KIM CHONG IL

born Feb. 16, 1941, Siberia, Russia, U.S.S.R. also spelled Kim Jong Il North Korean politician and the son of the North Korean premier and Korean Workers' Party chairman Kim Il-sung. Kim Chong Il was placed in safety in Manchuria by his father during the Korean War. After attending a pilot's training college in East Germany for two years, he graduated (1963) from Kim Il-sung University. He served in numerous routine posts in the (communist) Korean Workers' Party (KWP) until becoming his father's secretary. He worked closely with his father in the 1967 party purge and then was assigned several important jobs. Kim was appointed in September 1973 to the powerful position of party secretary in charge of organization, propaganda, and agitation. With the inclusion of Kim in his father's personality cult and with his official designation as his father's successor in October 1980, the world's first communist dynasty appeared to be in the making. Kim was given command of the armed forces in 199091, and he held high-ranking posts on the Central Committee, the Politburo, and the Party Secretariat. When Kim Il-sung died of a heart attack in 1994, Kim Chong Il became North Korea's de facto leader, but the fact that he had not acquired his father's official titles by the following year suggested that he was having difficulty consolidating his power. In 1997, Kim Chong Il was formally recognized as the general secretary of the KWP, but he was not formally named president of North Korea.