invaded Korea with the goal
Speaker 1: of unifying Korea. There's no doubt who started it, Kimils
Speaker 1: Hung and the communist North, but American officials refused to
Speaker 1: believe the North Korean leader was actually responsible. When news
Speaker 1: of the North Korean invasion of South Korea broke, President
Speaker 1: Truman himself almost immediately decided to take action due to
Speaker 1: a misreading of the situation. Do you too seeing North
Speaker 1: Korea's invasion of the South as Stalin and Mao's ploy
Speaker 1: viewing the North Korean leader Kim Is Sung as a
Speaker 1: mere puppet to Stalin and Mao. In fact, the high
Speaker 1: ranking State Department official said that the relationship between Stalin
Speaker 1: and Kimmi Sung is exactly the same as that between
Speaker 1: Won't Disney and Donald Duck. Kimi Song is not his
Speaker 1: own man, and Stalin is pulling the strings. In an
Speaker 1: effort to beat back the attack, the United Nations pour
Speaker 1: troops into the peninsula, both what out of misreading the situation.
Speaker 1: Within weeks, North Korea had nearly taken over the entire
Speaker 1: South Korean peninsula, But with the backing of the U
Speaker 1: n the South Korean military would soon receive international support.
Speaker 1: Sixteen countries, including Turkey and Ethiopia, deployed military troops. Thirty
Speaker 1: nine other countries gave financial and material support, but it
Speaker 1: was the United States that provided the bulk of foreign
Speaker 1: manpower and weaponry. The U n Forces, led by General
Speaker 1: Douglas MacArthur, slowly began to beat back the Northern invasion.
Speaker 1: Only five is removed from World War Two. American officials
Speaker 1: chose a playbook that had successfully repelled Imperial japan air power.
Speaker 1: The air force weaken the North Korean advance by targeting
Speaker 1: the military's rear, disabling the chain of troops in charge
Speaker 1: of supplying the front with AMMO, gasoline, and food. They
Speaker 1: also heavily targeted North Korean cities. This strategy, while effective,
Speaker 1: would lead to the most destructive bombing campaign in military history.
Speaker 1: As the U. S Secretary of Defense, Robert Lovett explained,
Speaker 1: we keep on tearing the place apart, we can make
Speaker 1: a most unpopular fair for the North Koreans. We ought
Speaker 1: to go right ahead. The extent of the bombing was unimaginable.
Speaker 1: North Korea was flattened. More than five percent of the
Speaker 1: country's buildings were destroyed. Some cities, like sina Ju, were
Speaker 1: transformed into rubble. American pilots also targeted irrigation dans that
Speaker 1: have provided water for three quarters of the country's crops,
Speaker 1: flood waters destroyed squads of farmland. Suffering ensued. With their
Speaker 1: cities gone, millions of North Koreans resorted to living underground,
Speaker 1: and the hell fire continued. With a new lethal innovation
Speaker 1: that had been tested in World War Two, but now
Speaker 1: in the Korean War, made its real debut, napalm. This
Speaker 1: is what an a pound bomb does. When it hits,
Speaker 1: it's searing flames spreads four hundreds of feet. The infantrymen
Speaker 1: then take over and advance at the crucial rate, despite
Speaker 1: the pounding of red buckers. It is a harrowing foot
Speaker 1: by foot operation. Deep in their trenches. There are still
Speaker 1: plenty of the enemy and after to pour fire into
Speaker 1: the attackers, but the flamethrower silence system at a smoke
Speaker 1: screen masks the attack. Grim is the word for Korea.
Speaker 1: Napalm charred the countryside and the people in it. From
Speaker 1: June to October, the US would drop more than eight
Speaker 1: hundred sixty six thousand gallons of napalm on North Korea.
