Chapter 74: December 1995 – June 1996
“The secret to happiness is freedom. The secret to freedom is courage.”
– Thucydides
The amygdala is the part of the brain that responds to both physical and intellectual threats, which explains why we respond to both kinds of threats in the same way, with either violent “fight” or cowardly “flight.” And since it is more socially appropriate to counter-debate than to skedaddle out of the room, “fight” usually wins out. Kim Jung-Il was not immune to nature, to this aspect of the natural human condition. It was just that his nurturing, being raised surrounded by grandeur and receiving praise from birth onward, inflated his ego and the “fight” tendency of his amygdala. The nature and nurture conditions made for a unique dictator.
But make no mistake – Kim was not mad. Or at least, not mad enough to be suicidal. He was very much aware that due to the South’s superior economic and technological power, it was a region impossible to actually conquer.
His father knew this too; it was what led to Kim Il-Sung deciding to pursue nuclear weapons. The nation’s founder believed that, with the Cold War over and Russia and China becoming less reliable than before, nothing else could intimidate the US out of invading. This took care of the US, but not of possible coups from within. To counter those, the scare tactic of purges kept the military and the elite in line.
Thus, one must ask: what was the Kim strategy in the event of war breaking out before nuclear weapons could be built? The answer: a scorched earth policy and the sacrifice of as many soldiers as the regime we need to make in defense of the True Korea. Kim Jung-Il personally, though, believed that such a war would end for the US the way it almost ended for the US in Cuba, where news footage led to anti-war protests. Jung-Il was convinced that, in his day and age, with cameras more prevalent and detailed than ever before, the American people would be shocked by the carnage on both sides, and a new peacenik movement would arise, calling for change and wearing away at the US’s very foundation.
“They have nuclear devices, but they would not dare use them because the American President has to answer to his idiot people, who would oppose nuclear use. During the war, we’ll continue to build nuclear weapons and possibly even threaten to use them if they do not withdraw,” the Supreme Leader once explained to Jong-nam.
In such a best-case scenario, the US would collapse and/or withdraw from the peninsula. In such a worst-case scenario, the US, would still withdraw, but from exhaustion, after several years of fighting. In the aftermath Kim Jung-Il, would stay in power, and continue his reign of terror (purges of suspected coup backers in the military and among the police).
But as we all know, that is not exactly how things unfolded…
– Won Ung-hui’s The Kim Dynasty And The Time At Hand, Inchon Publishers, 2004
DINGER GREETS SOUTH KOREAN PRESIDENT AT WHITE HOUSE
…the diplomatic trip was to reassure the South Korean President, Kim Young-sam, that the United States has its “full support” in regards to Kim’s hawkish but cautious approach to North Korea. At the moment, roughly 48,000 US soldiers stationed in South Korea, up from just 34,000 in 1992…
– The San Francisco Chronicle, 12/1/1995
“I was hungry – always, hungry – and very much alone. I sometimes wish I had been a ‘kotjebi,’ a street urchin, than be born into Special Control Zone, a prison-within-a-prison where prisoners spend their entire lives and even raise families. If you could call us that. My mother and my father were both prisoners, had seen selected for family-making in the SCZ for some reason. When I was an infant, the guards killed my father for what I had always amused must have been a good reason; in the SCZ, there were only two people, good people and bad people, right people and wrong people – the guards were always rights, and us, the prisoners, were all wrong, bad people, even us simply born to prisoners. I was born to and raised by a mother who would beat me every time she returned from the labor fields. That made me hate her, and because she was in there for some reason, I blamed her for my misery. For the longest time I thought life in the labor camp was all there was, but as I grew older, I began to wonder what lied beyond the hills and jungles surrounding the prison walls. And that wonder turned to yearning and that yearning turned to desperate anguish. I wanted to know, I had to know. I just needed two things – the opportunity to leave, and the courage to take it.”
– Shin Do-Kyung’s account of his life in Park Sung-min’s anthology Nothing to Envy: Loss And Survival In A People’s Republic, Rhee-Pak Press, 2016 [1]
Kim Jong-Il again attempted to stop South Korean balloons carrying anti-regime leaflets from traveling over the border by ordering them to be shot down on sight. However, a December 3rd restating of this order led to a communication error: NK soldiers stationed at the DMZ thought they were now being told to shoot down “anything with anything,” instead of “any balloons with any weaponry.”
[pic:
imgur.com/ANTJb1M.png ]
Above: North Korean soldiers at the northern border of the Demilitarized Zone
The false message made one DPRK soldier more jumpy than usual. The situation had grown too suspenseful for him; he could no longer stand the longer and longer hours, must to him meant a grave threat being imminent, and caused his fellow soldiers to either grin madly at the prospect of destruction, or privately grimace in fear. And fear, in this soldier’s eyes, only came from real threats.
On December 4th, said soldier mistook an indigenous crane bird flying overhead to be a spy plane, causing him to being firing his automatic across the DMZ. His fellow soldiers followed suit as rumors of a South Korean fighter jet flying past them led to the soldiers’ CO ordering the firing of anti-aircraft missiles into the South Korea-DMZ border, near the SK city of Paju.
– Ken Armstrong’s 1996: The Second Korean War, Simon & Schuster, 2012
…Over one hundred South Korean military officers and citizens, along with over 50 American military officers and tourists, have been killed in a massive attack on the city of Paju, South Korea. Despite the anti-aircraft missiles being clearly fired from across the Demilitarized Zone, North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il is claiming the vicious assault was a false flag attack…
– KNN Breaking News update, 12/4/1995
Before North Korean military leaders could realize their error, South Korea had already retaliated by firing “warning shots” into North Korea, striking the NK-DMZ border city of Kaesong and killing at least three according to observations. It remained unknown at time if these counterstrikes came from direct orders by the SK military or from a rogue government or military individual, as SK President Kim Young-sam took the fifth on this, saying the counterstrike was justified but stopping short of taking responsibility for it being carried out in the first place.
– Ken Armstrong’s 1996: The Second Korean War, Simon & Schuster, 2012
…Two days later, on December 6th, Kim Jong-Il ordered 1,000 troops to march to the northern border of the DMZ in a theatrical showing of force, and then went onto state-run TV to declare that all of the DMZ was a part of the north.
The Americans and the UN increased their sanctions and condemnations, of both the Supreme Leader’s “erratic and irresponsible behavior” as President Larry Dinger put it, and of all countries continuing to do business with the dictatorship. Meanwhile, South Korea’s President Kim Young-sam took a much bolder approached. On December 7th, he announced two-week ultimatum – either disperse the “band” of DPRK troops on the edge of the DMZ or make amends (via public apology of financial compensation for loss of life and property damages) for the Paju Assault within 14 days, or face “serious intervention of repercussive consequence.” South Korea’s political leaders believed, and American politicians hoped, that the South was in a position that would allow them to pressure Kim Jong-Il into submission, or at least into backing down, similarly to how the Xinjiang Camp Crisis in China had concluded with China’s leaders reversing course without losing face over the matter. However, the Supreme Leader did not believe it to be a deteriorating situation; he saw it as his moment to call the South’s bluff, for he truly believed that they would not start a war over as something as insignificant as 167 fatalities on the SK-DMZ border…
– Won Ung-hui’s The Kim Dynasty And The Time At Hand, Inchon Publishers, 2004
“In Korea, I worked as a drill sergeant for the US Marine Corps battalion stationed in Seoul, getting our troops into shape for running the amphibious boats and overseeing exercises, ours and the joint ones with the Southies. One of the soldiers under my wing was Eric Fidelis Alva. He’d joined in 1990 and was one of those fellas that had ‘unmasked’ themselves in that ‘open secret’ kind of way, and so he was one of those fellas that tend to get assaulted and harassed by some of his more close-minded fellow soldiers. I sided with Alva on this because before re-enlisting,
I used to drive taxis in Boise, Idaho,
at night, and I picked up my fair share of the gay community and they have true love for one another, I’m tellin’ you [2]. So I stayed close to him, but not too close – a soldier doesn’t need a mother to cling to, he needs a spine to support himself with. But anyway, my point is that Eric had an ally in me and a few others, and I did my best to remind them all that we were all there for the same reason – to serve and protect our country. Because if you easily succumb to unfounded fears about a fellow Americans, then how’re you supposed to stand up to real fears about foreign hostiles?”
– Harley Brown, 2014 interview
DEMOCRATS DISAGREE ON KOREA CONUNDRUM IN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY DEBATE
…While candidates Clemente, Dunham and Leland essentially condemned the President for his handling of North Korean aggression so far, Jesse Jackson and John Glenn sparred more on domestic issues. Litton, meanwhile, surprisingly underperformed as he attempted to portray himself as a “compromise” type of candidate for the foreign-policy-minded and the domestic-policy-minded members of the party…
– The Washington Post, 12/17/1995
The situation is still currently being monitored as instructed. With the North raising tension and refusing to back down in response to the South increasing military exercises near the DMZ, I am surprised POTUS has not raised the DEFCON level.
