Cast of Characters

In charge—actually or nominally—of the assault upon peace and Korea were:

Joseph Stalin & Politburo (see below).

Kim II Sung, 38, the Korean Mao Tse-tung (he prefers to be known as “the Korean Stalin”). Fat, sleepy-eyed Kim is boss of the Korean party, chief of state in North Korea. Last week the Presidium of the Democratic People’s Republic of [North] Korea appointed Kim commander in chief of the armed forces.

Born near Pyongyang, he is said to have been trained at China’s Whampoa Military Academy, and later in Moscow. His original name was Kim Sung Chu. Reason for the change: in 1945 he rode into Korea with the Red army, whose commissars billed him for a few days as “the Korean hero, Kim II Sung.” There had been an authentic guerrilla hero named Kim II Sung, who disappeared after the 1919 independence movement. When Koreans pointed this out, the Russians dropped the hero legend, but Kim kept the name. Measure of his success in Stalinizing North Korea: in the 1948 elections, 99.6% of the registered electorate voted for the “United Front” (Communist) ticket.

Pak Hon Yong, 61, North Korean Foreign Minister, who last week bumptiously protested to the U.N. against U.S. “barefaced aggression,” vowed to the U.N. that the Northern Reds would press their “holy war” against South Korea. Born in South Korea, he joined the Chinese Young Men’s Communist Party in 1920, went in 1927 to Moscow, where he studied for three years at Lenin University. In 1936 he organized a Communist underground in Korea. After World War II he organized a Communist opposition in South Korea, was indicted in 1946, but escaped to the north.

Korean Marshal Ch’oe Yong Gun, 44, chief of staff of the North Korean army. In 1922, at 16, he was ringleader of a school strike. He went to China in 1925, studied at the Whampoa Military Academy, then went to Russia in 1931. He served in the famed Chinese Communist Eighth Route Army in the mid-30s.

Soviet Colonel General Terenty Shtykov (in Russian his last name means bayonet man), the real military brain behind the North Korean army. Titularly Soviet ambassador to the Korean “People’s Republic,” he is actually Stalin’s proconsul, ruling North Korea (through Kim II Sung) from his roomy, three-story mansion, built on the site of the old Presbyterian Mission compound in Pyongyang. Burly, deadpanned, boorish, he was Soviet delegate on the Joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. [Korean] Commission in 1946. His U.S. opposite number was Major General A. V. Arnold. At one session Shtykov observed testily: “Lenin once said that any man who trusted another was a fool.” Arnold looked thoughtfully across the green felt tabletop, replied: “Very interesting, general.”