Speaker 1: By the war's end, more napalm was dropped on the
Speaker 1: DPRK than any other nation in history. Vietnam included to
Speaker 1: be clear, we're not trying to stoke sympathy for the
Speaker 1: North Korean regime, nor to excuse the terrible atrocities that
Speaker 1: has committed both during a war it started and in
Speaker 1: the decades since. But the widespread bombing of North Korea
Speaker 1: is vital to understanding the country's attitude toward the United States,
Speaker 1: because while the Korean War might be forgotten in the US,
Speaker 1: in the DPRK, the air bombardment is taught in every
Speaker 1: school today. Most of North Korea as anti American propaganda
Speaker 1: is built on easily disproved lies. But the difficult truth
Speaker 1: is that the foundation the spark for much of this
Speaker 1: anti americanism, according to journalist Blaine Harden, is quote rooted
Speaker 1: in a fact based narrative, one that North Korea obsessively remembers.
Speaker 1: That lingering resentment is just one of many unintended consequences.
Speaker 1: Another is North Korea's obsession with weapons of mass destruction.
Speaker 1: Because in late n the U N Forces did more
Speaker 1: than just repel North Korean attacks. They cross the thirty
Speaker 1: eighth parallel with the goal of unifying Korea for the South.
Speaker 1: But on the other side, a goliath was waiting. China
Speaker 1: kept issuing threats. If you enter North Korean territory. If
Speaker 1: you approach our border, we will fight you. We will
Speaker 1: send true and MacArthur dismissed those Chinese threats as just
Speaker 1: empty threats. But MacArthur was wrong. China did step in
Speaker 1: not wanting Western soldiers anywhere near its border. China would
Speaker 1: send more than three million people to North Korea's aid.
Speaker 1: General Douglas MacArthur, who believed he could win the war
Speaker 1: with quote one hand tied behind his back, argued that
Speaker 1: the best way to cut off the Chinese advance was
Speaker 1: to drop nuclear weapons in Korea. I visualize a cul
Speaker 1: de sac. I see here a unique use for the
Speaker 1: atomic bomb to strike a blocking blow at the Pentagon.
Speaker 1: The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff rejected MacArthur's proposal,
Speaker 1: but MacArthur pushed and pushed and pushed again. He'd request
Speaker 1: a total of twenty six atomic bombs, and although those
Speaker 1: requests were denied, he would remain a shameless advocate for
Speaker 1: nuclear attack. I would have dropped between thirty and fifty
Speaker 1: atomic bombs strung across the neck of Manchuria. The bomb
Speaker 1: wasn't MacArthur's only go to. He also suggested releasing chemical weapons.
Speaker 1: Arguing that the military should spread radioactive waste across the border,
Speaker 1: creating a chemical fence that would keep Communist ground troops
Speaker 1: barricaded up North. Instead, President Harry Truman would fire him
Speaker 1: for in subordination, but MacArthur's replacement, General Matthew Ridgeway, was
Speaker 1: also a fan of nuclear weapons. He would request thirty
Speaker 1: eight atomic bombs. The Pentagon did not approve. It did, however,
Speaker 1: later approve of request from the Joint chiefs of Staff, who,
Speaker 1: according to Korean war scholar Bruce Cummings, ordered quote atomic
Speaker 1: retaliation against Manchurion bases if large numbers of new troops
Speaker 1: came into fighting. By ninette, the possibility of a nuclear
Speaker 1: attack on North Korea seemed so inevitable that Air Force
Speaker 1: pilots started flying practice runs dropping dummy bombs on would
Speaker 1: be targets. By the time the armistice was signed in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three, with both sides effectively agreeing to a stalemate,
Speaker 1: North Korean civilians and leaders were paranoid about the threat
Speaker 1: of nuclear annihilation, and that paranoia would only grow. By
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, the United States was storing approximately nine
Speaker 1: hundred fifty nuclear warheads in South Korea. The United States
Speaker 1: removed the last of these weapons from the peninsula, but
Speaker 1: to this day, submarines and stations nearby provide a so
Speaker 1: called nuclear umbrella, and that fact has fueled North Korea's
Speaker 1: decision making. It isn't irrational for North kore you to