– US Army Maj. Gen. J. Nicholas “Nick” Rowe, in private message to US Army Gen. Gary E. Luck, Commander of USFK (United States Forces Korea), 12/19/1995
On December 21, 1995, the 14-day deadline of Kim Young-sam’s ultimatum expired. Kim Young-sam announced that the North’s Kim Jung-Il had “decided his fate.” In the days and weeks that followed, the several prominent heads of state reiterated their support of the ROK and their use of military support in the event of South Korea requiring “defensive assistance.”
Dinger’s advisors were torn on how to proceed. “We should work with Young-sam to coordinate a proper strike,” suggested Defense Secretary Rocky Versace.
Secretary of State Perkins counters, “No, we’ve avoided war before, we can do it again. Larry, we need to get the North to open up to negotiations, maybe me or you travel to the DMZ or a neutral spot like China and we can talk this out with Kim, because – ”
“It’s obvious Kim wants war,” Versace interrupted, “We keep talking and almost-talking, and it’s all been a big waste of time. All while Korean in both countries suffer.”
“I agree, Rocky” spoke the President, “I’ve spoken with Young-sam, and with the Prime Minister of Japan, and they both agree, too. There’s a time for talking and a time for doing, and we ran out of talkin’ time when the first of one of our boys got killed in Paju.”
The next day, Dinger asked Congress to pass a resolution “authorizing the use of military resources and personnel in US operations in conjunction with South Korea,” stopping short of all-out declaring war on North Korea. The resolution was passed with relative ease.
– Edward Gulio Romano III’s LMD: A Study of The Dinger Days, Sunrise Publishers, 2020
Entrepreneur JOHN RUGGLES JR.: “Turn the TV off already! Thanks. Sheesh. It really looks like a full-fledged war’s gonna break out over there, huh?”
Ten-year-old HARLAND SANDERS V: “But war’s a bad thing.”
Doctor LANDO SANDERS, M.D.: “Tell that to some adults, sonny.”
HARLAND V: “But I just told it to you!”
RUGGLES: “I wouldn’t worry about it, Vee. If they try any more funny business over there, we’ll be sure to give ’em somethin’ to think about they’ll never forget.”
Businessman HARLAND ADAMS: “Yeah – we’re Americans! We never back down from a fight! Never!”
LANDO SANDERS: “What about Angola?”
HARLAND V: “Ang-what-a?”
RUGGLES: “Lando, shhh!”
LANDO: “What?”
RUGGLES: “We don’t…talk about Angola. Alright?”
– Sanders family members, home video recording, Sanders family compound, Corbin, KY, 12/25/1995 (“spilled” online in 2020)
With tension in the Korean peninsula, the US government took stock of its allies and potential opponents in the event of war being declared. In secret back-channel talks with the PRC in the summer and autumn of 1995 and again in 1996, China’s Premier Zhu and US representatives discussed the economic and geopolitical ramifications of multiple hypothetical scenarios. Ultimately, Zhu agreed that, should war break out, they would stay neutral. Furthermore, if the Kim regime fell, Zhu admitted that he would be willing to let South Korea – but not the US – occupy North Korea in exchange for there being no new military bases set up in the North, and for the US decreasing their military presence in Korea. Dinger agreed to such a scenario, but only if US military was allowed to remain in the area for an “exit strategy window” of no greater than five years. The talks were never official, but laid the groundwork for international collaboration and understanding. “Just in time,” Dinger reportedly repeated stated during these low-key discussions.
In DC, the State and Defense departments began to feel that the time for talk was coming to a close. In a private exchange with Secretary of State Ed Perkins on December 27, 1995, Dinger expressed certainty that US and South Korean forces “must act before Kim develops any more nuclear weapons,” and added, “Time is running out. Talks and sanctions are getting nowhere. We have but one option left. Lord have mercy on all of us.”
– Edward Gulio Romano III’s LMD: A Study of The Dinger Days, Sunrise Publishers, 2020
The Supreme Leader seemed outraged by the South mobilizing their army at the border on December 28, in case of further strikes from the North. Kim believed the mobilizing was because they were in the process of a strike. He was certain the South attacking was imminent due to their increase in military exercises off the coast of Seoul, when actually, those were only occurring due to the North repeatedly threatening them with war. On the other hand, with the walls closing in, Kim had to make such threats to ward off possible overthrow. It was a vicious cycle that was running the North into ruin.
“We will not lose the upper hand,” he announced to his military leaders at a meeting held on New Year’s eve, “Our day has come!”
– Won Ung-hui’s The Kim Dynasty And The Time At Hand, Inchon Publishers, 2004
“One evening – New Year’s, as it turned out to be – I was sent to the part of the woodlands beside the camp, surrounded by an electric fence, to haul timber with three other prisoners. At dusk, it was dark and cold. We were just fifteen meters away from the fence when the guards walked away. Usually, they would take smoke breaks one at a time, but they were more nervous than usual. We didn’t know why; nobody was ever told anything about life outside the camp.
When they both walked away, I thought, “This is it, my only chance to get out or die trying. Either outcome’s better than this.”
I dropped my pile of timber and bolted.
One of the older boys in our group was nearby, and I guess he got the same idea. Only he was faster than me, and I think may have even tried to push me out of the way. He got past me, but I’m glad he did. Whether he thought he could push his way through the fence or he tripped, I do not know. All I know was that when he made contact with the fence, there were several sparks, and a sudden burst of a terrible stench. As I reached the fence, I heard some commotion behind me; I didn’t look back. I crawled over the other boy’s limp body I scratched and burned my arms on the high voltage, likely weakened by his intentional demise. As I got to my feet, I think I heard the guards shouting. As I ran into the trees, I heard the guns; one bullet grazed my arm and another two whizzed past my head, but I didn’t look back. I kept running. I had no idea where to, but I figured that my place was better than that one.”
Below: a view of the prison camp in question, c. 1997:
[pic:
imgur.com/oEBZn6V.png ]
– Shin Do-Kyung’s account of his life in Park Sung-min’s anthology Nothing to Envy: Loss And Survival In A People’s Republic, Rhee-Pak Press, 2016
It’s arguable that the war officially began on January 2nd, 1996, when the North attempted to pull off an astounding artillery attack on Seoul in response to the South moving to seemingly invade the North over the escalation of incidents over the past several years and in the past month most particularly.
The North severely miscalculate their situation. Their carpet-bombing agenda, dubbed Operation “Wave of Fire,” turned out to be seriously underwhelming because of how many of their planes were outdated. Their Lim-5 fleet, purchased from Indonesia in the 1980s, sought to counter this with multilayered, overlapping and mutually supportive air defense sites across North Korea, but no such system was established for the attack of Seoul in time for the planes to present themselves as a formidable challenge to the North’s planes.
Many of the planes and their missiles ended up landing or crashing miles outside of Seoul’s city limits; despite their impressive sizes, roughly 75% of the North’s guns’ ranges were out of reach of the city. Even the long range 170mms guns could only reach the edge of the city limits, and the ones not hit by South Korea’s immediate counter-fire wore out very quickly because Kim had purged most of the military experts who knew how to properly handle those babies. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, President Kim Young-sam’s government temporarily relocated to Hwaseong during the “Siege of Seoul.”
The most damaging weapon in Kim Jung-Il’s arsenal, at it turned out, was not aerial in nature; they were chemical weapons such as sarin, phosgene and mustard. When the launch commenced, many NK planes dropped several tons of sarin gas, mustard gas, and other chemical, blister, and nerve agents onto the city, ultimately ruining the health – often fatally – of at least 40,000 people. In the end, these gases killed more people than anything else did during the Siege of Seoul.
Holding almost 50% of country’s population at the time, the poisonous missiles and the more successful planes being launched sent the city into a panic. Thousands went running for any sort of shelter they could find. Hundreds sought to flee by car, train, and even by boat if near the Han River, which led to traffic jams and further chaos. Gas mask distribution became a top issue as well, with the Mayor ordering stores caring away to “give them out and complain about the cost later.”
Thankfully, just four hours into the assault from the North, the South knocked out the attacking batteries, sparring the city from further devastation. This was done by South Korea going big right out of the starting gate and having fighter jets conduct the world’s largest aerial assault undertaken since the 1967 Invasion of Hanoi. The footage of a frightened panic turning to cheering crowds overwhelmed news cycles in countries worldwide.
When it came to international support, the rest of the world generally approved of the South’s reply due to the financial and economic importance of Seoul on the world stage. The South’s exports trading had nearly double since the end of the Cold War. Furthermore, Kim’s unhidden efforts to acquire a nuclear stockpile presented a national security threat to the entire region.
– Ken Armstrong’s 1996: The Second Korean War, Simon & Schuster, 2012
“Because North Korea has intentionally attacked and killed at least 75 American troops stationed in and around Seoul – not to mention the number of slain American tourist and foreign exchange students as well – with willful intent, I, as President, formally requested approval from Congress for a formal declaration of war on North Korea. In light of the Kim Jung-Il’s attempts to obtain weapons of nuclear capability, the Senate and House have approved, as well as our allies of South Korea, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. The Kim regime has cast a fearful shadow over South Korea for too long, and with their most recent heinous and belligerent act, the regime has sealed its fate. By the grace of God, the time of liberation is at hand.”