Speaker 1: think it might need um greater security. That again is
Speaker 1: Jenny Town of the Simpsons Center. The nuclear attack is possible,
Speaker 1: they don't rule it out. It's you know, during the
Speaker 1: Korean War, UM, the US did threaten to use nuclear weapons,
Speaker 1: and there have been in the past US nuclear weapons,
Speaker 1: you know, stationed in South Korea, and there is the
Speaker 1: US nuclear umbrella, right, So there are reasons. It's a
Speaker 1: small country in the middle of economic and political giants, um,
Speaker 1: and it's a country that doesn't necessarily have any real allies,
Speaker 1: you know, it has a relationship with the Chinese, relationship
Speaker 1: with the Russians. Doesn't really trust that, you know, in
Speaker 1: the case of something happening, not really. And you're looking
Speaker 1: at a nuclear dense region as well, right, China has
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons, Russia has nuclear weapons, US has nuclear weapons,
Speaker 1: and South Korea and Japan have nuclear weapons by default,
Speaker 1: So there is a sense of insecurity that drives a
Speaker 1: lot of their decisions. The North Koreans look at the
Speaker 1: history um and especially you know from the Korean War
Speaker 1: on and say that it's possible, no matter where you
Speaker 1: go in Korea, North or South, you cannot escape the
Speaker 1: dynamics created by the Korean War and the antagonistic relationship
Speaker 1: that followed. It's one of the reasons North Korea is
Speaker 1: constantly rattling its saber, trying to look tough. It's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons Kimill's hung embraced che later investing obscene
Speaker 1: portions of his country's GDP to build up one of
Speaker 1: the world's largest militaries. And it's why North Korea has
Speaker 1: worked so hard to develop its own deterrent, a deterrent
Speaker 1: that Kim jong nam was well aware of because remember
Speaker 1: his rendezvous in Langkawee, Malaysia. A few days after that
Speaker 1: hotel meeting with an American spy, Kim Jong Nam would
Speaker 1: try to leave the country with multiple vials of an
Speaker 1: antidote designed to combat the toxic nerve agent v X.
Speaker 1: Kim Jong Nam knew something, and that's this. When Western
Speaker 1: Powers began installing nuclear weapons in South Korea, the DPRK,
Speaker 1: then two Poor to counteract the arsenal with atomic bombs
Speaker 1: of its own, came up with a strategy one they
Speaker 1: believed that could neuter the US is atomic power. North
Speaker 1: Korea would build a stockpile of chemical weapons so large
Speaker 1: it could end all human life as we know it,
Speaker 1: and North Korea wouldn't be afraid to use it. In
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, as blood and bombs spilled over the
Speaker 1: Korean Peninsula, chemists in the United Kingdom were waging a
Speaker 1: very different kind of battle against insects. The pesticide industry
Speaker 1: was booming and Dr Ron J. Ghosh, a chemist working
Speaker 1: for Imperial Chemical Industries in gelts Hill, England, was looking
Speaker 1: for chemicals that could kill common pests, specifically mits. Ghost
Speaker 1: was directed to look closely at secret research on a
Speaker 1: group of toxic pesticides called g agents, which have been
Speaker 1: developed by German scientists during the nineteen thirties. Glos went
Speaker 1: to work, and in nineteen fifty two, at the height
Speaker 1: of the Korean War, he and a fellow chemist named J. F. Newman,
Speaker 1: discovered a substance an organo phosphate esther of substitute amino
Speaker 1: ethiol called Amaton. The men celebrated the discovery. Ghost was
Speaker 1: convinced he had found the pesticide to end all pesticides.
Speaker 1: Advertisers believed it too. By Amaton was being marketed across
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom as the next great bug killer, but
Speaker 1: within three years it would be pulled off the shelves.
Speaker 1: Turns out Amaton was much more than an insecticide. It
Speaker 1: was a nerve agent. So Ghosh went back to work.
Speaker 1: He continued trying to turn the Nazi G agents into
Speaker 1: effective and safe pesticides, but every time he attempted to
Speaker 1: discover a less toxic substance, he failed. In fact, each
Speaker 1: new advancement seemed to make the G agents more toxic.