– President Dinger’s Special Address to the Nation, 1/3/1996
DPRK FORCES STUCK OUTSIDE SEOUL BORDERS
…the farthest the North had advanced into the south in just 20 kilometers on the edge of the Sea of Japan, where a DPRK advance has stalled outside of Goseong and Sokcho…
– The Associated Press, 1/5/1996
“I will not send our soldiers to die in a war we have nothing to do with. This war is going to kill thousands of innocent people and I for one refuse to have any of their blood on my hands. If any Briton wants to fight over there, I suggest to head over to Canada, where [Prime Minister] Margaret [Mitchell] has disappointed the likes of me and my fellow peace-seekers by offering her nation’s support to the American war machine.”
– UK Prime Minister John Lennon, 1/6/1996
…The UN-backed Alliance of the US, South Korea, and several other countries is usually referred to as just the Alliance, or the US-SK Alliance, or even, sometimes, the Asian-American Alliance. …Kim Jung-Il seemed to believe that Dinger was bluffing, even after Senate and Congress approves of the war and the even after the Alliance was declared, and especially after the Blizzard of 1996 distracted America’s government officials, albeit temporarily. Kim was wrong…
– Maurice Isserman’s Confrontational: The Larry Dinger Wars, Borders Books, 2004
THE FORGOTTEN BLIZZARD OF 1996
…the North American Blizzard of 1996 ravaged the northeastern United States from January 6 to January 8. Influence from the arctic high pressure system and unusually warm early January weather made for a nor’easter historically more severe than usual, with torrential rain flooding rivers reminding some of the Superstorm of March 1993. With over 100 people killed, and NYC and DC public schools having to close as over 4 feet of snow fell, one would expect this storm to have been a major news event.
It wasn’t; in fact, many tend to not recall it, even those who survived it. This was largely caused by it occurring in the midst of the Korean War of 1996, which dominated the news cycles and relegated coverage of the storm to the weather segments and the bottom-ribbon. Governors declared states of emergency, precautious measures were implemented, ODERCA readied for post-storm rescue and repairs, and even President Dinger told Americans to stay safe at a press conference. Despite all this, most Americans who look back to the month of January 1996 comment on their county’s military exploits, not so much the 178 fatalities attributed to hypothermia, accidents, and floods…
– theweathernetwork.co.usa, 2016 article
…On January 7, 1996, Kim Jung-Il finally appeared on state-run TV to proclaim “the evil race from across the sea has launched an unprovoked act of aggression against The True Korea.” The Supreme Leader immediately launched a sea-and-air invasion of South Korea. One of the first locations bombed was the American Embassy in Seoul, which had already evacuated:
[pic:
https://imgur.com/2T1JSmo.png ]
These attack was immediately met with resistance from the South. The North’s use of SCUD missiles, however, proved to be woefully poor; their missiles were inaccurate due to the North lack of any sort of even primitive satellite navigation technology. Their MLRS rocket launchers and nearly all artillery shells underperformed, too, as did their M-1978 Koksans, a self-propelled gun with a crew of eight and of North Korean design that proved to have a surprisingly short range. Their underwhelming firepower allowed the South Korea jets to hit their indented targets in the North – military factories, army tanks, anti-aircraft missile launchers and troop concentrations – with much more accuracy. The South sought to avoid civilian areas, but many were killed in the counterattack nonetheless…
– Maurice Isserman’s Confrontational: The Larry Dinger Wars, Borders Books, 2004
…On January 10, 1996, Operation Cutting Edge began with ROK-led air strikes – not on the North’s industrial centers but on the North’s elite neighborhoods in Pyongyang and the “resort” towns of Hamhung and Anju, destroying the property of the ruling class. ROK/US forces also launched air strikes on nuclear testing and research sites at Yongbyon and other locations. These strikes were followed by land troops being deployed via aerial drop-off into southern North Korea and naval deployment on North Korea’s southern coasts, marking the beginning of an initially-slow land invasion of the DPRK...
– Won Ung-hui’s The Kim Dynasty And The Time At Hand, Inchon Publishers, 2004
…Just two days after the launch of aerial and naval campaigns, Kim Jung-Il called for soldiers on the ground to cross the Demilitarized Zone. Their send-off was used as a publicity stunt of which Jong-nam’s sister was put in charge, despite Jong-nam’s interest in the cinematographic aspect of the event…
[pic:
https://imgur.com/S0KVqUa.png ]
Above: North Korean soldiers pose for the state-run media’s cameras prior to them rolling into the DMZ
– Walter LaFeber’s The Sun And The Eagle: US-Japanese Relations In The Post-Cold War Era, 2019 edition
…Only 2.5 miles wide and 160 miles long, the Korean DMZ’s natural isolation of the environment from no human habitation created an involuntary park, one of the most well-preserved lands of temperate habitat on Earth, with proposals to turn the region into a national or binational reserve going as far back as 1966. The belt strapped across the middle of the Korean peninsula had developed a thriving, unrestrained wildlife after over 40 years of human-free influence (apart from land mines near the borders), giving endangered species like the Korean Fox, the Asiatic black bear and even the extremely rare Siberian tiger and Amur leopard a chance to prosper.
This made entering the DMZ more treacherous than initially thought. When the tanks entered the strip near its center, aiming for the South’s city of Yeoncheon, south of Cheorwon, my fellow foot-soldiers of the KPAGF [Korean People’s Army Ground Force] and I failed to keep up with them. There was much less organization among the lower ranks due to the haste of the operation, and soon we found ourselves without visual contact of the group ahead of us and unable to contact them on our group’s low-quality radio.
After a few minutes of isolation in the mountainous path, we heard a loud crash and then screaming from over the hill. We then heard shooting and more screams. We reached its crest and saw below the tank had somehow, in the wintry snow, crashed into a river tributary and fallen to its side. When we reached the site, we discovered that several of the men had been killed, their clothing tattered and torn, and their blood speckled the snow.
The white-naped and red-crowned cranes were merely nuisances, but the Asiatic black bear can grow up to five feet tall. We were in the territory of a sleuth of such bears. What most likely happened – based on the snow tracks – was the soldiers ahead of us crashed or damaged the tank, making the nearby bears approach them out of curiosity. The soldiers fired at them, and while some bears ran, others attacked. Several men were killed or seriously wounded, while the rest had fled.
Our CO took up the tank’s radio equipment, called in the situation, and was soon given his orders – we were to press onward, and we were to give the survivors no assistance. It would have slowed us down. Victory mattered more. If every soldier died, it would be worth it to protect the True Korea…
– Former North Korean soldier Rhee Dae-won, 2006 memoir
…The US-led “Alliance” saw a joint collaboration among the US and South Korean navies in order to properly coordinate bombardments of the coastal cities of North Korea, hitting Haeju and Nampo on the western coast (the Yellow Sea), and Wonsan, Sinpo, Riwon, and Tanchon on the eastern side (the Sea of Japan). Japan’s loaned LPH vessels played a vital role in many of these operations, with the USS Inchon preventing two private yachts and five smaller vessels – its inhabitants being either members of the North Korean elite, or North Koreans citizens or soldiers attempting to flee the carnage via bribing smugglers – from exiting North Korean territorial waters at the beginning of the conflict. The Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Forces flexed their muscles in an actual war for the very first time since its founding, and found that over four decades of contemplating hypothetical scenarios makes for well-trained leadership…
[SNIP]
North Korean planes proved to be no match to US B-52s and Tomahawk cruise missiles, making the main fighting occur on the ground, often in closed quarters as US/SK began advancing into the North on the eastern side of the Peninsula, driving PDRK troops out of the South’s Goseong and Sokcho regions and then out of the North’s Tongchin and Wonsan areas by the end of the first month of the conflict.
– Walter LaFeber’s The Sun And The Eagle: US-Japanese Relations In The Post-Cold War Era, 2019 edition
DINGER’S S.O.T.U. ADDRESS WAS THE SECOND-SHORTEST IN U.S. HISTORY
...George Washington’s 1790 State of The Union Address contained only 1,089 words. Dinger’s address last night had only 1,117 words, with which the President briefly described the strength of America and her allies overseas, the growing economy giving hope to families and businesses, and national unity being vital in “this moment of truth” ...This year’s State of The Union Address was held last night instead of on the originally-scheduled date of January 23 because the date was pushed back a week after the conflict unfolding in North Korea. Dinger was seemingly eager to return to the White House’s “War Room,” as he immediately left the Capitol Building to return to the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue once the speech was over…
– The Des Moines Register, 1/30/1996
…Dinger cut to the chase: “What’d I miss?”
“It looks like Kim’s family members have relocated to Hyangsan and Huichon, farther north and further inland from the capital, and may be planning to move farther up to Tongsin, but we are not too certain of that. Kim Jung-Il himself, however, may still be in Pongyang,” Defense Secretary Rocky Versace informed his boss.
“Though it could be a possible a stunt double, or simply a lie,” noted Chief Foreign Policy Advisor Susan Livingstone, “And Kim Jung-Il could really be with military leaders elsewhere, but most likely, they’re holed up in the inner basement of the Ryongsong Residence in Pyongyang.”
The President asked for a refresher: “That place has underground escape tunnels, right?”
“Yes, to other official residences in Kangdong, Pyongsong, and at least two other locations,” Livingstone answered.
“So getting him would be a huge undertaking; the world’s most expansive, expensive and deadliest manhunt,” Dinger thought aloud. “We should instead focus on troop advancements; if we absolutely crush Kim’s forces, maybe we won’t need to try and keep track of him through all this. Maybe they’ll just hand him over!”
“That’s wishful thinking,” said Vice President Meredith. “Logical wishful thinking, but wishful thinking nonetheless. With all due respect, Mr. President.”
“No, you’re right, James,” Dinger replied, and then addressed the rest of the room. “We should get Young-sam [the President of South Korea] on the line, see how things are on his end.”
The people of Seoul were brushing themselves off and contributing in any and every way that they could to the war effort…
– Edward Gulio Romano III’s LMD: A Study of The Dinger Days, Sunrise Publishers, 2020
…Scores of young adult men in Mexico ended up employed by cartels, often because they were the only employment around in the poorest regions of the north. Most feared them, though others welcome them because they did not “push” their “products” onto the locals; “they aren’t getting my kids hooked on the garbage, they’re selling it others. I hear 90% of what comes from here goes to America,” said one anonymous local Chihuahua resident in a 1996 investigative report by the Associated Pres…
– Roberto Roybal’s South of the Border: US-Mexico Relations During The 1990s, University of Oklahoma Press, 2015
…In the war in North Korea, we have reports that the US and South Korean forces have performed the first-ever large-scale use of weaponry called laser-guided smart bombs, which are precision-guided weapons meant to minimize collateral damage. In the US-led coalition’s performance of this technology in a push on the North Korea city of Sariwon, South Korean forces have apparently levelled a military bunker and weapons depo that the North Korean state-run media is claiming was an underground hospital for photosensitive children…
– ABC News, 2/3/1996 broadcast
“This war is going to be a major misstep. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of people are going to die and all because this administration failed to get the North to come out of its shell and negotiate with us.”
– Former Governor Roberto Clemente (D-PR), 2/4/1996
…On February 10, 1996, Dinger ordered the additional bombing of the upper-class districts of Pyongyang. This, coupled with Kim’s lack of aid to his wealthy supporters, angered said backers, making his reign increasingly unpopular among the nation’s elite. Kim and his Generals’ overall poor planning and coordinating of troop deployment did the same among the nation’s military leadership. In both groups, hushed talk of “going on holiday to China or Russia” became increasingly commonplace…
– Won Ung-hui’s The Kim Dynasty And The Time At Hand, Inchon Publishers, 2004
…North Korea’s navy had over 100,000 men, but all of them had inferior weaponry and crafts. For example, the sole indigenously-built submarines of North Korea were the small Sang-O (Shark) single unit, built in the Bong Dao Bo shipyards of Sinpo. With a fleet of no more than 50, when the Second Korean War began, all Sang-Os were deployed into The Sea of Japan and attempted to fire upon the military ships of the US, South Korean, and Japan. However, as they were constructed with outdated, formerly Soviet technology, the vessels had more misses than hits, and were easily defeated by US submarines…
– Maurice Isserman’s Confrontational: The Larry Dinger Wars, Borders Books, 2004
We found ourselves cornered at the DMZ border, our attempt to ransack Yeoncheon an abysmal failure. We have no aerial support and no backup; our weapons were outdated, and we lacked proper provisions. We were starving and the weather was freezing. Then our CO received word that all soldiers were ordered to shoot dead for treason any soldier who attempted to turn back. Not a single foot of conquered terrain was to be returned. This did not exactly boost our morale. We eyed Byung-hun, the most blindly patriotic of the group by far. But then we noticed our CO eyeing him too.
The next day, Byung-hun was sent ahead to scout out a reasonable path through the city. While he was gone, our CO announced that we would backtrack, back into the DMZ, in order to regroup with a larger division of troops. He said he’d received his orders through the radio equipment when we were all busy. We knew that he was scared, that, to him, killing one’s own troops was too much. We knew he was lying, that he had some other plan in mind – most likely, we were to hole up in the DMZ or in a village north of it, until we could regroup with a
real division of troops. We knew what was going on; we didn’t care.
– Former North Korean soldier Rhee Dae-won, 2006 memoir
It was dark and cold and my burn wounds were throbbing. They’d gotten infected, so my body was fighting that, and the cold. I ended up heading south because the prison grounds sloped down in that direction. I ended up at a marshy river, the biggest one I’d ever seen by far, with a long fence on the other side of the bank. I’d learn later it was the north side of the DMZ. I had no idea how deep the water could possibly be and I tried to step through it. The water swept me downstream but only a few meters. I crawled out and began shivering, so I stripped. I was now cold, alone, and nude, but not afraid. I was instead hungry, as usual.
I walked along the river until the river became a stream, then the terrain became too rocky and I departed from the river and went over a long hill. At the top, I spotted a group of soldiers and quickly ducked out of sight. I crawled over a little to get a better look at them. They were heading north, and they were tired and weary like me, but more agitated. They anxiously darted their eyes around; the man leading the group was fiddling with some radio gizmo strapped to a subordinate’s back. As they were about to pass, the leader raised in hands, like in triumph. I couldn’t tell exactly what they were saying, it seemed a larger group of soldiers was heading their way from the north of them.
Suddenly an explosion sent several of the soldiers in the back flying into the air, some intact, others in pieces. A tank with markings I didn’t recognize appeared from the behind the crest of the distant hill. As it turned out, American and South Korean forces had crossed the DMZ and been following the same trail left by the North during their own excursion through the terrain. As the tank approached and the explosions grew louder, I remember jumping behind a rock formation and the sounds of the gunfight growing so intense that I had to cover my ears. Then I felt a jolt in the back of my head, and I collapsed within second. I thought, maybe the cold finally killed me. Maybe I’d finally starved to death. Or maybe one of the soldier's bullets had strayed and had struck me down, putting me out of my misery. It was dark and quiet.
When I woke up, I found myself in what I learned was a makeshift medical camp outside of Seoul, with my wounds wrapped in bandages... [snip] ...I soon found out that a mortar blast had rendered me unconscious and during my time with my face on the ground the North Korean foot soldiers and their approaching tank division had been repelled, but most of the soldiers on both sides had been killed. The advancing soldiers found me among the dead. Apparently, they mistook me for small child instead of for a young man because of how malnourished I had become.
– Shin Do-Kyung’s account of his life in Park Sung-min’s anthology Nothing to Envy: Loss And Survival In A People’s Republic, Rhee-Pak Press, 2016
"…I am mighty proud of the soldiers I trained. When time came to go into a war zone, they knew what to do, and how to do it – the right way. …I was there when we liberated Tanchon, that’s on the east coast, and the locals didn’t exactly embrace us, at least not at first. First they attacked us and tried to kill us, even as their own military abandoned them. The fact that so many of the very people we were liberating were convinced we were the bad guys was a hard reality for some of the soldiers to accept. These were not the cheering crowds found in Europe in World War Two; this was not the war of our fathers or grandfathers fought in the 1940s. This was much closer to the hell found in Cuba in the early ’60s. Our object for these violent locals was to subdue or disarm, so we’d try to get them in close quarters for hand-to-hand combat to knock ’em out. A lot of the more crazy ones did The Hari-kari Dance before we could stop ’em. Lots of them got shot in self-defense. But don’t get me wrong; a lot were happy to see us. Especially the little kids; them and the adults would reach their hand out at us, hoping for food. That was the job for the uniforms behind us – we cleared, they fed."
– Harley Brown, 2014 interview
…The North saw heavy casualties due to their poor supplies of conventional and even chemical weapons. The military’s purges in the months and weeks prior to the war breaking out created leadership voids. Both the army and the country lacked proper infrastructure, and this and the famine meant the North’s Army was comprised of weak troops who nevertheless aimed to fight to the death. …Americans back home were horrified by the high number of casualties on the northern side of the conflict, with many initially believing it to be the result of our military “going too far,” as put by Roberto Clemente after the fall of Tanchon, which left thousands of Northerners lying dead across the city streets. However, US Secretary of State Perkins responded to the criticism by beginning a “clarification tour” on multiple TV and radio programs on February 20…
– Edward Gulio Romano III’s LMD: A Study of The Dinger Days, Sunrise Publishers, 2020
“Update: New development Out of Hyangsan
I must commend you for your overseeing of the land-based operations in the northeastern quadrant. That is why I trust you to perform admirably in overseeing the new Operation Foxhunt. Monitoring the Chinese and all other elements have proved our suspicions. Kim never left the tunnel complexes connecting his palaces to one another – until this morning. Last week’s ransacking of the Ryongsong Residence led to us clearing out the surrounding palaces, and at Hyangsan, we got some of his ex-lackeys to squeal – he fled Hyangsan at 600 hours yesterday and is heading your way, to his official residence at Paektusan, near the Chinese border.
We’re so close to getting him, Rowe. Don’t let him cross that border.”