Speaker 1: The most noxious, most deadly, most terrified rying agent Ghosh
Speaker 1: concocted would be so potent that only a few milligrams
Speaker 1: were needed to kill a human. It would be named
Speaker 1: Venomous Agent X. Today it's just called v X. And
Speaker 1: that is where our stories collide. Because during the Korean War,
Speaker 1: as American planes rain bombs and bullets on North Korean cities,
Speaker 1: Kimilsung directed his military to build a labyrinth of underground
Speaker 1: tunnels and bunkers for protection. North Korea hasn't stopped digging
Speaker 1: since you might remember our friend historian Benjamin Young. They
Speaker 1: remembered the years of the US air bombardment, and so
Speaker 1: there's a reason why North Korea has built so many
Speaker 1: of its military facilities under the ground, in mountainous ravines,
Speaker 1: under mountains. They have a massive tunnel system. So North
Speaker 1: Korea's history has made it into this very deeply paranoid,
Speaker 1: almost subterranean system. Today, it's estimated that North Korea has
Speaker 1: up to fifteen thousand underground layers acting as aircraft hangars,
Speaker 1: material depots, and weapons storage facilities. It's believed the majority
Speaker 1: of the country's military supplies are protected by these underground bunkers.
Speaker 1: I think that one day, perhaps the regime will collapse
Speaker 1: and we'll go then and we'll see just how huge
Speaker 1: their tunnel system was underneath the ground, and just how
Speaker 1: prepared they were for any sort of airbombardment. And that
Speaker 1: might be one of the secrets that Kim Jong nam
Speaker 1: was harboring as the son of the dear leader. He
Speaker 1: knew that these underground cities held North Korea's war chests
Speaker 1: of chemical weapons, including what maybe the largest stockpile of
Speaker 1: VX nerve agent in the world. Today, North Koreas cash
Speaker 1: of chemical weapons is the world's third largest, lagging behind
Speaker 1: only the US and Russia. The country is home to
Speaker 1: at least eleven chemical weapons facilities, almost all of them
Speaker 1: buried underground, that may produce and store up to five
Speaker 1: thousand metric tons of these deadly agents. But truth be told,
Speaker 1: nobody certain how much they really have. North Korea has
Speaker 1: um you know, chemical weapons capability, the extent of which
Speaker 1: we don't really know, but the willingness to use uh
Speaker 1: is there. We do, however, have a good idea of
Speaker 1: what's in North Korea's stockpile. Anthrax, smallpox, amaton, mustard, gas saren,
Speaker 1: the plague, and yes, VX agent, all of which are
Speaker 1: ready for their neighbors to the south or anyone else
Speaker 1: who messes with them near their turf. North Korea has
Speaker 1: the capability of attaching you know, chemical weapons, even to
Speaker 1: their short range ballistic missiles. Chemill Song was right to
Speaker 1: bet on chemical weapons. Chemical missiles are cheaper and potentially
Speaker 1: more lethal than nuclear warheads. It would only take one
Speaker 1: gallon of anthrax to end all human life. Indeed, for decades,
Speaker 1: this chemical stockpile has been a remarkable deterrent and a
Speaker 1: threatening bargaining chip. The US won't use its nukes because
Speaker 1: that would compel the North to release its chemical weapons,
Speaker 1: and the North won't use its chemical weapons because that
Speaker 1: would compel the US to use its nukes. It's led
Speaker 1: to a strategic standoff, a menacing game of chicken that
Speaker 1: allows North Korea to act belligerent lee with few consequences.
Speaker 1: Anything else would be catastrophic. In the n nineties, the
Speaker 1: Pentagon calculated the cost of a pre emptive strike on
Speaker 1: North Korea. The results suggested that an attack would cost
Speaker 1: the US more than a trillion dollars and require at
Speaker 1: least a hundred thousand body bags just for American troops alone.
Speaker 1: The potential loss of life in a second Korean conflict
Speaker 1: is you know, millions of people. You have. You have
Speaker 1: to remember that Soul the capital of South Korea. It's
Speaker 1: only thirty miles away from the d m z Um
Speaker 1: and about a quarter of the population lives there. Um
Speaker 1: The response time that it takes to defend Soul and
Speaker 1: the amount of damage that can be done very quickly
Speaker 1: is enormously high. This standoff has done more than preserved
Speaker 1: North Korea's existence. It's been a boon to the country's economy.