– US Army Gen. Gary E. Luck in classified message to US Army Maj. Gen. J. Nicholas “Nick” Rowe, Commander of USFK (United States Forces Korea), 1200hrs, 2/27/1996
…In the midst of the Second Korea War, a.k.a. KW2, a.k.a. The War of Korean Reunification, tech companies pressed onward. In a notable example, the Nokia 5110 was introduced by Nokia on February 26, 1996
[3]; as technet forum discussions and sales showed, it was the most popular kind of phone for the second half of the 1990s, largely because of its style – it looked like a phone, despite the convenient screen built into it – and because of how easy it was for consumers to use…
– Joy Lisi Rankin’s Computers: A People’s History of the Information Machine, Westview Press, 2018
FLAHERTY DROPS OUT, ENDORSES GLENN
…despite foreign policy, Flaherty's strong suit, being at the forefront of politician discussions at the moment, the former frontrunner’s campaign was losing momentum and money ahead of the first-in-the-nation primary in New Hampshire… A similar problem is plaguing Litton, who suffered from a late entry into the race but may benefit from Flaherty's departure freeing up more donors...
– The Washington Post, 2/27/1996
…The United Kingdom set an example for American politicians contemplating how to address mental illness on February 28, when the UK judicial system sentenced Thomas Watt Hamilton, a 43-year-old man arrested after and found guilty of attempting to violate an elementary school student in 1994, to a sanitarium to receive psychotherapy. Since 1987, UK law considered pedophilia to be “a dangerous form of mental illness,” which created a legal distinction for “unwell criminals” that differed them from nonviolent sufferers of other forms of mental impairment such as autism and Asperger’s...
– Cary Federman’s Target: Iacocca, Lexington Books, 2015
As US-SK ground forces advanced further into the North, Kim ordered the release of all of the remaining chemical weapons, even if it killed more North Koreans in surrounding areas than it would kill enemy soldiers. In 1987, South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense had reported the North as having obtained, both independently and through the post-Cold War chaos, “up to 200 metric tons of chemical weapons.”
As the troops that were still loyal to the Kim dynasty took to the skies to distribute the poisons on March 2nd, Kim’s servants went about packing for him.
“Where are we going?” Kim Jong-nam asked. He was concerned about his wife and child; he had last seen them on New Year’s Eve, right before they boarded a plane to Switzerland. Just days later, Kim Han-sol’s grandfather went to war and had made his father stay by his side through it all – the nonsensical orders, the contrition that threw away troops like they were nothing, the growing scale of starvation among the people fighting to the death, the scorched earth policy of burning homes ahead of advancing US-SK foot soldiers, and now chemical warfare. Jong-nam was increasingly sickened by it all.
“We are going to continue the defense of True Korea from outside True Korea,” the Supreme Leader finally answered as he looked upon a large map of the world hanging on the one wall of the basement. This was their third day being holed up in the bottom level of Paektusan Residence, since their arrival of February 28th, and already the site was no longer considered safe. “We are so close to the Chinese border. Zhu might be a traitor to our cause, but like the capitalist scum like to say, 'money talks.' We will simply buy our way into his country.”
“And if that does not work?”
“Are you questioning my superior intelligence, Jong-nam?”
“I am considering all possible situations, sir.”
“Don’t. Remember, everything would have gone exactly as I planned it if True Korea was not so full of so many traitors!”
The young Kim thought back to how many faces from his father’s inner circle had disappeared in the past eight weeks – had it only been two months? – how each man had sworn their allegiance to the Supreme Leader, only for each one to be “purged” each time a battle was lost, or a province was overrun by US-SK forces. Underfed soldiers, outnumbered and outgunned, had "only themselves to blame," his father swore. Kim Jong-nam watched as his father stared at the map, as did I. Like the son, I was bewildered and curious of our leader’s long-term plan, if such one existed.
As such, we did not notice the sound of gunfire until it had grown very loud. By then, US forces had already breached the perimeter, and a force of North Korean peasant-soldiers were nipping at their heels, following the invaders into the residence complex and into the lower levels.
The Supreme Leader finally looked away from the wall map just as the main entrance’s doors began to shake from the pounding of enemy forces. “Heh. They will not break through that barricade, I inspected it myself.”
A battering ram smashed its way through the doors, throwing about splinters and woodchips and throwing the metal frame pieces off their hinges with a mighty clang, pound, and thud.
“Someone in here has sabotaged the barricade!” Kim Jong-Il bellowed.
An American soldier, looking through the widening entrance to the room, shouted something I later learned was English for “There he is!”
Immediately the Supreme Leader bolted from the room, fleeing to the inner chamber (expanded and refurbished in the early 1990s), down the hall, down another flight of stairs, down a second hall and behind an even thicker door. I was right behind him and two lower-ranking servants; Jong-nam made up the rear.
“Jong-nam, the door!” Kim Jong-Il shouted as he ducked into the inner chamber. His father was referring to a thick metal sliding door at the bottom of the stairs. Closing it would slow down the invaders long enough to escape through the secret back entrance and finally lose our pursuers.
As I rushed into the room to join the Supreme Leader and the two others, I was surprised by the sounds of foot-soldiers growing stronger and louder, instead of the sound of them pounding at the door. Before we could catch our breath – and before any of us could grab a gun – they invaded.
First, the South Koreans charged in with their guns raised; their orders were to try and capture him alive. The Americans made up the rest of their company, and the US and ROK troops were soon followed by the angry, starving, blindly pro-Kim peasants. As all three group piled into the large room, they all stopped in awe as their eyes caught and absorbed what was before them - the scale and contents of the inner chamber. Piled and stacked alongside the three farther walls, with each wall reaching a height of 6 meters (20 feet), were hundreds of crates of boxes, jars, tubes, lids, and packages of various foodstuffs. Preservatives had been canned and sealed, from herbal teas to Russian chocolates. Large commercial refrigerators, complete with see-through glass doors and installed in this vault-like artificial cave only a year before, stored the fine meats, vegetables and aged cheeses, along with some chilled bottles of wine of multiple regions and years. Wooden creates housed the rest, which all made for more food than any of the peasants could even fathom existing all at once outside their purest fantasies.
As such, the locals that had arrived on the scene to protect their beloved leaders slowly lowered their weapons in confusion.
“Wait, I thought there was no more food anywhere,” one of them uttered.
“Yeah, why are you hiding all of this from us, dear leader?” whispered another in a moment of pure curiosity.
Despite the ROK troops’ guns still being locked in on him, the Supreme Leader, standing between the crowd and his provisions, took one step forward and addressed the large crowd that had formed behind said ROK soldiers. “My fellow patriots, I was going to distribute this food to you all as soon as possible, for I personally stole this hoard of food from our enemies.”
One of the ROK soldiers let out a snort of contempt. Kim gave him a dirty look, and likely would have called for the crowd to "address" that soldier first, were it not for the fact that Kim found himself surprised by murmurs continuing to come from the crowd.
Then, one of the more desperate peasants, a broken one, half-mad from malnourishment and half-dead from same, began to lead further murmuring. "Why do the crates have our kingdom's writing on it. I can't read, but you can tell - that's how our leaders style things."
The US-ROK soldiers were not sure how to proceed. The COs glanced at each other and motioned to their subordinates to stand their ground.
“So can we have that food now?” A female voice finally called out, sharply, like the howl of an animal caught in a painful forest trap.
“No!” Kim shouted, likely thinking about his personal supply. He probably also thought about how much he wished he had not executed the last of his speechwriters last week, as he then awkwardly blurted out, “Uh, this, uh, this food is a trick by the Americans!”
This remark led to more murmuring as the agape mouths of the starving began to salivate. Their minds were running wild with the unbridled desire of consuming all they could to settle the pain that refused to cease shooting across their shrunken stomachs.
“Forgive me, O Great One, but that makes no sense,” shouted out a raspy-voiced observer of the contradictory statement.
A man with the look of ghosts in his eyes accused, “He’s keeping this food all for himself!”
“Why must we starve, Supreme Leader Kim?”
The voices grew in anger and disillusionment.
“We were told you are a living God, so why do you need so much food?”
“We’re dying! Give us something to eat!”
With the standoff intensifying, one of the voices sprinted out of the hostile mass, whizzing past the ROK troops and making a run at either Kim or the food supply behind him.
“Stay back!” Kim finally remembered the pistol in his side pocket and whipped it out, causing the South Koreans to ready their own. Remembering their order, though, they did not fire into him. Instead, Kim was the one that fired, right into the crowd. He first struck the voice - a teenaged boy - almost directly in the forehead, causing his running to end with an awkward flop down onto the concrete floor. Kim then kept on firing again and again, almost blindly, into the increasingly disillusioned crowd, until he heard the click of the empty chamber. The starving mass of peasants, with wide and empty eyes and yellow skin, began advancing. Many stepped over the shot and the fallen without hesitance or care. The room seemed to close in. I thought I was done for. But the angry, steaming, enraged lunatic-peasants walked right past me. They didn't a mere lackey. They were focused, entirely focused, on approaching their Supreme Leader.
“Stay back, I command you!” Kim bellowed as the peasants moved faster, past the ROK soldiers. Kim threw his gun at one them, but it simply bounced off of their shoulder and did not impede their staggering but determined gait. The crowd cornered their leader between a cooler of cold cuts fixed adjacent to a crated collection of American hard candies.
“Give us something to eat!” The mad voice from before, belonging to the man with the haunted eyes, rang out as the mass grew louder, now shouting, screaming, practically howling like wolves descending upon a frightened fat rabbit.
I heard Kim shout out in desperation. “You’ll all be executed for this! You’ll all – ” And the rest was garbled, blocked by the sounds of fabric being torn, punches being blown, and teeth, weak from calcium deficiency, doing their best to bite, clamp, and gnaw into the Supreme Leader’s flesh.