Speaker 1: It essentially uses weapons of mass destruction to extort foreign
Speaker 1: countries into lifting ancients. It's also a valuable export. These
Speaker 1: chemical weapons can be shipped rogue nations and terrorist groups.
Speaker 1: North Korea never really admits to having chemical weapons are
Speaker 1: actually using it. That again is Sue Kim, our ex
Speaker 1: CIA analyst. But we know that it's actually tried to
Speaker 1: transfer chemical weapons to other countries. It's got the technology
Speaker 1: and equipment, so it should be a concern. In fact,
Speaker 1: we know that North Korea exported chemical equipment to Syria
Speaker 1: coincidentally around the same time Syrian President Bashar al Assad
Speaker 1: was gassing his own citizens. Meanwhile, in the US, there's
Speaker 1: practically no VX at all in accordance with the Chemical
Speaker 1: Weapons Convention in agreement North Korea disregards the United States
Speaker 1: has destroyed almost all of its stock of VX. Today,
Speaker 1: one of America's largest collections of VX rockets. It's resting
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the ocean, just off the coast
Speaker 1: of Atlantic City, New Jersey. All of that's to say,
Speaker 1: while North Korea is nuclear weapons get most of the attention.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it's time the country's chemical arsenal commands more of
Speaker 1: our scrutiny. We do talk constantly about the came regime's
Speaker 1: missile development, the provocations and those are all of course
Speaker 1: valid um incredible security concerns, but the chemical warfare component
Speaker 1: um the cyber components, I think are just as deadly
Speaker 1: and in some cases even more deadly. The chemical weapons
Speaker 1: in combination with the ballistic missiles, can lead to, I
Speaker 1: would say, much more broader, far reaching implications than the
Speaker 1: time to think. Because of this perception that Earth crews backwards,
Speaker 1: because it's it's poor, because weird has a funny looking reader,
Speaker 1: we tend to sort of dismiss a lot of these
Speaker 1: serious developments. I think it's an advantage for North Korea
Speaker 1: to play this on all the while developing so many
Speaker 1: lethal options later to threaten the international community to use it,
Speaker 1: or to actually do try to use it. As the
Speaker 1: world found out in It's exactly the kind of weaponry
Speaker 1: one might use too quickly and silently kill a target
Speaker 1: in a very public place. Over the course of this podcast,
Speaker 1: we've gone over a plethora of theories of who killed
Speaker 1: Kim Jong nam and why was it Kim Jongan ensuring
Speaker 1: his throne wouldn't be jeopardized. Was it North Korea and
Speaker 1: elites with an eye on his money making software. Was
Speaker 1: it someone else in the regime who was threatened by
Speaker 1: his reform minded ideas To be honest, It may not
Speaker 1: just be one, because Kim jong Nam had evaded death before.
Speaker 1: In the early two thousand's, somebody masterminded a plot to
Speaker 1: kill him in Austria, but that, as you may remember,
Speaker 1: was thwarted, and in shortly after Kim Jongan was annointed successor,
Speaker 1: a North Korean spy paid a Chinese taxi driver to
Speaker 1: run over Kim jong Nam with his car. The hit
Speaker 1: and run failed, and in after Yoji Komi published his
Speaker 1: tell all book, Kim jong Nam reportedly dodged another attack,
Speaker 1: the details of which are murky, but according to South
Speaker 1: Korean intelligence, the exiled prince was so distressed that he
Speaker 1: wrote a letter to his brother pleading for his life.
Speaker 1: Please withdraw the order to punish me and my family.
Speaker 1: We have nowhere to hide. The only way to escape
Speaker 1: is to choose suicide. No matter who was trying to
Speaker 1: kill him, Kim jong Nam knew the bucks stopped with
Speaker 1: his brother. It seems Kim jong N didn't listen, and
Speaker 1: after Chang Song Tech was killed, North Korean spies apparently
Speaker 1: began tailing Kim jong Nam's movements. Even if Kim jong
Speaker 1: Nam wanted to divorce himself from all of his connections
Speaker 1: in North Korea, it's not up to him. The regime
Speaker 1: that the Kim jong N leadership has every interest to
Speaker 1: keep tabs on this this brother one because of course
Speaker 1: he was family, and too because of the potential threat
Speaker 1: that he would pose to Kim jong N as the leader.
Speaker 1: But actions, of course, can have unintended consequences, just as
Speaker 1: the U. S air bombardment and nuclear weapons inadvertently encouraged
Speaker 1: North Korea to build tunnels and beef up on chemical weapons,
Speaker 1: cutting off Kim jong nam slash fund had unexpected results too.
Speaker 1: Kim jong Nam needed money. According to the Washington Post,
Speaker 1: the circumstances may have quote thrust Kim jong Nam into
Speaker 1: the arms of foreign intelligence services as he tried to
Speaker 1: maintain his lifestyle. So a very reliable source obviously can't name,
Speaker 1: told me that Kim jong Nam had been providing intelligence
Speaker 1: to the CIA while he was living in exile. I mean,
Speaker 1: we know that he was having to earn money for himself,
Speaker 1: that it wasn't the beneficiary of the regime's larges anymore
Speaker 1: after Kim Jong nun took power. Um, so it stands,
Speaker 1: you know, it makes sense that he would be having
Speaker 1: to earn a living, and you know what is his
Speaker 1: more was unique marketable skill, I guess, is giving intelligence
Speaker 1: about about Kim jongan and what's going on in North Korea.
Speaker 1: Journalists at the Wall Street Journal would later corroborate five
Speaker 1: fields reporting suggesting that Chong Nam occasionally met CIA handlers
Speaker 1: and undisclosed locations in Malaysia and Singapore. He wasn't an
Speaker 1: agent or anything like that, but he was providing the
Speaker 1: information that he had. There have also been multiple reports
Speaker 1: since then that he was doing the same for South
Speaker 1: Korea also potentially Japan. To learn more, we prodded deeper
Speaker 1: with Sue Kim, hoping she'd spill some CIA secrets to us.
Speaker 1: She was understandably unable to confirm these suspicions. You know,
Speaker 1: I can't really comment about how the the Intel organizations
Speaker 1: obtained sources, so I'm not sure if I could help
Speaker 1: you with this question. But she was able to help
Speaker 1: provide us with the rationale. If the CIA did hypothetically
Speaker 1: see gout Tong Num, there would be I would say
Speaker 1: great value because he has lived inside the country. Um.
Speaker 1: He is the son of Kim jong so he knows
Speaker 1: a lot about the system. He knows a lot about
Speaker 1: his family members. UM. He also knows how North Korea thinks. Um,
Speaker 1: not just the leadership, but just North Korean. I would say,
Speaker 1: just the the culture. So there would be a lot
Speaker 1: of value. And as much as there's a lot of
Speaker 1: value for foreign intel services, it's going to be an
Speaker 1: even greater threat for North Korea. We don't know what
Speaker 1: Kim jong nam told the CIA or how long he
Speaker 1: worked with them. All we know is that when Kim
Speaker 1: jongan was announced his successor, intelligence agencies had little information
Speaker 1: about him. They scramble to learn anything they could, and
Speaker 1: what better source than his older brother. If the United
Speaker 1: States for South Korea were able to form relationship with
Speaker 1: Kim Jong nam, think about how much more vulnerable Kim
Speaker 1: Jong nan is going to feel about his decision making,
Speaker 1: about his health, about his interesting quirks. And on the
Speaker 1: day Kim jong nam met with the suspected CIA agent
Speaker 1: in Langkawi, he took the man into his hotel room. There,
Speaker 1: it's believed he shared intelligence from his computer. We know
Speaker 1: this because days after Kim jong nam died, police found
Speaker 1: evidence that somebody had extracted extensive amounts of data with
Speaker 1: the USB drive. Cheng Nam would also try to leave
Speaker 1: the country with four bricks of cash, each bundle amounting
Speaker 1: to around thirty dollars, and of course those vials of antidote.