I looked back at the ROK and US soldiers. They just stood there, with their jaws hanging low, shocked beyond words at the carnage unfolding before their very eyes.
Only one of them had the sense to snap out of it and begin recording the scene on a small camera from the group's pack.
“Hey,” I quietly said to the ROK soldiers as I carefully walked over, “If I turn myself in, I fall under your protection, right? I mean, I’ll be in a nice, safe prisoner truck or something, correct?”
--- --- ---
I would only find out much later what had happened to Kim Jong-nam. The young Kim had heard his father’s command, but had not registered it. He understood that the final door before the inner chamber was all that kept out the enemy forces. Maybe it was for that reason that he froze. He just stared at the door, either contemplating something for too long, or not thinking at all. For eventually, the South Koreans and peasants arrived, and instead of trying to close the door, Jong-nam bolted to the side of the room and hid under a table that had a long, thick tablecloth on it; the invading Koreans ran right past him, and he did not come out until after I had been taken away and the ROK troops were raiding the complex. He surrendered immediately.
The news – and ultimately the footage – of starving masses overpowering Kim Jung-Il for being “a betrayer of his father’s generosity by harboring food during a nationwide famine,” as one of the, um, diners put it, was soon broadcast worldwide. While the US-SK troops who witnessed the conclusion of the Kim regime were reprimanded for not preventing his demise (with both COs being temporary reassigned as punishment for not capturing Kim alive when they, arguably, could have quite easily), the main takeaway from it all was the visual. That image of a wave of disillusioned bone-thin servants, driven simply mad by their inhuman circumstances, descending and enveloping their oppressor like a pack of wild dogs. It became an iconic example of what happens to dictators who forget to care about their subjects and left a significant impact that is still being felt today.
– Won Ung-hui’s The Kim Dynasty And The Time At Hand, Inchon Publishers, 2004
GLENN BEATS DIVIDED DOVES IN NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY
…Clemente, the leading “dove” candidate in the state, lost momentum in the wake of recent developments in North Korea. With Kim Jung-Il dead and the Hermit Kingdom seemingly going through a leadership void, exit polling suggests voters are becoming more confident in the President’s foreign policy actions. This shake-up seems to have made Clemente’s previous anti-war rhetoric seem unfounded and exaggerated, leading to two other dove candidates, Jackson and Leland, gaining more support. In turn, the anti-war vote became more evenly divided, allowing Glenn to come in first place with less than one-third of the vote. …Last week, polls for the New Hampshire primary showed Clemente with 34%, Glenn with 32%, Jackson with 17%, Leland with 11%, Litton (who did not focus on campaigning in the state) with 4% and all others making up the remaining 2%. Last night, Glenn acquired approximately 29%, followed by Clemente with 24%, Jackson with 23%, Leland with 17%, Litton with 3% and all other candidates on the ballot receiving the remaining 3%…
– The New York Times, 3/5/1996
…As the news of Kim’s death swept the countryside, responses were mixed. By this point, most North Koreans had grown completely disillusioned, but a large amount believed that the circumstances of his death were lies created by “The Enemy.” The event altered the dynamics of the war, as the regime’s remaining leaders fractured between several Generals and other military leaders, supported by various leaders of the DPRK elite class, as the Kim family became a no-show. Kim Jong-Il’s brother, for example, sought political asylum at the Russian Embassy in Helsinki, while his sister went further into hiding. The lack of a clear successor increased the spread of doubt in the Kim family’s alleged divinity…
– Ken Armstrong’s 1996: The Second Korean War, Simon & Schuster, 2012
…with tensions in western Africa cooling down, KFC is venturing into Ghana and the Ivory Coast. “We are negotiating with the Ivorian government on a deal, and we expect the Ivorian people to be able to enjoy the experience of our establishment in select areas of the country by the end of this year,” according to a spokesperson for the company…
– Financial Times, 3/11/1996
JACKSON WINS GEORGIA PRIMARY
…Leland almost acted as a spoiler to Jackson, only for former Senator Jerry Litton to siphon off enough votes from Glenn to give the state to Jackson; the results are considered an upset, as polls showed the contest to be a toss-up between Jackson and Glenn but with Glenn leading. Instead, Glenn came in at a close second place, with Mickey Leland coming in third, Jerry Litton in fourth, and Roberto Clemente underperforming with a fifth-place finish…
– The Boston Globe, 3/12/1996
…North Korea’s forces saw a high number of desertions as soldiers went AWOL in the face of Kim’s death. As the days progressed, the DPRK military began to split into smaller and smaller factions, rallying around no less than two-dozen military and/or political figures each claiming to be the rightful successor to Kim Jung-Il. And the smaller these factions, the easier it was for the US-SK forces to overwhelm them and defeat them…
– Ken Armstrong’s 1996: The Second Korean War, Simon & Schuster, 2012
NORTHERN DAWN
The Inuit Prepare To Embrace Self-Government With Hope, Fear, and Fierce Determination
By John Geddes
…Helen Maksagak, a notable Copper Inuk, has been the Commissioner of the Northwest Territories since January 1995, but will became the first Commissioner of Nunavut upon it officially separating from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1996. This covers the conditions of the Nunavut Act, which established the new territory’s borders, and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, in which its separation from the Northwest Territories was negotiated; both Acts were formed back in 1991, under the direction of then-new PM Mitchell. The first major change to Canadian political map since Newfoundland became a province in 1949, a 1994 plebiscite chose Iqaluit to be the new territory’s capital city over Rankin Inlet by a wide margin. …The achievement of Nunavut has been a boost to government relations with the First Nations of Canada, strained since the 1989 Leaky Shack Scandal of the Nielsen administration, in which federally subsidized housing projects for First Nations were found to have inferior quality – the most iconic of them being poor roofs – and contributing to Nielsen’s loss to Mitchell. Repairing confidence in federal government can be partially credited to MP Dave Barrett, of Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca since 1988, a member of Mitchell’s ministry and one of her close allies. Barret is also urging the party and administration to confront the “western alienation” encouraged by Preston Manning’s Alberta Party, in order to strengthen the PT Party’s hold on government...
– The Globe and Mail, Canadian newspaper, 3/14/1996
…As the conflict in Korea continued to decline in the wake of the power void, soldiers began to act like mercenaries, offering their allegiance to whichever Generals could best guarantee for them food and protection for their families. Generals Ryo Chun-seok, Major General Ri Yong-ho, and Vice Marshall Ri Jong-san each claimed control of Pyongyang, leading to a turf war that lasted for roughly two weeks; the conflict was resolved when US-SK forces in Pyongyang killed all three faction leaders in a four-sided firefight on March 18. Elsewhere, other military leaders either surrendered, or commit suicide, often with their fellow soldiers following suit. For example, on March 15, in a dilapidating farmhouse outside of Yangdok and surrounded by SK soldiers, Choe Kwang, the 77-year-old Marshal of the Korean People’s Army, shot himself with his own rifle, lamenting in his suicide note “I have failed the People’s Republic.” The very next day, Kim Il-Chol (b. 1933; no relation to the Kim Dynasty), the Commander of the Korean People’s Navy since 1982, killed himself onboard his doomed ship in the Yellow Sea via hara-kiri; the soldiers loyal to him either followed suit or surrendered.
However, the Vice Marshal of the Korean People’s Army (and thus next in command after Choe), Kim Young-chun (b. 1936; no relation to the Kim Dynasty), was captured alive on March 17, and closely monitored due to his repeated attempts to commit suicide while in custody after that. Kim would end up as the signatory of the March 21 Instrument of Surrender that formalized the war’s conclusion, at least as far as America was concerned…
– Ken Armstrong’s 1996: The Second Korean War, Simon & Schuster, 2012
DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES DIFFER ON HOW TO HANDLE POST-WAR KOREA IN RENO DEBATE
…Glenn promotes keeping our troops in “the hot zone until we’ve cemented stability to it,” while Jackson called for “a gradual withdrawal as soon as possible”…
– The Las Vegas Review-Journal, 3/17/1996
…Kim Jong-nam surrendered to American forces willingly. Continuing his oath to be responsible for the personal protection of the ruling Kim family, General Yun Jong-rin ensured Kim’s other children were safe from harm. Kim Jong-chul, Kim Jong-un, and Kim Yo-Jong had all been attending the Liebefeld-Steinholzli public school in Bern, Switzerland when the war began. With their mothers (remember, they are half-siblings) soon joining them, these Kims became effectively stateless as their country slowly died. This made for a complicated diplomatic situation; South Koreans debated extradition, believing the surviving family members would encourage continued fighting from abroad. Meanwhile, the Kim children continued with their schoolwork, their classmates still unaware of their true identities…
– Ken Armstrong’s 1996: The Second Korean War, Simon & Schuster, 2012
GLENN WINS NEVADA PRIMARY
…Clemente’s campaign had hoped to pull off an upset victory in this state tonight; however, tonight was Clemente’s best performance of the primary season so far, as he came in second place with 28% of the vote. Glenn won with 35%, while Litton, Jackson and Leland have basically tied for third place with each receiving about 11% of the vote…
– The Las Vegas Review-Journal, 3/19/1996
…Soldiers brainwashed continued to fight to the death, with some regrouping to launch brief guerilla campaigns until they starved to death or died trying to steal food from US/SK troops. …North Korea’s Sang-O-class submarines either surrendered, tried to continue fighting, or purposely sank or crashed in order to avoid surrender. Immediately, it seemed many had gone AWOL, as over 20 Sang-Os were unaccounted for by the end of 1996. Eventually, most were discovered to have fled to Russia, China, or one case, Brazil, but all were ultimately arrested or repelled from the nations. As of the time of this writing, there are 5 Sang-O subs still missing, but it is assumed they all purposely sank or crashed; still, speculations continue as to their exact whereabouts...