Speaker 1: Did Kim jong Nam request this his payment or did
Speaker 1: the CIA offer it as an exchange. Honestly, nobody outside
Speaker 1: of those involved in the exchange knows, But we do
Speaker 1: know that Kim Jongan's own spies may have been lurking
Speaker 1: in the shadows the DPR case seemed to be aware
Speaker 1: of Toeng Nam's itinerary. It's possible that because they were
Speaker 1: tailing him, they knew that he was talking to American spies,
Speaker 1: and if that's true, that would present yet another reason
Speaker 1: for his half brother to want him out of the picture.
Speaker 1: The CIA has a history of trying to take down
Speaker 1: foreign governments. It had tacitly endorsed the overthrow Vietnam's prime minister,
Speaker 1: had helped organize the downfall of Chile's president, and had
Speaker 1: plotted to assassinate the Democratic Republic of Congo's first prime
Speaker 1: minister with a deadly virus, And of course they famously
Speaker 1: tried and failed to poison Fidel Castro's cigars, So what
Speaker 1: was stopping the CIA from trying the same with Kim
Speaker 1: jong un. Sue Kim is wary of how much Tongu
Speaker 1: Nam's links with the agency might have influenced North Korea's decisions.
Speaker 1: I think it had much more to do with leadership insecurities.
Speaker 1: The fact that this this oldest son who was roaming
Speaker 1: about freely outside North Korea getting to enjoy life, occasionally
Speaker 1: making these nonchalant comments about the North Korean system, the leadership,
Speaker 1: and and you know, just being critical about the country.
Speaker 1: It was not going to be. It wasn't going to
Speaker 1: reflect well, obviously upon Kim Jongan. North Korea watchers like
Speaker 1: Michael Madden also questioned whether the CIA connection was really
Speaker 1: all that significant. In his opinion, the prince was already
Speaker 1: a marked man. Disregard all of us, disregard all of
Speaker 1: the stuff about Kim Jong Nam being a source for
Speaker 1: foreign intelligence. That's just a really nice story for the
Speaker 1: news media. There'd be other motivations but that begs the question,
Speaker 1: if there had been so many reasons to kill this
Speaker 1: man for decades, now, why did it take so long
Speaker 1: for North Korea to pull the trigger. Madden suggests the
Speaker 1: reason Kim jong Nam lived until was because he still
Speaker 1: had a number of advocates in the regime. There were
Speaker 1: other elites, people who considered Kim jong Nam as family.
Speaker 1: There was Rios, a nineties something former hit man who
Speaker 1: was like a grandfather to the prince. He died in November.
Speaker 1: A few months later, a former female comrade of Kim
Speaker 1: Il Song, also close to Kim jong Nam, died as well.
Speaker 1: By the end of Kim jong Nam's circle of influence
Speaker 1: had either defected, We're trapped in prison camps or were
Speaker 1: buried underground. He no longer had friends or family to
Speaker 1: speak up for him. Were put in motion Kim jong
Speaker 1: Nam's assassination. I really think that's a huge factor. Madden
Speaker 1: might be onto something, because in late North Korea spies
Speaker 1: began hatching one of the most elaborate assassination plots ever devised.
Speaker 1: Since Kim jong Nam enjoyed protection in China and was
Speaker 1: now spending time with foreign intelligence agents, the spies realized
Speaker 1: they had to be careful and strategic. So the hitman
Speaker 1: likely decided that the best way to assassinate Kim Jong
Speaker 1: Nam was to kill him with a unique method, a
Speaker 1: method that was understated, bloodless, immediate, and immaculately lethal, deep underground,
Speaker 1: stalked away in its hidden tunnels, North Korea had the
Speaker 1: perfect murder weapon on its hands. What we know about
Speaker 1: VX nerve agent comes largely thanks to research done by
Speaker 1: Dr Van and Sim, the former director of human research
Speaker 1: at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland, where the U. S. Army
Speaker 1: used to test the effects of various chemical weapons. From
Speaker 1: eight to ninety Under the direction of Dr Sim, more
Speaker 1: than seven thousand American service members were exposed to substances
Speaker 1: like ketamine, LSD and nerve agents like the X. The
Speaker 1: Army believed live human experiments were important not only for defense,
Speaker 1: but for intelligence gathering. As RAPI catch a Dorian writes
Speaker 1: in The New Yorker, Doctors like Sim wanted to know
Speaker 1: quote could an operative dose and adversary with a handshake,
Speaker 1: So Dr Sim started drugging American soldiers to find out.
Speaker 1: It sounds wildly unethical, and it is, but at the
Speaker 1: time Dr Sim's work was well regarded. He was a
Speaker 1: fearless researcher who always tested every chemical on himself before
Speaker 1: exposing any soldiers to it. When he first encountered v
Speaker 1: X in Sim intravenously infused small doses straight into his bloodstream.
Speaker 1: It nearly killed him, but it thanks to doctor Sim
Speaker 1: and the servicemen he experimented on that we now know
Speaker 1: what v X does to the human body and what
Speaker 1: the North Korean spies had planned for Kim Jong Nam.
Speaker 1: Upon contact, a small drop of VX quickly penetrates the
Speaker 1: skin and soaks into the bloodstream, and it wastes no time.
Speaker 1: The nerve agent blocks enzygns that help your muscles to relax.
Speaker 1: Within minutes, every muscle starts to contract uncontrollably. The eyes burned,
Speaker 1: the pupils narrow, sweat beads as vision blurs, The chest titans,
Speaker 1: making breathing more and more difficult. Muscles twitch and tire
Speaker 1: as the nose runs and the mouth drools. Fluid floods
Speaker 1: the airway, coughing, fits sputter as the whole body clenches.
Speaker 1: After just ten minutes, nerve ending scream with pain. The
Speaker 1: body can't handle this type of stimulation, so the muscles
Speaker 1: become exhausted, and eventually they curl in on themselves, contracting
Speaker 1: to the point where the victim can no longer breathe.
Speaker 1: Consciousness fades, but not quickly enough. The victim's final thoughts
Speaker 1: will be consumed by one horrifying realization that their own
Speaker 1: body is suffocating them and it doesn't take much feex
Speaker 1: to kill you. Dr sim concluded that it's it's just
Speaker 1: ten milligrams of v X, about the same as three
Speaker 1: rain drops to kill a human. This has prompted the
Speaker 1: CDC to call v X quote the most potent of
Speaker 1: all nerve agents. Tasteless, odorless, and deadly in small, almost
Speaker 1: undetectable quantities. V X is also shockingly portable. It can
Speaker 1: be broken down into two harmless compounds, allowing two people
Speaker 1: to hold these separate ingredients in their hands with minimal
Speaker 1: risk to themselves. That is, until you mix the two
Speaker 1: compounds together. On the next and last episode of Big Brother,
Speaker 1: the elaborate means to which North Korea would go to
Speaker 1: wash its hands of an assassination of international proportions, and
Speaker 1: how Kim Jong Nam's death triggered a daring rescue Big
Speaker 1: Brother is a production of School of Humans and I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and hosted by me Eat and Lee Lucas.
Speaker 1: Riley is our writer, co director and associate producer. Amelia
Speaker 1: Brock is our senior producer, co director and editor. Executive
Speaker 1: producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, Else Crowley, and Jason English.
Speaker 1: Our fact checker is Aaron Blakemore. Music composed by Jason
Speaker 1: Todd Shannon and Tune Walters. Original score mix by Vick Stafford.
Speaker 1: Audio editing by Jesse nice Swanger, Sound design and mixed
Speaker 1: by Harper W. Harris. Audio correction by Josh Fisher. Voice
Speaker 1: acting by Mark Chung, June Yune, Ben Holst, Thiago Lima
Speaker 1: and Mike Coscarelli. We'd like to acknowledge the work of
Speaker 1: Dr Bruce Cummings. Special thanks to Ryan Murdoch and Will Pearson.
Speaker 1: Sound licensed from Critical Past. If you're enjoying the podcast,
Speaker 1: help us get the word out by leaving Obra in
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Speaker 1: of Humans m HM.