On March 21, 1996, officers from South Korea and INTERPOL apprehended Kim Jong-Il’s sister, Kim Kyong-hui, and her husband Jang Sung-taek, at a pier in Hong Kong, foiling their attempt to seek political asylum in Indonesia, Pakistan, or any country that would take them. With the final prominent Kim family members surrendering to authorities, US Army Gen. Gary E. Luck, Commander of USFK (United States Forces Korea) proclaimed the war to “officially over,” while South Korean forces remained cautious.
Still, US media report it as an official declaration of victory. Naturally, Dinger’s approval ratings skyrocketed from the 70s to a whopping 89%...
– Ken Armstrong’s 1996: The Second Korean War, Simon & Schuster, 2012
[pic:
https://imgur.com/tTKque5.png ]
– clickopedia.co.usa
JACKSON EDGES OUT VICTORY IN MARYLAND; Beats Challengers In A Five-Way Split Of The Primary Vote
– The Roanoke Times, Virginia newspaper, 3/26/1996
…with former Ambassador Mickey Leland being declared the winner of tonight’s Democratic Presidential primary contest in Vermont, the race for that party’s Presidential nominee continues to be without a clear frontrunner. Leland is one of five candidates who seem to have a chance of winning, the other four being Jesse Jackson, John Glenn, Roberto Clemente, and Jerry Litton…
– CBS Evening News, 4/2/1996
A HISTORIC BREAKTHROUGH?: NASA Announces Meteorite May Contain Evidence Of Martian Life!!!
…Thought to originate from Mars, the meteorite possibly contains microscopic fossils of bacteria. …The grooves and bacteria-shaped husks are 20-100 nanometers in diameter, smaller than any cellular life known at this time... NASA scientists made the discovery, and NASA spokespersons made the announcement at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas...
– The New York Times, 4/4/1996 [4]
President Dinger’s April 8, 1996 Statement Regarding The Allan Hills Meteorite
[snip]
“Like all discoveries, this one will and should continue to be reviewed, examined and scrutinized. It must be confirmed by other scientists. But clearly, the fact that something of this magnitude is being explored is another vindication of America's space program and our continuing support for it... I am determined that the American space program will put it's full intellectual power and technological prowess behind the search for further evidence of life on Mars.” [5]
The meteorite made headlines worldwide, causing President Dinger to make a special televised announcement speech from the South Lawn of the White House to mark the event about it being a possible milestone discovery. Despite controversy brewing over the source of the alleged fossils, most agree that, whether life was present in their formation or not, interest in the meteorite fueled an increase in interest in astrobiology…
[snip]
…Even though the wider scientific community has since rejected the hypothesis due to the fact that all of the unusual features in the meteorite have been explained away without requiring life to be present on Mars, fringe theorists exist. One claims the scientific community is hiding the truth despite all the research being publicly available. Another claim is that the rock is fake, and created in order to fuel space exploration and increase NASA’s budget, due to President Dinger being like Mondale in regards to space travel, continuing the Mars Mission to honor Iacocca but overwise shutting down all other manned flight proposals...
– www2.jpl.nasa.gov.usa/jcc/dinger/5.html
…In the political world, talk of the meteorite discovery greatly benefited the Glenn campaign, which feared losing several key states in the then-upcoming April Cluster of Democratic Presidential primaries. Most of these states were in the south, where African-American candidates Jesse Jackson and Mickey Leland were expected to perform the strongest. Glenn barely winning the states of New Hampshire and Nevada gave clout to the notion that his campaign was about to falter. However, with talk over the validity of the meteorite dominating the news cycles, focus returned to Glenn’s decades-long support for NASA, and his campaign worked to capitalize on this; soon, the Senator appeared in segments on all five of the US’s biggest networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, TON, KNN) to share his thoughts on the meteorite’s significance, and to plug for his candidacy as well: “If those fossils are of extraterrestrial bacteria, then it will merit further study of the Red Planet, and if they’re not the remnants of alien germs, then it will merit studying what they are and how they came to be. I saw a lot of things in space, and I’ve been privy to a lot of things as Chairman of Senate commissions concerning space exploration and the like, so what I can tell you is that when I become President, exploring the cosmos, God’s biggest creation, for the benefit of humankind will be of high priority in my administration.”…
– Richard Ben Cramer’s What It Takes: Roads to The White House, Sunrise Publications, 2011 edition
Host SACHI KOTO: …It’s 2:45 and for those of you just tuning in, the First April Cluster of 1996 has put some winds into the sails of the Glenn campaign, and maybe the Clemente campaign as well. Voters in twelve states and territories cast their Democratic primary ballots today, and the results are the following: Jesse Jackson won Louisiana and Alabama as well as Massachusetts and Minnesota, while John Glenn won Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, and Roberto Clemente won Puerto Rico, Colorado, and Florida. Texas was only recently called, and it seems Glenn won it by a plurality, with Mickey Leland coming in third, behind Jackson. Missouri, meanwhile, has gone to Litton – it is his only pickup of the night.
[snip]
KOTO: Given its high concentration and high number of Black voters, I think Glenn winning Mississippi is very impressive.
Guest Panelist ROZ ABRAMS: I disagree. It looks more like Mabus, Clemente, Leland and Jackson all picked up the Black vote, since Glenn won with only about a little over a third of total vote down there…
– KNN, 4/10/1996 broadcast
RAY MABUS DROPS OUT, ENDORSES GLENN
…once a leading candidate, Governor Mabus lost momentum as the primaries approached, with many former supporters and donors flocking to the Jackson and Leland campaigns. In last night’s primary contests across the South, Mabus’ best performance was 18%, or third place, in his home state of Mississippi. In his concession speech, he threw his support to Glenn, arguing the “elder statesman” had “the best chance of beating Dinger in November”…
– The Washington Post, 4/10/1996
LELAND BOWS OUT AFTER FAILING TO WIN TEXAS, ENDORSES JACKSON
...Congressman Mickey Leland understood that failing to outperform his opponents in his electorally-rich home state would be "breaking point" of his campaign...
– The Boston Globe, 4/11/1996
LITTON SUSPENDS WHITE HOUSE BID: “There’s No Honest Pathway Forward From Here”
– The Houston Chronicle, 4/12/1996
American and “Victorious Korean” soldiers soon found their ways among the Kim Dynasty’s incredibly complex tunnel systems, ultimately finding the former nation’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapon stockpiles, vindicating the invasive intervention by proving to the world how much of a threat Kim Jong-Il was to the world. Most scientists and technicians that weren’t captured or didn’t kill themselves, however, fled to China, Russia, and several other countries. In the past, escapee of the north sought refuge in South Korea, China, Japan and even the US; some also find their way to Taiwan. When the war ended and the North was enveloped, family members became reunited and many former escapees began to return to their now-liberated homeland.
But amid the sea of smiles, I kept wondering: how is the South going to feed themselves and the North? Competition for resources for survival will occur; a humanitarian disaster may be unfolding!
– Former North Korean soldier Rhee Dae-won, 2006 memoir
“Colonel Sanders once said ‘Punish the government, never the people.’ Indeed, we should point the finger not at those who were forced, but threat of death or by brainwashing, to commit heinousness. Point the finger at the root, at the instigators and their willing and willful accomplices. The United States will work with South Korea to honors The Colonel’s call to punish the government of the people, not the people themselves. The formerly North Korean people are victims of this war, and that is exemplified nowhere better by the gruesome details of Kim Jong-Il’s demise…”
– President Larry Dinger, 4/15/1996
…To the surprise of the North Koreans uninformed of China’s neutrality, the remaining members of North Korea’s elite and military leaderships did not receive a “here comes the cavalry” moment from an intervening PRC. Instigators of Kim’s worst policies were uncertain if they would be granted amnesty by the (former) South Koreans; no doubt, the word “Nuremburg” was stuck in their minds. In response, dozens successfully fled. Many leaders that managed to escape had to go into hiding and watch as the captured rest went to UN, US and SK courts for murder, crimes against humanity, and other offense, with Muammar Gaddafi’s legal hurdles being used as precedence. …But in 1996, it was still unknown how China planned to address the post-war Korean peninsula...
– Edward Gulio Romano III’s LMD: A Study of The Dinger Days, Sunrise Publishers, 2020
…Alright, and with our own state of Alaska going for Governor Jackson – or former Governor Jackson or Reverend Jackson or whatever you want to call him – well it looks like last night’s primaries have all had their winners announced. To recap: in the latest round of Presidential primaries for the Democratic party, Jesse Jackson picked up Arizona, Alaska, Maine and Washington, D.C., while Senator John Glenn picked up Wyoming, Connecticut, Delaware and Iowa, though those last two – both of which were the winner-take-all kind, at last this time around – were very, very close. I think this was a very bad night for Clemente, because he bet all his chips on Arizona, and he came in third; in fact, he came in third in a lot of states tonight...
– KAEB 91.9 FM radio, 4/17/1996 broadcast
CLEMENTE DROPS OUT AFTER LOSING ARIZONA; Race Now Down To Just Jackson and Glenn
– The Miami Herald, 4/18/1996
DUNHAM SUSPENDS LONGSHOT WHITE HOUSE BID, ENDORSES JACKSON
– The Los Angeles Times, 4/21/1996
…In tonight’s Second April Cluster 2, Jesse Jackson won the Wisconsin and Virgin Island primaries, while John Glenn won Illinois and his home state of Ohio, and just now, we can confirm that a favorite-son candidate, former Governor Jim Slattery, has won his home state of Kansas…
– KNN, 4/23/1996 broadcast
…In the primaries held on April 30th, Jackson won Oregon and Washington with ease, while Glenn only narrowly secured the winner-take-all contest in Pennsylvania. Glenn’s victory in Indiana, however, was relatively easier to obtain…
– Richard Ben Cramer’s What It Takes: Roads to The White House, Sunrise Publications, 2011 edition
GLENN SWEEPS LATEST PRIMARY CLUSTER
…Senator Glenn, who describes himself as a moderate technocrat and a “Median Lane Democrat” last night won the Democratic Presidential primary contests of West Virginia, Nebraska, Arkansas, Idaho, and, by a very thin margin, Michigan as well, which widens his lead in the delegate count...
– The Orlando Sentinel, 5/8/1996
…UK punk rock music rose in prominence as Riot Grrrl and Riot Boy bands began to slide slowly out of their genre’s “golden era” that was the 1990s. Coupled with the rise of other groups like Oasis, Blur, Suede, and Elastica, the rise of American bands such as The Backstreets led to rival British boy bands rising in prominence as well…
…Geopolitics briefly created controversial songs in the 1990s, too. Propagandhi, the Canadian punk rock band formed in 1986, was at the front of this, as they began to shift to more technical “heavy metal” styles. On February 7, 1996, the group released a single, hastily-assembled but still catchy, called “Fingerblood,” a song that espoused a stance against warfare in Korea on the grounds of it being a part of “sick imperialistic games.” It was released separately from the group’s second full-length album “Less Talk, More Rock,” which was released on May 12, 1996. With a hardcore punk rhythm and anti-authority lyrics, the band began to compliment the works of Green Day, another rock band originating in the 1980s with an anti-war ideology. This one American, Green Day was part of the Californian part of the Riot Boi scene of the early and middle 1990s, but grew in prominence during the mid-1990s, expressing disappointment in Dinger’s inability to resolve the Korean Question peacefully, and covered the “loss of innocence” felt in the immediate aftermath of the Lee Iacocca assassination. In London in early May 1996, the two bands ended up being booked at nearby venues at the same time while both where touring the UK, and ended up hanging out after their sets were done. In a continuation of The Scene That Celebrates Itself, the band members established on a rapport and ultimately collaborated on three albums together over the subsequent ten years…
…The Dixie Chicks formed in 1994 as a female version of Take That, had their breakthrough in 1996…
…Country music in the 1990s saw the likes of Shania Twain and Garth Brooks rise to national U.S. prominence as well…
– Caroline O’Connor’s The Scene That Celebrates Itself, London Times Press, 2011
…Four more primaries were held on May 14. Glenn predictably won Kentucky, and Virginia while Jackson narrowly won South Dakota. The main focus on the night, however, was the New York primary. Jesse Jackson fought hard to win this one, but lost by a margin of less than 1%. The loss was a major setback for the fledgling campaign, and was looked back on as a pivotal moment for the Jackson’96 campaign)…
– Richard Ben Cramer’s What It Takes: Roads to The White House, Sunrise Publications, 2011 edition
MOST SOUTHERN KOREANS HAVE “CAUTIOUS HOPE” FOR LIFE IN NEW KOREAN STATE
…When southern Koreans are asked what they think about their government’s plans for the North, most are supportive, but only cautiously. “Our government won the war, but have we really won over the soldiers. So many of us and so many of them fought and killed. How do we heal from this?” The Korean government has yet to fully flesh out a place for addressing the widespread poverty found among the former North Korean people, many of whom (but not most of whom) are hostile to their southern brethren despite receiving food from them…
– Georgie Anne Geyer, syndicated columnist, Universal Press Syndicate, 5/16/1996 article
The debate over mental health intensified on May 18, 1996, when Governor Kathleen Brown of California passed a controversial bill that lowered the state’s requirements for and grounds for inspection of supposed mental illness/impairment, and amend sanitarium laws to allow for immediate-family members and spouses to involuntarily commit people for psychiatric evaluation. The bill was passed concurrently with the greenlighting of new mental health treatment centers, to be built in order to lower the state unemployment rate. Immediately, there was great concern that people would use the law have sane people committed on trump-up charges or circumstances; US Senators George Deukmejian (R-CA) and Mario Biaggi (D-NY) made a joint press briefing on May 20 to condemn the California Mental Health Protection Law, with the former stating “this…will violate The American Citizen’s right to be considered innocent before being proven guilty.” As Brown continued to receive flak for signing off on the bill, her approval rating dropped, lowering down ten points in a month. Nevertheless, in the face of legal/judiciary challenges to the law, Brown still backed it, claiming “it will keep Californians safe.”
– Robert Wilder’s The Politics of Mental Health Services and Societal Protection in California, University of Sacramento Press, 2017
…In political news, Senator John Glenn won last night’s Presidential primaries held in Hawaii and North Carolina as Jesse Jackson’s campaign shifts its focus to the delegate-rich Final Five contests to be held in early June. Glenn most likely won Hawaii due to its key military importance this last year – Glenn’s candidacy is clearly favored by military groups and military-conscious voters. The presence of several withdrawn progressive candidates on the ballot may have also played a factor in the narrow upset victory…
– ABC News, 5/22/1996
MARYLAND SUPREME COURT APPROVES RIGHT-TO-VOTE WORKER PROTECTION LAW
…the state law would penalize employers or, alternatively, prevent them from firing any employee who takes time off of work to exercise his right to vote, provided that the employee can prove that he spent his time off work going to vote. Maryland’s Governor, former Presidential candidate Decatur “Bucky” Trotter, praised the state court decision… Opponents of the law are seeking to advance the case to the US Supreme Court…
– The Washington Post, 5/23/1996
HOST: Tonight’s Democratic primaries were split evenly between the two remaining candidates: former Governor Jackson easily won his home state of South Carolina, while Senator Glenn narrowly won the winner-take-all contest held in Utah. On the Republican side, President Dinger’s sole opposition throughout the primaries has come from Tom Laughlin, a former actor known for advocating child psychology care and cancer research who briefly served as the Mayor of Santa Monica during the 1970s. Laughlin, who was running on a populist platform advocating term limits, public education, and tax cuts for, quote, “ordinary Americans,” unquote, today announced he was dropping his bid for the Republican nomination, despite Dinger already securing the number of delegates needed to win it six weeks ago. In his concession speech tonight, Laughlin, an outspoken critic of the war in Korea over the casualty counts, called for what he calls, quote, a “realistic exit strategy,” unquote.
LAUGHLIN (in pre-recorded footage): Our troops may end up staying there indefinitely, just like they almost did in Cuba and still are in Colombia!
– CBS News, 5/28/1996 broadcast
In the final round of primaries, held on June 4, Jackson managed to pull off an upset as the national mood shifted farther away from foreign policy and closer to domestic affairs. Jackson won California, New Mexico, and the popular vote in New Jersey, while Glenn won North Dakota, Montana, and majority of the delegates in New Jersey. Jackson’s last-minute push was not enough to deny Glenn a majority of delegates, despite Glenn’s second-place finish in the popular vote…
[pic:
https://imgur.com/mTiFSo4.png ]
– clickopedia.co.usa [6]
SOURCE(S)/NOTE(S)
[1] based on OTL account described here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUhj4JQkqAs and also inspired by OTL accounts described here:
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Escape_from_North_Korea/aoAoAwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=north+korea+escapees&printsec=frontcover#spf=1593997808225
[2] OTL quote, found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k8P8-KViME
[3] On April 12, 1998 IOTL, but earlier here due to technology developing faster here.
[4] 5/12/1996 IOTL. IOTL, this meteorite was called the Allan Hills 84001 meteorite, and was found in the Allan Hills region of Antarctica in 1984. ITTL, it was discovered later, but analyzed sooner.
[5] This italicized part is actually part of what Bill Clinton said on the matter; it was pulled from here:
https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/snc/clinton.html
[6] Based on the results of the previous chapter's poll, as of 7/10/2020
Note: the pacing, length, and results of the war described in this chapter were inspired by the discussions found in the following threads:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-second-korean-war-in-early-1990s.343222/, and
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/second-korean-war-in-1990-91.148472/. If there are any statistical aspects that seem to be too unrealistic/ASB, or parts that require clarification, please let me know so I can go back and edit it/them in. Thank you!